“That’s the Giant that was in the hospital?” Titus asked, and both Zane and Dev nodded. Titus gently took the scrap from Zane and scrutinised it. Only the top half of the person could be seen, but the large square head and featureless face were easily recognisable. “Did you tear this from a newspaper?” he asked Dev, who watched his handling of the picture very closely.
“Nah, was like that when I found it. I was just looking for stuff to burn and I saw it and then I come here. Now I gotta show Jay.”
Titus ignored Dev’s urgency and peered at the corner above the top of the picture. “Some of the date is still on it,” he mumbled. “I think it’s from 2012.”
The other three simply looked back at him, clearly not registering the significance of the year. Titus sighed. “That was the year that It happened.” He was about to continue when Dev whipped the scrap from his hand and began to run off towards the garden. “Come on,” he yelled, “Jay’ll wanna look-see too.”
“Wait!” Zane grabbed his collar. “Mum’s around, and she doesn’t know about all this … let me make sure she’s not in the house. Wait here.”
It took only moments for him to establish that Miri was in the garden and to let her know that they were back and that Dev had come to visit Jay. Engrossed in her work, she smiled and nodded, pausing briefly to wave at Dev as he was ushered past and straight into the house. When they were all inside Zane shut the front door as Dev rushed over to the sofa where Jay was sleeping, yelling “Jay! Jay! I got a picture of the Giant!” It didn’t take long for the patient to become fully alert and inspect the find.
“He looks like this?” he asked in disbelief and watched both Zane and Dev nod earnestly. “What happened to his face– why’s it all smooth like that?”
“I think it might be something over his face,” Titus replied. “But it’s hard to tell from that picture.”
Jay frowned. “Don’t seem that clever if it is. How could he see properly?” He looked at Zane. “And he was very tall?” Zane nodded. “And he must be old for him to be on this paper,” Jay muttered. “It ’ent right that someone like this is nosing round Miri’s patch.” He grabbed Dev’s jacket and pulled him down so he could speak to him quietly. “Go back to our patch and show this to ‘em all. Tell ’em that I want all eyes out for this Giant, and put up a strip to call a Runner. Meet them when they come tomorrow, show ’em this picture and tell ’em I want them to keep lookin’. This might help.”
Dev listened to the instructions carefully and nodded frequently, eager to demonstrate his attentiveness. He went to move when Jay finished, but his gang leader didn’t let go.
“Dev,” he said in a slightly lower voice, “Don’t mess this up. If any of the lads give you any jip, send ’em to me.”
With that he let the Boy go, who quickly dashed out of the house, clutching the picture tight in his fist. Jay lay back on the sofa, shutting his eyes. “Don’t like this one bit, Zane. That Giant don’t look right to me. You told Miri yet?”
Zane shook his head reluctantly. “Not yet, but I … I will.” The front door opened again and Miri breezed in. “Everything alright? Dev looked excited about something.”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Jay said coolly after glancing at Zane and seeing the tiny shake of his head.
Miri smiled at the three children and continued through to the kitchen with a basket full of herbs.
“Tell ’er soon Zane,” Jay whispered, “She should know.”
Titus remained silent and then looked down at his hand, realising he still had the photograph of the two doctors. “Here, I held on to it,” he whispered to Zane as he handed it to him. Zane looked at it and sighed heavily. “I need to talk to Mum.”
“Mum,” Zane said, shutting the kitchen door behind him. “Why didn’t you tell me that my dad was a doctor?”
The empty dish in Miri’s hands slipped from her fingers and smashed on the tiled floor.
“Miri?” Jay called from the living room. “You alright?”
Miri stared at Zane, the curved fragments of earthenware rocking slowly at her feet. “How did you find out about that?”
“So he was a doctor?”
“Zane, how did you know?” She sounded panicky.
He stepped towards her, holding out the photograph. She took it gingerly, as it if were about to explode, and looked at the smiling men. Her eyes filled with tears and her hand flew to her mouth. Zane immediately regretted raising the subject, her reaction was so immediate and intense. She sat on one of the stools, staring at the picture, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.
“Miri?” Jay called again with more urgency.
“It’s alright, just a dish,” Zane called back, seeing that his mother was unable to answer.
“Where did you get this?” she finally said, breathless with tears.
Zane fidgeted. “From his room in the hospital.” He waited for the shouting, but none came. She just looked at him, speechless. “I didn’t go by myself,” he added. When the silence continued he added, “There’s a whole wall of pictures there.” She looked back down at the photo, her breath ragged as she tried hard not to break down completely. “I look like him, don’t I?”
She nodded and then was on her feet, pulling him into a tight embrace, fierce and strong. He felt his shoulder grow damp as she sobbed into it. He just held her a while, not knowing what else to do. Slowly she let him go to fish a handkerchief from her pocket and blow her nose.
She sat back on the stool and handed the photo back to him. “He was called Doctor James Shannon. The man he’s with was his best friend, Doctor Al Siddique. Zane Al Siddique.”
Zane’s eyes lit up. “So I am named after someone!”
Miri nodded, becoming tearful again. “One of the last conversations I had with your father was when he asked me to name you after him, he missed him so terribly.”
“He died too then?” Miri nodded. “When It happened?” She nodded again. “And then Dad died after that?” Her eyes flicked away briefly and then she nodded.
Zane looked down at the doctors, smiling at him as if he were standing there in front of them.
“Why is his skin so dark?”
“Because his parents were born a long way away, where most people’s skin looks like that.”
Zane puzzled over this briefly but let it go. “What was Dad like?”
“He was very charming,” Miri said quietly, with a pained expression. “Very clever too. I didn’t … I find it hard to think about him, Zane, so I haven’t told you anything about him. I’m sorry, that was wrong of me … it just hurts, that’s all.”
Zane nodded at her sympathetically. “It’s ok. I’m just glad we’re doctors like he was.”
She smiled weakly. “We’re not doctors, Zane, we just help to heal people.”
“But Titus said …”
“Doctors knew lots more about bodies and diseases than we do. And they took a special oath too.”
Zane was thoughtful, his mind full of questions about this echo from the past. But he didn’t want to dredge things up for her as she so rarely talked about before It happened. “I’m sorry I upset you,” he finally said. He briefly considered telling her what else had happened at the hospital but decided that this wasn’t the most sensitive time. Besides, he’d had an idea about something else that was pulling his attention elsewhere.
Erin returned to the square at the normal time the next day, but alone once again. “The hunt is over,” she told the boys, who had been waiting for her in the garden.
Zane couldn’t bear to ask the question, so Titus spoke. “Did Luthor win?”
She nodded and Zane bit his lip. “Did he go through the door?”
“Oh yes. He didn’t even notice me when he turned up at the gates with this huge stag over his back. There was blood all over his shoulders and he just marched right up to her rooms.” She paused. “David’s really upset. He says that Luthor deliberately hit his ankle to make him lose when he should’ve won because he caught the first stag. He was yelling and shouting, but Father just ignored him.”
“Do you think he did it?” Zane asked, intrigued by the possibility that Luthor would cheat.
Erin looked appalled. “Of course not! Why would he? He’s the best. David’s just jealous. He wants to be with the Red Lady.” There was an awkward silence, but then Titus straightened suddenly as if he had heard something.
“There’s a Gardner in the square,” he whispered to them both and Erin was on her feet in moments, knife drawn.
Zane shook his head. “They wouldn’t dare come here– they never do.” He looked at Titus then and was frightened by the conviction in his friend’s eyes.
Erin’s hand shook. “They’re not here for you,” she whispered, alert and tense.
There was a noise from the southeast corner of the square, a very soft footfall. Zane grabbed Titus’ arm, saying, “We’ve got to tell my mum!” He began to pull up Titus, who was staring in the direction of the noise as if trying to see through the plants and trees that obscured his view.
Something flew through the air from that same direction and hit the ground barely feet away from them. Zane cried out from surprise, then horror, as he saw what it was.
A skull, bleached white by the sun with shadowed eye sockets, had landed in a clump of plants. The children stared at it as Titus allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
Then it moved.
All three of them cried out in fright and backed away as it scraped sideways before tipping off the leaves to roll upside down onto the dark soil. It rocked back and forth a couple of times, then a snout and whiskers appeared from the internal cavity, and a rat poked its head out.
All three breathed again, Zane immediately embarrassed that he’d thought the skull had moved itself. As the creature scrabbled out, Erin took aim and threw the knife, impaling it through the spine.
“Yuck!” Zane exclaimed as the rodent twitched a couple of times and then went limp.
A man’s laughter, devoid of any warmth, echoed around the square. Erin drew in a sharp breath, trembling.
“Not long now, Erin,” a deep voice taunted, drawing the words out like a cat prolongs the death of a captured mouse. “We know where you are …”
“HEY!” It was Jay, from the direction of Zane’s house. “Get gone, or get dead, Gardner filth. You got the time it takes for me to draw my knives to decide.”
“I’m gone, whelp,” the Gardner called back. “I did what I came for.”
They could hear Jay moving now, round the perimeter of the garden, sharpening his knives on each other with a menacing scraping of metal. “You even cough in this direction again, you piece of crap, and I’ll send your guts back to your old Ma tied in nice bows that she could wear in her hair, if the old bitch had any.”
Zane tensed, expecting that to kick off a fight, but they heard nothing more from the Gardner. Jay shuffled into the garden through the south gate moments later, sweating with effort, knives glinting in the sunshine. “He ran off, worthless sack of … You ok?” he asked them and the boys nodded. Erin stared at the dead rat, shaking.
“Bastards,” she muttered, and then rushed forward, scooping the skull into her hand and throwing it as far as she could out of the garden. It smashed into the wall of the Royal Homeopathic hospital and then clattered to the ground. She knelt down to pull the knife out of the rat’s corpse, wiped its blood on a leaf plucked from the nearest tree, and then picked it up by the tail as Zane’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “I’ll get rid of this before your mum sees it,” she said and walked out of the garden.
Jay nodded to himself, impressed. “You know, she’s alright, for a girl.”
Titus was silent as he watched her go. Jay sheathed the knives and sagged. “Gotta lie down, feel like shite.” With that he shuffled off, the adrenaline of the encounter fading and the pain of his injury returning fast.
When he was gone, Titus turned to Zane. “That answers one question,” he said quietly. At Zane’s blank expression he said, “Where Erin comes from. She was one of the Gardners.”