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Into Memoriam

An excerpt from The Reckoning of Riordan Murphy by Joseph M. Pierce

Riordan woke with a start. The wind had picked up and brought with it a chill. The grounds of

Brimley Hall had remained unchanged, but the sun- where it was dipping behind the distant tree line-

was now rising in the East.

Morning has come… he thought as he squinted at the sunrise. How? Have I been asleep?

“For goodness’ sake,” he muttered under his breath. The thought that he may have spent the night

in the grounds of Brimley Hall both frustrated and amazed him. He resolved to waste no more of his time.

He was pushed to his feet with a sudden gust of wind. That surprised him. The very breeze seemed

to whip up against his coat. It was an unsteady sensation. He was somehow even frailer than before

his slumber- fragile to the point of unbalance, nad this strange wind did not help matters.

The first step that he took felt numbed, as if his foot had refused to wake alongside him. But despite

his new hindrance, Riordan continued to make his way down the avenue back towards Brimley Hall.

That still did not stop the world from spinning around him.

Tick… tick… tick…

“Riordan…” came a voice in the wind. “Riordan…”

He recognised it. It was a woman’s voice, thick with a warm southern Irish accent. With it came a

pleasant yet solemn nostalgia.

“Just a little bit further… that’s it. You’re walkin’, Riordan. You’re walkin’.”

The voice was his mother’s. He could never forget it. It had been a long while since he had last heard

her voice.

But he could not have heard it- not here. He glanced about, but he was alone in the grounds, as far

as he knew. His only company was the wind that continued to whip up the leaves from the pathway.

In his delirium, he could have sworn that they took the form of people.

“Riordan…”

He averted his eyes from the apparitions and shook his head in an effort to quell the voices. The

wind appeared to subside for a time, and the voices granted him a moment’s reprieve- a brief reprieve.

Tick… tick… tick…

He wandered past Brimley Hall and towards the main gates by the bridge. His head felt unbearably

dizzy. He put it down to his unwarranted slumber, but there was something horribly strange

happening to him. He felt… light, as if he would be blown away with every gust of wind. Staying rooted

to the ground felt a chore- as strange a phenomenon as that was.Joseph M. Pierce

16

As he passed the great iron gates of Brimley Hall, he reached out and placed his gloved hand around

the one of the bars. He clasped onto it for a moment and looked up towards the manor. It appeared to

sway in some sort of haze. In a futile attempt to keep his balance, Riordan closed his eyes.

The moment he did so, the unnatural chill returned- as did the voices.

“What’s that house?”

“That is Brimley Hall,” said his mother’s voice. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

The boy sounded disgruntled. “And who lives in there?”

“The Emerys do, Riordan.”

The child was unfazed by the name. “Who are they?”

“They’re the Lords of this place,” she answered. “That’s why they have a bigger house than the rest of

us. This town belongs to them.”

“Even our house?”

“Even our house, sweet thing,” his mother replied.

“And what about us?”

“What about us, Riordan?”

“Do we belong to them?”

There was silence from his mother. She did not quite know what to say. “Maybe…” she answered.

“Maybe…”

“Stop!” Riordan cried aloud. He held himself up by the iron gates and brought himself to his senses.

He glanced around in a panic. These visions were little more than obscured sounds, but he could feel

them in his heart. He seemed to remember them. They were of his mother, and they were of him. They

appeared like dreams without sleep, and they came suddenly- sprung upon him unawares.

He continued his way across the bridge, but his mother’s voice still followed. It seemed to be carried

in the wind.

“Careful now, Riordan. Hold my hand. We don’t want you falling into the canal, now, do we?”

“What is this?” Riordan cursed as he shook the voices free. “Leave me be!”

He picked up his pace and moved in a way that was quite unlike him. The bridge and the canal

quickly passed him by and he followed the road back into Brimley town. The market centre grew

closer, but the echo of voices was never far from his heels.

“Riordan, you have to push the pedal round the entire way,” said a young girl’s voice.

Riordan disagreed. “No, I can just do it like this, see?”

“That’s not right. You’ll just fall off.”

“I said it’s fine!” Riordan shouted.

The young girl did not seem bothered. “As you wish, Milord.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“As you wish, Lord Riordan.”

“No!” Riordan cried as he clutched onto a nearby lamppost. “Get out of my head!” He squinted about,

but there was no-one about to see. He could only push himself from the lamppost and compose

himself.

Keep it together, he thought as he brushed himself off. Keep it together…

Brimley had risen with the sun. Riordan was glad to see at least some normality in his unanticipated

new day. The markets were being set up across the square and their produce laid out. Riordan had noDawn Goes Down to Day

17

interest in produce, nor the company of others, so he made his way towards the far side of the square

where he knew of a small tearoom that would soon be opening its doors.

I will have a cup of tea, he thought. Tea, not coffee. Probably… probably should not have coffee.

The tearoom had a courtyard with chairs and tables that overlooked the market. It was calm:

exactly what Riordan needed. With uncharacteristic haste, he climbed into the courtyard and placed

himself down at one of the small tables. Needing to wipe his brow, he reached for a serviette only to

notice his hand trembling severely. He felt cold to his very bone, even in his gloves. So, he removed

one. Strangely, there was no discernible change of temperature. So, he slipped his glove back on and

crossed his arms.

Tick… tick… tick…

He heard it more clearly this time; the ticking that had echoed in the back of his mind since he

awoke.

That god-damned watch, he thought as he drew it from his pocket. He held the thing in both of his

hands and cradled it. It sat in his palm- beating. It entranced him.

“What a strange trinket you are,” he muttered to himself through chittering teeth. “What have you

done to me?”

A man entered the tearoom courtyard. He wore a double-breasted suit with a matching briefcase,

which he promptly placed on Riordan’s table. This was enough to tear Riordan’s attention away from

his watch. He replaced it in his breast pocket. He then watched in disgruntled awe as the man removed

his coat, sat himself down on the adjacent seat, and unravelled the newspaper he had clung under his

arm.

Riordan cleared his throat. “This table is taken,” he said clearly. He received no answer, however,

nor even a hint of acknowledgment. “Excuse me.”

The man looked up. He furled down his newspaper and looked directly at Riordan.

“I said this table is taken,” Riordan repeated. “Would you sit somewhere else?”

The man looked for a moment longer before crudely sniffing and holding his newspaper back up in

front of his face. This angered Riordan greatly. He could not comprehend the rudeness of this man.

So, he got to his feet, marched himself round the table, and with one swift movement, he snatched the

paper from the man’s hands and threw it aside. The man recoiled in his seat in shock.

“I am talking to you!” Riordan exclaimed. He spoke in a manner he thought long lost to him. And at

last, it seemed as if the man took notice.

“Oh, damn and blast it!” The man cursed as he rose to his feet. Much to Riordan’s continued

bafflement, he simply retrieved his paper from the ground and brushed it off.

This pushed Riordan over the edge. “How dare you,” he said, as the wind began to blow dry leaves

into the courtyard behind. “Look at me!”

The man was taken from his feet by a sudden gust of wind. He fell backwards and collapsed into

the arranged flowerbed behind him. Heads turned in the square, all clutching their hats to their

crowns as the sudden and intense wind began to settle. Soon, people began to come over and offer

their help to the man. For the time being, he remained firmly placed in the rosebush.

Riordan did not know what to say. He stepped aside as more people began to swarm over to lend

their hands, but he quickly got caught up in the bustle. He avoided who he could, but became confused.

There were people this way, and that way- every which way. Then, without feeling so much of a bumpJoseph M. Pierce

18

into him, he felt himself spin out of control until he stumbled from the courtyard and fell back into the

gutter.

He landed absent so much as a thud. Completely delirious, he called out to the townspeople above

him- “Help me! For God’s sake, help me!”- but none came to his aid. The voices responded, however.

They came thick and fast.

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