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EPISODE 58

“So, what actually happened?”  Martin asked in astonishment at Joseph’s unexpected statement.
  “Are you up to it, Mary?”  Joseph asked, “Or would you like me to tell them what you told me? 
  “No, I think I will be alright.  Though I can only tell you up to a certain point.  I really don’t understand what happened after you arrived – other than you were wonderful in handling that creature.”
  “Joseph?”  Martin and William asked simultaneously, their collectve imagination pulsating in overtime at the suggested sound of a battle.
  “Let Mary tell you what happened to her first.”  Joseph replied dismissively.  “Please go on. Mary.”
   Mary took a deep breath, then began to recall the events of her morning.

****    ****

“I had slept in and was woken up by Joseph when he knocked on the door and called out as he was passing by.  I was still tired and stayed in bed for a few extra moments.  I don’t like jumping out of bed when I am still tired.  It unsettles me.  It is not unusual for me to go through this routine of a short lay in after I have woken up.  I usually only need an extra five or ten minutes, then I am reasonably refreshed.  However, this morning I must have fallen asleep again almost immediately and I had a nightmare that I would prefer not to repeat.  But the upshot of this nightmare was that somewhere along the line, the nightmare became reality.  Joseph tells me that you heard my scream in the dining room, and although I don’t actually remember screaming … I don’t doubt for a moment that I would have screamed when I suddenly realised I was laying on the bed, only inches from the hot, vile, breath of the Punjaniti.  Oh, my god, his breath was as repulsive as his looks … and he frightened the life out of me.
  He never said much; just that he was waiting for Joseph to arrive so he could dispose of him for once and all.  However, when Joseph did arrive it seemed to me that it was Joseph who was the initiator of the attack when streams, of what I presume was pure energy, flew out of his hands and smashed into the creature.  The creature seemed to be getting the wrong end of the stick for quite a while, but once he began to fight back in a similar manner the entire room disappeared within a strangely clouded environment.  I couldn’t see a thing in the room for what seemed an eternity, and that made the noises louder and more frightening … and when that last explosion rocked the room I was petrified with fear.  But then Joseph suddenly appeared by my side and made sure that I was alright before calling you two into the room.  I still couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of me when I heard the door unlock again just before the two of you came into the room.  I have no idea what happened to the Punjaniti, he just disappeared into the smoke or fog or whatever it was.  The room was still thick with this strange fog as Joseph told you to come in, but from the minute the door was unlocked it began to disappear about the same speed as the door opening.  By the time you had the door fully opened, it was all gone.  I can’t tell you anymore, unfortunately.  Perhaps Joseph can enlighten you?”

****    ****

  “I can’t reveal too much, I am afraid,”  Joseph admitted as he took over narration on the events that had taken place behind closed doors,  “because I don’t fully know what happened.  It was more or less a case of my intuition being taken over by some unknown power that resided within me without advising me of what it was about to do … or why, for that matter.  The moment I arrived in the room I sensed danger … no, I sensed Rangor.  You know, it was kind of funny.  At that very point of time I could swear the room changed and I was having a conversation with Arkerious.  About what, I have no idea.  Anyway it wouldn’t have been anything very important because he had disappeared in a blink of an eyelid, and I was back in this room again.  Must have been some sort of a memory flashback.  But it didn’t really matter what had gone on in my brain, because my world was about to explode in a way I had never imagined.  
  Suddenly my mind seemed to concentrate on the bed cover, and the strange shape that lay beneath it alongside Mary’s contorted body.  And as I stared at it, it began to lift up into the air of its own accord, and it was only a blink of the eye later that it was revealing Rangor, though he appeared to be much smaller than he had appeared to me earlier this weekend.  Slightly taller and a fair bit thicker than me, he was still much smaller than the version we had seen at garage or in Rosetta’s room when it attacked Doris.  And there seemed to be something else that didn’t ring true in the room, but it took me a little while to cotton on to the discrepancy.  But I have to explain how the battle had begun for you to understand why I am saying the battle seemed a bit contrived.
  Now, how this all happened I have no idea, it just did, and perhaps it was not contrived; perhaps it was simply a case of a new experience for me.  Whatever it was, to my surprise short, sharp, bolts of energy unexpectedly began to come out of my hands and pound into Rangor in a similar way we saw Rangor attack Doris, only with far, far more force than you can imagine.  And it not only took him by surprise, it seemed to have the correct effect.  I seemed to make contact with him with every shot I took; he bounced from pillar to post and screamed with pain and anxiety.  I have no idea how long it went on before he retaliated, however, as the battle continued,  neither one of us appeared to be seriously injured by the time the battle concluded.  I am absolutely certain that the energy bolts weren’t penetrating Rangor’s body, even though the violent jabs they made on him seemed to make him twist and jerk constantly.  He seemed to be feeling the impact, but something didn’t feel right.  And that feeling was reinforced when I realised that his attacks were making even less impression on me.
  Then it dawned on me that we may both have had some sort of shield protecting us which neither one of us could fully penetrate.  But that didn’t make a lot of sense because he was constantly reacting to my attacks.  I was starting to lose interest in this never-ending battle … it was making no sense, and I had no idea how long we could both keep up this pretend game of hand lasers.  Then a strange thing happened.  A voice in my head whispered, ‘His protective screen has been compromised.  The energy that you are discharging is seeping into him, but he has been unable to penetrate yours.  Hit him with a full blast.’ the voice suggested, ‘a blast as powerful as you can produce.’  
  Well, to be perfectly honest, I had no more idea where that voice came from, than I did knowing what I was doing in the first place.  But, as if I was a app on auto control, I could suddenly feel my entire body vibrating from the increased energy that was screaming its way through my hands … and now I sensed that even more power was being discharged from my head.  I could feel the heat rising in the room, the firestorm licking at my face, and a sense of power and satisfied achievement flowed through me.  I felt elated with my performance; elated to the point that I felt that I was winning – then suddenly it was all over.  There had been a massive sound of a bomb exploding in the darkness of the smoke filled room, the sparkling, luminescent trail of the energy bolts travelling through the foggy mass from the creature to wherever it thought me to be suddenly ceased, and there was nothing but thick fog and silence in the room.  Had I killed Rangor?  I had no idea.  I could hear Mary’s sobbing, gasping, breathing and made my way towards her.  There had been no other noise existing in the room other than her breathing and the scuffling of my own feet as I cautiously made made my way through the still darkened room.  And, as you both can see, there is no sign of the creature now, nor is there anyway it could have gotten out of the room without both of you seeing it.  I felt a bit confused at this stage; Weird would actually be a better description of how I felt at that moment – then I did something that made me feel even weirder.  And I am still uncertain whether I actually was the cause, or if there was some other, yet still unexplained, answer to what happened.”
  “And what did you do, Joseph?”  An exasperated Martin asked.
  ” I called out to you to enter the room, and willed the door to unlock itself … and it did.  Though I really have no idea how I did it.”
  “Well, it certainly did seem to open itself.”  Mary agreed, “Though I had no idea that it was you that caused it.  But I had no idea how how it was opened to let you in either, Joseph, because Rangor never left the bed either.  I had assumed that you had opened it with a key, bur now I am uncertain.  And you certainly discharged power through your hands and head.  I would swear on a pile of bibles that was what you had been doing in the battle.  So perhaps you are Harry Potter.”
   “Well, I doubt that I am Harry Potter, or even Ron Weasley for that matter, but you can see, I really do not have a lot to convey to you about what happened.  But, the fact that something did happen makes me feel certain that Rangor still has an interest in us; still wants to rid himself of us.  Perhaps William and the guardians know what will happen next, but I certainly have no idea. 
  “Well, William,” Mary asked in a rather snappy voice, “do you know what is going to happen now?’
  “Well, you have certainly come back to life, Mary.”  Joseph noted with a smile as William simply shook his head in the negative.                                                         
  “Sorry.  It’s been a rather harrowing morning so far.”  Mary apologised with a cheeky grin.             
  “Well, I will tell you how we begin,” Joseph grinned back, “The hell with Rangor.  He’s got what he wants.  I have had enough of his ugly mush for a while. He should be too busy to worry about us for the next few hours.  We will go Rosetta’s room where there should be some coffees turning up once William has placed the order, and we will await the arrival of the good doctor who will administer some of this antidote to Rosetta.  And if that works quickly, then we should be able to go and collect her father and be on our way back to London by nightfall.  If you wish to get dressed and join us, Mary, there should be a cappuccino waiting for you – and when Rosetta is back in the land of the living we will go to see her father.  The sooner we leave this village the better off we will all be.  If Rangor wants to follow us back to London so be it, but for the moment I just want a day or so of sanity to rule my life.  So we are off to save Rosetta from her tedious bed-ridden life … are you going to follow?”
  “But what about what William told us – about the gateway, and us being involved in this whole strange thing?  And what about what you just said about Rangor, that he has unfinished business with us all?”  Mary didn’t want the adventure to end, and she didn’t want to lose Joseph back to Rosetta.  Not now, not after last night … no matter that it hadn’t been quite the way the beginning of her nightmare had imagined it to be.  But they had spent some pleasant time together over the hot chocolate Joseph had obtained from room service.  No!  They had to stay here a bit longer she decided.
   “We have achieved what we came here to do.”  Joseph reminded her.  “I know what I said, but I don’t think that I care anymore.  If Rangor wants to keep on fighting then we will worry about him when he starts after us, but in the meantime I should imagine he will be too busy playing  with his new toy and invading planet Earth.  As I said, if he wants to follow us to London, then we will trade blows, in the meantime I need my coffee, followed by a bit of peace and quiet.  Anything else is out of our hands at the moment.”  Joseph had a smile on his face as he continued, “We’ll soon be back home and things will almost be the same again.  I cannot think of one reason for us to remain in Trenthamville beyond tomorrow at the very latest, and even that is only if there is a medical problem with either Rosetta or her father that stops us leaving today.
  ‘Perhaps I won’t have to worry about Rosetta after all’.  Mary thought inwardly to herself.  She hoped and prayed that she was reading Joseph’s words correctly. “Yes, Joseph.  I will be along in a minute.
  “Good.”  Joseph replied with a happy smile as he reached over to give Mary a kiss on the cheek, “I will see you shortly, then.”  And he was about to move away from her Joseph had one more thing to say to Mary, and it was said just loud enough for her ears to hear, and her alone; not one other in the room was privy to the words he spoke.    “Please, do not ask any more questions, just remember … the walls have ears.  Our lives may depend on what is not said aloud.”

to be continued …