Stargirl of the Edge

Ch 3 - Olivia's Dream

On the shelf next to Olivia's bed there were many books, both English books and Chinese books.

Her father had encouraged her to learn Chinese. She learned Mandarin on Saturdays at the Chinese centre in Manchester. Though not fluent, she was able to converse reasonably well and could read and write many Chinese characters.

Due to her dyslexia, she could read English, but more slowly and with greater effort than other people of a similar age and intelligence level. However when reading or writing Chinese she was no longer dyslexic, as it uses pictograms, which are processed in a different part of the brain from words used in Western languages. That was a reason why she loved Chinese characters. Another was that they were a link between pictures and language.

There was one story she liked to read at bedtime. Perhaps the familiarity of it helped her to go to sleep. It was called 'The Legend of the Wizard'. Olivia started to read:

"Long ago, a farmer was leading a white horse from Mobberley to Macclesfield market.

On Alderley Edge a strange man appeared and offered to buy the horse. The farmer refused. The man said 'Very well, but although the people will admire your horse, nobody will buy him. If you still want to sell him, you can meet me later'.

The farmer continued to market and just as the man had said, many people admired the horse but nobody wanted to buy him. Disappointed and sad, the farmer made his way back across the Edge.

The strange man walked out of the trees again, this time he was dressed as a wizard with a tall hat, a long, white gown and a long staff. He said 'Now will you let me buy your horse?' The farmer said yes, and the wizard led him into the woods and along a path, by the Seven Firs, the Golden Stone, past Stormy Point and Saddle Bole.

He struck the rocks with his staff, and then with a crack of thunder, a pair of iron gates opened. The farmer fell to his knees and begged for mercy.

'Do not be afraid' said the wizard and led him into a tunnel, where on the left he saw a pile of treasure: diamonds and rubies and many other colourful jewels. On the right there was a line of sleeping knights, and next to each one, a snowy white horse. But one of the knights didn't have a horse. The wizard said 'I need your horse to give to the knight who has no horse. Take as much treasure as you can carry and be gone. No harm will befall you.'

The farmer filled his pockets with treasure and went back outside. Behind him the iron gates slammed shut and the rocks closed back together.

And so it is said that one day, when England is in danger, the knights and horses will ride out onto the Cheshire plain and a decisive battle will be fought and won. This shall be in the reign of George the son of George..."

These final words repeated hypnotically, as if echoing along a deep tunnel, and she could keep her eyes open no longer.

Fast asleep and now liberated, Olivia drifted from under the sheets and up to the window. She looked, eyes shut and yet wide open, towards the Edge. Pouring down from the sky she saw an aurora of different colours, licking and lapping like an upside down blue flame.

Floating through the window and out into the cold and the darkness, she became a life size puppet suspended from invisible strings. She was carried over the fields and up towards the wooded hillside, arms and legs moving as if in slow motion, eyes open and yet closed, afraid, yet fearless, weighed down, yet weightless.

Hidden hands dropped her near the bottom of the hillside in a dense forest, and she started to climb, but it was difficult. All around there were pools of thick, muddy water. She felt scared, yet unafraid.

And then to her right, a long, winding staircase was unrolled like a carpet, leading up the hillside through the trees, and she was surprised to see at the bottom of the steps a crooked sign written in English and Chinese: 'To The Edge – The 500 Steps to Eternal Wisdom' and instead of the waterlogged field beyond the trees, there was a car park full of big black cars and tour buses with Chinese number plates.

She moved onto the steps and began to climb upwards, and then the stairs turned into a moving escalator, carrying her up the dark, wet hillside. Sitting on the branches of the trees were birds and animals that watched her with glinting eyes. She moved silently upwards past stone lanterns, each with a warm, flickering candle inside, one, two and three, then ten or more, maybe a hundred.

She stepped off the top of the escalator and there on the summit of the Edge was a large Buddhist temple with open sides. Inside it was a large gold, white and cream Buddha, fat, with a wide, comical smile on his face. She walked into the temple, lit some incense sticks and banged three gongs in turn, 'bing, bang, bong'.

And then through the trees came a crackling of broken, burning tree trunks and after that, a mighty crash, a deafening roar and a blinding light. She walked through the woods towards the rocky scar of Engine Vein Mine that was cut into the hillside.

Something – impossible to say what – had fallen from the sky, sending rocks the size of cars tumbling into cracks the size of canyons, splitting open the sandstone to reveal rich seams of malachite, as bright and green as emerald, and there, in the air, ten thousand tiny points of light fell down onto the ground in front of her, and breathing in through her nose she smelled the invisible sound of creaking wood that could be iron, the snapping of soft ropes that could be steel and a whispering, deafening cry of grief-stricken souls, the hissing of sparks as if the stars were falling down, showering the surrounding trees and bushes, sending animals running terrified into the woodland. The air rang with a sensation of sulphur, burning wood and molten metal, of heat reflected on the bark of oak, Scots pine and silver birch, so intense it might have started a forest fire, if it hadn't been for the increasing rain.

And then molten metal, glowing bright like lava from a volcano, flowed not out of the hillside but into it, seeping, dripping, settling down between subterranean layers, and slowly the fires died down, the lava cooled, the cries fell silent, and Olivia felt the tug of strings on her shoulders, pulling her up through the trees, out of the woods, and back down to the house.

She was dropped into her bedroom, and for a few moments she stood at the window and looked out into the dark rainy night. Alderley Edge seemed like a flattened volcano covered in trees, but around it, there was a glow, a halo, an aura of changing colours: the anger and spontaneity of orange, the empathy and anxiety of yellow, the strength and awareness of purple, followed by the energy and vitality of red, merging into the calmness and determination of blue, followed by the purity and benevolence of green, gradually sinking back into the tree branches, leaving only a cloudy sky above and the gentle patter of the rain on the leaves.

In the Year of the Dragon, 2012, first month, twenty-third day, Monday, first day of the week, there was a new arrival, a new presence, a new sense of desperation and hope, a grim determination and a will to survive.

Olivia merged back into her own body, and entered a period of sleep so deep she would remember little of her dream, if any at all.