Robin Luffman is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, where they specialise in folklore and the supernatural. Their work primarily focuses on mystical beasts and fantastical goings-on in their home county of Derbyshire, and their short fiction has been previously published in AberInk.
The Legend of Corvyl Peas
The reasons wizards tend towards living in tall, architecturally improbable towers are as many as they are varied.
Most of the time, though, it just comes down to aesthetic.
Corvyl Peas had lived in the Knobbly-Bobbly-Spire-on-the-Belfry-on-the-Steep-on-the-Obeslisk for as long as the denizens of Tissington could remember. They were as ageless as the stark obsidian monolith that stands at the peak of Thorpe Cloud, incomprehensible as the yellow stone bell tower which balances on top of it, improbable as the spired top which eventually ends about five hundred feet above the crest of the hill, looking down over Dove Dale to its west and the town to its right. He was a sorcerer in star-studded robes, or she was a hag under a dark cloak, or… Well, it really depended on whose stories you listened to.
The things that are known about Corvyl Peas are as follows:
- Their name is Corvyl Peas.
- They live in the Knobbly-Bobbly-Spire-on-the-Belfry-on-the-Steep-on-the-Obeslisk.
- ?
None of the teenagers who worked the trail at Tissington had actually met the elusive inhabitant of the monument on the hill, per se, but there was nothing stopping them from recounting the stories told by grandparents and tour guides. Well. Almost nothing.
“I swear before Raspberry Ripple, if you say one more word about that fucking wizard in that fucking tower, you are cleaning the coffee machine all fucking season.”
Shan Green was sixteen years old, more responsible than anyone her age should be, and absolutely the most terrifying thing to come out of the Peak District since whatever pale imitation passed to the wider public as a Bakewell Tart. Lenny from The Okeover Arms once said that God had made her as short as she was because if she were any taller she’d be too much of a threat. Carol down Ashbourne way said she could barter with a gun to her head and walk away with all the bullets. Shan said she earned £4.50 an hour to keep this place spick-span and if you made it harder than it had to be, it weren’t her fault if you went home one arm lighter.
Shan’s older sister said she was a mardarse.
“Tell you what, Titch.” Esther leaned back against the ice cream counter and settled her with a raised eyebrow. “Hows about you get the chairs sorted in from the rain and then you don’t have to hear a thing you don’t want to.”
“Or,” Devin interrupted, sensing the increasing probability of the biannual Green Sibling Boxing Match arriving early. “We could talk about something else. Did you hear Ollie’s leaving?”
The sound of the rain hammering the trail outside almost drowned out Devin’s small voice. At the back of the little hut, the drip, drip, drip of the leaky roof into an empty tub of rum raisin was almost as worrying as the shudder the thin plywood walls gave when the wind blew. It was early spring on the Tissington Trail, which meant a good portion of the bike path down near Ashbourne was flooded, and shockingly, the few people that weathered the rain tended not to have a hankering for ice cream. Still, the employees of the Tissington Trail Hut had to stay there, at least until a whole hour went by without a customer.
The view wasn’t anything to write home about. About ten feet of trail visible from the box window carved over the counter, terminating at a thick copse of trees. But if you looked up, you could see the very top of Thorpe Cloud between a break in branches. Even as obscured in heavy fog as the hill always was, you could make out the stark outline of the Knobbly-Bobbly-Spire-on-the-Belfry-on-the-Steep-on-the-Obeslisk. Honestly, it was a little difficult to find much else to talk about when there was a wizard in town, even with old mates finding illustrious new professions.
“Only ‘cause Ollie wouldn’t shut up about it,” Esther said. “Lad gets one job on the line at Nestlé and he thinks he’s the bloody queen.”
“They pay two quid over minimum wage down there, you know. Plus, hazard pay if its stormy enough,” Shan said. “If I had a car-”
“Oh, we know.” Esther rolled her eyes. “If you had a car, you’d be working all the way in California, sunning yourself and learning what Twinkies are, but till then you’ll have to make do with these four walls and the Great British Weather.”
“And Corvyl,” Devin pointed out. “They don’t have wizards in America.”
Shan snorted. She was halfway through cleaning the panini press and had almost worked off the top layer of black grime. “Of course, they do. We can’t be the only ones.”
“Dunno.” Esther shrugged. “I never heard of one.”
“Well, that proves it then. If Esther Green int ever heard of a wizard other than the one in her back garden-”
“Piss off.” Esther reached out to shove her sister’s shoulder. It wasn’t hard in the cramped quarters. “I know stuff. And you’d think if there were more wizards out there, someone’d mention it.”
“Maybe not,” Devin said. “Maybe they cast spells to stop people talking about them.”
Esther and Shan exchanged a look.
“You know ‘wizard’ is just what they call him, right?” Shan said. “He can’t actually do magic.”
Devin ducked their head, but muttered rebelliously, “That’s not what my nan said.”
“Magic’s not real, Dev.” Shan sounded it out slowly, the way you’d explain Santa to a child.
“Unicorns are real. And mermaids,” Devin pointed out. “And they’re magic.”
“Unicorns are feral horses with knives on their foreheads that clog up the A38 and mermaids are catfish with dress sense and an attitude,” she dismissed. “Nothing about that is magical, it just means that natural selection is personally working to piss me off.”
“If Corvyl Peas isn’t magic, then how did she make the tower like that?” Devin asked, gesturing out into the cold. You could just about see the point where the stone of the bell tower, with all of its quirky brass offshoots that did loop-the-loops and twirls like the branches of a tree that had only grown in a hurricane, had its flat base on the delicate point of the obsidian obelisk, suspended a good hundred feet off the ground. “You can’t be doing that without some magic involved.”
Shan shrugged. “No one knows how they built Stone Henge, doesn’t mean it was aliens.”
“That’s not Stone Henge, Shan,” they said, getting a little heated now. “Planes have to divert their bloody flight paths around it. You can probably see it from space.”
“Fuck space,” Esther said. “You can see it from Derby.”
Shan paused what she was doing to look at Esther. “Whose side are you on?”
“I don’t take sides.” Esther raised her hands in surrender. “I don’t fuck with the wizard and I don’t fuck with his modern art bullshit.”
“Sorry,” Devin said. “Do you think Corvyl Peas is a bloke?”
Esther looked at them, surprised. “You don’t?”
“My nan met her once.”
Even Shannon stopped scrubbing to look at Devin then. “Bollocks she did.”
“Apparently she went to a town council meeting about the steppingstones, back when they were getting them all cemented up.” Devin swung their legs. “My nan said she were gorgeous. Like… Uh, who’s that lass from Pirates of the Caribbean?”
“Keira Knightly?”
Esther scoffed. “Well, now I know you’re having me on. He’s gotta be, like, at least as old as the King, and he’s bloody ancient.”
“Well, go on, then.” Devin sniffed. “Why are you so sure the wizard’s a bloke?”
“It just sounds like a blokey name, doesn’t it? Corvyl.”
They shook their head. “It sounds like literally nothing.”
“Something different to talk about today, I see.”
Esther, who was by now completely blocking the hatch over the ice cream counter, shifted around. There was a young man waiting impatiently to be served, wearing a bomber jacket over a polo shirt emblazoned with the logo of hands around a heart that had probably started out the day pale blue, but was now a waterlogged navy. He had a crew cut that had gone too long without a trim, one hand on the strap of a rucksack thrown over one shoulder, and a far too self-satisfied grin for someone who hadn’t actually caused any trouble yet.
Shannon leaned around Esther to settle him with a piercing glace. “George, you daft bugger, what’re you doing here?”
“Buying a coffee, what’s it look like?” George’s grin only grew.
“Looks like you’re delaying the end of my shift,” she answered honestly. “There’s the tearoom in town and a pub a mile that way, go get yourself something there.”
Esther shifted away from the counter so as not to get in the way of whatever rage was boiling in her sister that day, forcing Devin to up onto the tiny amount of counter space next to the door while everyone inside readjusted. It was not a big hut, the three of them barely had room to stand all together, wedged between the panini press, the ice cream counter, the coffee machine, half a dozen racks of crisps hanging off the walls and the floor-to-ceiling fridge packed with everything that would explode if you dropped a Polo into it. It wasn’t so bad when it was busy, and everyone stuck to their pre-assigned tasks (Devin on hot drinks, Shan on food and fridge, and Esther, as the longest-serving employee, managing the nightmare cloaked in a daydream that was ice creams). As soon as you had a moment to think though, to become aware of your aching feet and tired eyes and the fact that you technically were a person inhabiting space, claustrophobia started to set in.
George, blissfully unconcerned with their discomfort, screwed his face up into a pout. “C’mon, Shan. I’m freezing out here.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said, unmoved. “That’s why I want to go home. And I don’t get to for another hour if we have a customer. So, piss off.”
George had known Shan since she was a toddler, had been in Esther’s year at school when her little sister had turned up to the open day wearing full wizard robes complete with the pointy hat. There was only a certain level of intimidation that was possible when you’d seen a person like that.
“Piss off yourself, you ungrateful swine,” he said. “It was your great aunt Dolly I was paying a home visit to this morning and all. You owe me this.”
Shan considered for a long moment. “You can have it so long as you don’t pay for it.”
George’s smile split wide open. “Well, I’m not saying no to that.”
Upon receiving the all-important nod from Shan, Devin reached one arm, still sat on the counter, around the coffee machine without looking and pressed the button for a latte (the only one that still worked). Esther only just managed to shove a paper cup underneath it before the boiling water began to spit and sputter out of its tube. With nothing more than a victorious smirk, Esther turned around and put another mark on one of the spare chalkboards they’d nicked from outside, which now read:
DEVIN: IIII ESTHER: IIII II
“So,” George said, putting both elbows on the counter and leaning forwards. “Corvyl Peas. Personally, I reckon they’re Krampus.”
“Be serious.”
“Why would I be serious?” he asked. “We got a genuine magic-school alumni next door and I still have to wipe people’s arsecracks for a living instead of having some spectral wind or whatever to do it for me. World’s already laughing, I might as well join in.”
Shannon peered through the fog. “Bet it’s not raining up on that fucking tower.”
“Thought you didn’t believe in magic?” Devin kicked her leg lightly from behind.
“You don’t believe in magic, Shannon Green?” George asked. “The same lass what rocked a magic wand to primary school for three years?”
“Do you want your coffee or not?”
George sniffed but looked sufficiently threatened to change the subject. “Most of the folks I look after got some story or other about old Peas doing something beyond nature.”
“Right. That’s another thing,” Shannon said. “Devin’s nan’s met Corvyl, so’s Great Aunt Dolly. Mr Williams said he had, and the bloody mayor. So, does Corvyl only hang out with old people or what?”
“Maybe everyone’s playing a prank on you,” Devin said mildly. “We’re all on it, Shan. Corvyl’s never been real, the whole tower and the stories are just for your benefit.”
“And the tourists,” Esther said, passing forwards George’s finished latte.
Devin waved it off. “They don’t count as people.”
Just at the moment the coffee moved from Shan’s hands to George’s, the loud trilling of a phone alarm sounded through the shack. There was a cheer from everyone except George, and Esther held up the timer in the air for a proper celebration before silencing it.
“That’s it!” Esther said. “We are done for today. Goodbye, panini press, I guess you’re never gonna be cleaned now. Goodbye, mint choc chip, I will see you in hell. Goodbye, Corvyl Peas, you mad bastard.”
George blinked. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”
“You’ve never seen me at closing time,” Esther said, toeing out her bag from under the counter.
“Remind me not to again,” George said. “It’s unsettling.”
George said his goodbyes, and they closed up shop. Devin got on their too-small bike, the handlebar tassels sodden with rain, and peddled away. Esther fiddled with the key to lock the back door, while Shannon struggled with the front hatch, releasing an avalanche of rainwater that had been gathering on top of the shutter as it crashed down with an almighty bang that must have been audible across the valley.
Slowly, and with a curiosity that she hadn’t felt since she was small, Shan turned and looked up at the wizard’s tower. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw a shower of orange sparks from spire.
“Sorry, mate,” Shan muttered.
Then she collected her bike, collected her sister, and set off home.
impspired 