‘Now, Samuel. You have twenty of these apples on your bed and I give another one. What is twenty and one?’
Samuel knew that easily. ‘Twenty-one.’
‘And one more? What would twenty and two be?’
‘Twenty and two is twenty-two?’
‘Now, continue.’
Samuel surprised himself by counting all the way to twenty-nine, but then he baulked.
‘Thirty,’ Mr Kelvin instructed. ‘What is thirty and one?’
‘Thirty-one?’
‘Correct. Continue.’
Samuel went on until, ‘forty?’ he guessed.
A great smile covered Mr Kelvin’s face. ‘Here I was thinking you needed tutoring when you know all this already. It only has to be coaxed out of you. Do you see the pattern?’
Samuel nodded. ‘You just push the numbers together and say what they are.’
‘That’s very good, but addition is only the very first step in arithmetic. Numbers have endless ways of being combined. Tomorrow, we begin subtraction.’
‘Is that all for tonight?’ Samuel asked with disappointment.
‘Oh, no,’ Mr Kelvin said, shaking his head. ‘Tonight, I want to see what you can spell. Read this for me.’
He drew the next book from his pocket and handed it to Samuel. This one had a chart on the first page, showing all the numbers from one up to one hundred: ten rows of ten numbers. The next page had a picture of a ball and ‘ball’ was written beneath it. Mr Kelvin was ecstatic when Samuel flipped each page and read the words out without hesitation. His practice with Jessicah had prepared him for most of the simple words that seemed to be common, but a few were unfamiliar and Mr Kelvin helped him sound them out. The last page had a short story regarding a boy, a ball and a dog. With Mr Kelvin’s assistance, it took only a short time to read from beginning to end and Samuel was ecstatic with himself.
Lessons continued each evening like that. Sometimes, Mr Kelvin would send Kans to deliver some instructions and a lesson book, as he was busy inside the inn, and Samuel was soon gathering quite a bookshelf upon his desk and regarding the first few in his collection with contempt at their simplicity. He wished his father could see him now and see all that he had learned. How Father would have smiled.
It was one very sunny afternoon after he had swept out the stables and was gathering up the rubbish that Samuel noticed several loose shingles on the rooftop. He hopped onto the edge of the great big water barrel beside the stable and pulled himself up onto the stable roofing. As he was pushing the shingles back into place, Samuel saw he had a clear view through a window into a large room of the inn. He looked closer, for he noted at once that it was a curious room. There were half-burned candles placed at intervals all over the floor. There was no bed, nor furniture of any description in the room. It was completely empty except for the strange scatterings of candles. Perplexed, Samuel finished his work and wondered what the strange, empty room was used for.
Late that same night, Samuel awoke. He did not wake with a sudden frightful start, as he did whenever he dreamed of the tall man in his doorway, but rather he had simply opened his eyes as if it was morning. Pins and needles danced madly up and down his arms as if he had been sleeping on them. It was dark, but pale moonlight streamed in through the window. He finally sat up and drank from the pitcher beside his bed, then rubbed at his arms to try dispelling the tickling. Wiping his moist lips, Samuel listened for any noises that may have awoken him. The horses were quiet and from the stable came only those occasional clanks and rattles caused by the soft breeze. He got up and peered from his room down the length of the stable. A long brown nose turned towards him and gave a snort. Looking behind, out through the stable doorway, he could see that the grounds were dark and empty. He checked the stalls one by one to see if there was anything strange, but the horses all seemed quiet and content, so Samuel decided to step outside. The sky was clear and moonlit, with only a few pale wisps of clouds clinging to the starry heights. Samuel yawned, stretching his arms out wide and curling his back, then scratched at his head.
As he opened his eyes again, something drew his attention towards the inn and he noticed a soft light shining from the small window he had found earlier that day. It seemed strange that someone should be awake so late, for it was surely only an hour or two before dawn. Samuel’s curiosity then had the better of him. He went around to the stable side and hopped on top of the barrel, hitching himself up onto the roof. He clambered carefully along the shingles until he could peer across into the window.
Someone was inside. He was lighting all the candles one by one. It was Mr Copperpot, Samuel finally realised, as the man glanced around. When all of the candles were lit, he sat in the middle of the room, crossed his legs and waited. Some time had passed, with Samuel still watching on, when Mr Copperpot straightened his legs out before him and bent his head down until his chin met his knees. He proceeded to go through a number of such strange motions, before squatting right in the middle of the room, where he remained still for some time. Soon, he began moving his hands up and down rhythmically and taking great loud, hissing breaths that Samuel could easily hear from his vantage point. It was no wonder that he was woken with all that noise.
As he did this, Samuel could see the man’s natural shine bloom and intensify and become much more tangible than before. It changed from a vague aura to a distinct fabric of colours made of very many fine and interweaving threads that were ever sliding and rippling. It was the most amazing thing that Samuel had ever seen.
Finally, Mr Copperpot sat down again, crossed his legs and remained completely still for a good time as his glowing surround returned to its normal complacent state. The man then extinguished the candles one by one and silently left the room. Samuel was intrigued, but now felt strangely overcome with exhaustion. He climbed carefully back down from the roof and returned to his bed.
Samuel thought about the strange event all the next day. He peered closely at his own hands and wondered why it was that he could only see the glow around other people and not himself. No one ever talked about the glow much and Samuel was beginning to think that most people could not really see it at all; they just talked as if they could.
‘Can you see my glow?’ Samuel asked Kans as the man was helping him carry in bags of dry feed. Samuel carried the smaller tins of expensive butter-yeast, from which he had been instructed to put a pinch in each horse’s feed to makes its coat shiny and healthy.
‘What nonsense are you talking about, boy?’ Kans asked in his standard intolerant manner.
Samuel placed the tins he carried upon the stack in the storeroom and decided not to continue the conversation with the man any further. He preferred to talk with Kans as little as possible. The balding man peered sidelong at him for the rest of the morning, but said nothing.
‘Does everyone have a light around them?’ Samuel asked of Mr Kelvin as they hovered over pages of sums that evening.
Mr Kelvin seemed to start, but then took the spectacles from his face and sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful. One of the two narrow arms that held his spectacles in place went absent-mindedly into his mouth and he sucked on it. It was a habit that he had developed since beginning Samuel’s tutoring. After a thoughtful moment, he spoke. ‘That’s an interesting and often discussed question, Samuel. All things are composed of and filled with energy, like the warmth you feel on your skin on a sunny day. That’s one form of energy. There are many others that we have discovered and examined or merely theorised upon. It is too complicated to discuss with you now, but energy is always moving; that’s why we call it energy, I suppose. Are you following me?’ Samuel nodded. He thought he did, just a little bit. ‘Good. Now, energy in one place can often affect energy in another place without actually touching it. It’s all to do with harmony and frequencies, but I’ll tell you about those another day.’ Mr Kelvin withdrew his spectacles and let them dangle loosely from his fingers as he quickly thought to himself. ‘Oh, here.’
He thrust his hand into one of his deep pockets and rummaged around until he withdrew a fistful of tiny objects. He poked through the lint and tiny pebbles that were amongst the other curious little objects there until he found what he sought and popped it on the desk before Samuel.
‘Look closely,’ Mr Kelvin instructed.
Samuel did, and saw a small, dark stone of squarish proportions. Stuck to it were several tiny black grains. Mr Kelvin used an edge of paper to knock the grains from the stone. As they fell away and struck the desk, they immediately sprang back and stuck onto the stone. Samuel was astonished.
