Steven sat on Councillor Philbin’s park bench on the Green in Belthorp. Diagonally across from him, on the other side of the square that included the Green and a broad, cobbled roadway, was the row of Merrivale cottages where Stella Dalrymple lived. It was just after two o’clock on a bright but chilly Thursday afternoon.
Jacob was already on the Merrivale side of the Green, making his way towards Mrs Dalrymple’s house, rehearsing over and over again what he was meant to say.
‘Yes?’ said Stella when she opened the door to him. Before her was a boy of about thirteen or fourteen. He was not someone she had ever seen before. ‘What is it?’
‘We need to talk to you,’ said Jacob. ‘My father and I have things we need to tell you about.’
Stella looked at him suspiciously. ‘Where is your father?’ she asked.
Jacob pointed across the Green to the seat where Steven was sitting.
‘Why has he not come to the door with you, if he has something to say?’ said Stella, cautiously placing one foot behind the door. The boy did not look strong enough to force an entry, but one never knew.
‘He thinks you won’t talk to a man and a boy who just knock at your door without any introduction. We could be thieves or murderers.’
‘He’s probably right,’ said Stella with a smile. This must be the oddest conversation she had ever had on her doorstep. ‘Are you going to tell me what it is you’re after before I close the door and go back to my ironing?’
‘We know where Thomas and his father are,’ said Jacob.
‘In that case,’ said Stella very firmly, ‘you should tell the police.’
‘They wouldn’t believe us,’ said Jacob. ‘Besides, we just want you to know that they are safe. And Nesta’s safe too. We saw her with her family in York.’
Stella’s hand dropped from the side of the door. ‘Nesta!’ she said in a voice little higher than a hoarse whisper. The Nesta connection was surely unknown to Rupert Shawcross or any of his people. This boy and his father, whoever they might be, were surely genuine – whatever genuine might mean in this ever more baffling context. She stood for some seconds and just stared at the boy.
Then, being Stella, she could not stay fazed for long. She drew a deep breath, opened the door wider, and waved towards the man on the Green.
‘You’d better come in,’ she said to the boy. ‘Tell your father to come quickly. The fewer who see you, the better.’
Stella did not immediately make her visitors welcome. They could not be kept standing outside – that was clear; but inside, she kept them in the little hall and asked very directly why they had come to see her.
‘I don’t know why I should be pestered in this way,’ she said. ‘I have not asked for your attention.’
‘I know,’ said Steven in a soft, charming voice, ‘and all I can do is apologize. Your mistake was in talking to that reporter, you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Stella with a sigh. ‘Such a clever thing to say – “Starlight, perhaps”. It rolled off my tongue before I had the chance to catch it. I knew as soon as I said it that it was the wrong thing to say. But I never, ever expected the consequences.’
She looked from father to son and wondered what might come out of this visit. Neither of them appeared in any way threatening. Stella had a sense of the muddle they had all got themselves into.
‘You know everything, I assume,’ she continued. ‘Nesta was here, looking for help. She was so desperate not to be taken away from Earth. Before she came, and after, I had visits from an investigator hoping to find out whether my neighbours came from outer space. He missed you by just two days. Thank goodness he did! Where will it end?’
As she talked, she warmed to them and felt that they were all on the same side.
‘You’d better come right in and sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll make tea and we can talk.’
Steven smiled as they followed her into the living room. The hardest thing had been achieved: they had acquired her trust. The rest should be easy.
‘Now,’ said Stella as they sat by her fireside, ‘what have you to tell me? Where are Thomas and Patrick now?’
The fire, as usual in this cold season, was burning brightly in the hearth.
‘They are miles and miles above the Earth, on their way to the home planet,’ said Steven. ‘They are perfectly safe. It is a journey that has been accomplished many times before.’
‘Many times?’
‘By different travellers over the past three centuries.’
Jacob looked startled. Why was his father telling this Earthling so much?
There followed a long and very deliberate silence. Stella was trapped in it.
‘Look at the logs burning in the fire,’ said Steven softly when he could see that she was calmly waiting for him to speak. ‘Look at them, Stella. See how the flames lick the wood. See the sparks and listen to the crackling of the wood.’
Stella gazed obediently into the fire, her hands folded in her lap.
‘Look at the logs burning in the fire, the logs in the fire burning,’ said Steven, his voice growing ever softer. It was not straightforward earthly hypnotic suggestion. The power behind it was much stronger.
‘Your memories of Patrick and Thomas are fading,’ Steven murmured. ‘You knew them, you loved them and they moved away. Keep the love, but lose the knowledge that should never have been yours.’
It did not sound like a voice speaking. There was an abstracted, alien ring to it that made it somehow inescapable.
The words were intended for the heart rather than the head. Jacob could not make them out at all. They were not meant for him. But he guessed what was happening. So that was how Stella Dalrymple would be ‘dealt with’ – the dangerous knowledge was being cauterized from her memory.
‘When we leave, you will forget that we have ever been here. Seconds after we have closed the door, it will be as if we had never crossed your threshold at all.’
Stella turned away from the fire. She shook her head sharply as if to clear it.
‘You can’t do this to me,’ she said, looking Steven straight in the eye. ‘There is no way on this earth that you can deprive me of my memories. I won’t let you.’
It was Steven’s turn to look startled. He had used the power of Ormingat, power of great potency, and it had not worked. He had risked giving Stella more details because he had been so sure he could erase everything.
‘I am not a good hypnotic subject,’ said Stella icily.
‘I – I am not using hypnosis, not Earth hypnosis,’ stumbled Steven. ‘All I am doing is restoring your memory to full normality. You are meant to remember only those things you know to be possible.’
‘Thank you, but no thank you,’ said Stella indignantly. ‘What will you do if I won’t forget?’
Jacob wondered about this. The hypnosis, or whatever it was, had seemed a promising, kindly way of tackling the problem. It had not worked. Now he was afraid that something sinister was about to happen. Surely that was not the way of Ormingat, the peaceful planet? He looked expectantly at his father.
Steven was totally nonplussed.
He had done much harder things than this. It amazed him that it had not worked. There had been a hypnotic element to the treatment, but he had used mind-fencing to induce a sense of irrelevancy. It had been effective on so many other occasions. The subject neither forgot nor remembered forbidden facts – he or she simply ignored them. So why did it not work on Stella?
Not for a moment did Stella fear Steven. ‘My mind belongs to me,’ she said, when he was clearly at a loss for words. ‘Whilst I live, whatever is in my memory stays there, or is displaced because something more important comes along. Could there be anything more important than my love for Thomas and his father? Could there be anything more memorable than our meeting here today?’
‘So what shall I do?’ said Steven helplessly. ‘I am meant to protect my planet from discovery.’
‘Learn what your planet’s people have clearly failed to learn so far,’ said Stella.
‘Which is?’
‘That there are on this Earth people worthy of trust. When I said those stupid words to that reporter, I didn’t realize I was betraying anybody. Now I know better. The secret of Ormingat is under lock and key in my heart. I will never, ever betray you.’
‘That means you become the protector,’ said Steven tentatively.
‘And you must be the one to forget,’ said Stella in a firm voice. ‘When you leave my house today, you must forget all about me. Go back to your home on Earth – for I take it you have one – and never give me another thought. When you return to Ormingat, make no mention of me there.’
‘I’m not returning to Ormingat,’ said Steven, drawn to confide in Stella. ‘My wife is an Earthling. My children were born here. I could choose to leave them – others must have so chosen in our long history – but I will not make that choice.’
It was Stella who noticed the woebegone expression on Jacob’s face. She leant towards him and held his hand. ‘That makes you sad?’ she said.
She looked into his dark eyes and saw the depth of his misery.
‘I want to keep our spaceship,’ said Jacob. ‘I want to be who I am when I am there. It is so much less lonely.’
Stella could not quite follow the words, but she understood the sentiment. Someone with less sensitivity might have tried to probe the loneliness. Not Stella. She turned his hand palm upwards as if she could tell his fortune. Then she said gently, ‘It is hard to be lonely. I do understand.’
She walked with them to the bus stop and stood till the bus came down from Medfield, on its way to the station. It was mid-afternoon and there were no other passengers either boarding or alighting. That at least was a relief.
‘Take care,’ said Stella as her visitors got on the bus, ‘and remember what I said about forgetting!’
‘We can’t just forget though, can we?’ said Jacob when they were seated on the bus. ‘We have to report back.’
Steven smiled enigmatically. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘There are details we might just fail to remember. There is no need to report at all before the first of March.’
‘But-’ said Jacob, beginning to protest.
‘Say no more,’ said his father. ‘Let’s just enjoy the rest of the holiday. We’ve done all we can for Ormingat.’