Solstice - The Goddess Awakens

The moist sand felt cool between Lola’s toes as she strode across the golden beach, passing the few stragglers that were still enjoying what was left of the evening sun. Cranking up the volume on her new iPhone, she slowly gravitated towards the shore where the white foamy waves lapped at her feet, before ebbing back to the sea. Since she could remember, she’d always been drawn to water. Just being beside a river or a fountain helped her to think, helped to clear her troubled head. Even having a bath made her feel instantly better. It was as though the water spoke to her soul, soothing and purging her worries, giving her clarity of mind. But, being by the seaside, especially on a warm day like today, was as good as it could get. Feeling the nip of the icy Atlantic Ocean, Lola retreated to a sunny spot at the bottom of one of the nearby sand dunes.

Towards the horizon, where the sea had turned a deep azure, a few drifting clouds appeared in the sky. Lola could see four solitary surfers bobbing up and down on the water, patiently waiting for the next wave to come along and carry them back to shore. It looked so peaceful out there. Closing her eyes, Lola removed her earphones to hear the song of the waves as they peaked and troughed before crashing on the sand.

Dreams, work, the girls leaving – Lola wished she could just expunge it all from her mind. Her green eyes drank in the different hues of blue on blue, the glistening sand and contrasting rocks. Absentmindedly she lifted a handful of sand, letting it slowly fall between her fingers. Glancing down at the miniscule grains glistening like tiny diamonds on her fingertips, she suddenly remembered the lines of a William Blake poem she had read countless times before.

’To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the Palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour,’ recited Lola silently as she admired the natural beauty of the scene before her. This was written in gold leaf along the top of Arthur’s observatory, back at Brook Mill Manor.

It had been a few days since she had actually seen Arthur, which was most unlike her, but she had been busy with work and football training. Her brother Michael had them training three nights a week in preparation for the Summer League Cup final. It wouldn’t be so bad this summer, Lola told herself. After all, she had Arthur. At seventy-five years of age, there was very little chance that he would come clubbing with her, but he was one of her closest friends. Arthur Delphian never ceased to amaze Lola. Of course, he was uber-intelligent, a true polymath. By profession he was a retired astronomer, but his vast knowledge spread well beyond the stars. She was only eight years old when she first met him. Like all the kids on her council estate, she had heard the stories. Each day after school, Lola played with her friends in the fields that surrounded the mysterious Brook Mill Manor. Only the bravest of the group would breach the large perimeter wall of the estate or venture up the overgrown driveway that snaked up to the mansion. Lola, who was usually with her brothers and some of the other boys from her estate, was the only one who had not completed the covert mission into enemy territory, much to her annoyance. Back then the place held such reverence and mystery for her – in many ways it still did. But when she was a child, Brook Mill Manor was the unknown. It was intriguing and a little bit scary. So, when her dad came home one night and announced that he would be working at the manor for a couple of weeks, Lola tortured him to take her with him. She’d thought how impressive it would be – she would be the envy of all her friends. Not only could she say she’d been in the large garden, but also that she had been inside the Delphian mansion.

Growing up in Ballyvalley, the Delphian family had always been very prominent. They owned most of the real estate in town and even owned the local football team, Ballyvalley United. Arthur’s great-great-grandfather had made his fortune in the linen and textile trade back in the nineteenth century and had employed hundreds of people in the factory beside the family estate. The looms of Brook Mill Factory had long since fallen silent, the factory itself was only a crumbling relic of the past.

In all the time Lola had spent playing in the adjoining fields and around the old factory, she had never met Arthur Delphian in person. People said he was a recluse, she had even heard people say that he was into dark magic. There was no way she was going to miss the opportunity to see for herself, so eventually she wore her father down.

‘What’s the fascination you have, Lola, with Arthur Delphian and Brook Mill Manor?’ spluttered Joseph Paige. Although he never admitted it to his daughter, he knew exactly what it was that captivated her. It was the same things that had captivated him as a young boy. ‘You shouldn’t believe the tittle-tattle you hear about the estate, Lo,’ he had admonished her.

‘I heard that he does black magic, Da, so I want to see for myself. Do a bit of investigating. You know?’ She had been so sure she was going to expose Arthur Delphian’s dark secrets.

‘Dark magic, you say?’ answered her dad, managing to keep his face straight. ‘Well, our Lo, if he has anything to hide, pet, I’ve no doubt a super sleuth like you will uncover it! You can come with me tomorrow, but you’d better be on your best behaviour, young lady.’

Of course she’d promised him she would. The night before the big meeting she could hardly sleep with the excitement. Lola could still recall the plethora of emotions that she went through that morning, as they approached the gate lodges at the top of the avenue. Her stomach churned as the butterflies danced around it. Clutching onto her beloved notebook, she took her dad’s hand, gripping it tightly, not sure what she was about to discover. As they approached the house the sun shone on the perfectly manicured lawns of Brook Mill Manor. A plush viridian, they were unlike anything Lola had ever seen before. The flower beds, which lined the stone driveway, were brimming with yellow and pink roses, and in the far corner of the front garden, along the perimeter wall, was a mass of sweet pea, its perfume drifting across the garden.

Then there was the house. It was the biggest house she had ever seen. Lola counted at least twenty windows at the front. Her house had only seven, and that was the entire building. She was instantly smitten by the beautiful neo-classical house; with its perfect symmetry and white exterior, it was breathtaking. Passing the large black front door, Lola noticed it had the face of an old man with a long beard made of holly attached to it. Looking more closely, she realised it was a door knocker.

Following her father around to the side of the house, she stopped dead in her tracks, straining to take in the large circular building attached to the side of the house. It didn’t seem to be part of the original building, but it looked spectacular.

‘That’s Arthur’s observatory. He’s an astronomer.’ The word was new to Lola. ‘That means he works in the observatory in Armagh. His job is to look at the stars,’ her dad had explained, answering all her questions before she’d asked, like he always did.

Lola’s eyes were transfixed on the mini-observatory. This was way better than anything she could have imagined. Gazing at the large circular structure, she heard the crunch of footsteps behind her. Her father greeted Arthur casually as she swung round to get a look at the man of legend. The deflation must have been evident on Lola’s face, she saw nothing of the man she expected to find. Intuitively, Arthur read her disappointment.

‘Not what you were expecting, Miss Paige?’ asked Arthur bemused.

Lola, never one for lying, remembered blurting out the first thing that came into her head, much to her dad’s mortification. ‘Well no, Mr Delphian,’ she answered crisply. ‘Not really. I mean you don’t look like someone that’s into dark magic to me! In fact you look more like Santa Claus, with your grey beard and big belly.’

At that, Arthur Delphian let out a blistering roar of laughter, a sound that Lola would come to love. It was so infectious. At the time though, she didn’t join in because she felt like she’d been cheated. She had been after her first exclusive story. Embarrassed by his daughter’s candidness, Joseph began to apologise to Arthur, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

‘Joseph, you have a gem there. What lies within, reflects without.’ Still chuckling, Arthur gestured to the observatory. ‘Lola, my dear, how would you like me to introduce you to the cosmos, and the transcendental order of this great universe?’

Laughing, Lola followed eagerly. She liked Arthur instantly. ‘Come let’s away. I think you and I are going to become the best of friends,’ chuckled Arthur, as he led the way into the observatory. That was her hooked. From then on, she would visit Arthur every day at the manor or at least talk to him on the phone.

The slow rumbling in Lola’s stomach indicated that it was time to return to the cottage. She wanted to give Arthur a call, she felt bad that she hadn’t told him about her dreams. He would know what to say. What it all meant. He always had the answers. Looking up the sandy pathway, Lola could see Pebble Cottage perched at the top of the road, guarding the entrance to the beach. Ruby’s father had purchased the house the previous year as a ‘precaution’, in case his daughter went to university in Coleraine rather than Belfast. Ruby called it a ‘little cottage’, which always made Lola laugh because it was about five times bigger than her parents’ house. It had five bedrooms, each with its own en-suite, and a massive kitchen and living room. All the rooms were completed to the finest spec, but what the house chiefly offered was the most wonderful view of the beach and the sea. The white timber-framed house, equipped with an all-American white picket fence, would not have been out of place in Cape Cod. The interior was decorated from a pallet of greys, blues and whites, complementing the deep blue sea beyond the cottage’s large bay windows.

Lola glanced at the cliffs that jutted out into the sea as she strode down the beach. A flicker of white caught the side of her eye. On first inspection, all she could see were the large rugged cliffs that, in the evening sun, blended almost perfectly with the yellow sand. Straining to see clearly in the light, Lola put on her sunglasses, her shielded eyes tracing out a balcony where a young man stood. His white shirt was unbuttoned and flapped in the breeze. Looking more closely, Lola realised that the balcony was made out of glass as a house seemed to materialise out of the cliff face behind him.

Lola had been to the Strand Beach on countless occasions, but she had never noticed this cavernous structure before. It was like a massive sandcastle, with two large round towers at each side, and three enormous arched windows in the centre of the building that dropped to the ground. The entire house appeared to be carved out of the cliff itself. The young man, barely visible but for his tousled blonde hair and open shirt, seemed to be staring back at her. Turning away in embarrassment, Lola fumbled with her music. When she lifted her head again, he was no longer there.