Fate Twister E-Book

Owen Jones

• Herausgeber: Tektime
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 465

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Wayne was born on a remote farm in north Wales on a wild, stormy night. The family had wanted his delivery in hospital because he was going to be big and Gwynedd’s first baby, but his mother and grandmother, Rhiannon, thought that might be very dangerous. All of their family had been born on the farm, The Dragon's Garden, for 324 years according to the family bible - and they were all either witches or warlocks…

Leseprobe

Contents

FATE TWISTER

Copyright

Dedication

Inspirational Quotes

Acknowledgement

Contact Details

1 WAYNE GAMM

2 WAYNE AT SCHOOL

3 WAYNE GROWS UP

4 EXPANDING HORIZONS

5 BACK ON THE FARM

6 GUILDFORD

7 THE TEAM

8 CHRISTMAS AT THE MANSION

9 SPAIN

10 THE BRITISH TOUR

11 AMERICA CALLING

12 NEW YORK

13 THE GOOD WITH THE BAD

14 PHILADELPHIA

15 EMMA UPS THE ANTE

16 THE PROPOSITION

17 HOME AGAIN

18 THE MOUNTAIN

19 CHRISTMAS IN THE DRAGON’S GARDEN

20 THE FUTURE

Songs From This Book

Glossary

DEAD CENTRE

About The Author

Other Books By The Same Author:

FATE TWISTER

The Strange Story Of Wayne Gamm

by

Owen Jones

Copyright

Copyright © 2024 Owen Jones

Fate Twister

The Strange Story of Wayne Gamm

by

Owen Jones

Published by

Megan Publishing Services

https://meganthemisconception.com

The cover was designed by Getcovers

Dedication

This edition is dedicated to my wife, Pranom Jones, for making my life as easy as she can - she does a great job of it.

Karma will repay everyone in just kind.

Inspirational Quotes

Believe not in anything simply because you have heard it,Believe not in anything simply because it was spoken and rumoured by many,Believe not in anything simply because it was found written in your religious texts,Believe not in anything merely on the authority of teachers and elders,Believe not in traditions because they have been handed down for generations,But after observation and analysis, if anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, accept it and live up to it.

Gautama Buddha

––

Great Spirit, whose voice is on the wind, hear me. Let me grow in strength and knowledge.

Make me ever behold the red and purple sunset. May my hands respect the things you have given me.

Teach me the secrets hidden under every leaf and stone, as you have taught people for ages past.

Let me use my strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.

Let me always come before you with clean hands and an open heart, that as my Earthly span fades like the sunset, my Spirit shall return to you without shame.

(Based on a traditional Sioux Indian prayer)

––

“I do not seek to walk in the footsteps of the Wise People of old; I seek what they sought”.

Matsuo Basho

––

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go”.

Joshua 1:9

––

“Whatever misfortune befalls you [people], it is because of what your own hands have done-God forgives much-”

Quran 42:30

––

Myself when young did eagerly frequent

Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument

About it and about; but oft-times

Came out, by the same Door as in I went.

Omar Khayyam

The Rubaiyat XXIX.

––

Acknowledgement

I wish to express my thanks to my wife, Pranom, for making it easy for me to find the time to write and my author friend, Lord David Prosser for his thoughts on the cover and constant encouragement.

Contact Details

http://facebook.com/angunjones

[email protected]

http://meganthemisconception.com

http://owencerijones.com

1 WAYNE GAMM

The screams coming from the secluded, old stone farmhouse sounded inhuman, which was just as well, because the only red-blooded creatures that could hear them were four-legged, although they fully realised what was going on inside. Mrs. Gwynedd Gamm was having her first baby and her mother was helping her deliver it. The ewes in the field understood the pain Gwynedd was going through, even if her husband, Samuel Gamm and his drinking companions in the pub in the local village of Dremaelgwn did not.

“Mam! Get this baby out of me right now! Arghhh!”

“Try to relax, dear, and push… keep up the pressure…”

“Maybe I should have gone to the hospital to have him… we knew he was going to be a big, arghhh, baby!”

“Now, Gwynnie, we discussed that, didn’t we, love? It was just not possible… far too dangerous. Just keep up the pressure, you’re doing a great job, for a first-timer”.

“Arghhh, oh, arghhh… uh, uh, uh, arghhh… Oh, Mum, he’s huge! Arghhh, go in the kitchen, get the carving knife and cut me open… Go on, I don’t care if you make a mess of it! Mam, I can’t bear this any longer…”

“Yes, you can, Gwynnie, you have to, and you know that I can’t help you like that as well… no-one can… That’s why you have to have the baby here at home with no outsiders present.

“It was written, Gwynnie, you know that as well as I do. Hush now, Gwyn and concentrate, all women go through this and I promise you, that, one day, maybe in years to come, you will look back on this day with great pleasure”.

“I’m, uh, arghhh, never going to have another one and that’s for sure!”

“You say that now, my dear, but we’ll see what happens, won’t we, one day”.

She had tried squatting in a warm bath, straddling a camping toilet seat, going on all fours and sitting on her haunches, but it was all the same, so she just lay on her back on her bed and tried to concentrate on moving her big baby boy out of her, millimetre by agonising millimetre. Gwynedd could feel his progress, but it was not fast enough for her.

“Give me some more of those tablets the doctor said I could take, Mam, please”.

Her mother complied and then held a glass of cold water to her lips. Her face was dripping with perspiration.

Mother and daughter looked so alike that they could have been sisters, although on this day, it would have been a toss up, which one would have been guessed to be the older of them. There was only eighteen years gap between them and Gwynedd’s mother, Rhiannon, kept herself looking very young for her age, as all women would if they had the choice, like she did.

The cottage and its lands had been in the family for longer than anyone could remember and they had a family Bible with everyone’s name and the address of the farm in it that was 324 years old. Rhiannon, Rhiannon Phillips, owned it now and her daughter and new son-in-law lived with her, as was the local tradition. Mr. Phillips had long since passed away.

When asked what religion they belonged to, both Rhiannon and Gwynedd would say ‘Chapel’ automatically, and they didn’t feel that they were being hypocritical. After all, it wasn’t a bad religion, as religions went. It just didn’t go far enough for them, because Rhiannon, her daughter and most people they knew, believed in a lot more.

Not only believed, but knew.

However, saying that they were ‘Chapel’ kept everybody happy and made the census forms easier to fill in. They even did go to Chapel whenever they could, even if it was only for the hymn-singing, but then so did everyone else as well. Even the Minister believed in more than he would admit to everyone, especially his superiors.

Rhiannon and her daughter were both gifted with ‘second sight’, as it was called, meaning that they could see into the future, and sometimes even into the past as well. It gave them a different perspective on time.

They both believed in Y Tylwyth Teg, or the Fairies in English, and regularly talked to the ones they believed were tending their garden and mountain they lived on; and they believed in Fate, a pre-ordained future, which was why Gwynedd’s baby was being born at home rather than in the hospital. They had both seen, in separate visions, that the baby, who would be called Wayne, would be ‘large and special’.

They knew that Wayne would be special in a fashion that could go either way. They had seen that he could be dangerous – a handful in more ways than one.

They weren’t sure of the details yet, but they had seen some awesome scenes, scenes that they did not want to become déjà vu. That was the last thing they wanted. They just could not be sure what would happen and that frightened them more than not having doctors or midwives around, to say nothing of the epidural painkillers.

“That’s the way, Gwynnie, come on, girl… I can see the top of little Wayne’s head! Keep pushing!”

“Arghhh, arghhh, he… is not ‘little’ Wayne, his head feels the size of a rugby ball… arghhh, and that’s not even the biggest part of him, is, uh, it? There’s another two feet to go after that as well! I hope his shoulders aren’t too broad yet. Oh, arghhh, never again, cut my tubes after this, Mam, phone up tomorrow, promise?”

“Come on, Wayne, help your mother to get you out, there’s a good boy. Work with your son, Gwyn, come on both of you, work together, you’re nearly there…”

“I’ve got him! Gwyn, I’ve got him! He’s beautiful, he’s perfect! Here, take your handsome son. Well done, both of you. My beautiful daughter and her handsome baby son”.

Gwyn said a few words to Wayne and cwtched him close, though no-one except Wayne knew what she had said, but he answered with a cry. After a few minutes, Rhiannon took him back, cut the umbilical cord, cleaned him up, wrapped him in a blanket and handed him back to his mother. Then she went outside to get better reception and phoned Wayne’s father.

“Sam, your beautiful son has arrived. Come on up and see him. He’s perfect and Gwyn is well too”.

He was more than a little drunk, but he did want to see his son.

“OK, Mam, I’ll be there now”. He clinked his glass with his two friends, finished his whisky and got in the van.

“We’ll be off now too then, Sammy, congratulations, we’ll call you tomorrow”.

“All right, lads, thanks for keeping me company. See you tomorrow. Goodnight, be careful on those mountain roads now”.

When he got home, which by pure chance was without having had an accident, he parked the car perilously close to the cottage and rushed inside.

“Oh, my dearest, Gwyn, you look a picture there, propped up in bed with our little shon, er… our Wayne. I’m sho proud of you both. Thanks, Mam, for getting them both through thish. You can’t guesh what I was thinking might be happening up here, you know, under the shircumshtances”.

“Let me try to enlighten you then, Sammy, have you ever tried to pass anything this big on the toilet? I thought not, so, be a good boy and say no more… But, he is a lovely boy, isn’t he? Mam, you were right, I don’t regret any of that pain anymore already”.

“Can I get you anything, my darling, I am yoursh to command?”

“No, I don’t want any more than I already have. Come and sit by us and put your arm around me, Sammy, but don’t breathe over us. I don’t want Wayne drunk on his first day out in the open”.

Samuel moved his stool to the top of the bed, reached over and put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. He held his breath, gazed into his son’s face and thought that he had to be the happiest man on the whole of God’s green Earth.

∞

Samuel was not from Wales, he had gone there from Cornwall one summer, four years before, in answer to an advertisement placed by the local sheep farmers for shearers. He had turned up on Rhiannon’s farm and he and her daughter had fallen in love. Both Rhiannon and Gwyneth could see that it had been inevitable. There weren’t many single people about, and certainly not within a twenty-minute ride, so when the handsome young man had stayed on the farm for a fortnight’s shearing, it was, well, predictable, Fate.

Rhiannon approved of him too. He was a knowledgeable sheep farmer, from sheep farming stock. He was tall and strong, and seemed besotted with Gwynedd. What more could a mother want for herself and her daughter? And Gwyn was too in love to care. She had led a lonely life on the mountain since leaving school and her mother understood that.

His only problem had been that he did not speak Welsh, but he was trying and the locals were giving him chance to learn, because he was a sheep farmer and because they all respected Rhiannon so much. There wasn’t a family within fifty miles that had not had call to ask a favour of her at some time or another, and she never turned anyone away.

She was bringing Gwynedd up the same way, as her mother had done to her – ad infinitum, as far as anyone knew.

Samuel mixed and fitted in. He never argued about his workload, and seemed to relish being with the flock. The only thing was that he was used to drinking in his village public house in Cornwall after work, whereas where he was now was twenty minutes from Y Ddraig Goch – The Red Dragon, the nearest pub, and it did get him down sometimes.

Gwynedd had only ever been in a pub in Wales once and that was on her wedding day and she hadn’t liked it much, even though she had been to school with most of the people in there. She had also had a drink with Samuel’s mates in their village, but she had been happy to get out as soon as possible, although she did like his parents and phoned them more often than he did.

At twenty-two and twenty-five, Gwynedd and Samuel were a fairly typical, happy couple for the area with their first child and, being the offspring of farmers, they didn’t think it unusual to live in their parent’s house. In fact, Samuel appreciated Rhiannon being around and even enjoyed her company, and the feeling was mutual. The only thing that they did not quite ‘see eye to eye on’ was the supernatural, although Sam had said that his parents believed the same as Gwynedd’s. However, Sam thought it ‘old fashioned and stupid’.

He had said that to them both one night with a supercilious smile, that told both of the women that he was only giving the opinion of someone else, someone he admired. In other words, that he was talking through his hat. They both thought that he would grow out of it, when confronted with reality – the reality as they experienced it every day.

He hadn’t learned anything yet though that he could quantify that was not particular to hillside sheep farming in north Wales, but they still thought that he would come round eventually.

Rhiannon thought of herself as a white witch, that is a witch who would not harm anyone purely for self gain and Gwynedd liked to think that she was the same, but without the experience because of their ages. Rhiannon’s mother had been a white witch and so had all the other matriarchs in their family, for ever, and every girl had been given the chance to learn.

Gwynedd had jumped at the opportunity to follow in their footsteps, as had her mother before her.

They didn’t meet many people during the course of a typical week and most of them were known to them, but when they did meet strangers, or anyone for that matter, they would ‘give them the once over’ to see if they were on the level. Local people knew better than to try to cheat them, but the occasional travelling salesman might treat them like hicks, and they in their turn, considered them fair game to be taught a lesson.

Gwynedd remembered her father pleading with her once not to tell her mother that someone had sworn at him in a fit of road-rage when he was giving her a lift home from school one afternoon. She had been very young and not heeded the warning. She had related the incident to Rhiannon that night before going to bed and two days later the same man had skidded into a lamppost and was in a coma for months, although he did pull out of it.

Rhiannon had very intense powers of concentration and she looked after her own as everyone would like to be able to.

It had scared her husband into an early grave, because he was frightened to tell his wife anything, lest something happened and he would feel responsible.

He had been a good man and his conscience had not been able to bear that, no matter what anyone had done to him.

Samuel was the typical, proud, doting father with his new-born son, for the first few months. He and Gwynedd took Wayne into the hills with the sheep, if the weather was fine and they took him to the market in the village on Saturdays when Sam would parade his baby around in his pushchair. However, gradually a feeling of rejection and even jealousy caused by the transformation of Gwynedd from a young lover into a mother caring for her first baby began to replace the pride of being a new father and Sam started to drink more, and with that he become more and more irritable.

Naturally, Sam didn’t blame his son for this state of affairs, but he did start telling Gwynedd not to ‘mollycoddle the boy’ and several times he forced his attentions on her when she protested that she was too tired.

Gwyn was not happy with the way Sam was changing, but then she also knew that he was not happy with her either. Rhiannon tried to stay neutral and rarely said anything on the subject, but in reality she sided with her daughter and thought that Sam was being unreasonable.

Minor arguments soon became blazing rows with Wayne crying in his cot in the corner of the small living-room and his grandmother trying to pacify him. Sometimes, they would all be crying when they thought of what had become of their happy little family.

One evening, when Wayne was about six months old, Sam started an argument because his dinner was not to his liking, but he knew that that was only an excuse. He was shouting at Gwyn and standing over Wayne when he screamed:

“You care more about him than you ever did about me. You only want me around so’s I can provide an income for our two witches and your precious baby. Neither of you give a damn about me anymore, as long as I’m fit enough to go to work… Well, do you?” He was jabbing his finger a everyone including Wayne, who was becoming used to the tantrums and rarely cried anymore.

“I can’t eat that swill, I’m off to the pub!”

Neither of them remonstrated with him, because they knew that there was no point. He snatched the car keys off the mantelpiece and made for the door to the hall, but tripped over the tiny threshold, fell and hit his head hard on the wall in the hall opposite. Blood trickled from a lump forming rapidly on his forehead. With a loud curse, he picked himself up, opened the front door and slammed it behind him.

They listened in silence as the car started up and drove off at high speed. Then they smiled at each other.

“Serves him right!” said Gwyn and they both laughed. Wayne reacted to the change in atmosphere and began to chortle as well. They both looked at Wayne and said something appropriate for a baby.

“Sam will have a nasty bump tomorrow, he took quite a fall there and his headache will be more than just a hangover. He shouldn’t have been so aggressive to little Wayne… You don’t think that he had anything to do with Sam’s fall, do you?”

“Sam is only jealous. He’s just adapting to not being the only man in your life and not having your undivided attention. I’m sure he doesn’t really blame anyone, it’s quite normal. Isn’t it?

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking about Sam’s accident just now?”

“I think I am. We were both shown more than six months ago that it would be dangerous to upset Wayne, which was why I couldn’t have him delivered in the hospital. If a strange doctor had slapped his bottom to start his breathing, who knows what might have happened? Still, it looks like we were being overcautious. Perhaps, his powers are only just starting to wake up”.

“Have you ever warned Sam about Wayne?”

“No, it wasn’t necessary at first and then, when the rows started, nothing happened, and I just sort of forgot”.

“He will need to be told, Gwyn”.

“Yes, I know, Mam, I’ll do it as soon as we’re talking again, but that fall could just have been an accident… Perhaps, he wouldn’t hurt his own father”.

“We don’t know, do we, Gwyn? We just don’t know that yet, my dear”.

It was two days later that she had the chance to talk to her husband. Gwyn had arranged for her mother to give them thirty minutes of privacy, but to then come in so that she could ask her to confirm what she had said, as if unrehearsed.

“…and that’s the long and the short of it, Sammy. You know that Mam and I have the second sight, you believe that already. Well, we were both shown that Wayne would be able to cause things to happen… perhaps things from someone’s own future, to compress their Fate, or give it a twist, so to speak. We’ve been waiting for evidence that it is true.

“Your fall the other evening after losing your temper in front of Wayne and pointing at him like that, may have been the first instance of him performing or it could have been a pure accident, we don’t know.

“I’m only saying this for your own safety, so you can’t say that I didn’t warn you. I think that you ought to take care, cariad. I love you and don’t want anything to happen to you”.

“Well, thanks for the warning, but I don’t believe that that is possible, my dear. I have respect for your powers and your mother’s, but you must both have got it wrong this time. You make our little Wayne sound like one of the X Men, but he’s not. He’s just a lovely little boy, who has turned our lives upside down and I hate myself for feeling bitter about it sometimes, but that’s how it is. I do feel like that sometimes, and I know that it’s wrong, but… I suppose I’m only a man, not an X Man, and I miss not getting all my beautiful wife’s attention and the only one I can blame is little Wayne. I know it’s not his fault, and I hate myself for thinking it.

“We made Wayne, you and me, and I know that you have to take care of him, I know all that, but knowing it doesn’t make the loneliness any easier to bear”.

“I know, my dear, but I’m sure that what I have told you is correct. Mam feels the same as well”.

Rhiannon entered right on cue.

“Mam, I was just talking to Sam about Wayne being special. Could you tell him what you think? Perhaps, that will persuade him”.

Rhiannon told the same story but in her own words, and Sam came a little closer to believing them.

“But he’s not going to hurt his own family, is he? It just doesn’t make sense that he should bite the hands that feed him”.

“Fate shows no favouritism, Sam. Whoever does wrong gets repaid in like kind, as do those who do good, whoever they are, family of not. Universal laws operate the same for everyone, and anyway, not all parents are good to their children. Some kids suffer all sorts of abuse from their family.

“If Wayne can somehow have an influence over how quickly that Fate catches up with them, well, it’s not as if people are not getting something that they don’t deserve, it’s just that they are getting it a bit earlier. The way I see it, he cannot change Fate, no-one can, but maybe he can twist it so that the order in which events take place changes”.

“We’re not sure of all the details yet, darling, it is still early days, but it is our best guess so far”.

“Do you think that he knows that he can do it?”

“I shouldn’t think so, he’s only a six-month old baby, but he is growing up fast and his powers may develop quickly too. We just don’t know, this is a new situation for all of us”.

“Yes, it sure is! Especially if what you say is right. I’ll have to have a think about what you’ve said and in the meantime be very careful how I behave around Wayne”.

“Good, just keep your eyes open, because we believe that Wayne’s powers are starting to become active. It might be a good idea to keep him out of stressful situations, until we better understand what’s going on”.

The following Saturday, while walking in town, an incident occurred which went a long way towards convincing Sam that his wife and mother-in-law were right. Sam was pushing the pram across the road on a Zebra Crossing. He had reached the policia beacons in the middle of the road, checked the traffic and was half way across the second lane when a speeding car appeared out of nowhere.

He froze for a second or two not knowing whether to go on or to go back and all the while the solitary car was bearing down on them at speed. At the very moment that he decided to go back to the safety of the beacons and give the car enough room to pass by, it veered sharply to the left and crashed into a concrete lamp post full on. The car stopped dead and the lamp post cut a deep V-shape in the bonnet and engine, but the driver was only badly shaken, not physically hurt.

He later admitted in an interview with the local newspaper that he had been speeding and driving while intoxicated, but he claimed to have lost control of his vehicle seconds before it crashed into the lamp post. He also remarked that if he had not been wearing his seat belt, he would have been killed. He even gave a public apology to the Gamm family and said that he had never been so scared in his whole life as when he found himself bearing down on the father and baby and lost control of the steering.

Sam had noticed that his son had looked rather ‘worried’ as the car had approached them with its horn blaring, but he assumed that he had been picking that up from him, since Sam admitted to being very frightened for them both. When Sam had finished relating his story, Gwyn and Rhiannon looked at each other knowingly and Sam knew that they thought that Wayne had caused the car to crash.

He had to admit that it could look that way, especially in the light of what they already believed. He looked at his son, who was sitting up in his cot playing with some plastic animals that were hanging from a cord strung across it. There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest anything other than that he was trying to amuse himself playing with his toys on his own.

There would follow many minor instances, which proved nothing taken as solitary occurrences, but which together gave a strong indication that Rhiannon and Gwynedd were right about Wayne and his nascent powers.

The biggest problem they had though, apart from the arguing, which had decreased, was how to integrate Wayne into society. He was still only six months old and would not have to go to school for about five years, but the way things were going, he wouldn’t know any other children or how to behave correctly when he did meet any.

One thing they did know though was that they couldn’t just throw him into a classroom of strangers and expect everything to go all right. He had to learn the concepts of give and take and sharing, and how to control his temper, if he had a bad one.

2 WAYNE AT SCHOOL

The two women of the family knew that the first year of Wayne’s life presented them with an opportunity to learn how to deal with him and his powers, whatever they might be, because, while he played on the floor or in his pen or slept in his cot, there was little chance of anyone upsetting him. The first dangers would come when he started walking and interacting with others.

The whole of the small family learned with Wayne. When he took his first tentative footsteps at ten months of age and fell promptly on his backside, there was a hushed silence, which was a mixture of fear and anticipation. They sensed, as much as saw, Wayne’s frustration at not being able to walk, but nothing happened. There was no retribution, the roof did not fall in and no-one suffered an accident.

They took it as a sign that Wayne would not blame people arbitrarily for events that were just part of everyday life. They breathed a collective sigh of relief because they had been dreading the consequences of such natural disappointments and pains like teething. Wayne underwent such disappointments and pains without causing problems for anyone else, which taught his family a bit more about him. It was a big hurdle to have jumped and it made everyone realise that their lives would be easier than they had feared.

There were no crèche or child-minding facilities for miles around, but Wayne’s family were aware that he needed them more than other children, because he knew the names of more sheep than people, and so Gwynedd went about achieving the qualifications necessary to offer the services of a child-minder. It took her a year because of her other responsibilities, but within a week of opening, she had been entrusted with the care of three other children and her mother helped out wherever she could.

The child-minding service brought in a useful extra income, but the effect that contact with other children had on Wayne was considered much more important, because none of the other babies were only-children. However, Wayne was not a selfish or bossy child by nature. He was happy to share and rarely showed any signs of annoyance when other children were selfish or angry with him.

There were several minor accidents every week, usually involving children falling over or bumping into things producing small injuries and Gwyn and her mother were always ready to admit, at least to themselves, if they thought that Wayne was responsible, but the instances where it was possible were rare and the resulting injuries were of no consequence. They concluded that, if Wayne were capable of punishing people, he was very tolerant of children who either knew no better or were just prone to accidents.

The group of four children got on well together, but one day, a friend asked Gwyn if she could take her boy for the day as a favour. She agreed and the child was dropped off. However, it soon became apparent that he had certain issues, personality disorders and precisely those that Wayne’s family had feared that Wayne would have himself. A situation arose when the new boy knocked down a wall of blocks that another child was building and tried to take the blocks away for his own exclusive use. He hit Sarah, the other child, in the face, when she started to complain and made her cry.

As it happened, Sarah was a special friend of Wayne’s. He only sat there on the floor and stared. Gwynedd tried to distract him while her mother tried to pacify Sarah, but Wayne was not for distracting and Sarah was not for pacifying. The boy stood up with an armful of Sarah’s blocks, toddled a couple of yards, wobbled and fell over, breaking one of his two front teeth and banging his nose, which started to bleed.

He screamed in pain and shock and soon all the children were crying except Wayne, who was just staring at the newcomer as tears flowed down his cheeks and blood gushed out of his nose and into his mouth creating pink bubbles with every howl. Once again, it was difficult to attribute the ‘accident’ to Wayne, but they had seen so many examples since Wayne’s birth that the circumstantial evidence was too compelling to dismiss.

From that time on, Gwyn very carefully screened all the children whose parents wanted them to be looked after there, before allowing them to join the group.

As far as anyone could tell, Wayne thoroughly enjoyed mixing with the other children at the kindergarten. He had found it difficult in the beginning, but he had enjoyed playing with all the extra toys that his mother had bought to equip the ‘school’ and he was happy to share his home, which he could have been forgiven for considering his space, with the other children every day. Gwyn was careful not to mix up Wayne’s personal toys with those from the school, so that there would be far less chance of his becoming jealous or possessive.

It had taken him a month longer than the other children, who all came from larger families, to integrate with the other children, but he had managed it. He had made an especially close friend of the girl of his own age named Sarah. Although Wayne played on his own a lot of the time, he played with Sarah more than any of the others.

It was of great concern to Wayne’s family whether he was aware of his powers and whether he could consciously control them. The incident with Sarah and the bully was the first one that suggested that Wayne knew what was happening and could exercise some control over events. However, such occurrences were rare and as Wayne learned to talk, he never spoke of his special abilities, as if he were totally unaware of them.

This pleased his family because it meant that he could not be held responsible for what happened around him, and he would be less likely to talk about it, which would attract less attention to him, for it was a concern of some of the family that a government agency might try to acquire him for experimental purposes.

Wayne’s parents introduced him to yoga and meditation at an early age in an attempt to increase his control over himself. They tried to impress upon Wayne to always keep a low profile, without telling him why it was necessary. Wayne, being a shy and somewhat introverted boy anyway, was happy to comply. As he got older and started junior school, his father taught him chess, and various games of patience that could be played with a deck of cards. Wayne started ordering books from the library on chess problems and analysing games of the old Grand Masters from the Nineteen and Twentieth Centuries like Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine well before he went to the senior school at eleven years of age.

This further served to distance him from his contempories and school mates. He took up collecting stamps and surfing the Internet to fill in his spare time when other boys would be out playing football with their friends. His hobbies compensated for his lack of real friends, even though the Internet signal was pretty weak on his side of the mountain. All in all, Wayne’s favourite pastime was walking alone in the hills near his father’s sheep and thinking.

It was fair to say that the young Wayne was a solitary, self-contained, introspective child.

However, when he was in the pre-school and junior school, he got on well with most children of both sexes. He played with both boys and girls with equal ease. There were very few instances that even his own family could attribute to him. When he had to move on to Secondary Education after the age of eleven, boys and girls were segregated and that’s when Wayne’s problems seemed to start. He didn’t know it and so would never have said it, but he missed having girls in his company.

He had bright, intelligent, hazel-coloured eyes, rugged, good looks and a thick shock of light-brown, almost blonde hair. By the age of eleven, he was a foot taller and a stone heavier than anyone else in his year. However, he was also all in proportion without an ounce of fat on him and helping out on the farm ensured that he was extraordinarily strong as well. There were other farmers’ sons in his class, but he was still bigger and stronger than any of them by far.

He was also quiet by nature and enjoyed his own company more than any of the other boys he knew. This gave Wayne an image that some boys found it impossible to resist picking on. Wayne could easily handle any two or three others of his own age in a fight, but sometimes gangs including older boys would attack him. Many youths knew that they stood no chance of beating him in a fair fight, so they stooped to calling him names from a distance or spreading rumours about him behind his back.

This had the effect of forcing Wayne even further out on the limb of solitude and loneliness.

Despite these problems, Wayne liked school. He could put up with the taunts and the occasional fight, which happened less and less often as he got older, but his life was not straightforward. There was the time that he was picked on by a group of six boys and he hit one of them so hard that he cracked his head open on a wall eight feet behind him. That had been bad enough, but there had been witnesses that they had provoked Wayne. This would have worked in the favour of most victims of bullying, but not in Wayne’s case, because of his growing reputation in the community.

A few weeks later, he heard that the boy’s mother had wished a serious accident upon him for putting her son in hospital and the following day, she had tripped over the curb while crossing the road, which landed her hospital as well. When his family had heard the whole story, there was no doubt in their minds that Wayne had influenced events, even if he was unaware of it.

There were other cases too. One concerned an athletics teacher who was unhappy with the way that Wayne was throwing the javelin. In exasperation, he meant to stab the point into the ground but just caught Wayne’s foot. Two hours later, while Wayne was still getting treatment and the instructor was teaching another class, a child had thrown his javelin further than expected and caught the teacher off guard. It had transfixed his leg, causing him hospitalisation for a month and a permanent limp.

There were far more minor instances than major ones, but it was always impossible to prove that Wayne was involved. Nevertheless, the family and a few close friends were convinced of Wayne’s ability and more distant family and friends spread the rumour. By the time that he was fifteen years of age, there was no-one in the village or on the mountains nearby who did not believe that messing with Wayne was a dangerous business.

Wayne would have liked to have gone to agricultural college or even university, but his family was too frightened to let him out of their sight for so long as a term at a time. Wayne left school at sixteen since his family felt that there was no point staying on, if he was not going to continue into higher education. Both the teachers and the pupils at his school were pleased that he was leaving early.

It was agreed, as a compromise, that Wayne should leave full-time schooling at sixteen and join the nearest technical college on a part-time basis. None of the teachers there had heard of him, but some of the students had, so it did not take long for Wayne’s reputation to catch up with him.

At first, no-one believed the rumours, who would? However, when things started to happen, they were immediately attributed to Wayne, which was more quickly than they had been at his previous schools.

Wayne still got on better with girls than boys in general, so he was happy that his new school was co-educational. His classes were dominated by boys, but still, about a third of the classes was female. The company of girls seemed to help keep him calmer that that of boys, who at his age were boisterous and competitive.

He did not make friends easily, so he spent most of his first year at college on the periphery of groups of students in his year, although he did join the chess club. However, that met in the dinner breaks three times a week, so he could not attend as often as he would have liked. It was in the second year that the problems really started up again, when his fellow girl students felt more comfortable in his presence and he was more confident with them as well.

One day he was chatting with one of his female classmates about homework and her boyfriend decided to make an issue of it, although it was not clear whom he was trying to teach a lesson. Wayne later thought that he was trying to show his girlfriend that he didn’t like her talking to other boys and that he was prepared to fight for her, neither of which had seemed to impress her, which may have been why he was so jealous.

He had called Wayne out for a fight, which was brave because he was at least a foot shorter, but Wayne refused to go, giving the reason that there was nothing going on between them, which was true. When that tactic hadn’t worked he had tried casting insults, calling Wayne a big coward, but Wayne could handle that easily. Finally, in a fit of rage, he had dragged his girlfriend away, and that had been too much for Wayne, he went to her rescue and forced him to unhand her. She ran away crying and her boyfriend ran after her swearing revenge on Wayne.

Nothing had happened to Wayne, but within a few days, the girl had dumped her jealous boyfriend and was with someone new. The boy later hanged himself from a tree near the girl’s bedroom on their farm. People who had known Wayne from years back attributed all the couple’s problems to him, which seemed very unfair.

Wayne’s reputation moved up to a new level

It was still a mystery to him why those things happened around him and, although he had heard the rumours from schoolmates that he was to blame, he did not believe that he had anything to do with the events. He felt as responsible for what happened to others as he did for what happened to fish swimming in the stream. However, his parents were gearing up to have a talk with him about what they called ‘his powers’ or ‘his special abilities’, but they were unsure how to broach the subject.

One day, they received a letter, another letter, from school, another school, in which the headmaster asserted that he had received complaints from pupils and their parents about Wayne’s ‘attitude’ or his ‘aggressive behaviour’. Gwyn, Sam and Rhiannon had heard it all before and had even contested the allegations in the past, but, although no-one had any firm evidence that Wayne was to blame for anything, they persisted.

The threat in the letter was obvious, either they remove him from school voluntarily or he would be expelled for his ‘aggressive behaviour, which was disrupting the other students’. There was clearly no time to lose, the talk with Wayne could be put off no longer and so the family of four went on a picnic one Sunday to Wayne’s favourite spot. They decided that it was better not to give him advance warning about the reason for the outing.

They drove as close as they could to the place and then carried the picnic hamper and things five hundred yards to a large flat rock that overlooked a number of their sheep and the valley below. After lunch, Gwynedd started the discussion, which the adults in the group had partly rehearsed.

“Wayne, I’ve always thought of you as a happy child… Are you happy?”

“Yes, Mum, of course I am. Why are you asking such a strange question?”

“It is not such a strange question, love, we are just concerned about you. You seem happy to us, but, well, sometimes those closest are the last to know that there is a problem. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, Mum, but you have no need to worry. I am the happiest person I know. All the kids at school moan about their parents, their lives, their boyfriends or girlfriends, homework, or school in general all the time, but I haven’t got anything to complain about at all”.

“I’m glad to hear it, son. How do you get on with the other kids in your class? You have never brought any of them home to play or for tea”.

“I can take them or leave them… Most of them complain too much or want to beat me at something like arm-wrestling or running, and I am just not interested, I don’t care who wins. I was born tall, strong and fast, and that’s that. I didn’t earn those characteristics, it was just my Fate, my Karma… and theirs is to be smaller than me, but so what? They probably have other advantages that I don’t have. Who knows and who cares? I don’t for one. Do you think that that is wrong, Mum?

“Anyway, we live a bit far out, don’t we? Someone would have to bring them here and then take them home… It’s all too much fuss”.

“No, I don’t think that it’s wrong, darling”.

“No, your mother is not saying that, son. I think you have a good attitude to life, but most boys of your age are competitive, that’s all. You are not, and that’s all right too. In your case, you are so big that you know you can beat most of them anyway, but that makes some boys want to prove that they can beat you. That’s their problem, not yours, unless you choose to make it so.

“Do you ever make it your problem, Wayne?”

“No, I don’t think so, Dad. It does cheese me off sometimes though, but I use some of those Yoga breathing exercises you taught me from the book and I’m usually all right again and if I’m not, I just try to walk away, if they’ll let me”.

“And if you can’t control yourself or you can’t walk away, what then?”

“I have had fights, Dad, I won’t lie to you, but they don’t happen often and when I walk away, I often have to calm myself down because I am fuming with rage inside, but I am getting better at controlling that as well”.

“That’s good to hear, son. It takes most people all their lives to learn how to control their anger. The prisons are full of people who couldn’t manage it before it got too late”.

Rhiannon spoke up. “You are well on your way to becoming a real man, Wayne and I am proud of you and so are your parents. I know they are.

“Do you ever want revenge on the people who upset you?”

“Yes, sometimes, Nain, but I never do anything about it, unless they force me to fight and then I usually win, unless there are more than three of them”.

“Wayne, have you ever heard any rumours about your mother and grandmother?”

“Yes,” he answered with a deep blush, “some of the kids say that they are witches”.

“What do you think about that, son?”

He giggled, “Well, they are too pretty to be witches, aren’t they? I mean, they don’t have hooked noses and warts, like, do they? And they don’t fly about on broomsticks… That’s what witches do, isn’t it?”

“Thanks for thinking that your grandmother and I are not ugly enough to be witches, Wayne, but the fact is that there are witches and some are very pretty, beautiful even, and they don’t all go about abducting children to eat or making magic potions from bits of animals.

“Some of us are ‘quite ordinary’ and most of us are fairly nice people”.

“You mean that you and Nain are witches? Wow!”

“Your Nain and I are White Witches, which means that we try to do only good, as opposed to the common stereotype of the Black Witch, that you just gave us – the one that is common in Fairy Tales and children’s programmes on TV”.

“Wow, cool! Did you know anything about this, Dad?”

“Yes, son. I have known for quite some time… certainly since before you were born, but I didn’t want to believe it back then. What do you think about it?”

“Mmm, I’ve known Mum and Nain all my life, haven’t I, so I don’t know any different? They both just seem normal to me, but then, I haven’t seen them do any magic either… At least, I don’t think I have. Maybe it’ll take a while to sink in.

“How about you, Dad, are you a witch as well? What do they call them… a warlock, as well?”

“No, not in the same way. Leastwise, I wouldn’t describe myself as one, but I have learned over the years that everyone has some power. It just depends how much, whether you know you have it and whether you chose to develop it. Some people, like your Mum and Nain are naturals though”.

“Your father is right, Wayne, but there is a strong line of witchcraft in our family. It stretches back hundreds of years… and we think that you follow in that tradition.

“Often people are unaware of what they can do until it is pointed out to them. The snag is that most people don’t have anyone who can do that for them… point it out, I mean. You have your mother and me… You are lucky”.

“I don’t understand… So, you think that I can cast spells and things like that, do you?”

“Perhaps, anyone can do that, but being a witch is not only about casting spells. In fact, your mother and I do very little spell-casting these days.

“You see, some adepts need to use props in the early days to help them focus their attention, but as they progress, these things, like Tarot cards, crystal balls, cauldrons and the like are less needed, unless it is to convince someone new or a sceptic.

“Permit me to allow you into a secret. It has never been toads’ warts or newts’ eyes that have spun the magic, it has always been the power of thought, concentration… concentrated, focussed thought. You might call it prayer, or meditation… It is all the same sort of thing. It all depends on the ability to hold a thought and to concentrate power into it”.

“This is how a witch really makes a difference and it is also why there are more witches than warlocks. Most men can’t concentrate on a subject for long periods of time, especially where it affects their personal lives. Oh, they can work all day and do their jobs well, but if there is a personal problem, they either fight over it, get drunk or forget about it, whereas women brood on the problem and think about it until we get ourselves into such a state that we can make things happen. Some men can do it too, naturally, I mean, but everyone can do it with training.

“Perhaps, you are one of those naturals, Wayne. Would you like to find out? We can work with you to see whether you have the natural ability, if you like, but you must keep it a secret. You cannot tell anyone anything”.

3 WAYNE GROWS UP

Wayne quite fancied himself as a warlock, although he still had a very romantic idea of what that meant, so he asked his mother to start training him. The two family witches worked with him to assess and try to improve his level of concentration using a series of mental exercises, some of which involved the use of memory.

He was also forced to leave the technical college by the headmaster, because there were no reassurances they could give that events would not occur around Wayne in the future, so he began working full time on the farm with the sheep. He didn’t mind, he wasn’t that keen on school anyway, but he did miss female companionship of his own age. Sometimes, he didn’t see a girl all week until he went to the market with his family on the weekend.

They wanted to introduce Wayne to the world of commerce, so they bought him a chicken coop, thirty laying chickens and a cockerel. He took a stall on the Farmers’ Market every Sunday morning and sold eggs. After a couple of months, he was able to sell a few cockerels for roasting and sometimes his father would slaughter a sheep or a lamb and he would sell that cut up into joints for his parents. His meat was well sought after and his organic, free-range eggs were as good as any other. He liked selling and being responsible for his own stall, but most of all he enjoyed the interaction with his customers and soon he had forgotten all about school and college.

He was seventeen when he opened the market stall and, although it didn’t produce a great deal of income, it was the first time in his life that he had had any money other than his meagre pocket money and he was earning it himself. It made him feel grown up for the first time in his life. Wayne swelled with pride, when one day, after the market had finished at one p.m., his father took him to the village pub and bought him his first pint of bitter.

He was underage, and the publican knew it, but he didn’t mind, because Wayne was only allowed in if he was accompanied by at least one of his family. His father took him every week and sometimes his mother and grandmother joined them. The best days of all for Wayne were those when they could watch a live rugby match on the TV, because the atmosphere in the bar was electric, especially when there was an international and Wales was playing England.