This story is by Tjitske Duiker and was part of our 2023 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
The Isle of Avalon
Jean ran out of the back door of the holiday cottage and into the darkness of the garden. Mum wouldn’t miss her, she was obsessed with the baby. The garden sloped down and at the end was a platform. A small rowing boat was tied to a pole.
She looked back at the cottage, the light coming from the windows. This was just what she needed. To get away.
She stepped into the boat and picked up the oars. Untying the boat from the platform, she then dipped the oars into the water.
She sighed, and pulled the oars through the water. That was just what she needed. She could forget about mum and the new baby. She pulled on the oars again, and the boat slid through the water.
‘Oi, what are you doing?’ she heard a small voice from the darkness.
She ignored the voice and pulled the oars through the water again. The shore was disappearing in the darkness.
‘Don’t ignore me,’ the voice sounded again. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m rowing,’ Jean replied somewhat bemused.
‘Go back,’ the voice insisted.
‘No,’ she said as she pulled the oars through the water again. The boat was surrounded by darkness now.
‘You need to go back to shore,’ the voice said in a high-pitched, urgent tone.
‘No.’
‘I can’t swim well,’ the voice squeaked.
‘Sorry,’ she said with a bit of hesitation. ‘I just need to do this right now.’
‘You need to, you need to,’ the voice mocked.
‘Don’t use that tone on me,’ Jean snapped, pulling the oars with more strength through the water, and the boat responded by gliding forward.
‘Well, I need to go back to shore,’ the voice quipped.
‘And why would I go back just for you? I can’t even see you,’ Jean argued.
A tiny little mouse-like creature appeared in front of her, the moonlight lighting it up. ‘Now you can see me,’ it squeaked.
Jean stopped rowing in shock and her mouth fell open.
The creature had dark brown fur, a long furry tail and a small round face with a blunt nose and beady little brown eyes.
‘What are you?’ she stammered.
‘I’m a water vole. Although I can swim a little from shore to my cave, I don’t have the paws for swimming distance,’ the vole held up its paws for her to look at.
‘Right,’ she said, lost for words.
‘Can we go back now?’ the vole asked.
The moonlight faded and a mist came in, surrounding them.
Her hands got clammy and her throat dry. ‘Ehm,’ she started. ‘I can’t tell where we came from.’
‘Oh lordie,’ the vole sighed.
‘What do we do?’ her voice pinched.
The vole sighed again. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Jean,’ she said.
‘Right, Jean,’ the vole said in a reassuring voice. ‘I’m Kiran. Together, we’ll find our way.’
‘How come you’re so calm now?’
‘Because now that you and I both want to find land, we will,’ Kiran said.
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do. Start rowing,’ Kiran ordered.
She gripped the oars tightly and started rowing again. With each pull, she felt her heart beating in her chest.
‘There it is,’ Kiran called.
‘What?’
‘Land.’
She stopped rowing, but despite this, the boat continued towards the beach. When they ran into the sand, she jumped out. Kiran told her to pull the boat a bit further up the beach so it wouldn’t wash away.
‘I don’t recognise this,’ she stuttered.
‘Neither do I,’ Kiran almost whispered. ‘I don’t like this.’
‘We just need to find a path,’ Jean said. ‘That will lead to people we can ask for help.’
Kiran muttered something under his breath, but she ignored him.
They walked over to the end of the beach and followed the sandy, spiky grass until they saw a gap that looked like it was a path.
Jean turned in the path, Kiran navigated the uneven ground much better than she did. The sand turned into a boggy mud as it went up a slope. Then the path moved up a hill and became steeper. There were stones beside the path and as they followed the path, the stones got taller and taller until they were twice the height of Jean.
At the top of the hill, the boulders formed a circle.
Jean felt very tired all of a sudden, and found a place where she could sit with her back against one of them.
As she leaned back and relaxed, a movement happened, as if the ground was moving. Light flashed between the stones, creating a moving wall around them.
‘What’s happening?’ Jean shouted to Kiran, who ran up her back up to her shoulder.
‘I think your magic triggered a response,’ Kiran said sitting close to her ear.
‘My magic?’
‘Yes, it’s certainly not mine that does this.’
‘But I haven’t come into my powers yet,’ Jean stammered.
‘I’d say that you have,’ Kiran said in a dry tone.
A wind picked up and two figures appeared, initially as shadows, and then slowly became more clear. The lady wore a long, dark, loose fitting dress, had long, dark hair and wore band of flowers in it. The man was tall, lean and had long, floppy, blond hair.
‘I’m not doing this, I know I’m not.’ Jean stumbled back a few steps. Kiran’s paws dug into her shoulder.
The lady smiled: ‘Hello Jean. I’m Morgan, and this is my half-brother Arthur.’
Jean was taken aback. ‘How do you know my name?’
Morgan raised both her hands towards her and smiled.
‘Don’t believe her,’ Kiran squeaked. ‘Whatever she says, don’t believe her.’
‘But she’s not saying anything,’ Jean said. She didn’t understand Kiran.
Morgan then turned her hands to the ceiling and started chanting in a strange language.
‘What is she doing?’ Jean asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Kiran stammered.
The man ignored them all, turned, and walked around the stone circle. He picked up a head dress that Jean hadn’t seen earlier with antlers on it. He placed it on his head.
Morgan was still chanting.
‘It sounds almost like a strong dialect of Welsh,’ Kiran stuttered.
The wind picked up, going round in circles.
Morgan continued chanting as she pulled two vials from a pocket in her dress.
She gave one vial to Arthur, who drank the contents.
The other vial she handed to Jean, who was too stunned not to accept it.
Morgan nodded as she chanted.
Jean felt compelled to drink from the vial too and brought the vial to her mouth.
‘Noooo,’ Kiran shouted in her ear as he dug his claws into her shoulder. She’d already swallowed.
Flames erupted around Arthur.
Jean became warm and fuzzy inside and when she looked at her hands, they were glowing.
Arthur reached his hands out to her and as he took hold of her hands, he looked like a real stag to her.
She should be afraid, but she felt bold. The two of them swirled around and around until the wind dropped.
It took a little time for her eyes to adjust to the dark. The glowing Kiran jumped between Jean and Arthur. Arthur was a boy now, not much older than she was.
‘King Arthur of the round table, the eternal King,’ Morgan called out with spread arms, before she disappeared with a poof.
‘What happened?’ Jean asked.
Boy Arthur shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ Kiran said, ‘but we should leave.’ He motioned to Jean to leave
‘Yes,’ she said. She held out her hand to Arthur who took it.
‘Not him,’ Kiran said.
‘But he has no one,’ she said. ‘Where would he go?’
‘Who cares,’ Kiran said. ‘You should stay away from him.’
Arthur took her hand and they walked down the hill and onto the beach where the boat was waiting for them. They got into the boat.
‘What will you say to your mum about this King Arthur?’ Kiran asked her.
‘I don’t know,’ she sighed. ‘But I like rubbing mum up the wrong way.’
She sat down in the boat and raised her hands to the sky. She wished for the boat to return back to the cottage, and to her surprise, the boat jolted off the beach and glided across the water, out of the mists.
‘Arthur?’ she whispered. ‘Arthur, are you awake?’
He looked up to her with dazed eyes.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked.
‘Morgan has a plan, I don’t know what.’
‘Are you King Arthur of the legend?’ Jean asked.
Arthur nodded.
‘Mum’s a witch, so it’s best not to make her realise who you really are. She’s an interfering busybody who would only try to fix things that don’t need fixing.’
‘You can call me Harold,’ Arthur said. ‘After my dad.’
‘Perfect.’ She smiled. ‘It can be our little secret.’ He smiled at her.
She smiled and thought it would teach mum to be obsessed with the baby.
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