ATTICUS FRAY and the PROPHECY of LYNX KARPOVIC

Atticus Fray woke at the usual time of seven and did the full-bladder shuffle to the bathroom. He passed his parent’s bedroom door and paused when he heard them conversing in whispers.

His father, Clive Fray, said ‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’

He was a tall man of thirty-five. He was a mechanic by trade and had a huffed impatience at the lack of common courtesy in the world. A worry-wart with a list of pet hates he wished people would avoid in order to make the world a better place. His dad was a stern disciplinarian. Atticus knew his dad loved him but the actual words never left his mouth. The only time any emotion was thrown his way was when they watched the goals on Match of the Day. It was the one thing they shared and could talk about. His dad spent most of his free time tending his garden or in his shed.

‘I’m not sure I can go through with it.’ His mum, Alice Fray, replied.

She was a pretty woman of thirty-three, who spent five out of seven days at the local crematorium. She was a funeral director who didn’t bring her work home with her. This pleased Atticus no end. Alice had had two sisters, Christine, who had died in 1995 aged eighteen, and Rosalie who lived on the mainland somewhere. He thought he’d heard Scotland mentioned once but wouldn’t stake his life on it. Atticus didn’t remember ever meeting her and his mum didn’t keep in contact. The only thing Atticus knew for certain was, neither Christine nor Rosalie, had any children, so he had no cousins. The only people Atticus had left in the world were his mum and dad. Atticus had never known his grandparents. His dad had told him that his parents had died before Atticus was born and he kept their cremated ashes in a sealed chest in the loft. Weird, yes, but not unheard of. Some people kept urns on a mantelpiece. That was weirder.

His dad kept a key to the chest on a chain around his neck. The chest was off limits. Not that Atticus wanted to see a collection of ash that used to be his grandparents’ in the first place.

His mum’s parents had also died before he was born but she wasn’t so sentimental. They were buried on the mainland somewhere. Both victims of cancer. Her mother, breast cancer. Her father, lung cancer. So all they had was each other.

’We’ll wait ‘til his birthday and then it’s over. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s in store for him.’ His dad was speaking again.

Atticus frowned. ’In store?’

‘And for us,’ his dad ended.

He wanted to hear more but he heard them moving inside the bedroom and dashed into the bathroom and eased the door closed. Atticus thought his parents were weird. Then again, who; at almost thirteen; didn’t think their parents were weird in some way.

Atticus did his business and flushed the toilet. He avoided looking in his parent’s bedroom and snuck back into his room.

The morning sun punched her way through his open window as he wilted before his full-length bedroom mirror, ashamed at the genetic malfunctions his parents had offered him. A wiry frame, sticks for legs, and a shoe size well beyond what was required for a twelve-year-old boy. He glanced at his size nines, lifted his long toes for inspection, and wondered from whom he had inherited the clown feet; certainly not from his parents. His mum boasted a squat size five and his dad had little more to offer than a seven. The one thing Atticus truly hated about himself was his hair. Thin, lifeless strands of spaghetti, flopped across his head; too idle to make a waft, a wave, or to form any of the latest popular styles.

Atticus tried to flatten a wad of cow-licked hair, adding more and more gel, until the top of his head resembled an angry porcupine. He actually squealed when he stabbed his finger into a solid spear of coagulated fur. He reached for his brush and raked it through, wincing every so often when the bristles snagged on a thicket, evaporating the gel into wafts of brown fronds that defied gravity. I look like I should be in a boy band, he chuckled to himself. All I need now is a sleeve of tattoos and a pair of ripped jeans.

As Atticus studied his body he caught sight of the blue stain of a birthmark on his right shoulder blade. His parents had told him the stain was shaped like a small bat with four wings, but he could never agree with them because the mark remained out of view. Unless, of course, he was using a mirror and seeing his reflection in reverse, as he was doing.

A flash of remembrance jerked in his brain as he wrestled with the remnants of a dream. It had featured a group of rusty old sea forts standing in a sea somewhere. He’d thought he was in a boat, and when he’d got closer, one fort had come alive and pursued him. The boat capsized, and he woke choking for breath. Atticus had a real problem with remembering things since the accident, and he didn’t remember ever being on a boat in his life; so why would his brain throw those images into his half-conscious.

His nose creased as a stench greeted him and his head swivelled around the room looking for the culprit. He ducked and looked under his slat-based bed and discovered a clump of dirty clothes, creased with sweat and body odour. He thrust a pair of socks to his nose and gagged. He tossed all of it into the dirty clothes bin by the door and opened the window. If a stranger had entered his room and was asked to describe it, they would come to only one conclusion; a library. Every wall was lined with plywood bookshelves, which buckled like wooden grins under the weight of hardcover books. Atticus was a voracious reader, completing at least a book a week. It had started in his seventh year with the usual Famous Five adventures and flights of fancy to Narnia then matured into the fantasy realms of Philip Pullman, J.K. Rowling, and Philip K Dick. Most of the books he had to read twice, (due to his befuddled brain), in order to recollect the goings-on. His reading choices were never censored by his parents and he could choose whatever book he wanted to read. When he turned twelve he saw a copy of Stephen King’s IT in the second-hand bookshop and thought it would make him smarter, reading a thicker book, but all it did was make him shudder in fear and keep the lights on; he’d only read IT once. He visited the bookshop every Saturday morning with his dad. It was his consolation for not having internet access.

Home was a three-bedroom house nailed amongst three acres off Burley Copse Road. There were two levels – the bedrooms: his, his parents, and a spare for collectables on the upper level. There was the bathroom, and above the hall, a loft hatch with a foldaway pine ladder that was connected to a length of twine with a black snooker ball attached, for easy pull-down access. There was the kitchen, living room, dining room, and for some reason a second lounge on the lower floor, which was odd because they never had visitors of any sort. The house was away from the road by a good hundred metres and the only traffic to be heard was the occasional motorbike that young men raced down the hill and over the bridge.

Atticus left his bedroom and headed down the stairs past the wall of family photographs displayed in cheap glass frames.

He entered the kitchen, took a bowl from the cupboard, filled it with Cornflakes and milk, sat at the table, and glanced out of the double-glazed, sliding glass doors. A beige, sandstone obelisk, rose out of the golf green lawn. It was a metre tall and thirty centimetres across at the widest part and looked like it had been forged in the pits of Hell. His mum told him they had bought it from a salesman in the Middle East for a steal, but Atticus was sure she meant Busy Bee Garden Centre in Ryde. A black crow, perched on top of it, stared at him as if they were colleagues. The thought of his parents’ hushed conversation jerked back into his mind.

Granted, his parents were a strange couple. They had met in high school and had remained loyal and faithful to one another ever since. His mum said they had tried each other on, liked the fit, and stuck to it; no one else mattered, and that was fine by Atticus. He knew a lot of kids at school whose parental relationships weren’t so lucky.

His parents seemed to like keeping him all to themselves. While everyone else at school communicated via social media outlets; phones, tablets, etcetera, Atticus retreated to his bedroom and his books. He didn’t own a mobile phone and neither did his parents. They didn’t have internet access at home and one day, years ago, he had queried why they didn’t, or couldn’t get, the internet. They had told him they didn’t need the world knowing their business. Everything they needed to know about the world was written about in newspapers and broadcast on the evening news. Their television had a built-in Freeview box and that was their only media access to the outside world. The land-line phone never rang and was only used in emergencies, of which, there were none. Their life mirrored that of a family stuck in a time warp, most notably the 1980s. He’d read about religious fanatics in his books; people who believed technology was the bane of all evil, who lived in communes, made their own clothes, obeyed every doctrine shoved down their throats by some glory-seeking messiah, and thought eating meat was murder. His parents didn’t hold any of these beliefs but he definitely thought they were weird. They got excited, poured themselves drinks, and settled themselves in front of the radio - to listen to The Archers. With the most exciting part of the day out of the way, they would settle back into the living room to read or watch the news.

They never told him to go out and play. They never encouraged him to make friends. They never told him to get involved in anything that could instigate friendship. Boy Scouts or sports teams were never mentioned. He had acquaintances at school but no real friends. No one he deemed worthy of an invitation home or a sleepover. He remembered asking Scott Dean home for some after school snacks one day, four years ago, but as soon as he entered the house his dad told the boy to leave. This incident circulated the gossip circles of the playground and the other kids steered clear of Atticus. He became a leper without the decaying body parts to show for it.

His parents weren’t like other parents. They never came to school for parent-teacher meetings. They had no friends of their own. No one invited his dad out for a beer or a round of golf or popped in to see his mum for coffee and a chat. He wasn’t even sure if his parents had friends at work. They never went to Christmas functions or social gatherings. It was just the three of them stuck on a desert island of solitude. He thought they were the weird ones, not him. I mean, they wear socks in summer, his brain muttered to him. It was true. Atticus had never seen his parent’s feet. They always wore socks. It was the one present that excited them beyond all others when it came time to opening Christmas presents. Every kid on the planet hated getting clothes for Christmas, but when his parents opened a pair of socks from each other, their faces lit up like they’d just won the Lottery. There were tartan ones, Santa Claus ones at Christmas, and cartoon characters. Almost every sock created, they owned. Atticus questioned them once on a sweltering day when even he went bare-chested in the garden, and his mum told him they both felt the cold. Their feet were always cold. Atticus guessed it was poor circulation but his dad said, ’Just you wait ‘til you’re our age and you’ll see. You’ll be wearing fluffy bunny socks all year.’ So he had weird parents, so what? Then again, who, at almost thirteen, didn’t think their parents were weird?

‘Hold on,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of corn flakes and with milk dribbling down his chin. ‘Maybe they’re planning something for my birthday. A special present they couldn’t agree on. Maybe a party? I’ve never had a party.’ He was overjoyed at the prospect. Now he didn’t want to know what they were talking about. Thirteen is a big year. It’s a turning point, he surmised silently.

‘You ready?’ His dad’s voice made him jump.

Atticus scoffed down the rest of his cereal, rinsed his bowl, and laid it to rest in the dish rack. He offered a Cheshire cat grin and nodded.

‘You stick your finger in a socket, or what?’ his dad giggled.

Atticus fondled his spiky hair and shrugged with a smile.

This morning there was a trip to the Castle. He was born on the Isle of Wight and had never been so when his dad asked what he wanted to do for his birthday he mentioned the castle. He remembered his dad had put up a fuss about how boring it would be, but Atticus was dogged. He wanted to see the castle. So, today was the castle in the morning and then they would go to the carnival in the evening. Tomorrow, his birthday, was the car boot.

Atticus followed his dad out of the house. Atticus closed the front door and crunched down the cobblestone driveway. He needed to wait while his dad carried out his morning routine of checking the car’s oil and water levels as if during the night some goblin had come along and stolen both items.

The sun christened the earth and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

‘It’s gonna be a warm one,’ his dad said, stating the obvious.

Atticus just smiled. His dad was known for stating the obvious. If it was raining he’d say, ‘It’s gonna be a wet one.’ If they were stuck in traffic he’d say, ‘Traffic’s heavy today.’ If there were more than four people in a shopping queue he’d say, ‘Busy in here today, isn’t it?’ The man was a treasure trove of banal conversation, to which, Atticus would just smile and nod.

Atticus passed the open awning shielding the family Ford, his mum’s VW Golf, and his dad’s white Transit work van; one of the rear doors was blue. He remembered it had to be replaced after someone had tried to steal his dad’s tools from the back. Now his dad had a new door and a sticker that told everyone no valuables were kept inside the vehicle. At least he thought that was the story his dad had told him. Atticus wasn’t good at remembering things. He knew it was because of the accident but couldn’t recall. Atticus couldn’t remember anything before the age of seven. Not one thing. His parents told him it was because of his accident. That he was out riding his bike on their road one afternoon and a driver had side-swiped him into the deep trench that ran parallel to the road. They told him they had found him hours later and he had spent three days in the hospital, but Atticus didn’t remember any of it; the accident, the hospital, even the days following. As much as he tried to force his brain to recollect, it refused to offer any answers. He even went so far as to check old newspapers to see if there had been any mention of his accident and perhaps for the police to be looking for the culprit. If it was one thing he knew for certain about the Isle of Wight, any crime whatsoever made the weekly paper. Man parks in disabled space. Woman steals Mars bar from Tesco. Drunks take a sanctuary donkey on a joyride.

Atticus’s parents told him they never found the driver and the case was closed. They never spoke of it again. Sometimes he felt sad when other kids at school would talk about their past. Some even remembered their first day alive. Atticus thought that was weird.

He peered off to the left where the land opened up revealing the garden. The lawn cropped into a number four buzz-cut, and topiary creatures Atticus had never seen in reality, dotted the lawn. A giant winged bat with the head of a wolf, as big as an albatross; tiny round crocodile-type critters with spiked backs; a dragon the size of a cart horse; a knight astride a Shetland pony; and a two-metre-high giant, with his club by his side, peered out from thickets of elm and birch. It was as though his dad had devoured reams of fantasy novels and brought the creatures to fruition via years of shearing and pruning. Sculptured branches twisted and coerced into shape. His dad was obsessed with greenery. A horticultural enthusiast who spent the one-third of his life allotted to spare time, in the garden. Magazines on the subject littered every surface of the house, neatly stacked in monthly reading order. Atticus admired his dad’s skill. Half a football-pitch-sized area of land crafted to his dad’s liking. The rest of the land was unruly and dangerous. There were twists of brambles and fronds of stinging nettles everywhere, and mole holes to twist an unsuspecting ankle. Atticus waved at the giant with the club, heard the bleat of the car horn, and headed for the Ford idling in the driveway.