David was home and he asked her Ladyship if the problem had been dealt with and how?
“Vindec said he had it all in hand the last time I saw him,” she replied.
“I think I better have a word with our Mage.”
David did not like things going on that he did not know about even though he had said, ‘get Vindec to sort it’.
David looked out the window across the field to the distant hills. He let his thoughts expand passing through the hills into a valley and along its length, until he stood mentally outside of a cavern. Vindec’s home. He called out and then the image vanished. Vindec stood beside him looking out of David’s office window. They turned to face each other.
Before David could say what was on his mind Vindec fired a question at him. “Well, did it work as it should. Have we three changed the future of the world?”
David smiled, nodded his head, and replied. “Santa said you would want to know and he thought that it would be better if you saw for yourself. So, he sent you this.”
Resting on David’s desk was a snow globe. David picked it up, shook it and then handed it to Vindec. His wife came over to join them. She too wanted to know the answer to Vindec’s question.
As the snow settled a comfortable glow expanded from within the globe. The light spread and expanded until they were standing not in David’s office, but in Santa’s North Pole home and workshop. David in his wheelchair was pressing the black button. The machine started up and shortly the angle changed to above and looking down. The porridge spilled out of a nozzle and spread out onto the conveyor belt and expanded, filling the belt from side to side and six inches deep. It was carried slowly forward and on through the far wall, a stream of recycled and changed rubbish now a thick malleable porridge ready for use.
The Mage watched carefully as the view changed. They were within the workshop now, watching as the lead edge of the porridge arrived. Elves scooped at the mass lifting it effortlessly, as though it weighed nothing anymore. They tipped it into moulds and watched in awe as the porridge dropped from the spoons. It flowed and filled the moulds fully. The moulds moved away on another belt until they passed into a cooling machine, where they set and then were ejected and sent to the art department. Elves cleaned the edges turning out perfect, but unpainted sculptures, that would become toys to be deposited on Christmas Eve by Santa aboard his sleigh.
The image began to collapse around them. They swiftly returned to David’s office, all of their questions now answered.
“Perfect! It works as it should. Just as I knew it would!” Vindec was not one for modesty where his magical art was concerned.
David rolled his chair up to his desk and waited. Vindec turned. Her Ladyship turned. Each focused on David and his clear but unasked questions.
“Well?”
Vindec looked at her Ladyship, she looked back. They both looked at David and then Vindec spoke.
“As you instructed, I turned my attention towards the boy and his family and their farm. Frankly, the situation they were in was untenable and very shortly they would have lost everything, much as the boy had said to Jessica in the school playground. I could not allow that to happen, so things had to change and radically. I wound back time a month and started to implement the plan I concocted. Where necessary, I used magic but also cunning and with an eye to keeping it simple. I spoke to our herd of cows and they agreed to move half of the herd to the farm to provide milk and cream. They will be rotating, and as such, it eases the pressure on our grazing and alters nothing as the milk is sold where viable and provided to meet our needs as well. I set up a company to handle the milk and hired a suitable person to run the new dairy.”
“New dairy?”
“I had to have a new dairy. The old one was just not up to the job. So, I built a new dairy!” Vindec said this as though it was nothing, which with Vindec was probably close to the truth.
“The cows needed someone to look after them. I brought in an old and trusted ex-employee and reinstated him to doing what he loved and did best. The cows were nearly sorted out. All but the grass they needed and the winter foodstuffs (what was available) was far from adequate for the enlarged new herd. The grass was easy. I scattered a growth potion and well that was that… beautiful grass fit for our cows now exists in the upper fields.”
“The farm had a basis to exist, but that did not meet my instructions as I saw them. I looked for a new line of business and decided on this.” Before them an image appeared.
D. V. & J. LIVE FISH SUPPLIES
Environmental Restoration Services
David looked on but decided that silence was his best option. He just nodded as the floating image faded away.
“Now obviously if you are going to supply fish you need water, hence, I created a holding and breeding lake. Then you need a handling and sorting centre. An old barn that was ready to fall down got replaced and there you have it, a fish business comes into existence, a couple of staff to run it and that’s it all done.
“I realised that the family had no decent vehicle and so some probing later I provided a run-around that met all their requirements. There you have it, a viable, diversified, environmentally friendly business that would easily provide for the family’s needs and also can help stock our own lake. I have an idea that we could expand next year into stocking ocean fish. It’s a bit trickier, but I think I can see it through. There will be a demand for the oceans to be revitalised and our fish will be the best available. It makes sense, but that’s for later.
“Oh yes, I planted some Christmas trees on the old bottom acre fields, which should be ready for sale by Christmas and I also sorted out their finances.”
“That’s all!”
“Well, you said sort it… so I have. Isn’t it enough? Did you want more?”
David laughed, not because of the statement Vindec had just made but because of the look of concern smeared across his face.
“I think it is perfect.”
Vindec hurrumped and vanished, leaving the still laughing David looking at his wife. She was shaking her head.
“The invitations have gone out and everybody is coming. I’ve arranged transport for the Farrier’s and their son has been dealt with separately. Santa will arrive Friday evening as will everyone else. Food has been laid on and I’ve even arranged for beer for the dragons and the obvious keg of sherry to be available. Dragon lamb is being delivered Friday afternoon as normal, so the themed barbeque is all done. Oh yes… and Theresa and her dad will be flying in with Farloft. She said when I spoke to her, ‘Miss a party, never.’”
David just looked at his wife and shook his head in wonder. She loved a party and this had given her the excuse to lay one on. Then something she had said returned with clarity.
“Themed? How so…”
“Country and Western.” She turned swiftly and vanished before more could be said…
Chapter 6
Friday evening at seven o’clock on the dot a car drove up the farm’s drive and stopped outside of the house. The door opened in the house and ready and on time out stepped three cowboy dressed figures. Julian had stood aside letting Hannah flounce out, her three-quarter length, gingham skirt with under frills flounced with each step of her pointed toe cowgirl boots. They had cost more money than Hannah had spent in one time in a series of ages.
Behind her wearing a grey and sand coloured Stetson, a work shirt in check and dark heavy jeans followed Julian. His black-spurred boots added the perfect touch to his outfit. It would have been perfect if he had not got the look of ‘a little boy lost’ and being ‘hugely embarrassed’ on his face. Julian had never been one for dressing up. He was a traditional farmer in his own mind, he reminded himself, as he looked towards the dark red American car that awaited them. It was equipped with a soft-top that was currently rolled down. A bearded chauffer was sitting behind the wheel waiting.
Julian halted as he looked. The driver, the beard, the stocky but small frame all elicited a feeling of recognition. The car door was waiting. Julian opened the rear and allowed his lovely looking wife to get in. The red leather seats enfolded them.
John started to get into the back with his parents. He too had cowboy boots, and a Stetson hat, but he had on a black shirt over jeans with a string tie around his neck.
The driver reached across and opened the front seat door indicating that John take a seat up front with him. The car engine purred with V8 power. It turned around and drove slowly down the drive. It turned left at the end and accelerated. In the back Hannah clutched at her husband’s hand, as much to reassure herself as him.
The cul-de-sac the car stopped at looked familiar. John had been here before.
“Your ride awaits you inside.” The driver said, in a deep almost booming voice. John got out as the front door of the house opened, revealing a slim attractive woman dressed for a hoedown. She walked towards the car and took the seat John had so recently vacated. Instantly she turned and held out her hand saying ‘Howdy’ to the couple in the backseat. John watched as the car with his parents and he presumed Jessie’s mom in it vanished up the road.
‘My ride awaits me inside.’ ‘Inside…’ How strange and how improbable, then everything that had happened recently was improbable, if not down-right strange.
He approached the still open front door. He was about to call out a hello when he heard a voice shout, ‘up here.’ He looked in seeing the stairs climbing to the upper floor where the voice had come from. ‘Your ride awaits you inside,’ the words echoed through his thoughts as he entered closing the front door behind him and climbing the stairs in anticipation.
The bedroom he followed the girl’s voice to was just as he might have expected it to be, except for the shelves of books and the wooden rocking-horse. He looked it over admiring the fine detail and painted finish. The saddle looked odd, a closer look showed it was a double seat, not something he would think of as being obvious.
“Are you ready to go?” She asked him walking over to the rocking horse.
“Go… how?” He half turned towards the door.
“Not that way! This way.”
She walked over to the rocking horse and mounted the first saddle. John looked at her as though she was mad or playing a game with him.
“It’s easier if you get on now, but if you don’t believe me when I say this is our transport you can wait and see!”
John did not know what to think, but deep down he felt that Jessie was somehow involved in all the strange changes that had been happening. If being silly and clambering behind her on a rocking horse made her happy, he would do so and he did.
Jessie was much slighter than he was and a little shorter so he could see over her head quite easily.
“Hold tight!”
John did not know what to do so he grasped her waist and waited to see what she intended. To his surprise he felt movement beneath him. The horse moved, then it grew fatter forcing his legs outwards in the stirrups, until finally it shook itself from head to toe sending a ripple through them both. He looked down expecting to see paint. Instead, he saw scales, white scales tipped with silver. He looked up confused. A head appeared in his view. It belonged to a creature very different to a horse. John was sitting astride a creature with horns and no mane. A creature he recognised ‘sort of’ as a dragon. Then wings sprouted and stretched. He looked forward again as Jessie shouted gleefully.
“Here we go.”
The bedroom wall faded away leaving an open space. The dragon stepped forward, its wings stretched and then he felt the launch as it leapt into the sky carrying them both effortlessly.
They were flying! Houses and trees flickered by beneath beating wings. Cool air rushed past as they forced their way forward. Below he spied the road. Shortly they flew over an open topped car. The woman in the front seat looked up and waved, his parents did not, which surprised him. They left the car swiftly behind them as they flew cross-country and the car had to follow the road. A sharp gliding right turn brought them facing a house. They flew over it and the road they had followed continued.
Shortly they lost height. The dragon’s wings stretched out gliding down towards a huge house. A noise caught John’s attention. He looked left and there effortlessly pacing them was a red dragon, a much bigger red dragon.
“Hi, Robert,” shouted Jessica across to the new dragon just before they landed and Robert the red dragon circled above them. Their landing was not the best. They skidded ripping up the recently repaired grass again!
“Opps,” she said as from behind them Robert back flapped and landed perfectly on the concrete ring provided. A bit more practice and we will be able to do that, thought Jessie.
“Time to get off,” she said, half turning to face John who had great difficulty in realising they had flown here… wherever here might be.
A woman exited the house, primarily to greet the new arrivals and to pass on a message to Robert.
“Well hello, you must be John. I am Mrs. Stevens or as some like to call me her Ladyship. Welcome to my home and our world.”
John looked at the lady and liked her instantly. She had a nice smile and though she talked a little posher than he was used to she seemed to be okay. Jessie rushed forward throwing her arms around her Ladyship saying, “Thank you,” over and over.
John wondered what she was thanking her for and then the light dawned. This lady had something to do with the strange stuff that had been happening to him and his family. He wondered if he should say ‘thank you’ too, but he hesitated in case he was wrong.
“I think you and that young miscreant will have upset the gardening fairies again. They suggested that your dragon be given lessons in landing. I am beginning to see what they mean.”
The young silvertip lowered her head, but then her Ladyship laughed and turned to Robert.
“You, my boy, are needed down by the lake. David said I was to send you right on when you finally arrived, but a warning from me, Robert, don’t get drunk please. Cook likes her new washing machine.”
Jessica and her ladyship grinned at each other over their inside joke that last time Robert had gotten drunk he attempted to eat the old washing machine.
The red dragon looked everywhere but at her.
With a couple of thrusts of his wings Robert launched. The young Silvertip looked at her mistress and when she got a nod and a ‘go enjoy yourself,’ she flapped hard and followed Robert who had waited expectantly in the air.
The big American car purred. Jessica’s mum looked up and waved at the sky. John’s parents could see nothing that warranted such an action and wondered about her. The car proceeded without causing them any further puzzlement. It turned from the road onto a drive and accelerated towards a house.
The front door was centrally located, with extensions to either side. Short men in leather jerkins stepped out from behind trees, each holding a weapon of some sort. On seeing the car, they waved and vanished as swiftly as they had appeared. ‘They all,’ Julian thought, ‘looked like the chap driving the car, exactly like that chap for some reason.’ He wondered how that could be and added it to the list of questions he had and wanted answers to.
The house neared, but the car did not slow down. If anything, it accelerated. Just before they piled into the front door Julian leant over his wife to save her, at the same time screaming, ‘look out!’ The driver and the woman ignored his warning. The car drove through the front door and continued onward on a road. Julian looked behind him. All he could see was the distant road and wall-set huge gates that slowly closed where the house had been.
They were driven on at a steady speed. Silence filled the car as husband looked at his wife and shrugged. Another house appeared before them. It looked as solid as the previous one, but this time they knew it was real. They could see it had three floors, with lawn rolling from patio doors, towards them. Suddenly the air filled with a creature flapping hard to gain height, a red creature, an animal they had both only seen in films and books. A dragon, a red dragon. Seconds passed then a smaller silver dragon flew upwards joining the first and then both crossed the road and headed away into the distance.
Hannah was looking forward, her attention fixed on three figures standing on the lawn from which she surmised the dragons had departed. She recognised her son even before she could see his face, it was the hat that gave him away.
“You knew… you somehow saw them! They got here before us and that could only mean that they rode the dragon’s back. How is it possible?” Hannah had a vivid imagination and loved fantasy stories and as such she was more insightful than her husband, but he swiftly caught up.
“You will see a great many things you previously could not, now that you have been a guest of David Stevens and invited to the manor and our world.” She turned forward waving to the waiting gathering.
The car drew to a smooth stop and the driver got out, but not before Jessica’s mother had departed. He opened the rear door and offered a hand to Hannah who graciously accepted it, looking him over very carefully and deciding that she suspected now that she knew what he was, sort of.
She stepped away from the car as the woman swiftly crossed before her heading towards her daughter and Hannah’s son and of course the strange lady.
“Margaret how lovely to see you again. We are both so pleased you could attend this little shindig.”
“You have to be kidding, Mrs. Stevens. I would never miss the chance to come here.” She turned to her daughter and asked, “good flight?”
“Perfect except for the landing, but that’s nothing new.”
“You must be John. I’ve heard so much about you. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. What did you think about the flight here?”
John knew who the woman was and somehow, despite being overawed by it all, he managed to mumble one word, a word that summed it all up for everyone.
“Terrific…”
Robert landed on the sand of a beach that formed the foreshore of a huge lake. He had glided over the gathering by the boathouse. Sweeping out over the lake itself he twisted in the air and flew in to make a perfect touchdown as near to the seated David Stevens as he could get. Dragons do not like walking one step further than they have to and Robert was a typical dragon in this respect. The air swirled as Silvertip made a hard landing, but she was down and had not tripped over, which made her landing to her seem better.
“Robert, I have a little job for you two. I want a big bonfire over there and a smaller one here beside the decking area. Would you fetch as much dry wood as you can? You might as well take Silvertip with you. She can carry some as well.”
Robert looked at David, looked carefully at the two locations he had pointed out, then eager to please (as ever) he blasted upwards, shortly (though not as explosively) he was followed by Silvertip. Following the lake shore, he headed to an ancient woodland. Dead branches would be easy to find in there.
David watched as they disappeared. There was no nicer sight in the world than two dragons doing what they do best. Which is flying.
From over the hills a third dragon appeared, then a fourth. David screwed up his eyes and studied the differing method of flight. The slow easy almost lethargic efforts saving beats of Royal, were different to the faster more showy wing-beats of the green dragon, Farloft. Riding on the back of Farloft, David could make out two people; Theresa and her father, James, had arrived. David was pleased. A party without them all was never going to be a good party.
Royal banked around showing his passengers the landing beach and David and the lake with it huge barge securely moored. They had passed Robert and Silvertip heading around the lakeshore, but there were more important things to get done. Royal was carrying very special guests to the party. Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus rode swaddled in synthetic furs astride his broad back.
Normally, Santa would have used his sleigh, but at this time of year the reindeer were not at their best. Therefore, he had asked Royal if he would remain at the North Pole when David and Robert had departed, so that later he could take them to David’s home. Royal said ‘yes’ partly because he still felt guilty for kidnapping Santa the previous year, though he would have said ‘yes’ without the guilty feelings, because he had grown very fond of Santa and his wife.
They touched down as light as a feather, but the wind driven by his mighty back beating wings kicked up quite a snow storm. Farloft had touched down. Theresa had landed astride her dragon. James had swiftly dismounted and was walking towards David. James was closely followed and then overtaken by Theresa. She threw her arms around her friend of many years and kissed him.
She looked at her father as he approached. He looked fit and vibrant and that was one of the real benefits of being at David’s Manor home. Time worked differently and its effects were also quite strange. Even old age could be made to stutter and vitality return where necessary.
Once free of the exuberant American woman and having shaken James’ hand, David called out to the now chatting dragons.
“Would you two mind helping, Robert and Silvertip with firewood duties?”
Santa had arrived holding his lovely jolly looking wife’s hand.
“What can we two do to help?” He asked.
“Come with me, all of you. I want to show you something I haven’t seen in years!”
David rolled his wheelchair up the slope onto the boat-deck and across to the other side, where a balcony overhung the lake. Santa stood to one side with Mrs. Claus. Theresa and James took up a position on the right.
David tapped the wood of the balcony and before their startled eyes the water exploded upwards in twin fountains. From the rising, two beautiful females appeared, they arced up and then dived down before resurfacing with tinkling laughter accompanying them.
“Was that what you wanted David?”
“Perfect absolutely perfect, thank you. I hope we will see you all later. Perhaps you will play for us?”
“We will, but not any of that dreadful dull country music that’s for sure!”
With a flick of their tails the mermaids vanished beneath the lake surface, possibly to put in some practice, possibly not... Who knows with mermaids what they will do…
Check back next week for the final chapters of "Santa Recycles Christmas"
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