Chapter 1: The Hidden People

A fantasy novel

Author’s note: This is Chapter 1 of my second novel, The Hidden People, a fantasy story with a romance element. If that’s not your cup of tea, you can stop reading now or delete this email; but if it sounds like something you’d enjoy, read on.

I will publish one chapter per week so as not to overwhelm you (there are twenty chapters). Blurb is below:

Joanna and her two brothers are doing their best to live a normal, but it’s a challenge. When they were growing up, their Mama hid them from authorities and didn’t send them to school, until they were taken from her care in their teens.

However, when Henny, Jo’s oldest brother, disappears in the middle of the night, and Jo has to find him, she starts to wonder - what’s true and what isn’t? Has she really fallen into a different world? Or is this all just a dream? And if it’s real, can Jo really trust Annurin, the hunter who’s captured her, and who’s bringing her before a mysterious “King”?

I am glad I was able to study some fascinating subjects as an undergraduate long ago, including Celtic Kingship, Middle English, Shakespeare, and modern representations of the medieval world in literature. Sometimes, during job interviews with law firms, I was asked what use the Arts subjects I’d studied were. As it happens, they were very useful in writing this book!

In other news, this Substack will remain free, but someone has asked me whether they could give me a one-off tip. 😊 Goodness, what a lovely question. Here’s a link by which you can do so (but only if you want, absolutely no obligation!)

The balding man with the wire rimmed glasses and the black turtleneck jumper glared at Jo. “This coffee has been spilled.” He enunciated every word slowly, as if Jo was hard of hearing.

Jo picked up the glass cup and dabbed at the saucer with a paper napkin. “I’m so sorry! Here, I’ll wipe it up!”

“Hopeless boy!” The man’s tone stung. He shook his head. “I want a new one!”

Jo took the spilled coffee back to Sean, the tattooed, bearded barista. “The man on Table 10 wants a new one. I spilled this one.”

Sean sighed and looked over quickly at the man. Then he hid the cup behind the coffee machine, took the saucer away, got a fresh one and slightly filled the cup back up with milk. He glanced up as he poured the milk from the aluminium jug. “Everything okay, Jojo?”

“Just tired. Thanks Sean.”

“No problems, mate.” Sean winked at Jo and, behind the cover of the coffee machine, pretended to spit in it.

Jo winked back at Sean then picked up the cup and carefully bore it over.

The balding man glared again. “This is now cold.”

“It can’t be! It’s fresh!”

The man’s stare drilled a hole in the retro movie posters plastered over the café walls. “I demand a new one! And if I don’t get one, I will speak to your manager!”

Jo took the cup back to Sean, her eyes smarting.

Sean glanced at the man. “What’s wrong now?”

“Apparently this is too cold,” Jo explained.

“I’m tempted to shit in it, not spit in it,” Sean muttered very quietly, but he tipped the coffee out, fetched a new glass and made a new cup. “There you go. May the bastard choke on it.”

Jo made the sign their mother had taught them. “Don’t say things like that, Sean. You never know who’s listening.”

“Ah, Jo, you and your weird superstitions.” Sean shook his head, but his grin made it affectionate.

The balding man was happy with the third coffee, although he stopped sipping at intervals to shoot poisonous looks at Jo. As she delivered waffles with eggs and bacon to another customer, Jo wondered what made people behave like him. It cost so little to be pleasant. Was he in pain, or lonely? Was he just selfish and unaware of his impact on others? No doubt her brother Simon would scoff at her for considering the matter.

The man got up and went to the cash register. He said pointedly to Tanya, “I am not giving a tip. That boy spilled my coffee.”

Jo hoped that Tanya wouldn’t report her to Jake, the café owner. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she lost her job.

Tanya tossed her long blonde hair, streaked with pink and blue, and looked sidelong at Jo. “I’m terribly sorry about that, sir. She can be clumsy.”

“Humph.” As the grumpy man went to leave, he pushed opened the heavy café door but then—almost as if invisible hands had pushed it—it abruptly swung back the other way, and slammed him in the nose.

“Argh!” The man screamed, and blood poured from his nose, spattering onto the floor in a shower of drops.

Jo closed her eyes and hoped she wouldn’t faint. Not again. “I didn’t need that,” she said quietly, to the air. “I really didn’t need that.”

“Oh no!” exclaimed Tanya.

Jo and Tanya quickly fetched some ice, a tea towel, and some paper towels, and Tanya got the man to sit down on a stool at the front. Jo wiped up the blood spatters. Eventually the man’s nose stopped bleeding. He haughtily left a second time, this time without incident.

By the time it reached five o’clock, Jo had a splitting headache. She’d worried herself into an absolute state. She was glad when they could close the café and start wiping down the tables and mopping the floor.

“You still don’t look well, Jo,” said Sean, his hazel eyes concerned, as he wiped down the nozzle of the steam wand on the coffee machine, took out the drip tray at the bottom of the machine, emptied the water into the sink, and put the grounds into the bin.

“Tired,” said Jo.

“Oh!” Tanya suddenly perked up and smiled at Jo as Simon arrived. “Your brother’s here, Jo?”

Jo went to the front door and undid the lock. “Hi.”

“Hello, little sis.” Simon hugged her. “You look like crap.”

“Thanks, I love you too.” Jo locked the door again and whipped her brother on the back gently with the tea towel she was holding.

Tanya stopped wiping down the bench and leaned over the counter. “So, Simon. How are things going?”

Simon favoured her with a smile—making Tanya simper—and said, “Not bad. We’ve got to go pick up Henny.”

Tanya’s face fell. “Oh. So, you’re not going to hang around?”

“No, I’m sorry. Another day.”

Jo and Sean exchanged looks, and Sean rolled his eyes and made a face. Jo had explained to Sean that women turned into blithering fools around Simon. Jo would be irritated, if she were Simon, but perhaps Simon thought women were normally like this, although neither Jo nor her mother were like that. But then, Jo wasn’t normal, and their mother hadn’t been either.

“A strange thing happened today!” Tanya said to Simon. Jo thought if Tanya leaned forward any further her breasts would fall out of the café t-shirt, and she realised that there was an advantage to being so flat-chested that everyone mistook her for a boy—at least she didn’t have to worry about her breasts falling out of her t-shirt.

“Oh really?” Simon made noises of interest; he was an expert at keeping a polite distance.

“Yes, this man was walking out of the café—and the door just suddenly banged back, even though there wasn’t any wind, and smashed him in the nose! And his nose bled everywhere! So odd!”

Simon’s head whipped around to Jo. Jo put up her hands and protested, “I didn’t want it to happen.”

“Hmm.” Simon’s look was knowing. “But … this man was unpleasant to you in some way?”

Sean was washing his hands at the sink, under the retro poster of a busty blonde woman on a motorbike. “He was an absolute arse to Jo. I was tempted to shit in his coffee.”

“I see.” Simon scowled at Jo.

“Look, don’t be rough on her. She’s had a hard day.” Sean turned, folded his muscular brown arms, then looked at Jo. “Why don’t you go home? I’ll finish the rest of the wiping down and do the mopping, mate?”

Jo gave Sean a watery smile. “Thanks Sean, I owe you.”

“Bye, Simon,” trilled Tanya, as they left.

As soon as they were out of the café, Jo put on her coat to protect herself against the winter chill. Simon slammed his fist into his palm. “I told you, Joanna. I told you. Don’t ask for anything. What did Mama tell us? They’re listening.”

“Honestly! I didn’t ask for anything! I didn’t.” Unlike other women, Jo did not find her brother inevitably charming; she found him intensely annoying and pious at times. “And when Sean said he hoped the man would choke on the coffee, I made the sign, and told him to take it back!”

A look of amusement passed over Simon’s face. “Sean’s keen on you.”

Jo stared at her brother in horror. “No! No! He is not. He always goes out with buxom women with long hair, nose rings and tattoos! He’s going out with one at the moment!”

Simon shrugged. “Trust me. I’m sure that he’d drop her for you. He’s pleasant? And good looking, that dark skin and the light hazel eyes?”

Jo had noticed Sean’s good looks, but she didn’t want to think about it: life was so much easier if you avoided relationships altogether. She gestured at herself. “As you may see, I am a skinny, short-haired woman with no bust at all. I look like a boy—the mean man called me a boy repeatedly. I am not Sean’s type. And I am not interested. I am never going to go out with anyone. Ever.”

Simon backed off the topic, and cupped his hands before his chest. “Probably just as well you’re not generously endowed: otherwise, you might fall out of your t-shirt like Tanya. It was alarming!”

Jo grinned back at her slightly older brother: they were so similar that they were sometimes mistaken for twins. “I had the same thought. I was planning to rush over with a tea towel and preserve her modesty if they fell out.”

Simon chuckled. “Aw, you’re no fun, it would have been hilarious if they had. Although I’m not particularly enamoured of a woman who treats my little sister like dirt.”

Jo punched Simon gently on the shoulder. “Thanks bro. How was the supermarket?”

“Same as always.” Simon looked serious. “As long as we can pay for Henny’s school, and he can keep staying with us, I’ll put up with it.”

“Exactly,” Jo agreed. She hoped again that she didn’t lose her job, but she didn’t confess her fear to Simon—he had enough to worry about as it was.

They smelled Henny’s school before they saw it.

“Why do these places always smell of cabbage?” Jo wondered.

“Institutional cooking,” said Simon, punching the passcode into the tall, locked gate, set into a high fence, twice Jo’s height. Jo had a tendency to make electrical equipment short out—she didn’t know why—so she let Simon put in the passcode.

“It’s better than the last place Henny was at,” Jo noted. They’d had to move towns to access this new school, but it had been worth it.

Simon scowled. “Yes. Yes, it is.” Then he paused outside the door of the school. “You know something? That aide at the other school?”

“Which aide? Not the one who hurt Henny? Did they sack him or something? I hope so—”

“Yeah. The mean guy. I saw … something … the other day, about him.”

“What did you see?”

“I didn’t want to tell you, but—I saw a report on the news. A person with the same name was riding a motorbike and went into a tree. He wasn’t drunk or drugged. Police think it was fatigue—”

Electricity prickled down Jo’s spine, and she looked around: the evergreen bushes near the front door had just rustled in a suspicious way. It didn’t seem safe to speak frankly right now. “Might be fatigue?”

“Might be,” said Simon, flatly, also glancing at the bushes, bright with red berries, but Jo didn’t think he believed it any more than she did. If Jo was asked to guess, They had made it seem as if the road went a different way.

Meanwhile Simon punched a second code into the lock on the heavy front doors and they went into Henny’s school. The stench of cabbage became unbearable, and Jo breathed shallowly through her mouth.

Simon and Jo had agreed Simon would handle the women at the desk: this was when Simon’s particular brand of charm became a blessing rather than an irritation. Simon went to the portly woman at the desk. She never smiled at anyone, but she smiled at Simon. “Here for Henry?”

“Indeed.” Simon’s smile almost sparkled. “Thank you so much, Janice, you are so helpful.”

Janice turned to one of the male aides. “Henry Sidebottom’s brother and sister are here, to pick him up.”

“I’ll just get ‘im,” said the man.

Jo stared at the cracking pale yellow-green paint as they waited and wondered if it was very cheap. But on the other hand, surely it had taken effort to create something that horrible? It was as if someone had simultaneously made a paint to try to represent the colour of vomit and snot.

The man came back leading Henny. Henny was beaming. “Jojo! Si!”

Henny never failed to cheer Jo up. She ran to her eldest brother and threw her arms around him, and he lifted her up and hugged her hugely. Then he placed her down and looked at her, his big brown eyes worried. “Jojo bad day?”

“A little bit bad,” Jo confessed, “but much better now I’ve seen you, Henny.”

Henny enfolded Simon in a similarly huge hug.

Simon checked Henny out and they left the school.

Jo always wondered if she and Simon looked like two children leading a bear. Henny was so much bigger than either of them—although if he was a bear, he was a very gentle one. He couldn’t even bear to step on ants and had been paralysed by a trail of ants in one of the squats they’d lived in, simply because he was afraid of stepping on them and harming them. Their mother’s boyfriend at the time had gone to hit Henny. Jo had inserted herself in between the blow and her brother. It wasn’t fair to get angry at Henny. His brain didn’t work like other people’s, but he was a good person, much better than that ex-boyfriend.  

“They back,” announced Henny.

Jo’s heart sank. “You didn’t tell this to people at your school, did you? The government might take you away from us, like they took Mama away from us?”

Henny’s brown eyes widened. “No, Jojo. Henny’s a good boy. Henny remembers.”

Jo beamed at him. “Yes. Henny is always a good boy.” Then she sighed. “I think They pushed a door into a mean man’s face.”

“Good,” rumbled Henny.

Simon winced. “I’m not so sure. I’m sure the man deserved it, Them being as They are, but we don’t want people to notice.”

“Where’s Mama?” Henny’s eyes were shining with tears. “I want Mama.”

Jo cursed herself for mentioning their mother. “We don’t know where Mama is. If we knew where she was, we’d find her for you.”

She and Simon exchanged glances. To be honest, they thought their mother was probably in a secure mental institution somewhere but searches for Maria Sidebottom had disclosed nothing. Jo and Simon didn’t even know whether that was Mama’s real name, or when they’d been born. They had no birth certificates or records, and the authorities had had to guess at their age.

When social services had discovered them, living in a squat house, Mama had fought like a tiger, writhing, screaming, clawing and biting. Mama’s ranting as they took her away still echoed through Jo’s head. “Noooo! Don’t take my babies from me—don’t let Them take my babies—everything and everyone else is gone—”

Then she had stopped and extended her hands to the police, crooked at a strange angle, and said the words she’d told them never to say. “I call upon the power of the blood! Let thy generative organs wither and parasites suck the goodness away from thy bodies so thou dost rot within—”

Everyone had paused and it had seemed time stood still. Simon and Jo had gripped each other in terror, waiting for the men to be struck down.

Nothing had happened.

A paramedic had put a needle in Mama’s arm, and she’d slumped unconscious into a stretcher. She’d been taken away. They’d never seen her again.

Later, Henny, Simon and Jo had been placed in an institution and then with a succession of foster families. They were told that their mother’s teachings were the product of mental illness and drug use. Of course, Henny had had limited understanding, but Jo and Simon had, for a time, been crestfallen and angry with their mother for feeding them lies. Until—They had come back.