Chapter 12 - Ten Silver Coins - Book 1

Over the water

Chapter 12: Over the Water

“Jill?” Simon shouted. “Are you okay? Did you get the coin?”

Jill lifted her head and looked toward Simon where he sat two carriages ahead, below her. “I didn’t get to it in time. I’m afraid I’ve really lost it.” 

“What do we do now?” 

“We have to get off this thing.” 

“And how do we do that?” Simon shouted back.

“I don’t know. You were imagining the wheel when I woke up. Do you think that you can imagine stopping it?”

“I guess I could give it a try.”

Simon sat down in his seat and covered his face with his hands. He leaned against the handrail of the carriage and tried to picture in his mind the Ferris wheel come to an abrupt halt. He muttered Stop moving, stop moving over and over under his breath. He heard a loud creak then the sound of scraping metal. Simon listened for a moment. “Jill, I think it’s working.  Did you hear that sound?”

Before she could answer, Simon’s carriage suddenly dropped and he was thrown forward in his seat. “I don’t think so, Simon. It looks like the wheel is speeding up,” Jill replied. “We’re moving faster than before. Hold on!”

The Ferris wheel started to spin faster each time it made a full rotation. Jill and Simon in their separate carriages climbed up the wheel and dropped down the other side at a much faster rate. Soon, their vision was a blur of ground, water, and sky. 

“Ohhhh!” Simon yelled, “I think I’m going to be sick!”

But Jill could not hear him. She could only hear the hollow sound of wind and air as it rushed passed her face and blew her hair all about the carriage. There was a sudden loud snap, like the crack of a very large whip, and then total quiet. Jill opened her eyes. The wheel had broken completely free of its bearings and had been catapulted from the concrete landing out over the water! The entire structure was in mid air. Jill could do nothing but brace herself for the impact the giant wheel would momentarily make with the water. She held onto the rail and shut her eyes. Oh Keeper, she found herself thinking, help! 

Jill felt dizzy as she realized the spinning came to a stop. She waited to hit the water, for the sound of the foamy splash as the wheel hit the surface, but it did not come. Jill slowly opened her eyes. She was still in the seat of the Ferris wheel, which was suspended in the air. Jill assumed the wheel had not stopped and that her senses and reflexes had been heightened in the moment of trauma so that everything appeared to happen in slow motion. Jill remembered reading that time often seemed to slow down to people involved in terrible auto wrecks and other sorts of accidents. To her surprise, Jill heard a voice behind her, calling her name.

“Jill! Hurry, we don’t have much time.”

Jill turned, and saw the last thing she would have expected to see. Her heart leapt at the sight of it, the closest thing to joy and relief she had ever experienced. Seraph hovered outside the carriage behind her, his great wings moving in the air. With his right hand he motioned for Jill to come to him. Under his left arm he held Simon, who was unconscious. Jill moved toward the edge of the carriage and jumped. Seraph caught her and pulled her to his chest. He felt solid and strong as a giant oak. 

“Seraph! You came! You came to help me.”

Seraph kissed her forehead and smiled. Then, in a swift motion, he flapped both wings, and the three went sailing high into the air. Seraph told Jill to look down. As she did, the giant Ferris wheel hurtled toward the ocean. When it hit the surface of the water great white waves burst all around the wheel. Carriages and metal pieces were thrown upon impact beyond the wheel into deeper water. Some landed onto the nearby beach. Jill felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened to her and Simon had they been in the wheel when it hit the water.

“Child, you asked for help at just the right time,” Seraph said.  

“Where did you come from, Seraph?” asked Jill. “How did you hear me?”

“I was sent to you. I came from the Great Hall.”

“Where are we?” asked Jill. “How did we get here?”

“You are in one of the lands beyond the Great Forest,” replied the seraph.

“But how did we get here? One moment I was in the Great Hall, and suddenly we were, well, we were here,” Jill said, “pointing at the water.” 

“The Keeper has many lands under his care, and, there are many ways to get to them. You’ve discovered one of them.”

“Oh, but it was all an accident,” said Jill. “We didn’t mean to. It was all a mistake, a stupid, stupid accident. I didn’t trust Simon when I should have, and I was careless with the treasure, and now I’ve gone and lost a coin.”

Jill looked away from Seraph and started to cry. She hated herself for doing it; she never cried in front of others. She felt foolish and afraid to show emotion so openly on her face: in Vendor it was a dangerous thing to do, punished with a swift crack of a disciplining stick by her teacher Ms. Steinback or some other adult. Seraph pulled Jill into his chest and comforted her. When Jill opened her eyes, Seraph was standing on the shore of the bay. With one foot he stood in the water, the other was on dry land. He held both children in his arms.

“Child, do not fear. It will be all right. When you make mistakes, you learn from them. But know this: in the Keeper’s lands there are no accidents, and even misfortune can be changed into something great.”

“Oh I wish that were true! But I can’t imagine how. Seraph, please take us back to the Great Hall.”

“I am sorry Jill, but that I cannot do.” 

“What? Why not?”

“You asked for help, and I gave it to you. I have fulfilled my duty, I rescued you from the terror of the wheel, and now I must leave you.”

“You can’t! You can’t leave Seraph, I need you.”

“Child, you will be alright. You have all the help you need,” he said, lifting the unconscious Simon up with his arm.

“But we need to get back to the Hall so we can travel to the Guardian at Terador.” 

“Do you not yet see, child? That journey has already begun,” Seraph replied. “From this beach you will find your way. Before you leave it you must recover the coin.”

“Seraph, it’s gone! You must not have heard me. The coin is gone. It fell into the water. How can it be recovered?” 

Seraph said nothing. He winked at Jill and smiled. 

“Seraph? Seraph!” Jill said as he slowly bent over and put Jill on the ground. He then gently laid Simon, who started to moan and move his head, onto the sand. 

Without another word, Seraph put his right hand over his heart, looked up to the sky, and disappeared into thin air. Jill stepped toward him as he disappeared, trying to grab hold of him, but she only grabbed at air. She stood motionless for some time, staring at the empty space Seraph moments earlier occupied. 

Jill was torn from her troubled reverie when Simon rolled onto his side in the sand and slowly sat up. Simon rubbed his eyes and yawned. He looked out over the water then up at the sky. He looked over toward the bay area where the Ferris wheel once stood then he looked at Jill where she stood on the beach. Simon stared at her with wide eyes.

“Jill?”

“No Simon, you’re not seeing a ghost. It’s me.” 

“Did we –” he started to say, then pointed up at the sky. Jill nodded her head. “And then it – ” he said, and pointed at the water. Jill put her hands on her hips and nodded again. “And now we’re – ”

“Now we’re here,” Jill finished. 

Jill explained what happened while he was unconscious. Simon exhaled loudly and lay back down in the sand. He stared into the sky and said, “I thought I was dead. I thought it was all over. My short little life, over just like that,” he said as he snapped his fingers.

“Yeah, well, near death experiences seem to be a new theme in our lives, what with dreams and all.” 

“That can’t be very good for our health,” Simon said, rubbing his neck.

“No, I don’t think it can be,” Jill agreed. Jill stood in the sand and was quiet. 

“This isn’t normal, Jill. Something happened. How did you do it?”

Jill looked at Simon, puzzled. “Do what?” she asked.

“Bring us here,” Simon responded.

“Bring us here? What do you mean, Simon? It was your imagination flashing up on the screen in The Media Room, not mine, remember?”

“Yeah, but I heard you say it before you went to sleep.”

“Heard what?” Jill asked.

“Don’t look at me like that, Jill. I heard you. You said it would be real neat if we were able to enter the world of our imagination. Don’t you remember?”

“That? I was just talking out loud, Simon. I didn’t mean I wanted to lose a coin and leave the Great Hall to be stranded in some strange land!” Jill looked at the wreckage from the Ferris wheel that was strewn about on the beach and shuddered.

“Well it looks like you got your wish. My sisters always used to say ‘Careful what you wish for.’ I can’t believe I’m saying it, but it looks like they were right.” Simon was quiet for a moment. “There’s something strange about this, Jill, and I can’t quite say what it is.”

“What do you mean?” Jill asked.

“You. You have some strange power. You’re like him.” Simon pointed with his head toward the water. Jill turned and looked behind her.

“Who, Simon?”

“Mr. Kay. He could slip in and out of worlds. You must be magic too.”

Jill laughed. She stopped laughing when she saw that Simon was being serious. “Magic? What do you mean, Simon? That I’m some sort of witch or fairy? Look at me, do you see a magic wand?”

“Well, how do you explain this?” Simon said lifting both arms in the air.

Jill thought for a moment then sat down on the sand. She pulled her knees into her chest. “Well I sure hope not.”

“But it would be so cool to have some sort of magic power, Jill.”

“Look at you, you’re already forgetting where we come from, Simon. I’m a Daughter of Disgrace, remember? Isn’t that bad enough? You know what they’d do to me if they found out I knew some magic.” Jill shuddered.

“But you’re just a kid,” Simon reasoned. “And that was such a long time ago.”

“They killed children too. They would do it again.”

“Even for magic like Mr. Kay’s?” Simon asked.

“I don’t know,” Jill replied.

“It seemed so fun and adventurous. Not dark or evil.” Simon grabbed fistfuls of sand and let the fine substance sift through his fingers and disappear in the wind. Jill watched him for a while.

“I don’t know, Simon. If I got us here, I’m sorry, and it was an accident. Mr. Kay said that it was possible to learn how to move from world to world, or picture to picture. I must have done something accidentally that made it happen.”

“Or said something.” Simon’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Maybe someone heard you.”

“Simon, you’re creeping me out. Who could’ve heard me?”

Simon hesitated. Finally, he asked, “What went through your head, Jill? What were you thinking the moment you stared death in the face?”

Jill blushed and looked at the ground. Simon turned his head and watched her. “Everything was so slow, and quiet, and clear,” Jill said. “I thought of my mother. I remembered how beautiful she was. I felt sad that I would die so young and that I’d lost the treasure. It was only a moment, but I thought those things. But more than anything, I felt I had disappointed the Keeper. I don’t know him, but the thought of not actually doing what he asked me to do made me feel more sad than I have ever felt.”

Jill looked at Simon and smiled. “Is it a strange thing to want so badly to please someone you have never met?” she asked. “Someone you hardly know anything about?”

Simon sat up. He picked a rock from the sand and tossed it into the water.  “I don’t know. It does seem odd, but I had similar thoughts. I didn’t think about my family, not even my sisters,” he smiled wryly. “I didn’t think about Vendor, not even the pain my body would feel greeting death. All I thought about was that by not meeting him, I’d be missing a great adventure.”

“But, we made it,” Jill brightened.

“We made it. And now I’m sure of something.”

“What’s that?” Jill asked.

“I’m alive,” Simon said squinting his eyes, “and before I die, I would like to meet him.” 

“Careful what you wish for,” Jill repeated, half joking. “Do you think he heard me? You think he somehow brought us to this strange place?”

“If he didn’t, he now knows that we’re here.”

© 2024 Andrew Kooman. All rights reserved.

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About Andrew Kooman

Andrew Kooman is a Canadian writer of fiction, poetry, plays, and films. His work has been enjoyed by audiences around the world and translated into lots of different languages. 

He’s the author of the children’s books Popcorn Helmet and Simple Christmas Spectacular, the first two books in the Ramsey P. Heaton, Future Billionaire series. Andrew likes to make people laugh in church. His popular plays and skits are performed across North America and can be purchased at SkitGuys.com.

Andrew founded UnveilTV with his brothers Matthew and Daniel, where you can watch content that inspires you. You can follow all of Andrew’s latest work on his weekly newsletter Things I Wrote Down and find him on X and Instagram.