The new day had filled St. Paul’s with light and life. What had been a dark and scary place last night was back to its utterly spectacular self this morning. That statue of the man on a horse was now free of its plastic wrapping and his stained marble features were already being given a good scrub by a restoration team from Doody’s department. Priests in black cassocks whizzed about the floor like battery-operated toys, and TV camera crews who had been told about the discovery of Christopher Wren’s secret laboratory were now gathered on the front steps around Doody, who was holding court with his unique brand of charisma. No one had seen Doody since his band split up, so to rediscover him as a professor of history all these years later only added to the exciting story of Christopher Wren’s secret laboratory.
There was so much attention surrounding Doody that no one noticed the tall man with the plastic leg and his nephew carrying the last of their camping gear out of the fire exit to a van. While his uncle strapped a ladder to the roof, Nelson had managed to make room for himself in the front passenger seat by collecting the newspapers and empty coffee cups into a plastic bag and dumping it all in a bin beside the bus stop. On his way back to the van he looked up at the cathedral. The clouds were still dominating the sky, but you could tell the sun wanted to come out and see what all the fuss was about.
As the van pulled away from the curb, Nelson looked back out of his window, saw the bush his uncle had fallen into last night, and noticed something very strange indeed. It appeared so quickly that if he had blinked he would never have spotted them. But he didn’t blink, which is why he saw them. Faces. Ghastly little faces stuck among the branches as if the bush had suddenly produced a crop of hideous fruits. There must have been at least six of them, and they were all staring with wide, mad eyes right at Nelson.
A passing bus wiped his view for a moment, and by the time he looked back at the bush the faces had gone, but they burned inside Nelson’s mind with a clear and fierce intensity. The oddest part of all this was that Nelson had a feeling he recognized them from his dream last night. Feeling suddenly colder, Nelson quickly wound up the window and sat back in his seat. He did not dare to look in the side mirror in case he saw the faces again, so instead he pulled the pendant out from under his T-shirt, gripped it with his fist, and waited for that nice feeling it seemed to give him to come back and replace the chill currently occupying his bones.
“In 100 meters, turn left onto the Embankment,” said a robotic female voice coming from Uncle Pogo’s false leg.
“GPS,” said Uncle Pogo in answer to Nelson’s quizzical expression. “State of the art, this leg of mine. Does pretty much everything I need, except make toast and put the rubbish out on a Thursday.” He chuckled as the van made the turn, but Nelson wasn’t really listening.
Uncle Pogo sighed. “So what’s that you’re holding on to there? Necklace or something?” he said, and Nelson opened his fist to reveal the pendant.
“It’s my sister’s,” said Nelson casually, not expecting a gasp of surprise in response from his uncle.
“Crikey O’Mikey!” exclaimed Uncle Pogo, glancing back and forth between the pendant and the road. “You do know what that is, don’t you?”
“It’s a pendant.”
“But you know where it comes from?” Uncle Pogo’s eyebrows were raised as far as they could go.
“Erm, I think it used to belong to Celeste’s mum. Your sister?” said Nelson slowly, in case this was some kind of trick question.
“Yes, but I bet no one’s told you why her mum had it in the first place, have they?” He sounded a little breathless now and Nelson shook his head.
“In 300 meters, bear left onto the A40,” said the GPS.
Uncle Pogo snorted. “Well, I’m not surprised. Your dad never did believe in magic and that kind o’ thing after Isabelle died.”
It was true. Nelson’s dad had always said that Uncle Pogo was as nutty as squirrel poo, but Nelson wasn’t about to let that get in the way of hearing some juicy family secrets.
“Where does it come from then?” Nelson raised the pendant level with his eyes and admired its delicious strawberry color.
Uncle Pogo took a deep breath as if about to dive into a pool and then spoke in a voice that was much more deliberate and calm than his usual enthusiastic tone. Until now I don’t think Uncle Pogo has said anything of any great importance, but I strongly urge you to pay close attention to the story he’s about to tell, for even though it might sound preposterous, it is in fact entirely true.