Warped Mirrors

By S P Mount

Long infatuated by his best friend's upper crust lifestyle, a boy is whisked from his impoverished existence to find himself special guest of honor at a Scottish country mansion–a place he often envisioned via a ‘waking plane’.

But the experience proves to be more than he bargained for as he teeters on a tightrope between the two classes and finds himself at the mercy of his sinister hosts

Overnight, with the help of a peculiar housekeeper, Julian must decipher the complexity of an unusual Mayan globe together with a mysterious board game originated from an alternate universe–one that manipulates time, dimension and weather and the key to averting a life-changing threat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S P Mount
• Release date: Mar 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988009813

S P Mount

Originally from Scotland, S P Mount travelled the far-flung corners of the world through a career in tourism before settling in Canada where he lives with his rescue dog 'Quentin'–the senior party of the small business they own together. S P considers himself 'against the grain'–a disposition that bemuses lifelong friends. While some of the darker aspects of his writing often arise to surprise even him, he usually roots for the underdog and has a penchant for trying to write the bad guy likeable. He has an innate aversion to clichés such as apple pie that tastes 'just like granny used to make'. S P has studied the art of writing for many years and achieved his creative writing qualifications in British Columbia. he is published in numerous anthologies. "I might have 'multiple personality disorder', but still, I know 'we' only ever need a table for one."

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Warped Mirrors

S P Mount

Edited by Sam Walker

EBook Edition

Copyright 2011 S P Mount

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Car

Ch. I The House

Ch. II The Universe

Ch. III The Femme Fatale

Ch IV The Bedroom

Ch. V The Library

Ch. VI The Drunken Virgin

Ch. VII The Evolution of Game

Ch VIII The Housekeeper

Ch. IX The Two-headed Man

Ch. X The Devil You Know

Ch. XI The Restitution

Ch XII The Morning After

Ch. XIII The Journey Home

Ch. XIV The Full Cycle

Prologue

The Car

The moment the car passed through the sentry of stone lions at Wulver Manor’s monolithic gates, a heart-gripping sense of malevolence displaced Julian Abercrombie’s youthful naivety. Both an echo of deep-seated memory and a foreboding premonition rendered him almost catatonic. The three Bennett children, squished together with him in the back seat of their parent’s Ford Zephyr, all but disappeared.

At first, given his familiarity with similar grandiose buildings, Wulver Manor’s arresting exterior seemed indicative of yet another institution. It smacked of the orphanages he’d been dragged off to by social workers in the middle of the night when the situation at home had become particularly dire. But no, Wulver Manor was much too sophisticated to accommodate lowlifes such as he. For a start, the draperies in the windows were worth more than the sum of his life. The entire place reeked of wealth.

It was the same kind of building the government were given to requisitioning from hoity-toity families after the war. Families, as the social classes evened out in a modern world, that could no longer justify the expense of never-ending upkeep as old money fortunes dwindled to insufficient funds.

Beautiful, but ominous through the condensation and grease of the car’s back window, Julian stared, transfixed, as the manor loomed before him. Simultaneously excited and fearful, he sensed a delicious brand of evil lurking behind its walls. No, not an orphanage at all; rather, the kind of exquisitely creepy insane asylum he'd only ever seen in black and white films.

His heart plummeted into the pit of his stomach to sit like a lump of lard. Even though he’d never seen as much as a picture of the place before, somehow, he knew it from the inside out. It was the very house he had envisaged numerous times over that last year, a strangely familiar voice in his head even insisting he belonged there . . . Or, at least, would one day. But, ever a dreamer, trapped within the mediocrity of his lowly working-class life, he’d put the visions–despite their alarming clarity–down to yet another architectural anomaly constructed by the vivid imagination of his mind’s eye. It was nothing more than a dream house.

He considered briefly he might have been when he'd been too young to remember. A subliminal memory resurfaced, perhaps? How else could he know it so well? Or maybe his Ma had been a cleaner there when he'd been a small child. But no, it was much too far away; his parents had lived on their street since before his older brother was born.

Nothing nouveau about it, Wulver Manor was the epitome of class and sophistication. It had only ever been a part of his imagined life one day. A vision he indulged purely for escapism. Yet there it was in all the finer nuance that his dreams so intimately acquainted him with–the manifestation of an otherworldly realm into his daydreams.

The Bennett’s had never been either. They had made a huge deal about it when Mrs Bennett’s younger sister, Gloria, invited them for the Easter weekend as if the Queen herself had requested their presence at Buckingham Palace.

Normally a fly by night floozy–according to what Julian heard Mrs Bennett say about her sister–Gloria had nonetheless managed to snag a filthy rich boyfriend and was lady of the manor at his country estate.

That right there in itself will be worth going to see. It is absolutely an opportunity not to be missed, she unequivocally told her husband underlining the statement with a snort in case he hadn't picked up on her sarcasm. "Besides, who knows what circles the boyfriend moves in. She says his business is 'international' . . . Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean."

"Probably running drugs from hot, sweaty countries. What?" Mr Bennett had said in his inimitable manner.

Gloria’s latest relationship, Margaret Bennett at least conceded, did seem more serious this time, having outlasted any other from time immemorial by leaps and bounds. Julian couldn’t tell if she was happy about that, or simply jealous. But he had always loved the way posh people spoke; the thinly disguised insults they hurled at one another. Back at home, there was absolutely no doubt as to exactly what people hurled at one another–a bottle, a can, an ornament, a hammer.

The grounds exuded elegance even if its veneer was chipped here and there, but that, somehow, only added to the old money authenticity of the place. Statues covered in moss, overgrown paths, and rolling lawns, all sorely needing pedicures.

They would have been the kind of gardens where once-upon-a-time gentlefolk played crochet and lawn bowls while sipping gin & tonics with ice and a slice from beneath dainty parasols. Privileged children, like the Bennetts, would have fluttered around with butterfly nets to catch everything but a clue to the machinations of the real world. Julian’s world. If he were in his normal state of mind, the thought would fill him with inexplicable rage. Why did so many have so much, while others, like him, had nothing?

The car’s approach was eloquent. The crackle of its tyres crunched slickly over the pebbles as it glided around the orange grimace of the driveway wondering just where it should park. The sound of wealth, Julian had always thought. Although, the baby blue and white of Mr Bennett’s newly leased Zephyr was entirely out of place there. Tacky, in those surroundings. Strange, for when he first saw the brand-new car slinking down his street, a place where it didn’t belong either but for a vastly different reason, Julian had wolf-whistled; extremely proud to get into it in front of all the neighbours.

His mind raced, but it was as if his thoughts were not entirely his own. The sensation of terror and pleasure simultaneously crawled the terrain of his skin. Unwelcome, but impossible to resist, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, smiling as some strange sense of gratification took hold. Something amoral, but wholly desirable, stirred his blood as an unfathomable and brief sensation akin to déjà vu insisted there was more to his life than he knew. A great deal more.

If Steven Bennett had not done it for him almost constantly for the last few hours, he would pinch his own fucking arm. But if he did happen to find himself in an orgasmic daydream . . . Well then . . . He would kick the psycho bastard's head in now that the age gap between his nearly fifteen and Steven’s sixteen years had started to even out their physicality. That particular flight of fancy was well overdue.

But he was too smart for that; rearranging Steven Bennett’s features would only see Julian Abercrombie kicked back into the gutter he'd managed to halfway crawl out from to land on the kerb of a civilised path. It would wait.

It was no dream; he was well aware he had not flown off on one of his fantastical fancies. Although, then again, for a split second, he did think he had caught sight of his own face peering down from an upstairs window. With everything else he had felt since arriving there, perhaps Wulver Manor really was a loony bin. The Bennetts, not the Bennetts at all, but really men in white coats, and the Zephyr, their square wheeled van?

"Well . . . Here we are . . . At last, Margaret Bennett sang out in her annoyingly high-pitched manner. Everyone all right in the back there? Julian?"

Julian did not appear to hear. Ironically, his thoughts were back at home now that he was physically at the place that he’d so often dreamt about to escape that working-class hellhole. The house, as undoubtedly the people who lived at Wulver Manor would be, were worlds apart from the hive of blue-collar workers piled in the uninspired apiaries he was accustomed to.

*

Thanks to the Bennett’s and their social connections, though, he understood being cold and hungry and at the mercy of a raging alcoholic father was not how everybody lived. He might be a snotty nosed ragamuffin with ideas above his station according to his Da, but he had managed to hitchhike onto the Bennett’s lifestyle via his once-upon-a-time best friend William–a meek mannered swot who had no other friends to speak of. He absolutely lived for those weekend jaunts up the socioeconomic ladder–of which, apparently, he could climb up on his own one day if he applied himself.

"Many a pauper has. What? Baldy Bennett had said a couple of years before. But not quite subtly enough according to the look of disbelief his wife flashed him. And more would if only their otherwise sticky fingers could secure a firm grip where it mattered."

A principal of an inner-city primary school, Bill Bennett might be, but he had no idea how to relate to the children who attended it.

You can be anything you wish to be, Julian, Mrs Bennett, who used to be his math teacher, had said in a well-practised attempt at diffusing her husband’s lack of tact. But only if you manage not to lose your footing, sweetie, she warned. Don’t start drinking, darling . . . Smoking, even. That’s the start of the slippery slope . . . Before you know it, you’ll be doing Mary Jane.

At the time, Julian had no idea who or what Mary Jane was, or why doing her should make any difference to his social-climbing ability . . . Well, unless I get her 'up the duff,’ he’d thought. He was surprised Mrs Bennett would mention such grown up subject matter, though. It made him beam so red that Steven quipped it was surprising the smoke alarm didn’t go off. Only twelve-years old, Julian had never even kissed a girl–and it was becoming increasingly evident that if William had his way he never would.

Nonetheless, whatever Mrs Bennett had meant, it was easy for her to say. Just like her husband, she had no idea as to the kind of life children like him led. His family lived on what they called a breadline–and sometimes not even then. With seven of them at home, there were only ever crumbs in the bread bin–which wasn’t a bin at all, rather, a shelf in a pantry with a vent to the outside that doubled as a fridge that was also a science experiment and a breeding ground for silverfish.

People where he came from took one day at a time. They got by on wit and a keen ability to effectively lie and steal. Hardship to Mrs Bennett, no doubt, was tantamount to the inconvenience of her housecleaner going on an annual week’s holiday to the beach at Saltcoats. Her children likely had rosy futures mapped out for them simply for being born into a family with money–the kind of upbringing she and her husband would also have had the privilege of.

Besides, he already did smoke. There was no escape from that rite of passage where he came from; long since addicted by his parents’ second-hand generosity from before he was even born at a time when the world was ignorant as to the dangers of smoking, especially during pregnancy, in the nineteen sixties.

Nonetheless, despite any stunt to the growth of his brain, Julian was smart. He learned how to disguise his smoking habit from the Bennett’s by bleaching his fingers. Random spot-checks by his French teacher at St. Mary’s who was nicknamed 'Billy Whiz' because he zipped up and down the desks to hold and inspect the hands of, especially, the more handsome boys–necessitated dealing with tell-tale stains. Julian had learned how to bleach them from Anthony Quinn, who sat in front of him–and the only thing he did learn in that class; Anthony telling him his Ma smoked like a ‘prossy,’ but when cleaning the hospital corridors of the maternity wards where she worked, the bleach had made her fingers also look freshly born.

Brilliant in art and history, but Julian was still coming to grips with his constant faux pas in speaking the Queen’s English as it was meant to be spoken let alone a foreign language with entirely confusing rules for the possessive gender. Whatever the fuck that is?

An inherent sophistication to Wulver Manor and its grounds, somehow the place filled his mind with indefinable memories and wisdom beyond his age and experience; the totality of him infused by a sliver of a soul that belonged to someone or something else.

And for those brief moments he might just have surpassed the lofty height of the top rung of the socioeconomic ladder even Mr Bennett would slither back down from to land ‘arse over tit’ into the gutter. Julian Abercrombie–if indeed that were his