It hardly came as a surprise to Honoré that when he and Tess stepped through the door that appeared to lead to Joan Barton’s hall, they in fact found themselves in a very different place altogether. At a guess, they were still in the same building as the hall they had just left, only now they were in a large bed-chamber, dominated by an enormous four-poster bed. The only light in the room came from a few candles in holders scattered around the walls and from the fire that roared heartily in the fireplace. A gust of wind rattled the window, and Tess almost leaped when she heard a tapping at the window.
‘Branches hitting the glass,’ Lechasseur explained.
‘I knew that,’ Tess answered defensively. All the same, she kept close to Lechasseur, keeping him as a shield between her and the window.
‘Looks to be the same house,’ Lechasseur mused. ‘Same period, too, I’d guess.’
‘For sure–’ Tess agreed, before cutting off short.
Honoré followed Tess’s gaze and saw Patience – the pale-skinned young woman from the banqueting hall – seated at a small table in front of a mirror, combing out her hair. She had changed clothes and now wore a long dressing-gown of a deep red silk over a gleaming white ankle-length nightdress, which was buttoned up to her neck. She looked every bit as desolate as she had in the hall. ‘Patience?’
Tess bobbed her head in agreement. ‘That’s her. Poor cow looks bloody miserable, don’t she?’
‘If I was married to that chap in the hall, I’d be miserable too,’ Lechasseur answered.
Tess snorted. ‘If you was married to him, I reckon he’d be a bit put out an’ all.’
‘No denying that,’ Lechasseur agreed. ‘Come on.’ He led Tess closer to the desk where Patience had just put down her hairbrush and was staring at her pallid reflection in the mirror.
‘She can’t see us here either, can she?’ Tess asked nervously.
Lechasseur pointed a finger at the mirror. They were standing apparently only a few feet away from Patience, but they had no reflection in the mirror. ‘I guess not.’
‘We got no shadows neither.’ Tess was looking at the floor behind them, where her shadow should have been. She moved to the nearest candle and held her hand between the flame and the wall. The light still shone as brightly, and no shadow appeared on the wall.
‘So we’re not really here,’ Lechasseur sighed. ‘Or maybe they’re not really here. I don’t suppose it matters which.’
A knock at the door. Quick and agitated.
Patience looked away from the mirror, stirred from her misery. ‘Come in.’
The door opened and Mary, the maid, hurried in. She moved with a shuffling, downtrodden gait and kept her eyes to the floor, unwilling to meet Patience’s gaze straight on. ‘Excuse me, but …’
‘Get out!’ Patience cut across Mary sharply, her voice brittle and shrill.
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ Mary whined pathetically. ‘I can’t. The master told me to come here.’ The girl looked as miserable as Patience, and clearly wanted to be anywhere but in this room.
‘I don’t care what the master said,’ Patience snapped. ‘Does he expect me to watch while you share our bed in my place?’
‘No, miss,’ Mary protested. ‘Please. It’s much worse.’
Patience snapped to her feet and strode towards Mary. ‘You’re not the first little bed-warmer he’s had,’ she said brutally. ‘He changes his kitchen whores as regularly as a civilised man changes his clothes.’ She was close to Mary now, and stared hard at the girl. ‘You wouldn’t be the first I’d had to sit and watch him take his pleasure with,’ she added viciously. ‘This time next week, he won’t even remember your name.’
‘I think he’s going to kill me,’ Mary whimpered.
Patience stopped short, her tirade halted in mid-stride. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. For the first time, she was actually aware that Mary was shaking and in tears. The girl was obviously terrified. ‘Why would you think that my husband would want to kill you?’
The girl didn’t answer. She just shook and tried to choke off her tears.
‘Any of this ring a bell with you?’ Lechasseur asked Tess.
She shook her head. ‘It’s all new to me. But her ladyship don’t exactly invite me over for tea, if you know what I mean.’
Lechasseur stroked his beard in contemplation. ‘If we’re here,’ he mused, ‘it must be important, and there must be a reason. I wonder what it is?’
• I will not talk of this with you.
• Patience, please talk to her. I know this is difficult for you, but …
• No, Joan. I will not let my life become the stuff of gossip and common discourse.
• Gossip? Have you taken a look around you? You’re in limbo. Are you worried about the people here gossiping about you? Don’t be absurd.
• I do not know you, Emily. But you, Joan, from you I would have expected better respect for my privacy.
• Patience, dear, I know how much you value your privacy, but I also believe that Emily might be able to help us find a way out of here.
• Nonsense. We are here and this is where we will stay.
• Or is this where you want to stay? From everything I’ve learned since meeting Joan and Sandi and a few others here, I’m becoming convinced that everyone here had suffered a tragedy or was in some kind of distress before they arrived here. I wonder if you’re just too afraid to face your past. Or are you afraid that you’ll have to go back to it if you ever were released from here?
• How dare you speak to me in that manner!
• Bluster all you like, Patience, but I want to know what happened.
• Please, Patience. I know this will be difficult, but think of the girls here who have never had a chance of life. Don’t Tess and Mary deserve their chance to have their lives back?
• I will not speak.
• Is there a chance of us getting back? Really?
• Alice?
• Yes, Joan. It’s me. Is there a serious chance of us getting free?
• Emily?
• I can’t promise you that it will happen, Alice, but I will try.
• That’s the first thing I’ve heard that I’ve liked since I arrived here.
• Forgive me for asking, but did you have a tragedy of some kind before you were brought here?
• You could say. I assume you want the details?
• Please.
• I worked as PA for John Raymond. That name won’t mean much to you, probably. But in 1995 he was one of the UK’s foremost industrialists – ‘captain of industry’ was the phrase he loved to hear. He threatened to start wearing a sailor’s cap around the office and saying things like ‘Yo-ho ho’. He was a good businessman, too. And a good man. He was fun to work for, paid his workers well, treated them as equals, whether they were on the board or swept the stairs. He was also my fiancé. We’d kept it quiet, though most of the staff knew we were a couple. He was in trouble financially. There are some very jealous people in the world, Emily, and John had crossed some of them over the years. They played their part in taking him to the edge of bankruptcy, I’m sure of it. And then he died.
• He killed himself rather than be bankrupt?
• That’s what the papers said, but they can go to hell.
• You don’t sound so sure.
• What do you want me to do? Admit my lover killed himself? Threw himself off the top of the tower?
• Is that what happened?
• No. Yes. Oh, hell! What’s the point in lying? It won’t do me any good here. He left a letter, Emily. A meticulously detailed, four page letter explaining why he was killing himself and how he would be exonerated by history. It was typical John. Precise, detailed, elegantly worded. He shot back at everybody who had helped make the tower fail. It would have shaken the country. I burned it.
• Why?
• Because if it could have been proved that he had committed suicide, I wouldn’t have received a penny from the insurance company. Instead, I let his name be dragged through the mud and let his businesses – his life’s work – be broken up and sold, just so that I could fill my pockets.
• The insurance company paid?
• Eventually. It had to, after the inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death. I have more money than I’ll ever know what to do with, and it doesn’t take away the feeling of guilt at having denied John the chance to have his last say.
• The guilt must have been terrible for you to deal with.
• Bad enough to have me thinking of doing the same as John did.
• I’m so sorry, Alice dear.
• Thanks, Joan.
• Thank you for being so honest and candid, Alice. Can I ask you one more thing?
• There’s nothing more to tell.
• It’s about the symbol on the building – the circle with the horns and the tail.
• Oh, that thing.
• Where did it come from?
• You make it sound important.
• It might be. Do you know anything about it?
• Of course. John designed it.
• John Raymond?
• What other John would I mean?
• He designed it himself?
• Yes. In the 1960s.
• That doesn’t make sense. How could he have come up with it in the 1960s when we saw it in a much earlier time than that?
• Actually, it’s not quite true to say that he designed it. He told me he saw a tramp drawing a rough version of something similar in the early 1950s. The image stuck with him and he adapted it – and adopted it – for his company logo. Why are you so interested?
• Did he ever talk to the tramp?
• No, he just watched him draw it for a while, and then ran to school because he was late. He always said he owed that tramp his fortune.
• You’re sure the symbol didn’t mean more to him than that?
• I knew him better than anyone. It was just a logo. Nothing more. What is it about the logo that’s got you so interested?
• I saw some other people use a very similar symbol once. They weren’t terribly pleasant. I have a feeling that the tramp who drew the picture was someone I knew.
• And he was involved with these unpleasant people?
• He was being hunted by them. Thank you, Alice. I was worried that they might be here, but now I think the symbol must just be the link that brought Honoré and me here. At least my mind is slightly at rest now.
• Lucky you. Are you finished with me now?
• I believe so. But I would still like to hear what happened to Patience.
• I will tell you nothing. None of you. Not even you, dear Joan.
• I’ll tell you what happened.
• Mary?
• Be quiet, Mary.
• No, miss. I won’t. I want out of here. I want to live properly.
• Be quiet, you insolent child.
• Patience, please be quiet. Mary, can you tell me what happened? And Patience, please don’t interrupt.
The door opened behind them, and Honoré and Tess turned to see the Squire enter the room. Even in the murky light, they could see from his florid, sweating face and slightly lurching walk that he was drunk. His contorted expression showed that he was also furious. A thick leather belt held loosely in his hand trailed along the floor behind him like a tail.
‘So, you’re both here,’ the Squire sneered. His voice was slurred and rough. ‘My darling wife and my darling whore.’
‘It’s late,’ Patience began in a reasonable tone. ‘Can we not discuss this in the morning, whatever it might be?’
The belt flashed through the air, missing Patience’s face by inches and catching her shoulder a glancing blow before thudding into the back of her chair. ‘I think I’ll discuss what I want when I see fit in my own home,’ the Squire growled, watching Patience and Mary from under heavy eyelids. He circled wide around them, cutting off any chance of them backing away and penning them in.
‘It’s like he’s rounding up sheep,’ Lechasseur said quietly.
Tess nodded. ‘He’s enjoying it. He enjoys hurting people.’ She paused for a second before continuing, more to herself than to Lechasseur: ‘I’ve met his kind before.’
‘Has she told you?’ the Squire asked his wife. ‘Has she told you her little secret?’ He spat the last word as if it were a curse. ‘The filthy slut’s secret.’
‘I haven’t said anything,’ Mary whined. ‘I haven’t.’
Despite the dull throb from her shoulder, where the belt had struck, Patience kept her voice still and calm. ‘What secret would that be? I’m sure it is nothing that need cause concern.’
The Squire snorted and spat on the floor. ‘She’s done the one thing you haven’t managed to do. For all your breeding, you’ve not done the one thing you were brought for. No,’ he corrected himself. ‘The one thing you were bought for.’ He waited a moment, hoping to see Patience flinch. She disappointed him, remaining stoic under his gaze. ‘How does it feel,’ he pressed on. ‘How does it feel, to know you’re less use to me than a common serving wench?’
• What did he mean by less use than you, Mary?
• I don’t know anything about the lives of the master and his wife, but he had wanted a son for a good number of years. His first wife died bringing a daughter. They say she was a weak infant and didn’t last long.
• So he married again to have a son?
• Yes, miss Emily.
• Just Emily. And Patience didn’t provide this heir.
• No, miss.
• I think I see where you’ve been leading with this. Patience couldn’t get pregnant, but you did.
• Yes.
‘The maid is bearing your child?’ Patience’s back stiffened and her calm manner became obviously strained. ‘This common nothing?’
‘A common nothing who’s managed to do the most basic woman’s job,’ the Squire snapped back. ‘Something you never showed an appetite for.’
For the first time, anger bubbled through Patience’s calm veneer. ‘I thought I was brought here to be your wife, not a breeding animal to provide you with children.’
‘What else would I need a wife for?’ the Squire replied sharply. ‘But you’re not even fit for that.’ He flexed his arm, and the belt danced dangerously. ‘I wonder if you’re fit for anything. You’ve been a waste of money as a wife.’
‘I am not a possession,’ Patience hissed.
‘You’re bought and paid for!’ the Squire roared. ‘Your father had a title but empty coffers. I paid him well for you. A dowry, he called it. I say it makes you as much a possession as the cattle in my fields. Do you say different?’ He pushed his face close to Patience. She fought down the nausea she felt every time his familiar stench of stale sweat, ale and tobacco came near her. ‘Do you?’
‘No,’ she answered quietly. In truth, she had given up any hope of her marriage being a good one even before the ceremony had taken place. The match had been arranged by her father, and it had not been her place to object.
‘I never thought as she’d take being treated like that,’ Tess muttered.
‘What else can she do?’ Lechasseur replied. ‘She’s terrified. They both are.’
‘At least now you will have your precious heir,’ Patience said bitterly. She barely had time to register that the belt was flying towards her before she felt the leather lash her back.
• He went mad.
• The villain sounds mad already.
• Please, Joan. Let her finish. Go on, Mary.
• He said my baby wouldn’t be an heir. How could a maid’s bastard be his heir? He had a position to keep. He couldn’t say that he was the father of my baby. Said he wouldn’t take the chance as I would tell people, either.
• He wanted you to get rid of the baby?
• He wanted to get rid of me. He was drunk. I don’t think that mattered, though. He was an evil man, whether in his cups or sober. He wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill me for carrying his baby, and he wanted to kill the mistress for not carrying it. He was going to kill us both. All three of us.
‘Stop him,’ Tess pleaded. ‘Do something.’ The belt sliced through the air and struck Patience’s back again.
‘What can I do?’ Lechasseur’s hand was balled into a fist in impotent rage. ‘We can’t touch these people. We can’t change what’s happening.’
‘There must be something you can do,’ Tess protested. She rounded on him. ‘What bloody good are you if you can’t stop this?’
‘We’re not really here, remember?’ Lechasseur retorted. ‘Besides, I think this is what really happened to Patience and Mary. For some reason, someone wants us to see it.’
‘I don’t want to watch it,’ Tess protested. ‘Not again.’
‘Again? You said you didn’t know what had happened here.’
‘Not them,’ Tess mumbled. ‘It’s too much like how my dad killed my mum. I don’t want to see it again.’
‘You saw that?’
Tess nodded. ‘And I ran, ’cause I know he’d have gone for me next. He was always quick with his hands – and his belt.’ She looked back to the scene in the bedroom as the belt arced down onto Patience’s shoulder.
Patience winced but didn’t make a sound. She glared defiantly at her husband. Her refusal to scream, to acknowledge the pain he was causing, was a small victory. He recognised the defiance and brought the belt crashing down again.
Mary had backed herself against the wall, torn between protecting herself and defending Patience. ‘Stop. Please, stop.’
Tess was visibly shaking. ‘Please make it stop.’
Lechasseur would have liked nothing better than to have snatched the belt from the Squire’s hands, but he knew there was nothing he could do. In frustration, he lashed out a hand at the Squire, but watched in anger as it passed through his target’s shoulder. ‘Why do we have to watch this? If there’s a reason, let us know!’ he yelled at the ceiling.
‘There’s no need to shout.’
Tess yelped in surprised fear and hid behind Honoré’s body, but Lechasseur spun at the familiar voice. ‘Emily!’
Behind them, Emily was fading into view in the room, accompanied by a matronly woman of around fifty whom Honoré didn’t recognise. ‘You almost sound pleased to see me.’ Emily smiled, but she looked tired. ‘You weren’t worried, were you?’
Lechasseur feigned nonchalance. ‘I knew you could look after yourself.’
Emily’s smile became warmer, and the affection was clear in her voice. ‘I was worried about you, too.’ She looked past Honoré to the scene being played out in the bedroom. The Squire, now breathing hard, brought his belt whipping down across Patience’s back again. Her dressing gown and nightdress were now both torn open, and her bloodied back was clearly visible, showing the scars of the previous beatings she had endured.
‘You’re next,’ the Squire snarled at Mary. He raised the belt high over his head, ready to deliver another brutal blow. He stopped in mid-swing, drunk confusion on his sweat-covered features, as, slowly, Patience and Mary faded out of existence in front of his eyes. He looked around, perplexed, searching for proof of some kind of trickery, but as far as he could see, he was now entirely alone in the room. He fumbled through making the sign of the cross, his hand clumsy at the unfamiliar action. ‘Witches,’ he muttered. ‘Witches.’ He ran to the door and yanked it open. ‘Witches,’ he screamed, loud enough to wake the house. ‘The witches have gone!’
He ran through the door, his voice and footsteps diminishing as he ran. As the sound of his passage faded, so did the room around Honoré, Tess, Joan and Emily, and they found themselves abruptly back in the great hall of the manor.
Emily glanced at Tess curiously. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘This is Tess.’ Honoré answered. ‘Tess, say hello to Emily.’
Tess bobbed her head in a nervous greeting and did as she was told. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Tess?’ Joan stepped out from behind Emily and stared at Tess, a mixture of curiosity, warmth and surprise on her face. ‘You’re Tess?’
Tess nodded. ‘Joan?’ In her mind, Tess had created an image of Joan, the warm and maternal figure her own mother had tried but never quite managed to be. In person, Joan didn’t disappoint her friend.
‘I’ve often wondered what you looked like,’ the older woman breathed. ‘You’re hardly more than a child.’
‘I’m …’
‘Hush.’ Joan grabbed Tess into a huge embrace, and held her for all she was worth. After a moment’s shock, Tess relaxed and let herself return the hug. The first genuinely affectionate contact she had experienced in longer than she wanted to remember. Perhaps the first she had known in her entire life. ‘Never mind, dear. These people think they can get us free from here.’
‘I don’t know if I want to leave,’ Tess said uncomfortably.
Joan stiffened. ‘What do you mean? Why would you want to stay?’
Tess squirmed under Joan’s gaze. ‘I never been hungry here, and I don’t have to spend every minute looking over my shoulder, worrying as I’m going to be attacked.’ She shrank away from Joan slightly. ‘And I don’t have to do nothing … Well, I don’t have to do nothing I’m ashamed of, just to get by.’
‘Sandi said some things,’ Joan said slowly. ‘Terrible things about what you did. I don’t want to repeat them.’
‘Don’t matter,’ Tess sniffed. ‘They’re probably true.’
‘Oh.’
The disapproval and disappointment on Joan’s face didn’t come as any surprise to Tess. She had seen those expressions a hundred times before, whenever people found out what she did to survive. Even pick-pockets, muggers and murderers had looked down their noses at her. She had learned quickly to shrug and to grow a thick skin. ‘I understand if you don’t like it. Really.’ She tried to sound as if the woman’s censure hadn’t affected her at all.
Joan Barton most assuredly did disapprove of Tess’s profession, but she was intelligent enough to know that there were reasons why girls fell into that business. Any anger she felt was aimed more at the society – and the villains – who would push a girl into selling herself. In the end, this was just another child who needed to be looked after. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ she said. ‘It doesn’t change who you are.’
‘But it does tell you why I don’t want to go back.’
‘Yes,’ Joan answered, and she hugged Tess again, amazed at how skinny the child was. ‘But we’ll be all right. We will.’
Honoré looked away from the exchange between Tess and Joan. He had no inclination to intrude on a private moment. ‘Who’s your friend?’ he asked Emily.
‘Joan Barton.’
The name rang a bell in Lechasseur’s head. It took him only a moment to place her. ‘Her name was on the letters. Her house?’
‘Yes,’ Emily nodded. ‘It wasn’t just her son who was killed in the War, Honoré. It was her entire family. Her son, her husband, her daughters … all of them.’
‘Jesus,’ Lechasseur breathed. ‘And she’s still worrying about the kid?’
Emily glanced briefly at Joan and Tess. ‘I think she’s taken Tess as a sort of ersatz daughter.’
‘I suppose that makes sense,’ Lechasseur agreed. ‘They obviously care about each other. God knows, the kid needs somebody to keep an eye on her.’
‘They’ve all had terrible experiences, Honoré,’ Emily said with feeling. ‘All of them.’
‘That’s the reason they’re here?’ Lechasseur mused.
‘It would be an enormous coincidence if it wasn’t,’ Emily agreed.
Honoré rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think this is natural, though. I think something brought them here.’
‘Are you turning religious on me?’ Emily asked.
Honoré grunted a small laugh. ‘My mother wishes,’ he answered wryly. ‘No, it’s the way we’ve been moved around here, like somebody’s been trying to explain something to us without actually saying anything. Show not tell, you know?’
‘I know what you mean,’ Emily agreed. ‘I’ve been thinking along similar lines myself. But if that’s the case, why are we here now?’
Lechasseur’s mouth quirked into a grimace. ‘I’m not sure about that,’ he responded. ‘I’ve noticed something, though.
‘Tess,’ he called. ‘Tess.’
Joan looked up as Lechasseur spoke. ‘Your friend is calling for you,’ she told Tess.
‘I heard.’
Joan peered at Lechasseur with just a hint of suspicion. ‘Emily never said that her friend was a coloured.’
‘I was worried about that, an’ all,’ Tess replied. ‘But he’s all right. I heard stories about darkies in Africa eating people, but he’s a nice enough sort. Never tried nothing on with me. Not even when he found out … well, when he found out what I used to do.’
‘I haven’t really met many coloureds,’ Joan said uncertainly. ‘But I’m sure he’s all right,’ she conceded.
‘He’s better than all right, Joan,’ Emily answered sharply. ‘He’s my dearest friend, and he’s far from deaf.’
‘Oh.’ Emily was pleased to see that Joan at least had the decency to blush at being caught in her racism. ‘I’m sorry, Mister …’
‘Lechasseur. Honoré Lechasseur.’
‘Interesting name,’ Joan answered, forcing a smile.
‘It’s French,’ Tess said. ‘But he’s from America.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ Emily answered irritably. ‘Look, if you’re quite done, can we deal with what brought us all here? What was it you wanted to ask Tess, Honoré?’
‘This room,’ Lechasseur cast a hand expansively around the room. ‘Do you see anything different about it since the last time we were here?’
Tess shrugged. ‘The table’s cleared – apart from the dust. The fire’s out. Oh, and there ain’t so many candles.’ She looked at Lechasseur expectantly, feeling quite pleased with her observations. ‘Is that it?’
‘Higher,’ Lechasseur pointed to the walls. A series of portraits now hung at head height at regular intervals around the walls. Each of them contained the image of a different woman.
‘They weren’t here before,’ Tess said, and stepped towards the closest picture, her shoes clacking on the stone floor.
‘That’s what I thought.’ Lechasseur sounded reassured.
‘Honoré.’ Emily was standing on tip-toes, peering closely at one of the framed pictures. ‘These don’t look like paintings at all. Come and take a look.’
It took only a moment for Lechasseur to see what Emily had spotted. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said softly. ‘They’re more like photographs than paintings.’
‘Exceptionally high quality photographs,’ Emily commented. ‘Look at the clarity of the features on these women.’ She pointed out a woman dressed in coarse woollen clothes. Her hair was matted and dirty, her face unwashed. Rotting black stumps and sickly brown teeth showed in her open mouth. ‘And how could there be a photograph of someone from the middle ages?’
Tess had made her way along the line of pictures, inspecting the women in the frames with interest. She stopped as something caught her attention. ‘This one’s empty,’ she called.
‘There’s another empty one here,’ Joan answered from the far side of the hall.
‘Why leave two of them empty?’ Lechasseur asked. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ He followed Emily to the next picture.
‘Unless there’s something we’re overlooking,’ she answered, taking in the elegant but pale face of a woman in a Regency-style dress who peered down, eyes filled with sadness, from the picture above. ‘Patience.’
‘Definitely,’ Lechasseur agreed.
Emily moved to the next picture. Another familiar face looked sadly back at her. ‘And Mary.’ She hurried on along the line of pictures. ‘I think these are all images of the trapped women.’
Lechasseur picked up his speed to keep pace with her. ‘So the two empty frames would be for …’ He pointed to Tess and Joan.
‘Yes,’ Emily agreed. ‘I think so.’ She peered at the next picture, that of a woman in full ancient Roman regalia, her hair intricately curled up on top of her head. Only a slight crook in the nose where it had been broken and a haunted look in the eyes stopped her from being jaw-droppingly beautiful. Next to that picture hung another frame, but this one was different again from the rest. It hung down to floor level and there was no picture inside, yet it wasn’t blank either. Instead, there was a dull grey sheen that reflected only a small fraction of the light that hit it, casting a dull glow that reached just a few inches from its surface.
‘What do you make of this?’ Emily asked.
‘Not much of a mirror,’ Lechasseur answered absently. ‘It even makes me look good.’
‘As if you don’t think you’re the most striking man in London,’ Emily scolded.
‘Striking?’ Honoré sounded offended. ‘I was thinking handsome at least. Possibly even dashing.’ He ran his finger along the edge of the frame, but was unable to get any kind of purchase behind the wood. He waved his hand in front of the dimly reflective surface. A murky blob waved back.
Emily sniffed. ‘Dashing? Not exactly the word I would have …’ Lechasseur’s yell cut Emily’s reply abruptly short. ‘Honoré? What is it?’
‘More of a who it is,’ Lechasseur said, stepping away from the mirror. ‘I’m looking in a mirror, but that sure isn’t me.’
A small boy was in the mirror. No more than five or six years old, he had an untidy mop of hair, so dark it was almost black, and bright, clear blue eyes. He wore a grey shirt and black britches that looked like they had seen better days – and several previous owners. His black shoes were similarly worn, and showed signs of having been mended by someone who was less than expert at the task. There was something Victorian about him, and Lechasseur was reminded of the movie about Oliver Twist that Emily had recently dragged him along to.
‘I’ve seen him before,’ Emily said. ‘He was the boy I glimpsed on the stairs in Joan’s house.’
‘I believe you.’ Lechasseur replied. ‘I think I caught sight of him in the cellar at an opium den.’
‘He gets around, doesn’t he?’ Emily eyed the boy suspiciously. ‘And I won’t ask what you were doing in an opium den, Honoré.’
Lechasseur peered at the figure closely. He knew what Emily was thinking. Was this the same boy – the boy that was not really a boy – that they had encountered before, in 1950? He couldn’t be sure.
Inside the mirror, the boy’s eyes swivelled and locked onto the small group staring at him – and then he began to walk towards them. He grew larger inside the picture, and the background faded into the far distance until he was life-sized. He raised a hand and held it flat, as if touching his palm to the other side of the mirror. Then he calmly stepped through into the room.
• Miss Patience. Miss Patience.
• Go away, Mary. I have nothing to say to you.
• I had to tell them, miss. I had to …
• You had to do as you were told and know your place.
• I know my place isn’t here, miss. This isn’t a place for anybody. I want to get out of here.
• Back to my husband’s bed?
• No.
• Do you think your bastard will make you lady of the manor?
• No. I know what the Squire will do if he finds me. But I’ll take my chances. I know the house. I can find my way out.
• Then what?
• I got family. They’ll look after me and the baby.
• They will disown you and throw you into the street.
• Not everybody has the same morals as you gentlefolk.
• Mind yourself, girl.
• Why? We’ve been here forever, and you treat me like your husband treats the dogs. Worse, even.
• I treat as is your place. A slut who used her body to try to take my position from me.
• You think I wanted that pig anywhere near me? Do you think I enjoyed what he did? I didn’t have no choice. Not any more than you did.
• Do not compare your predicament to mine.
• Why not. I didn’t want to be in his bed, but I didn’t want to be on the streets either. I didn’t want my family thrown out of their cottage because your husband was their landlord. I didn’t want to be pregnant, and I didn’t want to be pregnant for however long we’ve been here and knowing every minute that I’d never see my baby. I didn’t want the beatings he gave me when it took his fancy, either. I didn’t want any of it. Did you think of that? Did you?
• I have nothing more to say, Mary.
• Fine.
The room fell absolutely quiet as the boy stepped through the frame of the picture and coolly looked at the four people gathered around it, scrutinising them, almost if he were weighing their reactions to him. He looked at each one in turn, but held his gaze on Tess just a little longer than the others and offered her the hint of a slightly shy grin. This didn’t go unnoticed, particularly by Tess, who moved until she was partway blocked from the boy’s view behind Joan, and then nudged at the older woman until they were both watching from behind Lechasseur’s shoulder.
‘Are you afraid of me?’ the boy asked. His voice was quiet but clear and had just a hint of London to it. ‘You mustn’t be afraid of me,’ he went on. ‘I shan’t hurt any of you, I promise.’
The statement worried Emily. If the boy – assuming he really was a boy, and given their recent experiences she was not at all convinced – was promising not to hurt them, the clear inference was that he could do so if he chose. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.
The lad sniffed, and scrunched up his face a little. ‘That’s a difficult question.’
‘Why?’ Emily continued.
‘That’s a difficult question too.’
Emily sighed. ‘Do you know who we are?’ she persevered, determined to get an answer of some kind from the boy.
‘Oh, yes. I know all of you.’ The boy was pleased to have an answer finally, and gave it eagerly, speaking quickly, his voice rising with excitement. ‘Some of you better than others.’
Lechasseur tilted his hat back on his head as he appraised the boy. ‘I’m going to assume you’re not just a little kid, right? What are you?’ he asked bluntly. ‘Are you the same creature we met before?’
Lechasseur’s brusque tone made Joan Barton bristle. She had spent her entire adult life caring for children, and this stranger’s manner with the boy clashed with her instincts to protect the child. ‘Don’t frighten the lad,’ she said, before leaning towards the boy so that her head was almost on a level with his. ‘Are you a special little boy?’ she asked kindly.
A quizzical look danced across the boy’s features. ‘That’s what you called your son, isn’t it? You called him your special little boy.’
Joan pulled back, as if the boy had slapped her. ‘Yes. Yes, I did.’
‘Was he special?’ the boy continued, clearly oblivious to the discomfort he had caused the woman.
‘He was special to me,’ Joan answered.
‘Is that why you were so unhappy when he died?’ Again the question was asked blandly.
‘Yes.’
‘Were you sadder when he died than when your other children died?’
Joan’s voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘No.’
The boy persisted. ‘Was one child worth more than the others? Did he mean more than the others? Was he more important?’
‘No.’
‘Would you have swapped them for him?’ He sounded genuinely intrigued by the idea. ‘How many of their lives would you have given for his?’
‘Stop it,’ Joan demanded.
But the boy was clearly fascinated by his subject. ‘Or would you have let him die to save them? Is six better than one?’
‘Stop asking me these things.’
‘Stop it!’ Emily had seen enough. She moved until she stood between the boy and Joan. ‘Stop it right now.’
‘Don’t be angry.’ The boy’s voice was almost a whine. ‘I need to ask questions so that I can know things.’
‘If we answer your questions, will you answer ours?’ Emily asked.
‘I might,’ the boy answered cagily. ‘But me first. I want to ask first.’
‘All right,’ Emily agreed warily. ‘What do you want to know?’
The boy’s brow puckered into a frown. ‘I’m not sure,’ he answered. ‘I was really just wondering if you would let me go first.’
‘Will you tell me something?’ she said, trying to avoid the tone she would take if she was talking to a child.
‘Where do you come from?’ the boy asked suddenly.
‘Where do I come from?’ Emily parroted.
‘Yes,’ the boy nodded. ‘Where do you come from?’
‘Well,’ Emily said thoughtfully. ‘London.’
‘No,’ the boy answered impatiently. ‘No, you don’t. Where do you really come from?’
‘Do you mean what year?’ Emily prodded cagily.
The lad stamped his foot. ‘No, I do not mean what year. I didn’t ask what year, did I?’ he snapped petulantly. ‘I asked you where you came from. Where is a place. When is a time, and I didn’t ask when, I asked where.’ His chin jutted forward and his bottom lip stuck out defiantly. ‘So, where are you from?’ he repeated.
Emily was surprised to find that she wasn’t certain what to say. In the time since she had arrived in London, Emily had developed any number of flippant lines to explain her mysterious past. Somehow, none of them seemed appropriate here. Nor did simple denial. This boy – or whatever he was – knew more about Emily than he had let on, she was sure of that. Did he, she wondered, know anything about who she really was – or at least who she had once been? Emily squared her shoulders. ‘I’m not certain of where I come from,’ she said honestly. ‘I have no memory of my life before I arrived in London in 1949.’ She waited for a reaction.
The boy simply nodded. ‘It must be terrible not to know who you are,’ he said.
‘I didn’t say that,’ Emily responded. ‘I know who I am now, I just don’t know who I was before.’ Even though she knew she shouldn’t ask the question, Emily couldn’t stop herself from adding, ‘Do you know anything about my past?’
‘Depends what you call past,’ the boy shrugged. ‘If you go back to 1950, this will be your past, but then the past will be the future.’ He giggled. ‘And that’s silly.’
Honoré laughed, humourlessly. ‘I’ve been saying that since we started this time travel business.’
The boy tilted his head to look up at Lechasseur, and for the first time, Emily could see that the boy had a dusting of freckles across his face. ‘I know what happened to you when you were a soldier,’ the boy said, as plainly as if he was discussing what Lechasseur had eaten for breakfast. ‘I know about the explosion.’
Lechasseur bristled. The movement was subtle, but Emily knew him well enough by now to recognise when he was becoming defensive. ‘Do you?’ Lechasseur replied, his voice not as even as he would have wished.
‘Oh, yes.’ The boy’s head nodded. ‘I know lots about you. About the things you did when you were young – when you were a boy. The things you did when you were growing up, meeting girls …’
Emily interrupted. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about us.’ Too much for her liking. ‘Why don’t you tell us who you are?’
‘My name, you mean?’ the boy blinked.
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t have a name,’ he answered.
‘Don’t be daft,’ Tess moved from behind Joan. She had seen plenty of things in her life – and in the past short while – to terrify her, but she found that she wasn’t afraid of this little boy, no matter how he had come to be here. She had seen boys like him on the streets all of her days – all bluster and bravado but, at heart, desperate to be hugged by their mum. ‘Everybody’s got a name,’ she said in a friendly voice.
‘I don’t,’ the boy answered. ‘I don’t need one.’
‘Then what will we call you?’ Emily asked.
‘Why do you have to call me anything?’
Emily’s mouth flexed in a puzzled little grimace. ‘Because it’s easier to have a name we can call you. It’s what we’re used to.’
‘What do you want to call me?’
Emily shook her head. ‘It’s not for us to decide.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No,’ Tess interrupted. ‘It’s for your mum to do that.’
‘But you’re not an ordinary little boy, are you?’ asked Emily.
The boy beamed, as little boys do when praised for being clever or funny or special.
‘No,’ continued Emily, thoughtfully. ‘So why do you look like one?’
The boy scowled disappointedly at Emily. ‘You’re very pretty, but you’re not nearly as clever as I thought you were. You’ve had all the answers put in front of you, and you haven’t worked it out yet. I should send you back and let someone else come.’
‘No,’ Emily all but yelped, then she calmed herself. ‘I mean, no. I want to work this out.’
‘All right,’ the boy agreed. ‘But if you don’t get it right soon,’ he added petulantly, ‘I’ll send you back to where you came from.’
‘Right now, 1950’s looking pretty welcoming to me,’ Lechasseur muttered.
The boy looked disappointed with Lechasseur. ‘No,’ he said sourly. ‘That’s not where I saw you.’
Emily looked sharply at Honoré. ‘It is the same creature we saw with Barnaby. It must be!’
‘The creature the Cabal had trapped,’ Lechasseur said. ‘But we freed it,’ he protested.
Emily turned her gaze back to the child in front of them. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she asked. ‘It was you that was trapped by the cult, wasn’t it?’
The boy leaped up and down on the spot and clapped his hands with excitement. ‘I knew you’d work it out,’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew you’d work it out, and I knew you’d be able to help me.’
Lechasseur was taken off guard slightly. ‘How can we help you?’ he asked.
‘Why do you need our help?’
Emily picked up the questioning. ‘We know how powerful you are. We saw that the last time we met.’
Lechasseur nodded. ‘Tracking down people who were time sensitive so that they could be killed.’
The boy shifted uneasily. ‘They made me do that. I didn’t want to. Really.’ He sounded almost pleading.
‘Of course you didn’t,’ Joan said kindly, and Emily wondered if the older woman really understood that what seemed to be a cheeky young boy was really something very different. Whether she did or not, Emily marvelled at the woman’s ability to put aside the pain the boy had caused and offer him kindness in return.
‘But you did have the ability to bring all these other people here,’ Emily stated.
‘Assuming they’re real,’ Lechasseur offered. ‘And not some kind of scam he’s pulling.’
‘I hadn’t considered that,’ Emily admitted.
‘Hey,’ Tess protested. ‘What d’you mean, “if we’re real”? Course we’re bloody real, aren’t we, Joan?’
‘Of course we’re real,’ Joan said quickly. ‘And don’t swear, Tess. I’ve told you before.’
‘Sorry,’ Tess apologised automatically. ‘But he was saying we wasn’t real,’ she continued. ‘And we are real. As real as him.’
‘I know.’ Joan squeezed Tess’s arm reassuringly. ‘He was just thinking out loud, weren’t you, Mr Lechasseur?’
‘I guess so,’ Honoré admitted.
‘You see?’
‘Well,’ Tess said sourly. ‘Think quieter next time.’
Emily tried to pull the conversation back on track. ‘If we’ve confirmed that everyone is real,’ she said to the boy, ‘maybe you’d tell us why they’re here.’
The boy smirked. ‘Can’t you work it out?’
‘Because they were unhappy? Because something bad had happened to them?’
‘That’s it,’ the boy nodded. ‘They were all sad or unhappy. They’d all had something really bad happen to them, or something really bad was going to happen to them. Some of them were going to be killed or to kill themselves.’
‘So you brought them here?’
The boy nodded.
‘To protect them?’ Emily asked.
Again a nod.
‘But why only women? Why no men?’
‘It was men who made me hunt those people. Men hurt me, and men were hurting those women. Men always hurt people. They always have.’ Small blue eyes turned to Lechasseur. ‘Even him. He killed people in his war. I could stop men hurting those women and …’ The voice cut off abruptly, a slightly guilty look appearing on the boy’s face.
‘And?’ Emily pressed. ‘And what?’
‘And I thought one of them might be able to help me.’
‘But they couldn’t?’
Another nod.
‘So you brought us here, too?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But if you’re powerful enough to bring all of us here, and create all of this,’ Emily waved a hand around the room, ‘why do you need us to help you?’
‘And what exactly do you want us to help you do?’ Lechasseur asked suspiciously.
‘I can’t move,’ the boy said. ‘I should be able to move through time. I should be able to be anywhere in time or space, but I can’t.’ The boy was becoming agitated and upset, with frustration and anger creeping into his voice. ‘There are worlds you can’t imagine out there. Worlds of water, worlds that are all gas, some that are ice. Some of the worlds have people on them. People who talk in songs and by thought and by colour. Some of them are kind, and others only want to kill. I’ve seen them wipe out planets, blow planets up even, but I’ve also seen art and beauty and amazing animals.’ The boy looked desperately at Emily. ‘I was trapped in 1921,’ he pleaded. ‘And when I escaped, I was only able to reach as far forward as 1995. Now I’m trapped here. I can reach out to other times in the past, but can’t go to them.’ Again his voice caught with frustration. ‘I can almost feel them, but they’re just out of reach.’
‘You want us to help set you free?’ Lechasseur asked.
‘Please,’ the boy pleaded. ‘I can’t stand being trapped. Please let me be free again. I want to move between suns again. I want to see new worlds. I want to feel the universe dissolve around me as I move through the time fields. I want to be free again.’ Tears were welling in his eyes. ‘You can’t imagine how it feels. To have been able to go anywhere, to be at any point in time, and to have it all taken away from you. To be trapped in one place. You can’t imagine.’
‘I spent over a year in bed after the War,’ Lechasseur said quietly. ‘For a while, I couldn’t see anything except walls, and then they moved my bed so that I could see out of the windows, and that was worse. I could see the sunlight and smell the flowers and the grass when it was freshly cut. But I couldn’t touch it. I couldn’t pluck a flower to sniff it or walk in the grass or feel the sun on my face.’ He shrugged self-consciously. ‘It’s not the same exactly, but maybe I understand a little.’
‘Then you’ll help me?’ the boy asked uncertainly.
‘If we can,’ Lechasseur glanced at Emily. ‘Right?’
‘If we can,’ Emily confirmed.
The boy started speaking quickly, as though afraid they would change their minds if he didn’t hurry. ‘I know how to do it,’ he blurted. ‘It’s those things you call time snakes. They’re the answer. They reach through time, backwards and forwards. They cross barriers in time. They’re the answer.’
‘They’re how we travel,’ Emily said swiftly, trying to slow the boy’s onslaught.
‘I know,’ the boy went on. ‘And they have huge amounts of energy in them, because of the way they weave through time. If I can have that energy, I can break loose and be free again.’
‘You want to tap someone’s time snake?’ Emily asked. ‘How is that possible?’
‘I can do it,’ the boy said with certainty. ‘I know how to take someone’s time snake.’
‘Snake?’ Tess asked nervously. ‘I don’t like snakes. I seen a couple on the common. I hate them.’
Lechasseur raised a hand to quiet Tess. ‘These aren’t snakes like you think of them,’ he explained. ‘It’s just a phrase to describe something that might look similar.’
Tess still looked far from convinced. ‘If you say so,’ she muttered. ‘But I wish you’d called them something else, that’s all.’
An uneasy chill spread through Emily. ‘You said you could take someone’s time snake,’ she said. ‘If you take someone’s time-snake, what will happen to them?’ She knew she wasn’t going to like the boy’s answer.
‘They’ll unexist,’ the boy said, in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.
‘You want to murder someone?’ Joan choked.
‘No,’ the boy said. ‘You don’t understand. They just won’t exist anymore.’ He turned to Emily. ‘Make her understand.’
Emily shook her head. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I understand it myself.’
‘Setting aside the hows and whys,’ Lechasseur interrupted slowly, ‘I think we’re missing one important question here.’ He let the room quieten for a moment before finishing. ‘The who. Just who is he expecting to … to unexist?’
The question hung uncomfortably in the air as four pairs of eyes turned to look at the little boy. ‘It’s none of you,’ he squirmed.
‘Who then?’ Joan asked.
‘One of the women you brought here?’ Emily asked. ‘You said you wanted to help them. Is this how you want them to pay for your kindness? By giving up one of their lives?’
‘That’s stupid,’ the boy snapped. ‘I could have made any of them unexist if I wanted to. I could have just taken their time snakes any time I liked. I could have, and nobody would have known.’
‘So why didn’t you?’ Lechasseur asked.
‘Because I don’t want them to unexist.’ The boy was becoming agitated again. ‘I don’t want that. I want them to carry on.’
Lechasseur shifted uncomfortably. ‘If it’s not any of them, that leaves only two options.’ He pointed at Emily and then at himself.
‘No, it’s not you either. I don’t want anybody who’s alive.’
‘Well, you can’t kill ’em when they’re dead,’ Tess sniped, then caught herself. ‘Can he?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Emily assured the girl. ‘Even he can’t kill people who are already dead.’
‘I dunno why, but that’s a relief,’ Tess muttered.
‘Oh, god.’ Emily’s haunted whisper quietened the room completely. She looked at the boy with horror. ‘It’s not the dead you want, is it? It’s exactly the opposite.’
A smile began to pull at the boy’s mouth as the pieces of the puzzle finally came together in Emily’s mind.
‘You want the unborn,’ Emily breathed. ‘You want the baby. You want Mary’s baby.’
• Sandi?
• Yeah?
• What will you do if you get back to your own time?
• Dunno, Alice. What about you? What will you do in ’95?
• I’m not sure. But I know I won’t commit suicide. It’s odd, but I’ve realised from being here that I want to live. Really live. I’ll grieve for John, but I want to have a life.
• I’m not sure what I’ll do. I don’t know what I can do. But if I’d gone to jail for … for what I did, I’d have been out fifteen years ago. Maybe I’ve served my time.
• More than that, by a long way.
• If things do turn out, maybe I can look you up in ’95.
• Why not?
• I’ll be a middle-aged hippie, probably driving a van.
• Painted garish colours?
• Natch.
• Do you think we will get home?
• Well, you know how to kill any cheery atmosphere, don’t you?
• I’m serious. Can we escape?
• Escape? No way, hon. But this Emily character has ideas, and things are kinda weird around here right now.
• I’d have thought things were weird here all the time.
• No. Things normally have a pattern here. They’re kinda dull most of the time, but things are changing. Two people disappearing at once. This Emily showing up and then disappearing again. Hell, even Mary stood up for herself. No, something’s happening. Patience has been here longer than me. Ask her.
• Patience? Patience?
• Patience?
• I am sorry. My thoughts were elsewhere. What did you say?
• Sandi was saying she thought something was happening.
• And Alice wanted to know what we’d do if we all got home.
• Home? If I ever return home, I think I will surely be murdered.
• You’re kidding, right?
• I think I would prefer death to a return to the life I had.
• What about Mary?
• I have been unfair to the girl, Alice. I have thought only of myself and ignored her suffering. Perhaps I will be able to help her, though I doubt if she will allow me to do so. And in truth I have no idea how I could help her.
‘You want to kill a baby?’ Joan said. Her voice was shrill with horror. ‘That’s disgusting.’
The boy backed away a few steps. ‘I wouldn’t be killing it,’ he whined.
‘But you would be taking its life away,’ Emily countered.
‘It would unexist.’
‘And what about Mary?’ Emily pressed. ‘Shouldn’t she be here? Surely she should have a say in this?’
‘Mary?’ The boy looked confused. A thin finger pointed at Tess. ‘Not Mary. It’s her baby I want.’
• Mary?
• Leave me be.
• Jesus, I’ve been here forever, and that’s the first time I’ve heard you say boo to a goose.
• Leave me alone, Sandi.
• Well, that’s a step forward, hon.
• What are you talking of? You never say anything that makes sense. Instead you sneer and make jokes and hide behind insults, and I am in no mood for you.
• Well, little miss quiet’s found a backbone.
• Don’t insult me! You chose to make your life a hell. Your choices did that. I had no choice in my life. No choice to how my life would be. No choice to whose bed I was dragged into. No choice but to be seen as his whore. No choice when I fell pregnant, and no choice when he took his belt to me when he found out. Your life was of your making, mine was forced upon me as surely as he forced himself on me when I took his eye. I wasn’t a servant. I was a slave. Better I was a slave in the Indies. At least then I’d be long gone from him.
• I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
• Why should I be loud about my shame? So that you could all whisper in the darkness, calling me the same names you call Tess when you think she will not hear? No. It’s none of your concern.
• So whose concern is it? Yours?
• Mine
• On your own?
• Yes.
• Bad news for you. Being a martyr is out of fashion.
• Don’t make fun of me.
• I’m not. Really. I’m not. But you don’t have to deal with everything on your own.
• Leave me alone.
• Listen.
• Go away! Please leave me alone!
‘Don’t be bloody stupid,’ Tess exclaimed. ‘I’m not pregnant. Mary’s the one as is knocked up.’
The boy’s head shook. ‘No, she isn’t. She lost her baby when the Squire beat her with his belt.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ Joan agreed. ‘You’re far too young.’
‘Yeah,’ Tess said softly. ‘Too young for a lot of things, but I done them anyway.’
Lechasseur stepped towards Tess, but Emily caught him and shook her head. Whatever the girl had to say could prove to be vital, no matter how painful it might be.
‘I didn’t set out to be on the streets,’ Tess continued. ‘That wasn’t what I wanted. I had dreams when I was little. Such dreams. Dreams of being in the countryside. They always used to talk about it. My mum said it was always sunny in the countryside, and everything always smelled sweet.’
‘Did you ever go?’ Emily asked. ‘To the countryside?’
‘Nah,’ Tess answered sadly. ‘Never had the money to go.’ She snorted derisively at her memories. ‘Never had the money to go anywhere more than a half dozen streets away, really, except that bloody waste of time to see the Queen. Never expected to go anywhere either. I didn’t mind. Well, I was a kid, I didn’t know nothing else. It was okay when Mum was there. Dad could be a drunken sod sometimes – more than sometimes. He worked down the docks. Made good money, then. But he had a taste for the drink. Drank his wages, so sometimes we didn’t eat, and when Mum got to him about it … well, he was as quick to hit her as he was to belt me.’ Tess’s voice caught bitterly. ‘Then one day she narked him too much about it, and he went for her. He beat her, and he kept beating her till she stopped moving. Till she stopped breathing.’ She sniffed. ‘Then he just went. Never saw him again.’
‘He left you?’ Emily asked. ‘Alone?’
‘Yeah. Probably for the best, really. I don’t think I could have watched him hang. Not even for that.’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Even though I hated him for all the things he done to Mum. And to me.’
‘How could he do that?’ Joan asked, obviously both distressed and disgusted by the story she was hearing. ‘How could he murder his wife? How could he abandon his child?’
‘How old were you?’ Emily interrupted. She shared Joan’s revulsion for a child being left in that situation, but didn’t have time now for Joan to make an emotional scene.
‘Eleven,’ Tess answered. She sounded relieved that Joan had been interrupted. ‘And I was out on my ear as soon as the landlord found out my folks was gone. An eleven year old’s not going to be able to pay the rent.’ She gave a humourless laugh – a laugh too cynical for someone of her age. ‘Well, that’s what I thought. But I either had to look after myself or wind up in the poor-house, and I wasn’t going in one of them places. I’d learned a few things. I knew how to make things disappear without anybody seeing.’
‘Stealing? You were a thief, too?’
Tess bristled at the condemnation in Joan’s voice. ‘I didn’t take much,’ she said defensively. ‘And nothing from nobody who couldn’t afford it. Just a few things here and there – a few things off a stall, a few flowers from a basket. I didn’t need much to afford a room for the night. I did all right for a while.’
‘You got caught?’ Lechasseur enquired.
‘Yeah,’ Tess nodded. ‘Not by the police. I’d just lifted a bag of chestnuts. He was on the other side of his cart. I didn’t think he’d see. He bloody saw me all right. He grabbed me and shook me half out of my skin. Then he went for me with his belt, worse than anything my dad ever done to me. The police saw what he was doing, but they didn’t do nothing. Didn’t want to get hurt themselves, probably. I knew then I couldn’t stay on the streets. Then this woman offered me a place to stay, regular food and some coin in my pocket. So I took it. I knew who she was and I knew what kind of place she had, but I must have been so stupid. I never thought they’d want me to … to do that.’
‘You were a kid,’ said Lechasseur.
‘That’s not an excuse for being stupid,’ Tess snapped angrily, though her anger was clearly aimed entirely at herself rather than at Lechasseur. ‘I didn’t know some blokes liked them young. I didn’t know much, did I?’ she spat bitterly. ‘I screamed all through the first time. He just kept telling me to scream more.’
‘You don’t have to tell anybody this.’ Lechasseur looked square at Emily, challenging her silently to disagree. She said nothing, but Tess continued. Other than a few slips, she had kept the truth hidden to herself for over a century, and now that she had started telling the story, she didn’t seem able to stop.
‘Took weeks for me to stop screaming and crying when they sent somebody to me. I wanted to run away, but I had no place to run to. So I let them do what they wanted.’
‘How long?’ Joan floundered, searching for something to say.
‘Till I started growing up,’ Tess answered angrily. ‘They didn’t have no use for me once I got hair on it. Their men didn’t care for that, so they threw me out and dragged in some other poor cow.’
‘And you were back on the street?’ Emily pressed.
‘No home, no family, and I couldn’t do nothing to earn money, so I did what they’d made me do. Wasn’t all that bad.’ Tess tried to sound nonchalant about the experience, but succeeded only in letting her anger show. ‘A couple of times a night and I’d have enough for a place to stay and something to eat.’
‘Except you hated it?’ Lechasseur asked. ‘That’s why you started taking opium.’
‘You think anybody could be happy with that life?’ Tess spat. ‘The poppy just made it go away for a while. I’d used it off and on since I started, you know.’ She paused briefly as another wave of unpleasant memories came to her. ‘And it made the pain stop after, well, after I’d seen the … midwife.’
‘Midwife?’ Joan demanded. ‘You said you weren’t pregnant.’
‘I’m not. Not any more. I was – happens to us all, I suppose – so I saw the midwife to get rid of it. God, it hurt.’ Her voice cracked as she remembered the filthy back room, illuminated only by two candles, and the black-toothed midwife holding the long, pointed spikes she had used to get rid of the baby. ‘I’d have been better seeing a butcher.’
‘How could you kill your baby?’ Joan Barton’s voice was calm and quiet. Tess had expected Joan to scream or shout or strike out at her. She would have taken any of those things ahead of the cold condemnation she heard in her friend’s voice.
‘It wasn’t a baby,’ Tess protested. ‘Not yet. It wasn’t born or nothing. I couldn’t have a kiddie. I didn’t have enough to look after myself. I didn’t even have a room. How could I look after a kiddie?’
‘You just find a way.’ Joan’s voice rose with anger. ‘You just do.’
‘How?’ Tess shot back. ‘With what? I couldn’t go on working if I was showing, could I?’
‘You could have done something,’ Joan snapped. ‘You didn’t have to kill your baby. Don’t you know how precious a child is?’
Emily moved between Joan and Tess. The story was told now, and she had as much information as she could get from it. There was nothing to be gained from letting the situation deteriorate further. ‘She knows, Joan. Look at her. She’s still a child herself.’
Angry tears welled in Joan’s eyes. ‘I lost seven children, and she casually throws one away like a rag.’
‘I didn’t just throw it away,’ Tess screamed back. ‘I just didn’t want it havin’ the same life as me.’
Joan’s face twisted with rage, resentment, disappointment and bitterness. ‘Stay away from me. Just stay away from me.’ She turned her back to the room, angrily wiping her eyes.
The room fell quiet for a long moment, letting the storm pass until Emily spoke.
‘Honoré,’ she sounded puzzled. ‘If Tess did away with her baby, why does our little friend here think she’s pregnant?’
The boy had watched silently as the scene had played out before him, quiet bemusement on his face. ‘Because she is,’ he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘The midwife didn’t get rid of both babies. Only one.’
‘What?’ Tess croaked.
The boy offered his gap-toothed smile again. ‘You were expecting twins.’
Tess’s voice was hollow. ‘I’m still expecting?’
‘Yes,’ the boy nodded cheerfully. ‘You’re expecting me.’
‘How can I be expecting you? You’re not a baby.’
‘I was,’ the boy answered. ‘Or I will be. Or maybe I won’t.’
‘You’re lying,’ Tess hissed. ‘I got rid of it. You’re lying.’
The boy shook his head defiantly. ‘It’s the truth. I am what your son will be.’
‘I don’t have a son!’ Tess yelled. ‘I don’t want no baby.’
The boy began to cry. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his shoulders jumped in time to his sobs.
Joan rounded sharply on Tess, her anger spilling over again. ‘Tess, how can you be so cruel to …’
‘To a child, Joan?’ Emily interrupted. ‘Remember, he’s not a child,’ she said evenly. ‘Just something that’s taken the appearance of what Tess’s son would look like.’
Tess sniffed back a tear, and looked to Emily and then to Lechasseur. ‘Is it true? Am I still expecting?’
Lechasseur glanced quickly at Emily. She nodded briefly, and he turned back to Tess. ‘I don’t think he’d lie – he needs you to be pregnant. The only way out for him is to kill … to unexist … your baby.’
‘But I can’t be pregnant.’ Tess’ voice was tired and she sounded lost. ‘I can’t.’
Emily placed a comforting hand on the girl’s arm. ‘You are – and I think that’s what your son would look like.’
‘God almighty.’ Tess stared at the boy with a mixture of horror and wonder. ‘I’ve been pregnant all this time. With him?’
‘Yes,’ Emily confirmed.
‘That’s my baby?’ Tess continued, as though unable to quite grasp the idea.
‘Well, that’s what he’d look like,’ Lechasseur said.
Tess said nothing, but couldn’t take her eyes from the small, black-haired boy looking up at her. A dozen emotions pulled at the girl. She looked as if she might hug the boy or strangle him or run screaming as far as she could. Emily wouldn’t have been surprised if Tess had done all those things and more. Instead, she simply stared at the boy.
‘Does raise a question,’ Lechasseur said to Emily, ‘how Mary will react when she realises she’s not pregnant. Poor kid.’
‘So, will you do it?’ the boy demanded impatiently.
‘What?’ Tess had stopped paying attention to the room and was still staring at the boy.
‘He wants to know if you’ll give up your baby,’ Emily said quietly.
‘Tess, you can’t …’ Joan began, but the boy interrupted her quickly.
‘Of course she can,’ he sniped. ‘She’s already done it once.’ He turned to Tess. ‘And look at her. She’s right. She can’t look after a baby.’
‘She’d find a way,’ Joan responded.
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ the boy said quickly. ‘She’s too much like her father for that.’ His voice became softer, more persuasive. ‘Her father was a drunk who couldn’t handle having children. She’s sixteen, and she’s already half way to being a drunk. She’ll be completely addicted to opium by her next birthday. Do you really think that’s someone who’s fit to be a mother?’ The boy had been speaking to Joan, but everyone in the room knew that the question was aimed squarely at Tess.
‘I think she has a right to find out,’ Joan said firmly. ‘She has the right to know what it’s like to …’
The boy cut across Joan. ‘Be quiet,’ he said sourly. ‘In fact, we don’t need you here at all.’
Joan got as far as saying ‘I …’ before she faded from sight.
Emily turned sharply to the boy. ‘What have you done with her?’
‘Is she safe?’ Lechasseur demanded.
The boy smirked at them cheekily. ‘If you’re so clever, what do you think?’
• Joan? That is you, isn’t it?
• Yes, it’s me.
• I’m glad you’re back. Sorry if that sounds selfish.
• I think I’m becoming used to people being selfish.
• What do you mean?
• It doesn’t matter. What’s happened here?
• Mary the mouse just gave Patience an earful.
• About what?
• She wants out of here. She wants to take her chances on getting out and escaping, whatever we have to do. Says it’s for her baby.
• That poor girl.
• Yeah. Must be tough having a kid but knowing she won’t see it.
• No. It’s not like that. She doesn’t know … Dear God, how can I tell her that her baby’s dead? I can’t do that to her. I can’t take that away from her.
• How did the baby die?
• Patience?
• Forgive me if I startled you, Joan. How did Mary’s baby die?
• When your husband beat her, apparently.
• He was a foul man with an evil temper. He took a whip to me for not falling pregnant, but beat Mary because she did. In truth, he never really needed an excuse to beat people. He hurt them because he enjoyed doing so. He would relish the misery he has caused – and the pain Mary will feel when she hears of her child. I should take the duty of telling her this news.
• But you can’t.
• I think she would take the news easier from another, if such news can ever be easy to take.
• I’ll do it.
• Thank you, Joan. I am grateful for the kindness.
• It’s not much of a kindness, is it? But if we’re going to be leaving here, she has to know. She can’t go on thinking she’s pregnant.
• We’re leaving?
• You’re not pulling our chains, Joanie? We are getting out?
• It depends on Tess, but I think she will agree to what has been asked of her.
• That’s great.
• Is it, Sandi? I think she’ll regret it for the rest of her life.
‘You’ll do it, won’t you?’ the boy looked expectantly at Tess. ‘It won’t hurt, I promise.’
Tess kept staring at the boy. ‘I never wanted a kiddie,’ she said softly, more to herself than to anyone else. ‘I couldn’t hardly look after myself, let alone a little baby.’
The boy nodded keenly. ‘That’s why you went to that midwife. This will be much easier. You only have to say yes, and it’ll all be over and everyone can go home.’ There was a pleading in the boy’s voice, giving it a thin and reedy tone. ‘Please.’
‘He’s a beautiful little thing, inne?’
Lechasseur gripped Tess’ bony shoulder firmly. ‘This is not your son.’
‘Honoré’s right,’ Emily agreed. ‘Always remember that this is not really your baby.’
‘I know that. It’s just how my baby would look. No,’ she corrected herself. ‘It’s how he’s gonna look. It’s weird. I never really thought of it as a person before. Not a real one. Well, it wasn’t, was it? Just a thing. An idea in my head, but not a real person. That’s how come I could let it go so easy. But I can’t let him go. Not now as I’ve seen him.’
‘You have to help me,’ the boy protested.
‘She said no,’ Emily replied firmly.
‘But she has to,’ the boy shouted.
‘No!’ Emily raised her own voice in reply.
‘I’ll kill them,’ the child threatened. ‘I’ll kill them – and you too. If she doesn’t help me, I’ll kill them, one by one, until she does agree.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Emily asked.
‘Because she won’t do what I want, stupid,’ the boy snarled.
‘You brought these women here, and you’ve kept them safe for all this time,’ Emily mused quietly.
‘Time doesn’t matter to me,’ the boy answered.
‘We both know better than that,’ Emily countered quickly. ‘And these women matter to you as well. You’ve cared for them, protected them. Why? Because you were made to suffer?’
‘I wanted to help them.’ The boy sounded pleading. ‘Why won’t they help me? It’s only fair.’
‘Fair doesn’t come into it when you’re talking about lives,’ Lechasseur interjected. ‘Sometimes life isn’t fair and you just have to accept it.’
‘But she already tried to get rid of her baby once,’ the boy whined.
‘A long time ago,’ Lechasseur said.
Emily said firmly, ‘You’re not taking her baby’s time snake.’
‘That’s not for you to be saying, is it?’ Tess spoke up. ‘He’s right. I did try to do away with him. My baby. It’s why I started going to the poppy-house. First it stopped the pain of what she done to me, and then it stopped me remembering what I done.’ She reached out a hand to touch the boy’s hair but stopped, as though afraid she might damage something precious. ‘But it’s my decision, isn’t it? I have to decide if this thing can have my baby. It can’t. My life’s been a mess. Sometimes, I made mistakes; other times, I paid for other people’s mistakes. But I never had a chance to fix a mistake before. I do now. Look at him. That’s what my boy’s going to look like. Maybe I can’t give him the best life in the world, but I can give him the chance to have a life.’
‘You can’t do that,’ the boy squealed. ‘You have to give it up. You have to.’
Despite the trouble he knew it was going to cause, Lechasseur felt a wave of relief at Tess’s decision. The idea of handing over a baby’s life as a barter make his skin crawl. ‘It’s her choice.’
The boy’s face reddened with anger, and he looked as if he might stamp his feet with child-like fury. ‘I’ll kill them all.’
‘Will you?’ Emily asked mildly. ‘I don’t think so. You don’t want to kill anyone.’
‘I don’t want to stay trapped, either,’ the boy shot back. ‘They’ll come for me. They’ll find me and trap me worse than this. I won’t be trapped any more. You were supposed to help.’
‘We can’t help you commit murder,’ Emily stated flatly.
‘Maybe I’ll just take the baby’s time snake,’ the boy challenged. ‘Maybe I’ll eat all their time snakes.’
Emily stood unmoved. She wouldn’t back down or give in to childish threats. ‘If that’s what it takes,’ she answered calmly. ‘But you don’t want to do it, do you? You don’t want to, or can’t, take the life of someone who won’t willingly give it.’
‘I’ve been responsible for too many people dying,’ the boy answered quietly.
‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re trying to make amends for the deaths of all those others, the deaths you caused under instruction from the Cabal.’
‘I didn’t want to have anything to do with that. You have to believe me.’
‘I do.’ Emily gave a sad, humourless smile. ‘But it still doesn’t make this right.’
‘I won’t stay trapped.’ Desperation had returned to the child’s voice.
‘And we won’t let you kill an innocent baby,’ Emily responded firmly.
‘What will you do to stop me?’
‘We’ll find a way.’ Emily hoped she sounded more confident than she actually felt.
‘Don’t make me hurt you.’ There was a desperation among the threats.
‘You can’t have Tess’s baby,’ Lechasseur said.
‘I’ll take it if I have to.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Emily said calmly. ‘You’d have done that by now if you were going to. That’s why you brought us here, isn’t it? So that we could persuade Tess to give up the baby and you could go free with a clear conscience.’
‘I need to be free!’ the boy screamed at her. ‘You have to agree!’
‘We won’t give up a baby’s life,’ Emily reiterated. She looked at the boy and thought for a moment. ‘What about the life of someone who threw their life away?’
Emily’s question took the boy off guard. ‘What?’
‘Someone who committed suicide,’ Emily answered.
‘Who?’
Honoré looked at Emily curiously, wondering what she was going to say.
‘The man who built the tower.’
The boy looked thoughtful.
‘Well?’ Emily pressed. ‘Will you take his life in exchange for the infant’s?’
‘Emily.’ Lechasseur grabbed Emily’s arm. ‘You can’t do this,’ he hissed. ‘You can’t just give away someone else’s life.’
‘I didn’t.’ Emily pulled her arm free. ‘He gave his life away when he committed suicide.’
‘But he had a life before that,’ Lechasseur argued angrily.
‘And Tess’s baby has a life in front of him,’ Emily snapped back. ‘And he deserves his chance to that life.’
They stood, staring at each other, neither willing to back down. ‘Taking one life to save another isn’t justified, Emily,’ Lechasseur said grimly.
‘I know,’ Emily agreed, and the expression on her face left Lechasseur in no doubt that she understood – and was agonised by – the implications of what she was suggesting. ‘I don’t really see an alternative, do you?’
Lechasseur felt his shoulders slump. He suddenly felt tired and old and truly impotent. ‘No,’ he agreed sadly. ‘But that doesn’t mean I like it.’
‘Neither do I,’ Emily whispered. She took a deep, brisk breath, then turned to the small boy. ‘If you take the man who committed suicide by leaping from the top of this building in 1995 …’ She waited for a reaction from the child. When none came, she carried on quickly, ‘… you can have his time-snake, and you’ll be set free.’ The boy’s eyes gleamed brightly. ‘And you have to release all these women,’ Emily continued. ‘You understand that?’
The boy nodded eagerly. ‘I will,’ he promised. ‘I’ll let everybody go. Them, you …’ He bit his lip sheepishly. ‘I was only trying to help them,’ he said earnestly. ‘I only wanted to make sure they weren’t hurt.’
‘I understand,’ Emily nodded. ‘But if you’re going to do this, you had better do it now.’ Her voice sounded brittle and bitter, despite her best efforts at keeping it firm. The idea of condemning someone to die – to have never lived – didn’t come easily to her.
‘All right,’ the boy agreed. ‘I’ll do it now.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Tess objected. ‘Are you leaving?’ she asked the boy.
He nodded. ‘I have to.’
‘I will see you again?’ Tess asked uncertainly. ‘Well, not you exactly …’
‘Your baby will be fine,’ Emily said sharply. ‘Now just let him go.’
‘All right.’ Tess reached a hand towards the boy, as if afraid she might break him – or that his touch might burn her. With a force of will, she touched her hand to his head, and was rewarded with a cheeky smirk. Encouraged, she ruffled his untidy hair. She was trying to put some kind of order into the unruly, jet-black mop when the lad faded away from under her hand. Tess turned to Emily and Lechasseur for an explanation, but kept quiet as she saw the angry looks passing between them.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Lechasseur said coldly.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Emily replied, and just for a brief second, her face showed Lechasseur that she had a plan. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ she repeated. ‘I just don’t know if it’ll work or not.’
Year: 1995
With a single, deliberate pace, John Raymond stepped off the roof of his tower block and began to plunge to his certain death. He had regrets that it had come to this, but there really was no other way. Oddly, he felt slightly disappointed that he wasn’t terrified by the sight of the ground hurtling towards him or by the knowledge that he was about to die. He didn’t know quite what he had expected, but he had anticipated more than this feeling of the wind grabbing at him. It was quite calming, really. He closed his eyes and prepared for his end.
Had anyone been standing at the foot of the building, they would first have seen the dreadful sight of a man plunging towards a sickening death on the pavement, but then something even more remarkable. As the man passed the windows of the second floor, which contained the offices of a graphic design company, his body faded out of existence. He simply vanished into nothingness, leaving no hint that he had ever thrown himself from the roof.
Year: 1980
Bartelli’s Restaurant was as busy as its exclusive clientele ever allowed it to be. There were few tables in the restaurant, and those were well spaced apart. Gianni Bartelli knew that his customers usually relished their privacy, and he made sure they got it. He also made them pay through the nose for it, but both he and his customers knew the arrangement, and it suited them all very well.
Bartelli moved through the restaurant, circulating as he did every half hour or so. He started no conversations but nodded to his customers and let them get on with their meals.
This evening, the restaurant was almost full. In the centre of the room, a knighted actor was at a large table with a big party of friends. Nearer the window – at a table they had chosen,, Bartelli assumed, in case a press photographer should happen to look in – were a young footballer and his Page 3-girl fiancée. Seated towards the back, in a corner near the kitchens, Bartelli spotted John Raymond having a quiet dinner with an attractive, red-haired woman in her mid thirties. The rose on the table by her hand and the intimate glances indicated that this was not a business meeting, so Bartelli gave the table a wide berth. He returned to his office and resolved to work out the stock orders for the next week. Moments after his door closed behind him, John Raymond, his lady guest and the table they had been seated at all faded out of existence. Half an hour later, when Gianni Bartelli did his next flesh-pressing circuit of the restaurant, he had no memory of a table being in the corner that night, and he certainly had no memory of a man named John Raymond.
Year: 1965
A tinny radio was playing the latest Beatles single, and that suited Ringo Doyle right down to the ground. The success of his market stall was based almost completely on the fab four. He sold suits like they wore, shirts like they wore, and even copies of their records – cheaper than the shops, too, though admittedly these copies may have accidentally fallen off the back of a lorry before finding their way into his possession. To complete the Beatles feel, Doyle had abandoned his own name of William in favour of Ringo, certain that his nose and cheeky manner gave him a resemblance to Ringo Starr. He even affected a Scouse accent, though he was actually from Manchester. Business was decent for Doyle, but he knew it would be positively booming if he had a slightly better pitch, and he even knew which pitch he wanted – the one that pushy weasel John Raymond had. He threw Raymond a filthy look, but Raymond paid him no heed. He never paid Doyle any heed – he was too busy giving his patter to the punters. One day, Doyle assured himself. He’d get the pitch one day.
As a customer stopped to inspect a grey suit on his stall, Doyle slipped into chirpy Scouser mode and started his banter. With his attention distracted, he didn’t see John Raymond and his stall slowly fade out of view. In fact, nobody saw it happen. When Doyle turned back, peeved at not having sold the suit, he spotted the empty space in the market.
‘Now why the hell isn’t somebody in that space?’ he wondered, and began shifting has stall.
Year: 1950
At first glance, the man looked no different from any one of a hundred men who sat on the pavement, sketching and trying to sell their drawings for a few pennies. The War had ended, but people were still struggling to get by any way they could. John Raymond had seen plenty of other artists like this one, trying to sell hastily-sketched portraits. He usually passed one on his way to school every morning. This one was different, though. He didn’t seem interested in selling his work, and when John moved closer, he saw that the man was sketching the same thing over and over again. A circle with little marks at the top. It looked sinister, and John held back nervously, which was unusual for such a confident boy, but he couldn’t just walk away either. Unsettling as the image was, he felt drawn to it as well. The horns at the top made him think of a dragon, and John sidled a few feet closer to get a better look.
Hearing the scuffing of feet, the artist turned to look for the source of the sound, but he turned a fraction of a second too late to see John Raymond wink out of existence.
In the hall of portraits, there was an uncomfortable, expectant silence. Emily, Honoré and Tess all knew that something would happen soon, but none of them knew precisely what it would be or when it would happen. Tess had tried asking a few questions, but had given up after being first ignored and then given a terse glare by Emily. Confused and more than a little lost, she wandered around the room, examining the portraits. She stopped at the image of Joan and felt an ache that she had hurt her friend. Guilt wasn’t something Tess was used to feeling – she had learned early in life that it was an emotion she could ill afford – but she desperately hoped she could find a way to make things right with Joan. She would sort things out with Joan. She didn’t know how, but she would do it somehow.
For a moment, she thought that the smearing and blurring of the image’s edges were an illusion caused by the tears in her eyes, but then she looked at the next portrait. Patience’s sad yet beautiful face was beginning to melt and slide as well. She turned to Lechasseur and Emily.
‘Over here,’ Emily instructed, and Tess scampered to her obediently as slowly the room around them melted and dissolved.
• Naw, hon, you got it wrong. Tess isn’t knocked up. That’s Mary.
• No, she’s not. She’s not pregnant at all.
• The slut has lied to us all this time?
• It’s not like that, Sandi.
• All the time she’s been here she’s been carrying a dead infant in her, believing him to be alive. And it was my my husband who caused this.
• Jeez, Patience. I guess someone ought to tell the poor girl.
• Joan here has kindly offered to do so.
• That’s real nice of her, hon. But I’m not sure it’s gonna work out.
• Mary deserves to hear the truth of her situation.
• Maybe, hon. But maybe not now. In case you guys haven’t noticed, things are changing hereabouts. I’m starting to see colours.
• She’s right, Patience.
• Yes, I see. Red and blue.
• And gold.
• Orange. It’s like a rainbow breaking through.
• And I can see you. Dear Joan, I can see – surely that is you?
• Yes, it’s me. Can you take my hand?
• I don’t know. You don’t appear to be real.
• Try.
• We’re all becoming solid, hon.
• There. I’m not … wait. I can feel your hand, dear Joan.
• Sandi, you take my hand, too.
• I had never thought I should feel the warmth of another human being again.
• Hon, it must be true – we must be getting out of here.
• At what cost for Tess, I wonder?
• Worry about Tess later, hon. Look around.
• Dear Lord.
• Christ almighty, there are dozens of us, Joan.
• There are yet more becoming visible.
• I had no idea there were this many of us.
‘We’ve got company.’ Lechasseur was looking past Emily.
She turned and saw the entity wearing the appearance of Tess’s son. He faded into view as the room around them continued to dissolve and melt, and he had an enormous smile on his face, as though he had just been given the best Christmas present ever.
‘It’s working.’ The boy was almost bouncing. ‘Can’t you feel it?’
‘You’re breaking free?’ Lechasseur asked.
‘I can feel this place letting me go.’ The boy spun about the room, oblivious to the walls melting and fading around him.
Emily cut across the creature’s revelry, her voice brisk and business-like. ‘In that case, it’s time for you to keep your end of the bargain,’ she said. ‘Release all the women you’re holding.’
The boy looked disappointed, as though Emily had said something extraordinarily stupid. ‘Obviously,’ he answered. ‘I’m doing it already.’
Emily heard the women a few seconds before she saw them.
‘Ghosts,’ Tess muttered. Emily put a comforting arm around the girl, and wondered at how such a bony, under-fed child could possibly be pregnant.
‘Not ghosts,’ Emily said reassuringly. ‘Friends. Most of them,’ she added.
A small, filthy girl in her late teens, dressed in coarse animal skins, was first to appear. Her eyes darted around the room in terror. She snarled, baring yellowing teeth, and backed her way around the room, but then stopped, looking past Lechasseur in amazement. He turned to see a middle-aged woman fading into view behind him. Then another woman appeared by her side. Then another and another … Through their materialising bodies, he could see the walls of the room still becoming increasingly insubstantial.
‘We might need a bigger hall,’ he muttered to Emily. ‘It’s getting crowded in here.’
‘I know. It’s time to send them all back to their own times,’ she told the boy. There was no answer. His eyes were out of focus and his mind was somewhere – or somewhen – else. ‘Listen to me.’ Emily grasped the boy’s shoulders and shook him. ‘Listen,’ she repeated. ‘You have to send them home before you can go. You agreed to that. Are you listening?’ She shook the boy again. ‘Are you?’
‘Hey,’ Tess pulled at Emily’s shoulder. ‘Leave him alone.’
‘Be quiet,’ Emily snapped, never taking her eyes from the child. ‘You must send these women back. You must.’
The boy’s eyes slowly turned to her, and he began to focus. ‘All right,’ he said softly. ‘I did promise, didn’t I?’
Emily nodded. ‘Yes.’ She indicated the petrified women filling the room. Some stood alone, while others huddled together in the hope of finding safety in numbers. ‘They’re all afraid here. They don’t know what’s happening to them.’
‘But if I send them back, they’ll be afraid there, too.’
‘Probably,’ Emily agreed. ‘But it’s better for them to live whatever lives they have in their own times than for them to be trapped forever. You understand what it’s like to be trapped, don’t you?’ The boy nodded. ‘You wouldn’t want anyone else to feel that, would you?’
A huge sigh escaped from the boy, and his shoulder slumped. ‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘I’ll send them back now.’ He closed his eyes and began to concentrate, his mind seeking the familiar paths that flowed through time.
Standing beside Lechasseur, Tess had spotted Joan Barton as soon as she had appeared back in the room. Even though her instinct was to run to her friend, she stayed in Lechasseur’s shadow.
Honoré leaned close to Tess’s ear. ‘If you want to say something to her, say it.’
‘Nah.’ Tess scuffed her feet uncomfortably. ‘She said some rotten things about me.’
‘Rotten enough for you not to speak to her now? You won’t have another chance.’
Tess gnawed on her lip. ‘I won’t see her again?’ she asked. ‘Never?’
Lechasseur shook his head.
Again Tess shifted uncomfortably. ‘Probably should then, shouldn’t I?’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘She probably won’t want nothing to do with me,’ Tess said sullenly. ‘But I could say something to her.’
‘Do you want to?’
Tess nodded.
Lechasseur put his hand in the small of Tess’s back and gave her a slight push. ‘Then you’d better go see her.’
The walk between Lechasseur and Joan should have taken just a few seconds, but Tess stopped after each step, uncomfortable and unsure of what she could say to this woman, the only real friend she had ever known. After an eternity, she found herself on the edge of Joan’s group of women. She didn’t recognise the faces of all the women, but she was certain she could name them.
‘Sandi?’ she asked a tall girl with straw-coloured hair, who was wearing a pair of flared jeans and a T-shirt that looked like a rainbow had been splashed across it.
‘And I’d know you anywhere.’ Sandi touched Tess’ hair. ‘I’d no idea you were so young.’
‘We’re all older than we look,’ Joan Barton said. ‘None of us is exactly who we seem to be,’ she added, pointedly looking at Tess. Then she held up a hand to stop the girl speaking. ‘Me included.’ Her face softened. ‘I shouldn’t judge anyone. I don’t have that right. No-one does.’ There was still disapproval in the older woman’s face, but now Tess couldn’t tell if Joan’s disappointment was in her or whether she felt a sense of failure in herself. Whatever the woman felt, it was clear that she was making an effort to reach out to Tess.
‘I’m still pregnant,’ Tess blurted. She had wondered what to say, and when the time came, that was all she had been able to manage, but it was enough. A look of relief cracked Joan’s face, and she pulled the girl close into a great hug, exactly as she had done when they had first met in person. Tess felt that same feeling of security and warmth she’d felt before, but there was something else this time, too. A sadness in knowing that she would never again see this woman she loved more than she had ever loved her own mother. It was a loss she didn’t want to think about.
Joan understood exactly the emotions that ran through Tess. Having lost her children, she was giving up the friends she had come to think of as a second family. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, holding Tess at arms’ length. ‘You have that baby of yours to look after now, remember.’
Tess nodded. ‘And he’ll grow up to be a good boy, not spoiled like the way he is in here.’ She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.
Lechasseur tapped Emily on the arm. ‘I must be going soft,’ he grumbled. ‘I kinda liked the girl.’
Emily wasn’t paying attention. She was concentrating on the small boy, whose eyes were still glazed as he sought the paths to take the women back to their own times. ‘Hurry up,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Hurry up.’
Honoré sucked his teeth nervously. ‘You wouldn’t care to tell me exactly what’s going on?’
Emily shook her head tightly.
‘Didn’t think so.’
‘But if we don’t get these women moved quickly, I don’t think any of us will be getting home safely.’
‘I really don’t like the sound of that.’
Emily’s face was taut with anxiety. ‘Neither do I.’
Abruptly the boy’s eyes snapped back into focus. For a moment, Emily was sure her plan had been found out, but the boy still seemed in high spirits. ‘They’re going now,’ he beamed. ‘I’ll miss them, but I can go and visit them all, can’t I?’ He watched as a matronly, ancient Roman woman began to fade from sight. ‘I can go anywhere and see anyone. I’ll be free again.’
Emily stuffed her hands into her coat pockets so that the boy couldn’t see the way she had them clenched into nervous fists. She forced her voice to stay calm. ‘That must be quite something. To have all of time and space waiting for you.’
‘It is.’ The girl in animal skins disappeared. ‘Being trapped here has been a torture for me. It’s like a human being told he can walk in only one direction for the rest of his life.’ Another woman disappeared. ‘That’s not a life at all. Not a real one.’
‘No,’ Emily agreed. ‘I don’t imagine it is.’
‘I could tell you who you really are,’ the boy offered suddenly. ‘I think I should give you something for helping me get free. All I’d have to do is reach out through time, and I could show you it all.’
The breath caught in Emily’s throat. The offer had come from nowhere, and it had shaken her completely.
‘What do you mean?’ Lechasseur asked. ‘You could let her see who she really is? Where she really comes from?’
‘Oh, yes.’ The boy bobbed his head cheerfully. ‘I can show Emily her whole life.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Can I call you Emily? It isn’t your real name, you know.’
‘I – I know.’ Emily stumbled over the words. ‘At least, I guessed it wasn’t. It would be a coincidence.’
The boy held out a hand. ‘I can take you home, back to before … and you can find out your real name.’
‘What are you waiting for?’ Lechasseur blurted. ‘Go. Find out who you are.’ He swung Emily to face him. ‘You’ll never get another chance like this. Go and find out who you really are,’ he urged.
The boy pushed his hand closer to Emily’s. ‘It won’t hurt.’
Emily looked between Honoré and the boy, a terrible mask of anguish on her face. ‘I can’t,’ she breathed.
‘You have to,’ Honoré urged. ‘I’ll deal with whatever’s here. I …’ He stopped as Emily shook her head, wretchedly.
‘I can’t,’ she repeated in a hollow voice.
And Honoré understood. Whatever Emily’s secret plan for getting the women home entailed, it meant that she couldn’t take this chance to discover the truth about herself, to answer the questions that had eaten at her every day since she had first arrived in London. She was being offered her own life back, and she had to refuse. ‘God, Emily. I’m so sorry.’
‘What?’ A suspicious frown had appeared on the boy’s face. ‘Why won’t she accept?’
Honoré could see Emily floundering for an answer. ‘She will,’ he answered for her. ‘Once the women are all safe.’
‘If that’s what she wants.’ The boy was disappointed that he would be delayed in fully stretching out through time again, but returned himself to sending the women back to their rightful places. From the middle of the group, a small woman with a misshapen, crooked arm hanging limp by her side began to fade away.
Honoré squeezed Emily’s arm, and they exchanged a brief but meaningful glance. Honoré’s expression conveyed quiet sympathy and support, while in reply, Emily’s face showed a grim acceptance that she wasn’t going to find out the truth about herself – and a deep concern that her plan, whatever it was, would still be uncovered. Whatever happened to the women, Lechasseur was sure that Emily was convinced that the two of them would not survive this experience. The group of women in the room was thinning out as more disappeared, sent back to their own times, taking who knew what kind of mental scars with them from their time trapped in this hellish never-world. No matter how it affected them, Lechasseur reflected, they would be better able to deal with their troubles in their own times, surrounded by a familiar world. How he and Emily would deal with the troubles coming their way, he had no idea. He offered his friend a tight smile. She replied with the slightest shake of her head.
‘This is boring.’ The boy’s petulant statement broke into their melancholy.
‘What is?’ Lechasseur asked, more harshly than he had intended.
‘This.’ The boy waved a hand at the room of women. ‘It’s taking ages for them all to go, and I want to be free now!’
‘But you will keep to your end of the bargain,’ Emily said firmly. ‘You promised.’ In taking the boy’s appearance, the creature had adopted some of a child’s mannerisms. With a little luck, Emily was sure she could continue to use that to keep it to its side of their agreement.
‘All right,’ the boy slouched. ‘You don’t have to go on about that. I’ll do what I said. I’m just bored waiting, that’s all.’
‘Listen, kid,’ Lechasseur offered. ‘If you’re as bored as that, why not save yourself some time by opening up a path back to the tower for Emily and me?’
The boy tutted. ‘All right.’
It seemed a smart enough suggestion to Lechasseur. Keeping the kid – or whatever it really was – occupied for a few moments setting up a route back to 1995 might mean that he and Emily could escape after all. It was only when he saw the horrified expression on Emily’s face that he realised that he had apparently made the worst mistake of his life.
A splinter of the creature’s consciousness shot out towards the tower in 1995. This was the simplest of tasks, little more than the flexing of a muscle, but the tower was indistinct, drifting in and out of existence. Temporal energy pulsed and flowed around the tower, engulfing it in waves and then retreating and leaving the structure to ebb out of being. It took a dozen attempts to latch onto the tower and create the bridge for Emily and Lechasseur to use. For an instant, the creature wondered if the temporal energy was a by-product of the women returning home, as their time snakes and timelines settled back into place. But then the suspicion it had felt at Emily’s refusal of its offer to discover the truth about herself returned. Having devoured John Raymond’s time snake, the creature knew it should be able to break free at any time. The energy of a time snake was all it had needed to slip its bonds and set itself free. It began to slip through time. For a moment, it felt the familiar sensation of passing through the years, before a jolt hurled it back to 1995. It tried again, and was again repelled back to 1995. Over and over it tried to break through time, and on every occasion it was forced back.
The creature raged. It was still trapped – and it was certain that Emily Blandish knew why.
Honoré looked through the door, which had swung open a few moments earlier. An inky void was all that he saw beyond it. ‘Familiar?’ he asked Emily.
She nodded. ‘I had been hoping for something a little less …’
‘Terrifying?’ Honoré offered.
‘Insubstantial,’ Emily answered. ‘But I’m not complaining. To be honest, I’m surprised we even have this.’
‘What have you done?’ The accusation was screeched in a child’s high-pitched squeal. It echoed around the room, distorted by the last, fog-like remnants of the dissolving walls.
Emily kept her expression carefully neutral. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
The boy’s face was almost scarlet with fury, and his hands were bunched into small fists. ‘You’ve done something,’ he squealed.
‘Have I?’ From the corner of her eye, Emily saw another woman disappear. If she could keep the boy occupied until they were all gone …
‘What did you do?’ the boy screamed. Hot, angry tears wet his cheeks.
Emily retained her calm façade. ‘Exactly what we agreed,’ she replied evenly. ‘I offered you the time snake of a man who didn’t want his life.’ She paused. ‘And you took it.’
‘I know!’ the boy howled.
Emily eyed the women. A dozen or more were still in the room. Unfortunately, Tess was one of them. She clung to Joan as they watched the confrontation between Emily and the little boy.
‘You cheated,’ the boy squeaked.
‘No,’ Emily said firmly. ‘You got exactly what you asked for. It’s your fault that you didn’t think of the repercussions of your actions.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think about it,’ Emily said, again glancing furtively at the rapidly-diminishing group of women. ‘The man whose time snake you took leapt from the tower.’
One of the remaining women, dressed in a smart pinstripe business suit, pushed Patience aside. ‘John?’ she demanded. ‘What about him?’
‘Be quiet,’ Emily snapped, then added, more gently: ‘Please, Alice.’
Uncertainly, Alice consented. Emily saw the other remaining women close ranks around Alice, offering comfort. One by one, they were still continuing to disappear, returning to their own times and places. There were only half a dozen left now. She returned her gaze to the boy. ‘When you took that man’s time snake, it was as though he had never existed.’
The boy glared back defiantly. ‘So?’
‘You took the time snake from the end of his life, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘When he leaped from the tower?’ Emily pressed.
‘Yes.’ The boy sounded frustrated by the questioning.
‘The tower he built,’ Emily continued. ‘But if he never existed, he could never have built the tower, so he couldn’t have thrown himself off of it, and you couldn’t have become trapped in it.’
‘But he did jump,’ he boy sniped. ‘And I am trapped.’
‘Yes,’ Emily agreed. ‘You are – but you can’t be, because the place you’re trapped in never existed.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ the boy spat angrily. ‘You’re confusing me.’
‘You’ve created a mistake in time,’ Emily explained. ‘A paradox. You’re trapped in a place that can’t exist because of what you did.’
The boy’s voice rose in frustration. ‘I don’t understand.’
Lechasseur quietly sympathised.
Emily continued. ‘If the place you were trapped in never existed, you can’t be trapped. But you are trapped and it does exist – except you just made sure it never will exist. You’ve confused time, and time can’t deal with that. It will snap back into place, with a single timeline.’
‘What will happen to this place?’ The boy looked close to tears. ‘What will happen to me?’
Genuinely saddened, Emily hunkered down by the boy and grasped his arms. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I really don’t.’
A challenge came into the lad’s faltering voice. ‘If I’m trapped here, so are you.’
‘I know,’ Emily agreed steadily. It wasn’t something she relished admitting, but there seemed little point in arguing about it. ‘I hadn’t thought much past getting you to send the women back to their own times.’
‘You gave up your chance to get out so that they could go home?’ The boy seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because someone had to help them?’ Emily searched for a better answer but couldn’t find one. ‘They deserved better than to be trapped here.’
‘They didn’t all get away, though,’ the boy sniffed. ‘I didn’t manage to send them all home.’
Emily swung round, to see that Tess and Joan were still left in the room, standing huddled together near the open door to the void, mixed expressions of confusion and fear on their faces. A terrible thought suddenly returned to Emily: if Tess was still there, so was her baby. Would or could this creature, knowing that it remained trapped, simply take the life of Tess’s baby by force? Emily’s mind raced. Giving up the baby wasn’t an option, but there had to be an escape of some kind. There had to be.
The boy was looking at her, clearly puzzled by the worried expression on her face. ‘What is it?’
Realising that she had to deflect the creature’s thoughts away from Tess, she pulled the boy into a tight hug. ‘The end will be quick, won’t it?’ she asked.
The boy’s voice was muffled by her shoulder. ‘I don’t know.’
Emily was barely listening to the boy. Her eyes had latched onto the door beside Honoré and the inky void beyond it. If the creature had reached the tower, there was a chance for an escape that way. Behind the boy’s back, she made a brisk circling gesture towards Tess and Joan with her hand, and then pointed to the door. She looked urgently towards Honoré, hoping that he had understood. The deeply uneasy expression that came over his face told Emily that he had. She silently mouthed the words, ‘Go! Now!’
For a moment, Honoré looked set to argue, but then he reluctantly conceded. Holding a finger to his lips, he ushered the two women towards the door. They held back, unwilling to go back into the blackness they had inhabited for so long. ‘It’s okay,’ Lechasseur said softly. ‘It’s not what it looks like. It’s just a tunnel.’ They weren’t convinced. ‘Okay,’ he said ruefully. ‘I guess I’m going first.’
‘Not bloody likely.’ Seeing that Lechasseur meant to do what he said, Tess grasped his arm, holding him back. ‘If this really is a way out, we’re having it.’ Clasping Joan’s hand, Tess hauled together her courage and plunged through the door into darkness, pulling Joan behind her.
‘The baby!’ The boy’s head jerked up from Emily’s shoulder. ‘It’s gone!’
Emily stiffened, desperately hoping that the boy wouldn’t say that Tess had died in the abyss between this enclave and the tower.
The boy pulled away and stared at her accusingly. ‘I could still have used it to get free.’
‘I know,’ Emily replied. ‘Are they still alive?’
‘Of course they’re alive,’ the boy grumbled. He sank to the floor and pulled his knees up tight under his chin. ‘They made it across the bridge I created for you.’ He glared at Emily. ‘You tricked me.’
Emily had no answer. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you,’ she said finally.
The boy choked out a humourless laugh. ‘If you knew … I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but I did.’
Lechasseur called from beside the door. ‘Emily.’ When she turned, he pointed meaningfully at the door.
‘You can go,’ the boy said bitterly. ‘You don’t have to make secret signals this time. I won’t stop you.’
‘Listen,’ Emily said urgently. ‘If there’s a bridge, perhaps you can cross it and …’
‘I have to stay here or it’ll collapse,’ the boy stated. ‘Don’t ask me to explain. You’re not clever enough to understand it.’
‘I don’t want to leave you alone.’
‘No doubt it won’t be for long.’
‘There must be another way,’ Emily protested. ‘There has to be.’
Lechasseur caught Emily’s hand. ‘There’s no time,’ he said, pulling her towards the door.
‘We can’t just leave him.’
‘Look around, Emily,’ Lechasseur demanded. ‘This place won’t be here much longer.’
He was right. Darkness was already breaking through one of the walls, and the contents of another room – Joan Barton’s prized sitting room, Emily realised after a moment – were trying to pass through another.
‘Emily.’ Lechasseur yanked hard on her arm. ‘We have to go – now!’
As she was pulled through the door, Emily turned and saw the small figure seated on the floor at the centre of a melting tumult. He shrugged at her, then looked away. Then Emily’s view of the room blinked out, and she was in darkness.
Alice lurched forward and found herself in the familiar surroundings of the Dragon Industry Tower. She spun round, and looked at the sign on the door. Giovanni Imports. She was home. ‘It worked,’ she breathed. ‘It sodding well worked. I’m home.’ She slapped a wall hard, just to make sure. Her hand stung from the impact, and she relished the sharp pain that shot up her arm. It was real.
‘I shouldn’t do that if I was you.’
Alice spun round. Tess was standing behind her, arm-in-arm with Joan.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Wondering where here is,’ Tess snapped. ‘An’ you look like you know, so you can tell us.’
Alice eyed the familiar surroundings and wondered if Carol Fleming still worked in Giovanni Imports. How would her kids be doing now; especially Ellie, the eldest? People she had cut from her life and refused to talk to after John had died, she now wanted to see again. Maybe she could see Carol at the coffee shop for that espresso and the guilty pleasure of a blueberry muffin. She hoped it could happen. ‘I’m home,’ she said. ‘My home.’
Tess was unimpressed. ‘Weird looking home,’ she said.
‘No, it’s not where I live, it’s where I work.’ Alice caught herself. ‘Though there were times you could have thought I did live here.’
Two more figures stepped through the Giovanni Imports doors.
‘It worked!’ Lechasseur exclaimed.
‘You sound as surprised as I feel,’ Emily commented. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the small group of women standing there.
‘I’d kind of hoped that those two would be back in their own times,’ Lechasseur murmured, indicating Joan and Tess.
‘No,’ Emily shook her head. ‘He – it – had stopped sending them back to their own times when you put them across that bridge.’
Suddenly, a bolt of blue lightning arced across the doorway and into the wall. Around them, the building pulsed slightly and slipped out of focus momentarily.
‘Time’s catching up with this place,’ Emily said quickly. ‘We don’t have long before this building never existed.’
‘In that case,’ replied Lechasseur, ‘I’d suggest we get out of here.’
Alice didn’t argue, even though what they had said made no sense to her.
‘This is your time?’ Lechasseur asked briskly. Alice nodded. ‘Good,’ he continued. ‘You can lead the way out.’
Reasoning that, as in a fire drill, it was safest not to use the lift, Alice hurriedly led the small party through a nearby swing door and into the stairwell. They then descended the stairs as fast as they could, while around them the building rumbled and lurched ominously.
After what seemed an age, they finally reached the ground floor, and emerged into the reception area. ‘Probably best if we get outside,’ Emily said. ‘There’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen in here.’ She looked around, wondering if there would be any sign of Dorkins, the security guard that she and Honoré had met earlier, but he was nowhere in sight. It was possible he wasn’t in the building any more, his timeline already altered. She had no way of knowing. A crackle of energy arced across the reception area and shot through the wall right where Lechasseur had been standing. He managed to duck clear an instant before the energy hit.
‘Time to leave.’ Emily was already heading for the front door, pushing Joan, Tess and Alice ahead of her.
Emily had to jump to reach the top lock on the door, but on the second try, the door slid open automatically. Feeling Tess begin to take a step back, Emily planted a hand in the small of the girl’s back and shoved hard. ‘Outside,’ she ordered firmly. She could see that the snow had continued falling all the time they had been inside the tower and was now several inches deep on the ground. That couldn’t be helped. ‘Stop over there under the light.’ She pointed to one of the lights illuminating the car park. She gave Tess another push, and the girl tottered off in the direction she had indicated, Joan hanging onto her arm to stay upright on the slippery surface. Alice followed close behind, with Emily and Lechasseur bringing up the rear. Behind them, the crackles and sparks of energy had become bigger, and now arced their way around the building. By the time that Emily and Lechasseur reached the gathering point under the light, the entire tower was engulfed with sharp, blue lightning bolts shooting down, round and across the building, arcing from one side to another, imbuing the falling snow with an eerie blue colour. The blue electricity sparked faster and faster, and brighter and brighter.
‘Close your eyes,’ instructed Emily. The three women complied, Tess even covering her eyes with her hands and burying her head in Joan’s shoulder.
The final flash was bright enough to be seen even through closed eyelids, and there was a soft sound and a rush of wind before they realised that they were standing in darkness.
Lechasseur was first to crack open his eyes. ‘The light’s gone,’ he said.
Sure enough, the electric light under which they had been standing was gone. It wasn’t just out – it simply wasn’t there at all.
Emily peered into the snowy gloom. ‘That’s not all that’s gone,’ she said.
Behind them, where the tower had stood a few moments earlier, was a row of warehouses with the name BOLDMAN EXPORTS painted on their sides. The car park was also gone, and they were now standing in a large loading area surrounded by a chain-link fence.
‘So the tower was never there?’ Honoré asked Emily.
‘No,’ Emily replied. ‘Then again, yes.’ She grimaced. ‘Oh, don’t ask me. I’ll only get a headache trying to work it out.
‘Alice,’ she called.
‘Yes?’
‘Were those warehouses there before the tower was built?’
‘Yes, yes they were,’ Alice answered. ‘Boldman was an subsidiary of Dragon Industry. We kept smaller company names when we bought them over. Better PR with the local community.’
‘So time has settled into place,’ Emily said thoughtfully.
‘Wait.’ Alice sounded confused. ‘If John Raymond never existed …’ She waited to be corrected, but when neither Emily nor Lechasseur spoke, she continued: ‘… Why do I remember him?’
‘We were outside of time when it set this new path,’ Emily answered, ‘so our memories weren’t attuned to think of this path as being real and proper. We all keep our own memories.’
‘Good,’ Alice said firmly. ‘I don’t want to forget John. He deserved better than to be forgotten. And at least now perhaps his death served a purpose.’
Emily glanced across at Joan and Tess, huddled together nearby, shivering in the freezing weather. ‘But they’re trapped here,’ she said. ‘This isn’t their home any more than that void was.’
Alice looked too, then moved over to join the stranded pair.
Emily turned to Honoré. ‘What will they do, I wonder? We didn’t do a very good job here, did we? We saved them from a safe prison and left them here.’
‘We did our best,’ Honoré said. ‘We did the best we could, with the best of intentions.’
‘That poor creature had the best of intentions, too,’ Emily countered. ‘And we know which road is littered with good intentions.’
Lechasseur felt his shoulders slump. Then he and Emily both swung round as they heard a high-pitched, electronic chiming noise. They saw Alice holding up to her ear a device that they recognised, from their recent adventure in Japan[1], as a mobile phone.
‘Mum?’ Alice was saying. ‘Look, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but I was wondering if I could pop round to see you this evening. And, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a couple of friends I’d like to bring with me …’
Lechasseur grinned. ‘I don’t know,’ he reflected. ‘Maybe things aren’t going to turn out quite so bad after all.’
‘’Ere, what the hell are you lot doing there!’
Lechasseur and Emily swung round again to see, striding toward them from the direction of the nearest Boldman Exports warehouse, the elderly, uniformed figure of Dorkins, the security guard.
‘I guess some things haven’t really changed all that much, either,’ mused Lechasseur.
‘We’ll have time to think about that later,’ replied Emily. ‘Once we’re back in 1950. Can you see Dorkins’ time snake?’
‘Sure can.’
‘Okay then.’
Emily took Honoré’s hand firmly in hers, and a moment later they were both gone, leaving only the faintest trace of blue lightning lingering momentarily in the air where they had stood.
After everything they’d experienced, Alice, Joan and Tess hardly blinked an eye at this. Dorkins, however, dropped to his knees in the snow, his jaw falling opening in astonishment. ‘Bloody hell!’ he breathed. ‘They always said this place was haunted, but I never thought I’d see a pair of ghosts with my own two eyes!’
In the midst of the collapsing enclave it had built outside of time, the creature curled up and waited to die. It wanted to be angry with Emily; it wanted to hate her for tricking it and leaving it here, but it couldn’t. It understood that she had done what she thought best for the women the creature had cared for. It didn’t understand why she had refused to surrender the existence of a child, a being that wasn’t alive yet. Among the creature’s species, the unborn were an irrelevance. They became real only when they were born. But it didn’t care now. It was tired and beaten and only wanted it all to end. Time snapped back and forth, establishing timelines, discarding false time tracks and erasing that which now had never happened. And all the time, the pocket the creature had built shrank under the onslaught from time, until it closed around the creature. The pain from the waves of time beating and tearing at it was almost unbearable, and the creature felt an enormous relief when a huge swell of temporal energy crashed into the battered remains of the enclave, wiping it away and erasing it from history. And then there was darkness.
And slowly, as the creature became aware again, amazed that it was still alive, small pin-pricks of light became clear in the darkness, and it felt a familiar sensation. It was free, floating in space between worlds. Those specks of light were far off stars it could visit. Tentatively, still afraid of being repelled again, the creature reached out through time and found no obstacles barring its path. Elation coursed through its being, and the creature began to slide exultantly through time. It was free.
[1] See Time Hunter: Kitsune.