Over the Hills and Far Away – Opening Chapters
1
MAGICAL BEGINNINGS
“Mum, this is the end, isn’t it?” said seven-year-old Tammy, looking with her big sad green eyes at her mother.
“The end of what?” asked her mother, who also had big green eyes, but her green eyes showed no signs of sadness, in fact, quite the opposite, her big green eyes showed signs of playful excitement.
“The end of the way things should be.” Tammy’s eyes moved from her mother to her father. His eyes, which happened to be a bottomless sky-blue, were closed as he lay on his hospital bed with all sorts of wires and tubes connecting him to various hospital machinery. “Dad’s in a coma, a deep sleep, and we’ve been told he’s dying and will never wake up.”
“This is certainly not the end of the way things should be,” said Tammy’s mother, a smile breaking gently on her face. “This, my dear Tammy, is but a hiccup in the way things should be.” Tammy’s mother raised her wrist to look at her watch, a watch that she claimed was invisible to all but her attentive eyes. “And just as I thought, it is time to cure the hiccup.”
“Not your invisible watch routine,” said Tammy with a slow shake of her head. “Playing around at a time like this. Mum, you are being unfair.”
“But according to my ‘invisible’ watch, my magical timepiece, it is exactly 9 AM. And I’m sure you know what that means. Check your own watch if you don’t believe me.”
Tammy lifted her wrist and glanced at her watch.
“Yeah, so it’s 9 AM. And I don’t know what that means, except that where here earlier in the day than we usually are.”
“But is it not a special day?”
“You mean it’s my seventh birthday?”
“You are seven today, but you were born seven years ago today at precisely 9 AM. And what’s so special about today is not just that it’s your birthday, but that seven years have passed since your birth. And you were not born in this land.”
“Of course I know that. You and dad were in another land. The day I was born. I know you come from Jamaica and Dad comes from Korea, so I’ve always wondered if it was in one of those countries that I was born. Why don’t you tell me which country I was born in? I know it says England on my birth certificate, but that’s because you moved to England immediately after my birth.”
“Minutes after your birth, in fact.” Tammy’s mother smiled at her and tenderly stroked her cheek.
“How can that make any sense?” Tammy took to slowly shaking her head again.
“Believe me, it makes perfect sense. Now, we three will be getting out of here with the help of Henry.”
“Huh? What are you talking about? And who’s Henry? And how can Dad be getting out of here? Mum, you’re frightening me.”
“There’s no need to be frightened, Tammy.” Tammy’s mother raised a hand to the side of her head and added, “Here comes Henry now with the wheelchair. Open the door please if you wouldn’t mind, Tammy.” Tammy’s mother spread a hand towards the hospital room’s door.
Shaking her head, murmuring under her breath, Tammy obediently trudged over to the door and opened it.
“Keep it open!” sounded a musical voice, and in through the door, rushed a dwarf pushing a wheelchair.
Tammy gasped in surprise, her eyebrows rising high on her forehead and her eyes opening wide.
“Hi, Tammy,” said the dwarf, “I’m Henry and your mother has told me all about you. Now let’s get you, your father and your mother out of this boring place.” The dwarf pushed the wheelchair to the side of the hospital bed.
“Mum, what’s happening?”
Tammy’s mother bent down and looked Tammy right in the eye. “As I said, were getting out of here. Your father will be put in the wheelchair, and off we will jolly well go.”
“But that’s impossible. We could never get all those tubes and wires off Dad without killing him, let alone lift him into the wheelchair.”
“Already done, my dear Tammy.” Tammy’s mother raised herself up and spread her hand towards the wheelchair at the side of the bed. And there was Tammy’s father in the wheelchair sitting sound asleep, or more accurately, sitting with his eyes firmly closed in a coma. All the tubes and wires and their connected machinery were nowhere to be seen.
“Mum!” cried Tammy. “This is impossible. I must be dreaming.”
“You’re not dreaming. You will soon understand how such things are possible. And even if you never understand, one thing’s for sure, we’re getting out of here right now.” Tammy’s mother turned her attention to Henry. “Off we go, Henry. You push the wheelchair ahead of us and head for your friends in the taxi.”
“Your command is my wish, or is it the other way round,” said Henry as he started pushing the wheelchair towards the open door.
“Mum, I don’t know what’s happening, but we’ll never get away with it,” said Tammy following with her mother behind the confident dwarf wheelchair pusher. “We are bound to get stopped by some nurses or doctors or something like that.”
“Trust me, Tammy, no one will bat an eyelid. You see, the seven-year period is over and I have all my powers back, some of which work even in this world. And I have a lot of things to fix.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You will soon see, even if you have to go on a long journey with creatures like yourself to understand the truth of everything that’s happening. Especially the truth of me and your father. Now let’s catch up with Henry, he’s starting to leave us in his trail.”
Henry was certainly in a rush. He was pushing the wheelchair so fast through the hospital corridors that his little legs sometimes broke into a run.
Minutes later, the unusual foursome exited the hospital and soon found their way to a nearby taxi that was being looked after by three dwarfs, two of them being female.
“Quick, Henry,” said one of the female dwarfs, “push the wheelchair straight up the taxi ramp and I’ll help you with the special seat belt. Remember, no matter how powerful Tammy’s mother is there’s no accounting for a human intervention. That is to say, accidents can happen.”
“An accident with Toby driving is unlikely to happen, dear wife. But as you say, even this boring world has some sort of magic deep within its make-up. And accidents can sometimes happen thanks to what can happen deep inside the atoms of this world.”
“Mum, is that lady dwarf really married to Henry?” asked Tammy as she watched the pair of dwarfs seemingly attaching some sort of invisible seatbelt to her dad.
“Yes. Her name is Lily. And the other lady dwarf, Rose, is married to Toby. Now, in we get.” Tammy’s mother beckoned her into the taxi through the door, held open by Rose.
And so the taxi weaved its way through the roads of Southampton until it pulled into the drive of Tammy’s house in the suburbs.
The dwarfs guided the wheelchair with its precious cargo into the house and all the way up the stairs into Tammy’s parents’ bedroom.
“Right, Tammy, can you please go down and fetch a glass of water from the kitchen? Just ordinary tap water will do. Trust me, you will need it.”
“Erm, okay, Mum. Won’t be a minute.”
Tammy looked puzzled. Nevertheless, she rushed down the stairs to the kitchen and filled a glass full of tap water. She charged back up the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her while making sure to stop water spilling from the glass.
But when she entered her parents’ bedroom …
2
HARRIET THE HELP FAIRY
TAMMY LOOKED AROUND the bedroom and could see no sign of the four dwarfs, her mother, her father, or even the wheelchair.
“Empty!” she mumbled. “Where’s everyone gone?”
“Do you often talk to yourself?” said a sweet female voice to Tammy’s left.
Tammy immediately turned her head to a left and saw what she thought was a very pretty young girl with fair hair and milk-white skin. She appeared to be wearing silky transparent wings and a green dress that seemed to be made of healthy green leaves.
Tammy gasped at the sight of the “very pretty young girl” who was sitting on the bedroom’s dressing table with her back up against its large circular mirror and her legs dangling over the dressing table’s top.
“Wherever did you come from?” asked Tammy. “You’ve appeared from nowhere.”
“I can assure you nobody and nothing appears from nowhere.”
“So where did you come from, then?”
“I shuffled here.”
“This is stranger than what happened in the hospital,” said Tammy, stroking her chin. She was completely mystified.
“I imagine it is. I just left your mother and your father in his wheelchair and the four dwarfs in the world where I come from. I’m Harriet, the Help Fairy, at your service.” Harriet pushed herself off the dressing table and onto the bedroom carpet and gave Tammy a polite bow.
Tammy’s mouth dropped open and she placed her head in her hands. “So you reckon you’re a fairy and you’ve shuffled here into my parents’ bedroom from another world. Surely, you’re just a girl of my age dressed up as a fairy for a school play in your so-called other world. Is that it?”
Harriet approached Tammy and stood in front of her folding her arms.
“Yes, that’s almost correct. But just to be clear, I’m not dressed up as a fairy I am a fairy. I suppose you think my silky wings are not true wings, and that the leaves that make up my dress and not real living leaves.”
“I don’t get it.” Tammy shrugged, she had given up trying to make sense of everything.
“I will clear things up for you, Tammy,” said Harriet with a smile. “Behold!”
Harriet fluttered her wings and she lifted off the bedroom carpet and flew gracefully around the bedroom. There wasn’t a lot of room to work with but she managed to perform some skilful flying movements. And when she landed back in front of Tammy the leaves on her dress wriggled excitedly for a few seconds.
“So, Tammy, oh little human girl, do you now believe I am Harriet the Help Fairy and not a little girl dressed up as a fairy?”
“Oh yes, I do believe you are a real fairy. I believe you’re Harriet the Help Fairy. Nothing else makes sense.”
“That’s good. So I’ll just re-explain. I shuffled here from my world, which is called Magica, using the mirror on your parents’ dressing table. I personally like to use mirrors to slide in and out of worlds. The exact country I slid from is called Fairland. And your mother has slid into Fairland, which is on the world, or planet, called Magica. Got it?”
“Yes. But I don’t get how it’s all done. I suppose you must be using magic of some kind.”
“Hmm, you could view it that way. The truth is, there are lots of worlds in lots of universes and they don’t all work the same way. On my world, magic is clear to see on the outside of things, whereas in your world, all the magic is inside the atoms and such things that make up your world. To put it another way, we have wizards and witches, whereas you have scientists and philosophers.”
“Well, I’m only seven so I can’t really understand what you’re saying. It’s sort of sounds honest, that much I can tell.”
“How old do you think I am?” Harriet rubbed her hands against each other gleefully.
“I dunno. Let me guess … I’d say nine maybe ten.”
“You do realise fairies live thousands of years, don’t you?”
“I’ve no idea. In all the stories my mum has read to me or that I have read, I can’t remember the ages of any fairies being given.”
“Well, I am quite young. I’m just over 998 years old. It took me 800 of those years to become the Help Fairy. I worked under the Queen’s personal wizard.”
“Gosh, your 998 years old! I don’t think I’ll even reach a hundred years old.”
“Well, actually, your reach over 1000 years old.”
“Huh?”
“Why don’t you put down that glass of water and I’ll explain a few things to you.
“Oh, I forgot I was even carrying this glass of water.” Tammy set down a glass of water on the bedside table and sat herself down on the side of the bed. Harriet joined her.
“The reason you’ll live to be at least 1000 years old, is because a wizard and a witch live to be over 1000 years old. And guess what?”
“What?”
“Your father is a wizard, and your mother is a witch. And as it happens, that means you will live as long as them. You will probably become a witch yourself, but that’s up to you.”
“I don’t want to be a witch.” Tammy looked alarmed.
“Why not?”
“Because aren’t they the baddies?”
“No. They are just like any other creatures. Most of them are good, but there are a small amount of them that are bad.”
“But my mum comes from Jamaica and my dad comes from Korea. I don’t see how they can be a witch and a wizard.”
“Well wizards and witches always start up as being human from your planet Earth. But the Queen of Fairland, who has lived for many thousands of years, selects certain humans and turns them with a spell into wizards and witches. You might not know this but your mother and father met each other in Fairland. They fell in love in Fairland’s magical Enchanted Jungle. Every seven years, they return to Fairland to do their duties.”
“How old are my mum and dad?”
“I’m not sure of their exact age, but the Queen plucked them from your world about 500 years ago. So that makes them about 530, I would guess.”
“Gosh.” Tammy was amazed.
“And my mum and dad are good, aren’t they?”
“Yes. But that’s all your mother will allow me to tell you.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?”
“Well, Tammy, it’s my job as the Help Fairy to help you. Of course, I can only help you according to the instructions given to me by your mother and the Queen. So, I will show you the way to slide into Fairland. When you slide there, you must ask the first person you meet to bring you to the Long and Winding Road. Along that road, you must journey until you reach the Land of Over the Hills and Far Away. And there with others like yourself you must search for the Cave of the Fixing Witch.”
“Others like myself? Do you mean other girls?”
“Oh no. You will be the only girl. The others, like you, will be missing something, will be needing something to be fixed by the Fixing Witch.”
“But what am I missing? What do I need fixed?”
“You are missing your parents. The other creatures are missing proper working parts, all of which need fixing. See for yourself when you meet them.”
“Are they friendly creatures? Can they speak?”
“They are friendly and like most creatures in Fairland, they can speak. You’ll just have to see for yourself when you meet them.”
“So, to remind you, you ask the first person you see to bring you to the Long and Winding Road, and along that road you must journey until you reach the Land of Over the Hills and Far Away. And there with others like yourself, you must search for the Cave of the Fixing Witch. I’m sure you can remember that.”
“I remember. The Long and Winding Road, the Land of Over the Hills and Far Away, the Cave of the Fixing Witch. No problem.”
“And now I will show you the way to begin your journey.”
Harriet the Help Fairy, lifted herself off the side of the bed and walked towards the wardrobe. She walked up to the huge full-length mirror on one of the doors of the wardrobe … and carried on walking … right through the mirror. She was gone.
“Hmm, she did say she liked to slide in and out of worlds through mirrors. She’s obviously a fairy of her word. Ah, I best bring a backpack for the journey, like it’s a school trip, who knows how long this Long and Winding Road is, who knows how far the Cave of the Fixing Witch is in the Land of Over the Hills and Far Away.”
3
STEPHEN THE DWARF
QUARTER OF AN HOUR LATER, Tammy found herself back in her parents’ bedroom. She was wearing a backpack that contained two plastic bottles of tap water, a few bars of chocolate, a few packets of sweets, a large packet of peanuts, and a large plastic lunchbox containing an apple an Orange a banana and some cheese and tomato sandwiches. She had also packed a spare plastic rain jacket and an umbrella in case it rained. Dressed in her favourite jeans, T-shirt and jumper along with her school trip hiking shoes, she was ready to walk through the wardrobe door mirror.
Walking with perhaps too much confidence, such was her belief in Harriet the Help Fairy, she walked straight into the mirror, banging her head and finding herself bouncing off the mirror.
“Ouch!”
Tammy rubbed her forehead and started to cry.
“Oh dear,” she whimpered, “I should have followed straight after Harriet the Help Fairy. My chance has gone.”
She wiped her tears with her fingers before reaching into her pockets for her handkerchief to do a better job of it. Out of curiosity, she approached the door mirror and prodded it with her finger, hoping for a miracle, hoping that somehow she might find a way through it. And something of a miracle did happen. Where her finger prodded the mirror, a hole appeared, and through it, she could see into another bedroom! She started to prod the mirror but only managed to make a few blurry holes. And the original hole she had made started to close up.
“Hmm, what is the meaning of this? Ah, I’ve got it. It’s because my finger was a little bit wet from my tears. So what should I do?” Suddenly, her eyes open wide. “I know what to do! I know what to do! Mum did say that the glass of water was for me. And now I know why.”
Tammy walked to the bedside table and picked up the glass of water. She walked back to the door mirror and threw the water from the glass at the mirror. The bedroom from the other world was fully revealed. Quickly she stepped through the opening on the door mirror and into a bedroom in another world.
Before she could even get a good grounding of where she was, a dwarf came rushing into the bedroom carrying a cordless golden hairdryer.
He dried off any of the drips of water on Tammy’s face and clothes with a single dramatic sweep of his hairdryer.
“So, it’s Tammy, isn’t it?”
“Erm yes,” said a bewildered Tammy.
“My name’s Stephen. I’m a Fairland dwarf. Although you have dwarfs on your planet Earth, we are not exactly the same. We are not born in the same way your dwarfs are. I won’t go into the details, but dwarf babies arrive at our doorsteps in wicker baskets.”
“Gosh. That’s amazing.”
“So is a human growing a baby human inside them and giving birth to it.”
“I suppose so. Do you know Henry, Lily, Toby and Rose? They helped my mum and dad get to Fairland.”
“Yes, I do. They are Fairland dwarfs, and they live quite close by. I went to the singing festival with them just last week. We creatures of Fairland love to sing and love to listen to good singers.”
“I like singing. I’m in the school choir. But to be honest, I’m not very good. I do love listening to songs, though.”
“Well, I know your mother and father are good singers. They must have sung a lot of songs to you.”
“No. I’ve never heard either of them sing before.”
“I suppose they decided not to expose their great singing voices in case you pestered them into going into singing competitions. I believe in your world singing competitions are very popular.”
“That’s true.”
“Well, your mother and father can’t afford to draw attention to themselves in your world. Your mother and father must be free to return to Fairland every seven years to fulfil their duties. I know your father is very sick at the moment, but a cure in this world is only a good spell away. Although, to be honest, it would have to be quite a spell.”
“Stephen, how did you know that you should rush into your bedroom with a hairdryer?”
“I knew because I’m used to people being covered in water, as the only way to slide into my bedroom from another world is through the use of water. Usually, my visitors visit my room by walking through the base of a waterfall. But of course, you came through a wardrobe door mirror with the help of a glass of water. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, just let me put this hairdryer away in the bathroom cabinet and I’ll take you to where you need to go. I don’t know where that is, so you’ll have to tell me. Be back in a few moments.”
Stephen rushed into the bathroom with his hairdryer and returned a few moments later, without it.
“So Tammy, where do I have to take you?”
“You have to take me to the Long and Winding Road so I can journey along it to the Land of Over the Hills and Far Away.”
“I see. That’s a very common route for creatures in need of finding something they are missing or getting themselves fixed.”
“Yes, I’m missing my mother and father, for instance.”
“Of course. So once you get to the Land of Over the Hills and Far Away you will need to find the Cave of the Fixing Witch. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And you do realise who the Fixing Witch is, don’t you?”
“I think it must be my mum. She said in the hospital this morning that she liked fixing things. And I know my mum is a witch and my dad is a wizard. I only just found out from Harriet the Help Fairy just twenty minutes ago.”
“Yes, your mother is the Fixing Witch. When she is in your world, she loses her powers for seven years. So she could never really tell you she was a witch because you would think her mad. And your father, who is known in Fairland as the Wise Wizard, is pretty much in the same situation. Let’s hope he gets his cure.”
“Oh, that would be fantastic,” said Tammy, crossing her arms in a hopeful gesture across her chest.
“Well, I think I should take you to the Long and Winding Road right away so you can get off on your journey. Do you need to use the bathroom before we go?”
“No. I went to the toilet just before I prepared myself to walk through the wardrobe door mirror.”
“Follow me.”
Out of Stephen’s charming colourfully painted cottage spilled Tammy and Stephen into a beautiful warm summer’s day.
“What a beautiful day to start your journey,” said Stephen. “Hardly a cloud in the sky.”
“It’s just like a beautiful summer’s day where I live in Southampton in England. Stephen, do you have the same sort of sun as the one in my world.”
“Yes, Tammy. Our sun is very similar to yours. It’s a tiny bit smaller, but the planet Magica has a closer orbit. So it pretty much amounts to it being the same. However, at night-time, you are likely to see an extraordinary difference between our world and your world.”
“What sort of difference?”
“We have five moons orbiting our planet. Two of them are quite large and reasonably close to our planet. The other three are quite small and farther away. The nearest moon looks about twice as big as your moon and at least 100 times more colourful. It’s got an atmosphere and lands and seas. There are even many creatures living on it. My sister is one of them.”
“Wow. I can’t wait to see that moon. Do any of the other moons have creatures living on them?”
“Yes. One of them does, but not on its surface. There are sea creatures that live in a huge sea that is found a mile beneath its surface. Some of the magical sea creatures from our world visit this moon. But none of them live there.”
“Do any of the moon sea creatures visit Magica?”
“No. They find the higher gravity too painful. You see, our gravity is four times higher than theirs. And our gravity is the same as the gravity on your world. Magica is the same size as your Earth. Anyway, let’s go!”
Tammy and Stephen made their way through a picturesque village and onto a country dirt road.
“A half hour’s walk down this dirt road and we’ll reach the Long and Winding Road.
Half an hour later, Tammy and Stephen neared a sort of glorified bus stop called a Start Shelter.
“This is where the Long and Winding Road begins,” said Stephen. “See those four creatures loitering near that glorified bus shelter, which is called the Start Shelter? They are four of the five creatures I’ve told you about on our walk here. At the moment, the Long and Winding Road is protected by magic barrier. You will only be able to begin your walk when the Fairland Road Wizard lifts the magic barrier. No one knows how he does this, and he’s rarely ever seen him outside of the Queen’s palace where he lives in his own private rooms. The Queen’s palace is in the Land of Over the Hills and Far Away.”
“Gosh!” murmured Tammy, looking with great surprise at the not too distant magical creatures.
“Come now, Tammy. Let me walk you up to the start shelter where I will leave you to make your own introduction.”
