Jamie Dale - The Eleven Kingdoms

Chapter 22: The Sixth Day - Palace of Westminster

I was in the middle of a dream, but the loud bells of Big Ben just randomly set off. I think I slept through most of the chimes, but now it was egging close to one in the morning and the chime of Westminster Quarters were getting on my nerves. I think it was a third quarter chime, because it was missing a few of the notes from the one I heard earlier the day before. The occasional notes of G sharp, F sharp, E and B, going through my head was enough to make me want to move. My left shoulder was starting to heal up, I didn't notice before but someone must've sewed up my wound, it makes sense or else I would've still been bleeding like a mad house. Everyone was still asleep with the exception of Lavender who was staring outside the clock face. A lavender glow and smell was still coming out of my jacket.

I moved Misty's arm out of the way and moved myself off the mattress, and suddenly I began to shiver, a draft must've picked up, I've never felt cold like this in my entire life.

"Welcome to London." Lavender said transfixed on the glass of the clock face watching the hour hand and the minute hand constantly racing each other, the minute hand always surpassing the hour, neither giving up. "Guess you're not used to the cold." Lavender began to speak again. I felt a sudden sweep of respect for Lavender, I don't know why but suddenly I felt obliged to listen to her.

"No I'm not," I replied with as much respect as I could give anyone. I slowly walked towards her, my bandages still bloody. The gloves on my hands and the pants on my legs were the only thing to keep me warm. "Can't sleep?"

"No I refuse to sleep, I need to make sure you don't die before you turn." The word die hit me like a thunderbolt to the heart... I didn't like to hear it, I didn't like how people said as if I am allowed to die after I become the so called demon I didn't want to be. Lavender stared at my arms looking as though the cracks of flesh were something of old.

"I remember when mine first appeared" Lavender confronted me, looked me in the eyes and smiled for the first time, "I was afraid too." It was hard to picture it but I guess it would be frightening to watch yourself be tore apart in agony for one minute and then the next be given the best sensation in the world because of it.

"It was right here in this palace." I must admit I didn't know much about Big Ben until I got here so it took me a moment to realize that Big Ben was indeed connected to a palace.

"The palace of Westminster was where my father worked, it was a wonderful time, before all this demon nonsense. My father didn't usually take us to his work, since the palace was parliament. It's never been the same since it burnt down." I realised how old Lavender was and it was hard to imagine that she was once living all those years ago somehow in the eighteen hundreds. I remember doing some history study about the Palace of Westminster when a relief teacher came in. He was full on English and all he rambled on about was how a fire in the year eighteen thirty four demolished the palace, and during the eighteen forties to eighteen seventy the palace was being rebuilt. Lavender must've been around somewhere around that time if the fire had happened when her father was younger. I guess being Gnatus as its perks?

"It was the day the Elizabeth Tower, or as you would call it the Big Ben (never fancied that name) was finally going to be given its bell, which would be struck for the first time. The previous bell broke before it could reach the tower so I remember the workers being extremely cautious with carrying the new one.

"It was eleventh of July eighteen fifty nine, when it happened... I started to wander away from my father and my sister, I was somehow drawn towards the inside of the palace and for some odd reason nobody seemed to care. I started to dawdle as I reached the inside, and then the bell struck... That's when a horrid pain on my back started. I pleaded for the pain to stop."