Pog, page 15
‘You can’t stop me, little one.’
A voice rang out over the sounds of struggle in the hallway. ‘Maybe if Penny was alone, imp. But Pog is here now!’
Penny’s heart quickened as she turned to see Pog standing behind her. He had the urn clasped under one arm. Something small and brown scampered across the hallway, ran up Pog’s leg, across his chest and into the breast pocket of his jacket.
Pog grinned. ‘Correction – Pog and Mouse.’
Without even thinking, Penny tossed his sword to him. Pog caught it and winked at her.
‘First Folk filth!’ Kipwik shrieked. ‘Go back to your scattered people. Tell them what’s to come.’
Pog’s grin was ferocious. A greebeldy flung itself at him, but Pog barely looked as he gave a deft flick with his wrist and the greebeldy hit the floor in two parts. Pog sheathed his sword and stepped towards Penny. He held out the urn and smiled up at her.
‘It remembers,’ he said.
Penny took the urn. She looked at it, felt the weight of it, the subtle lines that ran along it. She held it to her chest and she nodded at Pog.
The urn began to glow with a fierce golden-white light. She could see images in the light. Flickering ghosts of times past. Times spent with David, with Dad.
With Mum.
Penny turned towards Kipwik. Kipwik lowered his head like a hunted animal, his hand still poised over David’s head.
‘What’s that? What’s it doing?’
Penny shrugged. ‘Do you have family? I mean, proper family? Do you remember them?’
Kipwik took half a step back, then forward again, snarling.
‘This remembers, like Pog’s and Grandfa’s staff. Memories are like magic, I think – they make things powerful. That’s probably why your monsters eat the painful ones, but that’s all they can do, just devour them and they’re gone. The First Folk knew better, I think. They knew there were memories your kind couldn’t stomach.’ She looked at the urn, her eyes glittering. ‘Like layers, Pog said. All those memories and emotions laid down. I think, like the staff, a thing like this can become something more, because something else gives it a power.’
‘Joy.’ Pog grinned.
Kipwik started to shake his head.
‘I think we have something that you can’t fight,’ Penny smiled.
Kipwik lunged at her as the urn blazed with a white hotness. He made it halfway across the space between them, but something stopped his momentum – David had grabbed him by the ankle.
Two shrieking greebeldies scampered towards David. David kicked one away, while Pog’s sword flew through the air and took the other in its soft underbelly.
Kipwik managed to scramble free, and he hurtled towards Penny.
Penny didn’t know why, but she just laid the urn gently on the ground.
Kipwik was upon it, his eyes shining with rage and madness. He reached out for it.
A wave of light shot out from the urn – WHOOMF – and hit him full force. Kipwik spun backwards, arms and legs flying, tumbling over himself.
David had pulled Pog’s sword from the greebeldy’s corpse, and now he slid across the floor towards Pog, who snatched it up.
Penny heard Pog snarl, and she turned to see a torrent of greebeldies and bloodworms behind them, scrambling over each other as they tried to get to their master’s aid.
Pog didn’t hesitate. He ran forward and met them head-on, spinning and stabbing, bobbing and weaving through the air, while the birds and the beasts plunged into the mass of creatures and gnashed and tore at them, holding them at bay.
Penny turned back to see Kipwik make another attempt to reach the urn. She felt a strange calm descend upon her, and somehow she knew she didn’t have to move.
The pressure on her shoulders came as a surprise – the sense of hands holding her in place, warm and protective. She felt a familiar presence, and she smiled.
WHOOMF. Another wave of light hit Kipwik and he squealed as he flew backwards again.
Dark, snake-like shapes were feeling their way around the edges of the door. Kipwik pointed at them and laughed as he tried to get back on his feet. ‘Look! They come! More of my children. Whatever that is’ – he sneered at the urn – ‘it won’t work.’
Penny felt the hands squeeze her shoulders. She thought she heard a whisper. A familiar voice she hadn’t heard in some time. Tears sprang to her eyes. She enjoyed the look of fear and confusion on Kipwik’s face as she smiled at him.
‘These are things you can never touch,’ she said. ‘These are memories more powerful than you can imagine.’
Another wave of light from the urn reached the edges of the door. The tentacles recoiled, and there was a huge collective shriek.
Kipwik screamed. He turned this way and that in his fury, and his eyes lit on David. He turned on him.
Penny saw David pick a piece of wood off the floor, saw him raise it up over his head. It was a fragment of Pog’s shattered staff. David drove it downwards into Kipwik’s eye.
Kipwik’s scream mingled with the screams of the creatures from beyond the portal. He stumbled around, clutching his eye, green flame spewing from the blazing socket and between his fingers.
Penny went to David and grabbed him. She felt Kipwik’s clawed hand clutch at her sleeve.
Penny kicked him away with all her strength, straight through the doorway that had been the Necessary. The light from the urn blazed bright, and both David and Penny were thrown off their feet as one final wave of light rushed towards the opening. There was a roar and then a long, hot silence that covered everything.
Penny wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying on the floor. She raised herself up on her elbow and blinked her eyes rapidly in an attempt to banish the brightness. A panting David was kneeling across from her. He looked exhausted. Two squirrels came up to him and looked at him inquisitively. A badger toddled forward and helped push Pog into a sitting position. It licked the palm of his hand, and a dazed-looking Pog glanced over at Penny. They both turned towards the wall.
The opening to the other world was gone, as were the cracks. There was nothing there now but a plain old wooden door.
‘The Necessary is gone,’ said Pog, sighing with relief and lowering his head to his chest.
Penny went to David and helped him stand. They both stared at the wall.
‘I’m sorry, Pen. I’m really sorry,’ he said.
Penny shushed him. ‘You couldn’t help it.’ She put her arm around him and Pog came and stood with them as they gazed upon the new door.
A sudden impulse gripped Penny, and she reached her hand out towards the doorknob.
‘Pen?’ said David nervously.
Penny looked at Pog. He smiled at her.
She turned the knob.
The door opened.
There was no wasteland, no greebeldies, no bloodworms – just some stairs that led down into the cool darkness of a gloomy cellar.
‘Where have the monsters gone?’ asked Penny.
‘Sealed back in the forsaken place,’ said Pog. ‘All which don’t belong have been magicked back there.’
Penny looked down the hallway to see a river of squirrels leaving through the front door. There were foxes scattered in among them, and the birds were leaving too. The badger was by Pog’s side.
‘Thank you,’ said Penny to the badger. It nodded and waddled away, following its friends back to the forest.
‘Animals suffered too. The imp Sterndel killed them for sport,’ said Pog. ‘They fought to preserve their home and to avenge fallen comrades.’ He turned back to look at the doorway and shook his head in awe. ‘Closed for ever,’ he whispered.
Mouse squeaked in his pocket and Pog smiled down at him.
Penny was still supporting David. She felt Pog’s paw in her hand, and they stood there a while, not quite believing what had happened. They might have stayed like that in silence if Penny hadn’t suddenly remembered something a bit more pressing.
‘Dad!’ she shouted.
38
Dad woke up a day later. He arrived into the kitchen, tousle-haired and giving a great stretchy yawn as David and Penny sat at the table eating their cereal.
‘So, what have you two been up to?’ he asked, his back turned to them as he searched the cupboards.
Penny smirked at David. ‘We’ve been adventuring, Dad.’
‘Saving the world.’ David grinned.
‘But we cleaned up afterwards,’ said Penny, winking at David. She was grateful for the fact that the shabbiness of the house meant that any damage inflicted in the battle would most likely go unnoticed by their father.
Their dad sat with them and started to shake his cereal out into a bowl. He spoke to them but concentrated on his breakfast. ‘That’s nice.’
Penny and David were holding their giggles in.
Their dad started munching on his cornflakes, looking out over their heads. ‘I suppose you were hanging out with Pog,’ he said.
There was a stunned silence as a gobsmacked Penny and David first looked at each other, then at their oblivious father who kept munching away, his eyes fixed on a point on the opposite wall.
‘What? Who, Dad?’ Penny eventually managed to splutter.
‘Pog,’ said her dad matter-of-factly. ‘Your mum’s imaginary friend.’ He looked into his bowl and moved his spoon around.
Penny looked at David, who could only shrug in disbelief. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
Her father looked at her. ‘Your mum had an imaginary friend when she stayed here with your great-grandparents. She called him Pog. Apparently she used to drive them crazy with her stories about how he was here to guard some mystic portal or something, and that he fought monsters.’
‘Why would you only mention that now?’ Penny asked sharply.
Her dad frowned. ‘What do you mean? I only just remembered. It was a silly thing, but she liked to talk about it. She claims he helped her find her way back when she got lost in the forest.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose lots of people have had imaginary friends at one time or another.’
David looked at Penny, his mouth opening and closing as if he wanted to speak but could no longer form words.
Penny shook her head and smiled and looked at the table. She suddenly had an idea, something pure and simple, one so obvious that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before now. But then she supposed it wasn’t something easily done. She looked at her father.
‘Dad? I think we should do something. Something important.’
She told him her idea. For a moment he looked a little nervous, almost frightened. She could sense David’s anxiety also as he sat ramrod-straight in his chair, but he too began to relax as he listened to what she said.
‘What do you think?’ Penny said.
Dad’s smile was faltering, a little sad. ‘We could do that,’ he said quietly.
Penny grinned, and she reached across the table and squeezed his hand. ‘We could,’ she said. ‘It’d be nice.’
He nodded then started to rise from his chair, shaking his head. ‘It’s the funniest thing. I feel as if I’ve been asleep for days.’
It was two days later when Penny looked out of her bedroom window and knew that today was the day. The sky was blue and the sun was shining, and a light breeze was riffling through the trees. She met David coming from his bedroom, and he nodded to signal that he was ready.
Dad was a trickier affair. He pottered around for a bit, coming up with various excuses for not going outside. Penny packed her bag in the sitting room with David’s help. That was when they heard the whisper.
‘Pssst. Here now.’
They turned to see Pog standing with a rucksack on his back.
He looked at them a little guiltily. ‘Pog has to go away.’
Penny felt a quick sinking sensation.
Pog must have noticed because he added: ‘But not for long. Pog can visit. Pog just has something to do.’
‘What is it you have to do?’ asked Penny, knowing full well what the answer would be.
‘Pog must find his people. As Keeper of the Necessary, Pog was bound here by his promise, but no longer. The Necessary is gone. World is sealed tight for ever.’ He gave a faltering smile. ‘Pog can go home now. Through the forest Pog must go,’ said Pog, taking the moment to look and point at the window, but really to avoid looking in Penny’s eyes.
Penny was already hugging him before he had a chance to turn around. David followed suit.
‘I’m sorry, Pog,’ said David.
‘So David said already,’ Pog said. ‘’Twasn’t David’s fault.’
‘Sorry, Penny,’ said David, looking over Pog’s shoulder.
‘It wasn’t you, David,’ said Penny. ‘It was Kipwik.’
David nodded, still keeping a tight hold of Pog.
‘Pog is very grateful, but Pog can’t breathe.’
David let him go and they all stood looking at each other for a moment.
‘So,’ said David, wiping his eyes.
‘So,’ smiled Penny.
‘So,’ said Pog, his eyes shining.
Pog cleared his throat and shouldered his bag. ‘What will Penny and David do now?’ he asked.
‘Penny and David’ – Penny chuckled – ‘have something important to do.’
Pog nodded. ‘Pog will return.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Penny. ‘Just one thing, Pog.’
Pog tilted his head.
‘There was a little girl who used to live here. You told her about greebeldies and things, didn’t you?’
Pog nodded.
‘What was she like?’
Pog smiled. ‘Brave. Brave and true. Just like Penny and David.’
They said their goodbyes and Penny felt a strange mixture of sadness and happiness. Pog went out through the window while Penny and David went to meet their father in the hallway.
Their father was clean-shaven for the first time in what seemed like ages. He seemed a lot less nervy and apologetic around them than he had been. He looked more like himself, Penny thought.
‘We ready then?’ he asked.
They all made their way out the gate and headed for the forest. It was a warm day. The air was clear, the sun bright. It felt like one of those days when everything had found a perfect balance. Everything was just right, from the warmth of the breeze to the scents of the flowers. They chatted amiably as they made their way into the depths of the forest. Penny felt a new feeling. A sense of wholeness she hadn’t experienced since her mother had been alive.
She thought of her mother now, and she remembered the whispering presence she’d felt just before the Necessary had closed. It was warm and comforting, and sometimes when she was alone now she still felt that same presence, and it made her feel as if she could accomplish anything.
It didn’t take them long to reach somewhere they all felt comfortable with. There was a green hollow in the forest, a place of peace. The only sound was the breeze in the trees, and the occasional birdsong.
‘Right then,’ said Dad.
Penny felt her heart do a little leap, and she exchanged a quick glance with David. She took the bag from her back and gently lifted out the urn.
Penny’s dad looked at her and David and nodded.
Penny unscrewed the lid of the urn. The wind took the fine light-grey cloud of ashes, and they all watched in silence as they floated out into the forest, into the green and sunlight.
‘Them that’s dead is never gone,’ Penny whispered to herself, and it was as if just saying the words themselves gave her strength. She looked up to the sky and closed her eyes and felt the sun on her face.
She felt her father’s hand in hers, then David’s.
‘Thank you, Pog,’ she whispered.
Pog watched the Cresswells from a distance. He saw them hold hands, then they all turned together and left that place, and he felt a strange tugging sensation around his heart.
As he walked on, Pog thought about how he’d felt when Penny had hugged him, all fierce and proud as if he might burst with both sadness and happiness. Part of him wanted to stay with the Cresswells, but another part of him knew his destiny lay elsewhere for now.
Pog stopped suddenly.
He looked at the vista that lay before him. He was facing a meadow not unlike the one he’d seen in his vision of Grandfa.
Pog looked at the meadow bathed in sunlight. He realized this was the furthest he’d ever been from home. Grandfa had brought him fishing and foraging in many places, but never this far. Never to a place like this. This was new and far away, and Pog felt himself on the brink of something. He laid a gentle hand on his breast pocket where Mouse lay sleeping.
He looked at the line of shadow on the ground that separated him from the meadow. He looked up at the great deep-green and cool canopy of trees which towered over him. He steeled himself, then he asked a question:
‘What’s to do now, Grandfa?’
The branches of the trees waved lazily in the breeze.
Just one more thing, Pog.
‘What’s that now?’ said Pog, his eyes now brimming with tears of his own, because he knew full well what the answer would be.
Time to say goodbye, Pog.
Pog nodded. He tried to be as brave as he could, but he had to lower his eyes to the ground. ‘Goodbye so, Grandfa,’ he said.
Good Pog. Brave Pog. The bravest. Grandfa loves him more than the world.
When Pog looked up again, there was nothing but the gentle hissing of the wind. Nothing else to do now, Pog, but one thing, he thought to himself. That’s right, he said to himself, dry them tears.
He looked out across the meadow drenched in sunlight. For a moment he thought about asking the world how things were. No need there either, he said to himself. All was good. He smelt the air and admired the trees, and all was green and bright and fresh.
And then he spied movement ahead in the trees across the meadow. Small figures, waiting for him. Far away and faint, but he saw them beckon to him, and Pog knew who they were and his heart leapt.
Are you alone? the little girl had asked him.
Pog shook his head and smiled.
