Sanctuary (Order of the Ring Book 1) Read online

  SANCTUARY

  Order of the Ring Book 1

  by

  Phil Maxey

  To Celia, your talent and exuberance for life will shine forever.

  Copyright © 2017 by Philip Maxey

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing, 2017.

  http://philmaxeyauthor.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Sanctuary

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  A dark-haired woman in her forties, carefully closed the door in the care home behind her, and approached her daughter. “He wants to see you, Katrina,” she said, sitting and grabbing a magazine with sunshine and beaches on the cover. “He’s not doing so good.”

  Kat frowned in no particular direction, then pulled her earphones out. She hated being called by her full name, but her mother insisted on it. Slowly, she got out of the chair pushing the wires and buds into the pocket of her black leather jacket and walked up to the plain white door, which looked like the countless others lining the corridor. Someone, far off, screamed, making her jump while a light a few yards away flickered.

  Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle and stepped into the dimly-lit room. The smell of moss and earth hit her instantly, making her look around for the plants that must have been giving off the scent but couldn’t see any. Last time she had visited her father’s father was a year before. That time he was sitting in his favourite chair in the corner, not ensconced in his bed looking aged beyond his years.

  The eyes of the slender six-foot-two man in front of her were closed, his flowing white beard distributed evenly around his face. She crept forward, not really knowing if she should make any noise that would wake him, and stood near the bed. She hardly knew him and all she had gleaned over the years from throwaway comments from her mother was he travelled a lot in his youth, and that he still owned a small bookshop in the backstreets of Glastonbury, England.

  His eyes sprang open, making her jump. “Kat! We need to talk!” His words had an urgency but were still only just loud enough to hear.

  “What is it Granddad?”

  “He is almost here, I can feel it!”

  “Feel what? Who is almost here?” She glanced around herself, when suddenly, he grabbed her hand.

  “How long is it until your birthday? My mind. It’s not what it was. How long?”

  “Umm, a few days, why?” His grip was vice-like and his ornate gemstone ring felt hot to the touch, almost hot enough to make her pull her hands away.

  His eyes fluttered as if he was about to be swallowed by sleep or wherever it was he went when not awake. She started to pull herself free, when they flicked open again his gaze focusing on her bracelet and all the fake metal trinkets that hung from it. “Those don’t have any real power! You must learn the ways Kat, your life—” His eyes closed, and his words became too quiet to hear.

  She pulled her hand free, not knowing what to do or think, but feeling sad. Dementia had obviously got the better of him. She looked around the room at the many old books that were stacked and covered in dust, and at his neatly arranged clothes on the chair and sighed. I should have visited him before now, before it was too late. She looked back at him, he was sleeping. Whatever it was that he needed to say to her will have to wait for next time. She crept slowly to the door and reached for the handle.

  “Never forget who you are—” her grandfather’s voice came from around her, making her spin around to face him. His eyes were still closed. She went to step back in his direction, but he looked so soundly asleep that she thought it better to leave him. Turning the handle, she stepped back out into the brightly lit corridor.

  Her mother put the glossy magazine down on the legs of her trouser suit. “Well? Did he say anything about the bookshop?”

  “What?” Kat wasn’t sure what was being asked of her—the last few minutes had been disconcerting.

  “His shop in Glastonbury! Did he say he is going to sell it?”

  Kat sat on the wooden chair with the uneven legs, next to her mother. “Umm, no, he didn’t really say much of anything, he’s sleeping now.”

  Her mother frowned and sighed at the same time. “He should make arrangements. Who knows if he has a will or not.”

  Kat shot her a look.

  It seemed a particular unsympathetic thing to say, regardless of him not being a blood relative to her mother.

  Shaking off her daughter’s consternation, she continued, but quieter. “It’s just sitting there, Katrina! Even if we could rent it out it would help us a lot!”

  Here it comes.

  “And what with your internet thing not making much money, we could do with the extra income.”

  Kat had been doing the ‘internet thing’ for a few years now, trying to make money from Web development. Ten years ago being a web developer guaranteed a good salary. Now it just meant competing with thousands around the world who would usually charge a lot less than she needed to. Any true money Kat had earned had come from her ‘other’ job, but her mother couldn’t know about that.

  Joan, a broad smiling lady in her fifties who worked at the home, approached them. “Could I have a few minutes with you,” she said, looking at Kat’s mother, Dawn.

  “OK,” Dawn said, putting the magazine down and walking off down the corridor with the manager of the facility.

  Kat’s mind returned to the strange conversation she just had with her grandfather. Why did he want to know my birthday? He’s never got me anything before. Maybe he wants to give me a present? A feeling of guilt washed through her. What does it matter about a present, he’s obviously dying!

  She looked at the drab, clinical surroundings and felt sad for not paying him more visits.

  A door opened along the corridor and her mother and Joan reappeared. Dawn shook the lady’s hand, then approached Kat. “You got everything? We’re going.” Her mother’s frustration seemed to be continuing.

  Kat got up and soon they were back inside their five-door hatchback, on their way home, her mother driving and Kat with her earbuds back in. Rows of homes with brightly-coloured red and blue lights strewn over them and others that had various illuminated plastic animals on their lawns flew past. She was never really a lover of Christmas, especially as her birthday was on the twenty-first of December. ‘You get an extra special Christmas!’ her mum always used to tell her, by way of not having to give her much in the way of birthday presents.

  Her mother’s voice gradually built until she couldn’t ignore it anymore and she pulled her buds out.

  “Kat!”

  “Yes, yes, I can hear you, you don’t have to shout. What?”

  “Joan, the—"

  “I know who she is.”

  “Yes, well she’s informed me that because of his extra medical needs, they are going to have to increase the cost of his care. An extra two hundred pounds per month they want! How are we going to afford that?”

  Kat knew it was a question and an accusation at the same time, and what was coming next.

  “I mean, after your father, umm—” Dawn always searched for the right way to say that Kat’s father had died, even though he passed
away five years previously. “—left us, he made me promise I would look after his father if it came to it, but even he couldn’t have known how expensive elderly care homes would be!”

  “I’ll earn more money.” Kat knew this is what her mother wanted, but she had promised just such an outcome many times over the last few years without it actually happening.

  Her mum pulled the car into the driveway of their modest semi-detached three-bedroom house in a suburb of Croydon, southeast England. Kat went to get out but stopped when her mother wasn’t moving. “You keep saying that Kat, but I think it’s time you got a real job.”

  Kat had learned over the years, that a ‘real job’, is one that earns lots of money. Everything else, in the eyes of her mother and the world, was a hobby.

  She sighed. “I know. OK in January I’ll start to look for something.” She didn’t know if she was lying to her mother or herself, maybe both, but she knew she wanted to help the old man she hardly knew in the earth-scented room.

  CHAPTER 2

  Justin Pendridge sat in the ornate hall of the Oxford University building just off Merton Street, his knee bouncing up and down. A smartly dressed woman in her thirties appeared from behind a solid wooden door, walked a short distance past proud former members cast in oil paint and stood in front of him.

  “The professor will see you now.”

  Justin went to stand but his bullet points spilled from his portfolio case, sliding across the newly polished floor until they came to a rest at the base of an eighteenth-century drawer unit.

  The woman frowned.

  “Sorry, let me just get this,” said Justin, pushing his glasses up his nose, then skittering across the floor and grabbing the few pages of white paper which held his accomplishments.

  She turned and walked back to the door she had previously emerged from while he walked after her, trying to compose himself for the ordeal that had kept him awake for most of the previous night. She stood, looking expectantly.

  “Oh—” He knocked on the impressive door.

  “Come in,” said an aged male voice from beyond.

  Justin gave a final worried smile at the woman then turned the handle and entered Professor Stanwell’s office.

  “Take a seat,” said the smart but casually dressed man, his glasses teetering on the end of his nose.

  Justin quickly tried to absorb the room around him. For a man of David Stanwell’s status, it seemed a modest office, but then there were so many shelves filled with books and knick-knacks that it was probably a lot bigger than it looked.

  He sat, trying not to drop anything on the floor again, and repeated the procedure of pushing his glasses back up tight to his face.

  Stanwell just watched.

  “So, you want to be in my course?”

  Justin hadn’t expected such a direct question so soon. He thought he would be quizzed on his qualifications and experience at least for a while first.

  “Umm—”

  “Speak up, young man, it’s a simple question.”

  “Yes, sorry, I mean yes of course, it would be an honour.”

  “Oh an ‘honour’ that is quite some accolade. Perhaps you think senior figures should be put on a pedestal?”

  Justin was beginning to realize he was already in the thick of the professor’s assessment, and if he was to stand any chance of getting into the philosophy, politics, and economics undergraduate course, he needed to start to impress. “I think respect is earned, and you have earned a lot of that over your career.” Justin allowed himself a small grin, it was a solid response he thought.

  “You think? Do you not know anything, boy?”

  Boy? Several responses all leapt into Justin’s mind, each one being insufficient, leading to an expression of someone who looked lost. This is not going well.

  “Well? Speak up?”

  “I, err, yes I—”

  Justin’s stumbling words were cut short. The professor sighed. “That will be all, my assistant will let you know.”

  The feeling of disappointment welled up inside him, stopping any planned response, instead he just tentatively nodded, got up, and left without looking at the professor once.

  As he walked along the hardwood-floored hallway trying to make sense of what just happened, he passed a replica of himself sitting in almost the same spot. He looked just as nervous. A part of Justin wanted to warn the young guy, give him a heads-up, but for every five applicants only one was accepted and he really needed to be accepted.

  Soon he was back out in the real world, standing in Merton Street, overlooked by arched windows and sandy-coloured brickwork. White flakes of midwinter drifted down, lying like frosted sugar while the wind started to pick up. He wanted to go back in, this time he would get it right. But there were no second chances with Stanwell, that he had been told many times. Maybe a different course? It was an option, but his father had taken this course and had Stanwell as his professor back in the early nineties. Over the years they stayed in touch, and became friends, or as much of a friend anyone could be to the old professor. So, when Stanwell said he would squeeze Nathan Pendridge’s only son in for an interview before they shut down for the holidays, the pressure was on.

  The weather reflected Justin’s mood. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and ignored it.

  CHAPTER 3

  Kat woke up with a funny taste in her mouth. Small gaps alongside the curtains in her compact room allowed cold blue ambient light to seep in from the winter outside. The double glazing did a good job of keeping her room warm, but she could still hear the blustery wind outside. She turned over onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. It needed repainting, but DIY was never her thing so the cracks were slowly but surely increasing in size and depth. Without looking she stretched out her right arm and fumbled until she found her phone, its functions coming to life the moment she touched it. Holding it just a few inches from her face, she ignored the date at the top of it, and tapped the email button.

  There were five messages. Two from forums she was part of, two from companies from hot overseas places offering to create a website for her, and the last was for pills to improve her sex drive. Sighing, she dropped the phone on the stone-coloured blanket and tried to disappear back into the warmth of sleep and the dream she was having. In it she was on a hill with a ring of stones perched high on the top. All around was forest and beyond that an ocean. It was warm, and she could explore the ancient paths and caves without fear, knowing that she had the power to defend herself should the need arise. What ‘power’ it was, she had no idea, she just felt safe.

  She rolled onto her side, and stretched out trying to find a comfy spot, but it was no good, her mind was already awake and wasn’t letting go. She thought about the frail elderly man in the care home, her grandfather, and that she needed to get back there as soon as she could. But not today, nor for the week ahead as Christmas was about to happen and the weather outside was stopping most from venturing far from their driveways. A knock came at her bedroom door.

  “Happy Birthday,” said her mother as a passing comment, then quickly moved onto what really mattered. “Hey, you can’t stay in there all day, you still need to get the frozen turkey before they all sell out.”

  This birthday was already her least favourite and she hadn’t even got out of bed yet.

  “Kat? You up?”

  “Yes!”

  “OK, no need to shout! I think the shop will shut early, so better get a move on.” Receding footsteps down the stairs told Kat she was once again alone, but there was no point staying where she was.

  Sitting up, she swung her legs around and onto the floor. She thought about turning the computer on, but there really wasn’t any point, she hadn’t had any notifications from Gyrus the secret hacking group she was part of, so instead, she quickly slung on her trousers, a hooded top and sneakers, and left the room. As she stood in the downstairs hall putting her coat on, the sound of the radio was just audible through the kitchen door
.

  “Emergency services up and down the country have been pushed to their limits today as the unusually heavy winter storm hits the UK. In London, last-minute Christmas shoppers have been hit by snow, wind, and rain causing most of central London to grind to a halt. Weather forecasters say there is no end in sight for the misery.”

  She put the hood of her coat over the hood of her top, and zipped herself up within the confines of the warm fabric. She then grabbed her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder, and put her gloves on. She walked to the front door, unlocked it, and grabbed the handle. It didn’t move. Putting more effort into it, the snow and ice that had built up on the step outside started to crack. Suddenly the door flew open, and the elements hit her square in the face making her breathe in.

  Outside, most of the front garden was lost under a blanket of white and the sky above was a torment of white flurry’s and swirls.

  As she stepped out, testing the ground to see how slippery it was, her mother’s voice came from the kitchen. “Don’t forget the stuffing!”

  Kat grumbled something in return and pushed the front door closed as best she could. She then turned, spreading her arms out just in case she had misjudged exactly where the cement pathway was, and walked forward.

  She walked through the gateway at the end of the garden, and stomped forwards through the foot-high snow. Never seen it this bad. The wind buffeted her, but that was the only noise in the street as she passed homes with their Christmas lights on, even though it was only 10 a.m. Soon she had reached the entrance to the large park, which served as a short cut to Hammy’s, the local food store. She looked out over the whiteout in front of her, trying to find the distant oak trees which she always used as reference to go the right way, but all she could see was light grey forms against the horizon.