14

I felt completely empty, as though all the energy had been drained from me. I’ve lived through earthquakes, been on the run from criminals and lost count of the number of times I’ve been arrested but, watching my friend pass over was probably the single most terrible thing that has ever happened to me. Knowing the pain and loss his mother and friends were going to feel was like a gaping wound in my heart - and that’s before we even go down the whole ‘it was my fault in the first place’ route. I’m not usually given to crying, but I was pretty close at that point.

‘You mean we’re too late?’ My voice was little more than a whisper.

‘Nay, ‘tis t’perfect time,’ Quill said, the faintest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

‘Huh?’ I was just about to accuse him of having a morbid sense of humour when the white vapour that had left Joel’s body began to form into a shape that was unmistakeably Joel. And he was looking round, bewildered.

‘Hey up!’ Joel’s spirit gave a start when he saw Quill floating next to him. ‘Who the heck are you? And where am I?’

‘Break it to him gently,’ I said to Quill.

But it was Joel who replied. ‘Mimosa? What the heck’s going on?’ Then he looked down and saw himself floating face down in the yellow lifejacket. ‘Whoa! Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.’

‘Now, I know this is probably going to come as a bit of a shock,’ I said, trying to put it in the kindest way I could. ‘But, I don’t think things are as bad as you think they are.’ Then I added, ‘Well, not for you anyway - not any more.’

Quill drifted forwards and shook his head at me. ‘Tha knows nowt!’ he said, sighing deeply.

Joel was looking distinctly uneasy. ‘OK, will someone explain who the guy in fancy dress is?’ Then he stopped, looked from his lifeless body in the water to me and narrowed his eyes. ‘Mimosa, you’re not.....?’

‘Absolutely not,’ I reassured him. ‘It’s just you - and Quill, of course.’ I inclined my head in Quill’s direction. ‘But, don’t worry about him - he’s been hanging around for centuries. It’s a long story,’ I added, seeing Joel’s confused expression.

Above the noise of the squall, I could just make out the chugging of an engine - and it was getting louder. I looked back towards Whitby and could see the lights of the Gwendora rising and falling with the waves. It was heading straight towards us. Typical! Teddy was too late to save Joel, which meant that he was going to blame himself for taking Joel to Holland and he’d be devastated. This was just too dreadful - and all because I’d meant well and tried to help Joel out.

‘We need to hurry,’ Quill said.

‘What’s the point?’ I asked. ‘You said yourself, you can’t change the past. And Joel’s already passed over. It’s too late.’

Again he shook his head at me as though in despair, then turned to Joel. ‘Tha time’s not come yet, Joel. Tha must go back and finish what tha came to do.’

‘You mean I have a choice?’ Joel asked.

‘Aye,’ Quill said, pointedly looking in my direction. ‘Tha’s allus got a choice. Canst tha recall what tha wor thinking when tha wor in t’ocean.’

Joel’s spirit closed his eyes and thought back. ‘I remember thinking it was blooming cold in the water.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘I’m not even here and I’m shivering.’

‘And,’ Joel went on, ‘how sick I felt and how tired I was of all the hassle with working and trying to earn enough money for mum and me. And,’ he opened his eyes and smiled. ‘And how I wished it would all end!’ He beamed and, even though he was barely visible in the dark, I could see the cheeky Joel I knew from college. ‘That’s it - I wished it would all end!’

‘And how dus’t tha feel now?’ Quill probed.

‘Well, I don’t deny, I’ve felt better,’ Joel joked. ‘But I’d rather be chucking up than dead, any day!’

With that, Joel’s features became less defined and his limbs merged until there was once again a shapeless vapour hovering above the limp form of his body.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked Quill, urgently.

‘He’s made his choice,’ he said, softly. ‘’Tweren’t his time.’

And then I remembered the curse.

‘No - wait!’ I screamed as Joel’s spirit began to pour back into the lifeless body in the water. ‘You have to love Eddy Proudfoot if you want carry on living till you’re old.’ Oh no - this was awful. What if Joel had been through all that and I hadn’t passed on the message in time? What if I hadn’t lifted the curse and he was going to die for real in a few years time? ‘Embrace the Proudfoots!’ I yelled.

Suddenly, the Joel in the lifejacket spluttered, raised his head out of the water and gulped in air with a loud gasp.

‘Help!’ he spluttered, raising one limp arm above his head and waving it feebly.

Quill and I watched as the Gwendora’s engines went silent and Teddy and Harry Hutton leaned over the side and pulled Joel on board.

‘What kept you?’ Joel coughed as he smiled up from the bottom of the boat.

I turned to Quill. ‘Do you think he heard me? Is the curse lifted?’

Quill shrugged. ‘Tha’s done tha best. ‘Tis up to Joel now.’

‘What! Is that it?’ I was in shock. After all that he was fobbing me off with some pathetic platitude about doing my best. I wanted - no needed answers. I don’t think it was unreasonable to expect a little glimpse into the future to reassure me that after all that stress and rushing about through time, Joel was going to be OK; that it hadn’t all been in vain.

But Quill simply looked at me, gave a sigh, then said, ‘Best get thi back.’

And before I had time to argue, I was stumbling out from behind Kathy Chapman’s shower curtain.

‘How’d it go?’ Kameran leapt up from where he’d been sitting on the toilet lid.

I was in no mood for him to start questioning me on the events of tomorrow morning. ‘You could at least have waited outside the door,’ I snapped. ‘What if someone came out and thought we were in here together?’

He looked at me with a pained expression. ‘Well, if you’d been away longer than about five seconds, it might have mattered. As it was, I’d only just plonked my bum down, when you were back again.’

‘Really? Wow!’ That would explain why I had such a head-rush. But this was no time to start pondering the effects of quantum physics. I began shooing him out of the door. ‘Seriously, wait outside. I’ll flush the loo, then I’ll go downstairs and then you can come in and flush it.’ Kameran was looking at me as though I’d just slipped into Cantonese back slang. ‘So that it doesn’t look as though we’ve been up to anything dodgy,’ I explained. You can tell he wasn’t someone who was used to having to cover his tracks. ‘I’ll tell you everything tomorrow,’ I added to try and placate him.

When I entered the living room, Kathy and Wanda were both staring at the crystal ball in silence.

‘I’ve just had a thought,’ I said to Kathy, as nonchalantly as I could. ‘Why don’t you give Joel a ring on his mobile and suggest that he finds a Dutch health food shop. He could get some Cocculus tablets and an acupressure band for his wrist. They’re both brilliant for sea sickness.’

I’d told Joel how to break the curse (at least, I hope I’d been in time), and now I was trying to minimise the chances of him actually getting sea sick and falling out of the boat in the first place. Wanda eyed me suspiciously as though knowing I’d been up to something.

Kathy shook her head. ‘We can’t afford a mobile, love. Still, it was a nice thought. But Wanda’s had another vision and it looks as though everything’s going to be all right after all.’

I glared at Wanda suspiciously. ‘Has she?’ I asked. ‘Well then, there’s nothing to worry about, is there?’ I gave Wanda one of my looks and said, as meaningfully as I could without making it too obvious, ‘But, just to be on the safe side - Wanda, why don’t you phone Teddy and suggest they both take some sea sickness remedy before they set off back?’

Wanda flapped her hand dismissively. ‘What! Tell a fisherman to take sea sickness tab....’

I narrowed my eyes. In fact, if I’d glared at her any more intently, I think I’d have burnt a hole right through her. Hallelujah - she seemed to have got the hint.

‘Oh yes, good idea, sweetie,’ she said, picking up our mobile and pressing Teddy’s number on speed dial.

I let out a sigh of relief and did a mental checklist to make sure I’d covered every possible angle. OK - so Quill had told me it was up to Joel now, but I was determined not to leave anything to chance if I could help it. Unfortunately, Quill or Life or the Universe was equally determined to make me butt out. Wanda flipped shut the phone.

‘Switched off,’ she announced. ‘Still, not to worry - a bit of sea sickness never killed anyone, did it?’

Sometimes I despair of my mother.

That evening Kameran asked me to go to the pictures with him and the rest of the gang but I wasn’t in the mood. I just wanted to get through the night and satisfy myself that Joel got back OK.

It was some consolation that Kathy Chapman seemed to have been placated by Wanda’s bogus second vision - at least I didn’t have to worry about her for the time being. And Wanda was on a high that she’d actually had the first vision that she was celebrating with another baking fest - and a bottle of dandelion wine from the deli up the road.

I went up to my room and stared out across the harbour to the arch made out of whale’s jawbones on the West Cliff where I’d first met Quill. Where was he now? I wondered. I took out my astrological tarots and began shuffling them idly in the hopes that the energy might induce him to come and back and give me a quick glimpse into tomorrow.

As the cards slid easily through my fingers, one slipped out onto the window sill. Typical, it was my old friend the Hanged Man again; dangling upside down by one leg from his gibbet. I sighed. If only Isaac Chapman had been hanged upside down by his leg, his family wouldn’t be in the mess they were in now.

‘If you’re around anywhere, I wouldn’t object to a bit of company,’ I said into the emptiness of my room.

No reply! I put the cards away and flopped back on my bed. There was nothing left for me now but the one thing that Quill keeps telling me I’m no good at - patience!