The Black Room

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, TOM FOUND HIMSELF wanting to see Emma Doherty—just because she was such a critical, sarcastic cow. She couldn’t really believe Robert’s weird story, even if she was pretending that she did. Maybe she had some reason for indulging Robert, but Tom knew she wouldn’t try to con him. She knew him too well for that.

He was so eager to get the whole thing sorted out that he pitched Helga into the house without even wiping her feet. Then he slammed the door and left her barking while Robert hustled him off down the road.

Tom’s mother wouldn’t have noticed if he’d dragged ten friends through the house, but Robert’s mother was different. As soon as they walked in, she left her computer and came into the hall.

She always pussyfooted around like that. If Tom’s mother did notice anything, she always asked a direct question. Have you two had a quarrel? You both look dreadful! But Mrs. Doherty hovered uneasily, keeping her eyes away from their faces. Carefully not noticing Robert’s hand and the way it was gripping Tom’s arm.

He stayed in the hall, smiling brightly at her. Not moving until she went back to work. As soon as she was out of sight, he made for the stairs, pulling Tom after him.

“She’s your mother, isn’t she? Wouldn’t she like to hear all about your amazing adventures?”

“No,” Robert said again. In a voice that meant he wasn’t going to talk about it anymore.

He pushed Tom along the landing toward Emma’s door. It was firmly shut, as usual, but Robert didn’t wait to be asked in. He knocked once, quickly and lightly, and then opened it right away, without waiting for an answer.

Emma was lying on the bed reading, leaning back against a heap of cushions. She sat up quickly, and Tom braced himself for a rant. Don’t you dare come marching into my room like that! You’re such a jerk—

But there was nothing like that. She looked startled and worried. “What have you done to yourself, Rob? You’re a real mess.” Then she saw Tom, and her expression changed. “Oh. It’s you. I suppose you’ve been fighting then.”

Tom had almost forgotten about that. But now he saw himself in Emma’s mirror, with his eye swollen and his face smeared with mud. And Robert looked battered, too. His coat was torn and there were long bramble scratches on his neck and under one eye.

“It’s nothing,” Robert said impatiently. He pulled Tom into the room and shut the door. “I just hit him. That’s all.”

“You hit him?” That was the voice Tom hated. Hard and chilly and superior. The one Emma always used on Robert. You’re such a pathetic idiot....

“It’s only blood,” he said dismissively, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. “No big deal.”

“I thought you two were supposed to be friends.” Emma looked pointedly at his jacket, and he realized there was blood on that, too.

Robert ignored that. “I had to hit him, Em,” he said. “It was the only way to stop him. He was in the woods.”

Robert turned his head away. “He was ramming a stick into the tunnel. Jabbing it straight down. He could have hurt someone.”

Robert nodded. “As hard as I could. But it wasn’t any use. I had to tell him in the end.”

“You told him?” Emma’s voice went up three notches. It was the first time Tom had ever seen her look shocked. “But we said—”

“I had to,” Robert said wretchedly. “He thought we had something hidden down there, and he was threatening to dig up the whole bank.”

“What could I do?” Robert said helplessly. “He saw us there. He knows exactly where the cavern is. And I thought if I told him—if he understood—then I could get him to leave it alone.”

Robert shook his head and looked even more miserable. “He doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m crazy.”

“It’s not that,” Tom said half-apologetically. “I just think—” He stopped short, because, of course, it was that. He thought the whole thing was crazy.

“That’s why I brought him here.” Robert tugged at Tom’s arm, dragging him nearer to the bed. “You’ve got to convince him.”

“You’ve got to tell him what you saw,” Robert said. “He’ll believe you.”

“Why should he? If he doesn’t believe you.” Emma stood up and walked over to the window, with her arms folded tightly around her body.

She’s afraid, Tom thought. Whatever she saw, she doesn’t want to talk about it.

But she did talk. She turned to face him and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not surprised you don’t believe Robert,” she said abruptly. “I wouldn’t believe him either—if I hadn’t seen him.”

“Seen?” Tom didn’t want to hear the answer, whatever it was, but there was no way of escaping it. She was going to tell him.

“I saw Rob.” Emma said it slowly and deliberately. “I saw him as clearly as I can see you now. And he was tiny—less than half the length of my little finger.”

Her eyes were a clear, light hazel, and there was a pulse beating in her neck. It can’t be true, Tom thought. It can’t. It can’t.

“The other Robert hadn’t gone missing,” Emma said steadily. “You know that as well as I do. He’d been there all the time. Getting up and going to school, coming home and going to bed, just the same as usual. But he was ... blank. Like an empty person. Remember?”

Tom nodded, before he could stop himself. That’s enough, he wanted to say. Don’t tell me anymore.

But Emma didn’t stop. “And then suddenly, that morning, there were two Roberts,” she said. “The blank one next to me was the size he’s always been. But I knew that the little one was the real Robert. He—”

Her voice stumbled for a second. Tom couldn’t speak. He couldn’t do anything except stare at her.

Emma caught her breath and went on. “The tall Robert crouched down and stretched out his hand toward the small one. Their fingers touched, and they just—just—” She shook her head. “It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen.”

Tom stared at the hand. Until then, the whole thing had seemed like some wild fantasy, with no connection to the real world. I woke up and found I’d shrunk to the size of a thumbnail. It was crazy, but it didn’t change anything.

Only it had changed things. Robert and Emma were both different. Tom leaned back against the wall so that they wouldn’t see him shaking.

“People see all kinds of things,” Tom said. The words came out rough and hostile. “It’s called hallucinating.”

“I’d like to believe that, too,” Emma said scathingly. “It would be much more comfortable, wouldn’t it? But it wouldn’t be true. I know what I saw and I know it was real.”

“So you swallowed the rest of the story as well? All that stuff about the cavern and the little people?”

Tom meant to sound scornful, to embarrass her into silence. But it didn’t work. She gave him a pitying look.

“It explains what I saw. And the more Rob talks about it, the more I believe him. Because so many things fit in.”

“Like what?” Tom said. It was almost a sneer—because what could fet in with a completely unbelievable story?

“Like—” Emma frowned for a moment, thinking. Then she grinned. “Remember when you and Rob were doing that badge in Scouts? The one where you had to tie knots and splice ropes?”

Tom tried not to grin back, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d been determined to get Robert through that badge. Evening after evening he’d sat with him, showing him how to loop the ropes around each other and pull the ends through in the right places. But he’d had to give up in the end. It was like trying to teach a chicken to do embroidery.

“Well, watch this.” Emma tucked her hair behind her ears so that it hung down her back in a long red cascade. “Go on, Rob. Show him how you can braid. Do a really complicated one.”

She took a fistful of elastic bands off her dressing table and handed them to Robert. He divided the hair into equal sections, fastening the ends with the bands to keep them separate. His fingers were quick and confident as he snapped the bands into place.

When the twelve strands had been separated, he started braiding them together so fast that Tom couldn’t quite see what he was doing. But he was sure it was going to be a mess. He looked forward to seeing Emma cut the tangles out of her precious hair.

But there were no tangles. Robert’s hands moved without hesitating, weaving the strands together. Under, over, under, under, under, over. It was neat and intricate and complicated. Like the little ball of interwoven shoots that had blocked the tunnel.

That’s got nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Tom pushed the memory out of his mind and concentrated on the movements of Robert’s fingers, trying to figure out the pattern.

But he couldn’t keep up. He could just see the braid taking shape as he watched. It was square and perfectly symmetrical, with four flat sides, thick and shiny at the top and narrowing slightly as it went down. Robert’s fingers kept moving until they had nothing left to weave. Then he took the last elastic band out of Emma’s hand and looped it around the end three times, to hold the strands together.

Robert let the braid fall. It hung down Emma’s back, smooth and even—and inexplicable. “I learned it in the cavern,” he said. “That was one of the jobs they gave me. Helping Lorn to make the ropes. This twelve-strand one is very strong.”

Tom was silent for a long time. “Who’s Lorn?” he said at last. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Lorn showed me the way to the cavern,” Robert said. “She saved my life.”

Tom stared at the braid. Then he looked up and saw Robert and Emma watching him. Waiting for him to say that he believed Robert’s story now.

But he didn’t believe it. He didn’t. Suddenly he was so angry that he could hardly breathe. “That’s just a braid!” he said loudly. “It doesn’t prove anything!”

“I don’t have to admit anything!” Tom was shouting now. “You can keep your silly games and your precious little hole in the ground. But stop messing around with my head!”

He pushed past Robert and ran through the door and down the stairs, so fast that he could hardly keep his footing. As he wrenched open the front door, a voice was pounding on and on in his mind. They’re lying. They must be lying. It can’t be true. He banged the front door behind him and raced across the garden and out into the street. It can’t be true, it can’t be true, it can‘t—

He was moving so fast that he nearly bumped into a man coming along the pavement. He had to catch hold of the wall to stop himself.

The man stopped, too, just for an instant, turning his head so that Tom looked straight at him. His eyes were a clear, transparent blue, as still as water in a well. As still as water that reflects the sky.

But it was fading now. He could see his own face, very small, in the dark center of the still blue eyes.

It can‘t—said the voice in his head. And then it stopped, leaving a huge, empty silence.