Mis-fit, Misplaced, Miss Shelly Clover

by James Steven Clark

Pitch black.

  The clanking of chains, the stale, oppressive air. Screams, and the inner and outer darkness.

  Just for a moment, I imagine being by myself - in just my mind - separated from every living thing for all eternity; Just myself in my own mind and screaming. No rescue, no escape, alone forever, no one else to talk to.

  Camille screeches behind me, and other voices join in – voices deadened by a barrier of thick stone from the land of the living; nobody to hear.

  Trapped and terrified. I have had moments of outright terror in the last few days, but nothing comes close to this. I am suffocating within myself.

  ‘Camille, stop!’ I squeak.

  Both male and female cries echo within this desolate tomb of the damned.

  I pull on the chains and they slither harder around my skin like a devouring python.

  There is no escape.

  I let out a sound which is like a half cough, half desperate sigh; a groan of defeat, from deep within my spirit. You wouldn’t wish this on anybody?

  The screams begin to die, replaced by hopeless cries which lack conviction. Voices break and crack with a shrill intensity, pleading for mercy, but there is no relief. I pull tighter on my chains and intensify my pain.

  ‘Camille, Shuuuuut – upppppp!’ I bark.

  She stops. And slowly, one by one, the voices subside into their own personal, anguished weeping.

  Camille sobs in the nothingness beside me.

  Another broken voice suddenly speaks out;

  ‘Shell- Shelly, Is that you, Shelly Clover? Please let that be you, Shelly.’

  The voices stop in unison.

  Everybody, or whoever is in this place, waits for me to speak; some drab hope within the hopelessness of this place.

  ‘Dezza..? Derek, is that you?’

  Uncontrollable weeping begins. It’s Dezza.

  ‘I’ve...been...here...for...weeks.’

  ‘No, no, Dezza. You haven’t, I promise. You disappeared yesterday lunchtime.’

  I pause, aware that everybody is listening.

  ‘It feels like...forever.’ is his exhausted response. ‘I’ve screamed so hard...’ He breaks down, sobbing.

  I have to get to the bottom of this.

  ‘Dezza, who brought you here?’

  He doesn’t answer at first and it feels like I’m temporarily suspended out of time, waiting for his response.

  ‘Mr Walker did.’

  ‘What happened Dezza?’

  I wait again.

  Nothing.

  ‘Dezza, what happened?’

  He weeps out his reply,

  ‘Mrs Tyme-Read was going to ask me some questions about Mr Washwater, but she got a call on her Walkie-Talkie. She was needed elsewhere. I tried calling you while I waited by her office, but then Mr Walker came by and asked me to go to the Head of Year’s room. I thought he’d be asking me questions, y’know, but instead, he made me take a seat and got out something that looked like a headset and placed it on the desk. He then, showed me my English book and asked me if the latest dream diary entry was actually mine. I said “yes”. I was a bit confused and the guy’s scary man.’

  Oh no. This is all my fault.

  ‘I didn’t want to say that I’d copied yours and actually tidied it up for once – I’ve been in so much trouble lately. I didn’t think anything of it really, ‘cos of the whole Elvis stuff that had just happened. Then, he asked me to put on the headset and I just thought I’d be answering questions into a recorder, for the police, y’know. It was like a hands-free kit or somethin. It had initials on it. ‘A’ somthin’ or other. He said it would put me to sleep so that he could have a closer look at my dream. The next thing I knew...was waking up here, in this place. That’s all I know, and now I’m doomed.’

  I freeze.

  ‘Dezza, describe the device.’

  Derek blubs inconsolably.

  I try to remain calm.

  ‘Describe the bloody device!’

  Even though I’m blinded in here, I sense my pal jolting out of his stupor.

  ‘...It-it had some initials on it. I sat back on the chair and put my head on to a...’

  ‘A pad...a pillow?’ I finish.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Dezza. Did the device have initials on it?’

  ‘Err…yes, MKA?’

  ‘You’re not good with initials. I think you mean AKM.’

  The silence again; unseen souls listen in.

  An AKM, or, Arthur Kingsley McFadden patented device; the initials of his name. John Walker, or the Carrion Crow, still in his disguised state, must have thought the chess dream I recorded in my diary was actually Dezza’s.

  Then, I think of the agitation of the Inventor on my birthday when I asked him what laid beneath the black sheet on his table. Then, from underneath the sheet adjacent to it, he gave me the sleep inducer and said that it was one of a pair.

  John Walker has somehow managed to get the second machine. Has he blackmailed Arthur for it? How?

  A thought hits me like a bolt.

  ‘Dezza, when I asked you to alter the dream entry and alter the characters, who did you put as the king and queen?’

  I remember that I’d originally dreamt it was Camille and me.

  ‘Errr, I didn’t alter it much. Errr, I knocked you out completely and added me as the King.’

  I groan.

  The Carrion Crow clearly thought that Derek owned my book until he sent him to sleep. Derek’s claim on my bell in the playground probably side-tracked him. The truth only came out when Dez was asleep. I’m not sure why John Walker didn’t just hypnotize him straight out with his voice. Maybe he needed to be incarnated as the Crow for full effect.

  It may be gloomy here, but there is a light in my mind. Did Walker, or the Crow, or whatever it is, get to Arthur too?

  I ponder the nursery rhyme - Sing Heigh-Ho the Carrion Crow. The image in my book placed the Crow as Ringmaster of his own circle and everyone was unaware of his presence, shooting arrows and injuring and killing their loved ones, “Shooting their own sows right through their heart.” Their own words and actions were destroying their loved ones.

  In the midst of that particular scene, Arthur was smiling quite happily, talking to the Crow, hold on...giving something to Crow...quite nonchalantly, and the next moment, stabbing himself in the heart.

  No-one can see me shake my head in the dark. This is desperate.

  The Carrion Crow has somehow used that device to piece together the jigsaw, before revealing himself in his true form. If the Stone Angel feeds off the grief-filled words of mourners, maybe the Crow has fed off all this chaos to the extent that he can now manifest in this form? He’s clearly used Arthur’s device to see that greedy-sleeper Dezza had nothing in that head of his, and that he’s copied the dream from me. He’s realised that Dezza lied about owning the bell after pretending it was his. Elvis would have given the Crow my number.

  Another image floods back to me and despite the discomfort and pain I am feeling, I twist my head and body to my right the best I can.

  ‘Camille, what did Mark tell you in the letter he gave you?’

  I feel no fear talking to her here, it’s like we are on level pegging, but suddenly the temperature rises as Camille starts shouting.

  ‘That son of a bitch deserted me.’

  Her voice rises and sizzles like meat thrown in hot fat.

  ‘He killed my mother, he drove her mad. I’ll kill him myself. You’re not my sister. You’ll never be my sister! He abandoned me and I was brought up with the memories of my real sister being stabbed and thrown into that stream.’

  Her breakdown is like no other I’ve ever heard. She makes a ‘yacking’ sound; an inconsolable throaty cry, as if she’s raising something from the recesses of her stomach.

  I realise I have managed to block the memories of the last ten years, with my pain manifesting in two personalities: Buddy the defeatist and Evelyn; the barely concealed self-h
atred.

  Camille on the other hand, has dealt with very vivid memories on a daily basis. I can picture Camille brought up as an adopted child by the Karrington’s, struggling to cope. Her tender, innocent frame, riddled with emotional scars from an early age, scars that are now her very person, her very soul. Every day, while normal young children are playing with enjoyment and zest for life, Camille was so utterly broken.

  She had memories of me; but didn’t know me as her sister. At school, I was a reminder - a reminder of an event that forever changed her life. And, I became an object of scorn which is why she bullied and vented at me continually.

  My heart burns with a mixture of compassion and anger towards her for all the hurt she’s caused me. And as the tears roll down my face, all I can think to myself is:

  What kind of shit life is this? Where is the Cherub? Where is anyone I can trust? Where is anyone who can say that they honestly give a toss about you?

  I feel the years of pain and betrayal, flood my own soul.

  I think of Elvis giving Camille the letters he’d stolen from Mark, the one’s he’d written to my mother…as Miriam was going mad inside a mental institution.

  And, when Mark had discovered what Elvis had done, he’d tried to give Camille his own letter, in an attempt to explain –in vain –just what had happened. But Camille had tipped over the edge years ago - it was too late. The picture in my book was of Mark shooting Camille right through the heart. His own sow…

  I sigh.

  The Crow has had his hands in peoples’ lives, slowly turning them against one another.

  What do these Whispers want? Why are they here?

  Too many thoughts inside my head, but with one moment of clarity, I ask:

  ‘Camille, you tried to get my bell the other day? Why did you do that?’

  ‘It wasn’t your bell! You stole it from me!’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ I whisper.

  ‘Well, who else did?’ She loses it.

  I pause and consider.

  ‘Camille, I want you to listen to me; I have a book too. The bell came with my book.’

  Silence.

  ‘Please believe me. I got it on my Thirteenth birthday; the bell came out of the back of it. I didn’t steal your book. There are two books! Somebody else stole your bell.’

  Then, I go for it: ‘Elvis stole it and gave it to that creature you saw: It’s called the Carrion Crow.’

  ‘…And I bet you don’t have your book anymore either. Elvis will have stolen that from you too.’

  ‘How dare you...?’

  I feel Camille’s chains clank next to me as she pushes against them with all her might; the hot breath of somebody about to tear me to pieces. Words, expletives and part sentences start... but remain unfinished. I sense that she is almost out of fight.

  She knows it’s true.

  One of the other captives, clearly a bell ringer, asks, ‘What...creature?’

  I ignore this.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Camille...there’s a lot going on behind the scenes here that we do not understand. We are being tricked, blackmailed and played against one another by something – that thing out there.’

  Played.

  It’s like I’m interpreting the chess dream as I speak. At this point, the words from the chess board tumble out of my mouth:

  ‘Life isn’t the black and white game that you thought.’

  ‘Sometimes we profess to be the players.

  ‘When we are actually the ones being played...’

  And then, the final phrase from the fourth side of the board imprints itself in my mind – the one I couldn’t see in the dream. It comes from nowhere:

  ‘...like pieces positioned by the Grand-Masters.’

  I’m stunned.

  The Crow has been planning his moves for years, maybe centuries, but what of the Cherub? Largely redundant – surely. Is this a good versus evil struggle, or simply evil versus angelic apathy?

  Camille breaks the silence.

  ‘My mum gave me the book.’

  ‘Your…mum…gave…’

  There’s no light for me to adjust my eyes. I want to see her face, but the blackness never ends.

  ‘Camille. Miriam gave you the book?’

  Her voice breaks.

  ‘My mum gave me the book. She gave it to me before she went into the mental institution. She left it on my bookshelf. I tried looking at it only once, it scared me; the words were filled with hate and they kept forming as I read them. I kept the bell though, it made nice sounds and it warned me of trouble, but now I think, it was actually guiding me towards trouble...but I still wanted it. I wanted it so badly, like it was attached to me, and me to it. I think the book drove my mum mad....’

  What was it I heard at the Printing Press about the three authors selling all their possessions to retrieve the books because they made people perform dangerous acts?

  Has my epiphany come too late?

  In the darkness, I struggle against my chains.

  ‘Who else is here?’ I call out.

  ‘Henry Siding.’

  ‘Tasmin Micklethaite’

  ‘Milly Mason’.

  One by one, they reveal their identities.

  I know that these bell-ringers have been captured and dumped here too.

  ‘How did you all get here?’

  Tasmin speaks.

  ‘John Walker appeared in the nave while the Reverend was getting changed. He said that Elvis was vandalising this tomb and could we help him. We all recognised him from your school and he writes for the local newspaper. We came outside, saw it was open…’

  ‘We trusted him…’

  That’s Henry.

  ‘He then assaulted us all. He was so strong.’ Tasmin concludes.

  The others murmur their agreement.

  ‘Shelly, are you okay?’ Milly speaks.

  Dezza groans. ‘I’ve been so cold and thirsty, I’m gonna die soon...’

  He’s not far off the truth. Something tells me we’ll all die here and the Reverend will get the blame, just like he was meant to get the blame for the ‘averted’ death of Astra Dawson in the bell tower; the Carrion Crow has had it in for the vicar in particular. Why? The paramilitary priest article. Why? The Crow accused Llewellyn of not ‘accepting’ his words a few minutes ago.

  ‘Dezza, My English book. The dreams you copied from my dream diary and placed in yours. I think the Crow thought you were me, and he thought that you had my book. He’s been trying to trace it using our dream diaries because he knew the owner would be a child.’

  ‘What? A bird in the sky?’

  This quite rightly doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to Doo-lally, Dezza.

  ‘No, John Walker has taken on a strange form, that’s half human, half crow.’

  ‘How can John Walker understand dreams?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I’ve been having powerful nightmares and writing them in my English book. He seems to have power over words and pictures.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Sorry, Dezza. I landed you here. John Walker’s been doing that dream diary project for years, waiting to trace the owner of the book.’

  ‘I’ve been having them too.’

  Camille speaks softly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve been having them for years, but I recently starting telling Elvis about them. I wrote them down in my dream diary.’

  The jigsaw pieces keep fitting.

  It’s pitch-black and I’m trying to make sense of it all, as I’m continually distracted by the isolation of my surroundings.

  With Camille filtering the contents of her dream diary to my brother, a chance rummage around her bedroom would be all it would take for Elvis to steal her book. And her bell, well, if she kept it on her like she claimed, he probably stole it from her the morning I saw him at the front entrance of school. Why she was bringing it to school in the first place, I’ll never know, but, I’m sure the Cr
ow wanted my book so that he could destroy it.

  I have some answers, but that doesn’t alter the fact that we are all entombed here. It is exactly at that moment that one of the bell-ringers starts wailing out again – our brief conversations merely masking the realities of our dungeon.

  It all feels hopeless.

  Too little, too late. Why hasn’t the Cherub or the Stone Angel come to rescue us? Do they even know or care that we are here?

  It’s all too late.

  Despair.

  I pull on my chains gently, but that will only lead to more bruising and soreness. Just how smashed up is my body anyway?

  I hear Henry Siding crying out for help.

  I look down at where my arms should be. I can feel the blood bulging within them. I feel utterly desperate...and I tug against my restraints with all my might. Pain sears through me and I gasp. I strain harder, but there’s no competition between flesh and iron, and my head drops as the agony subsides only slightly. I breathe heavily, trying not to let the pain drive me out of mind.

  Defeat.

  And then, I stare down at my arms.

  There’s a soft glow around them.

  In the darkness, dim but visible through the chains, I see the outline of my tattoo. It’s fading slightly and growing dimmer, but I clearly see the words, ‘Dutch Courage’.

  But, there’s something else. The underside of my arm is also glowing.

  I swallow hard, preparing myself for what’s next.

  Straining as hard as my pain threshold will allow, I tug again.

  ‘Grrr…ghh.’

  My tattoo lights up. I pull my arm over as far as possible and see the words, ‘wrap around arm’ on the underside - the most pointless black ink ever - now glowing amber.

  Then, in my mind’s eye, I picture my bicycle parked at school, fastened together with the padlock-less chain I can use with just my own precision and technique.

  Wrap around arm, wrap around arm.

  In the dark, remaining as calm as possible, I pull my manacled left hand closer into my body. I breathe in and am able to pass it under the chain Elvis wrapped around me. I’ve now lodged my arm firmly against my stomach.

  All well and good, but I have to use my wafer-thin body to tug against the one supporting chain still attached to the wall.

  But then suddenly, something else happens: The Dutch Courage tattoo lights up brightly. The light catches the attention of my fellow prisoners, but then starts to fade and almost dissolve into nothingness within my arm.

  Then, it hits me, like a powerful wave; I feel, well, giddy, and confident, very confident.

  I feel like I could slay a dragon. I wonder what Dutch-Courage means because whatever it is, I certainly have some.

  Even the pain feels strangely dulled and numb. I lean forward and rest my whole body on the segment I’ve created in the middle.

  I push my heels back against the wall. The chain goes tight as I press harder for more leverage. Now partly suspended off the ground, I keep pushing as I hear many voices call to me asking what I’m doing. I strain for about five seconds and jerk with little motions here and there to assist my efforts. There’s a grinding sound behind me as I hear the iron fastener on the wall begin to detach.

  This is the impetus for me to push harder.

  Dust and stone clatter into me as the shackle springs off the wall.

  I plunge head first onto the floor.

  There’s no pain.

  Now, it’s time for my escapology.

  The others sense what’s happened and there’s a fevered commotion, as I wrestle away the rest of the iron. My chains fall away and in the gloom, feeling elated, I try to stand but immediately keel over. I feel giddy as I pound the manacle on my left against the wall until it breaks: That will hurt when this feeling wears off.

  Am I drunk? Is this drunk? The other detainees start pulling their chains and I hear a chorus of cries.

  ‘Shhhh. I’m trying to help.’

  Dutch Courage. Bloody hell.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out my mobile – no reception.

  I gingerly move to where I think we came in and trace my fingers along the cold stone, searching for a seam. I find a gap, but it’s no more than a centimetre in width. I scramble onto my knees and feel for the iron chain. Finding it, I trace the thin metal plate that was attached to the wall and slowly pull it towards the entrance slabs. Shushing my fellow captors, I slot the plate end into the gap and push it in as far as it will go. I set myself and then tug back, praying that it’s caught a hold on something outside the tomb. The chain comes flying straight back at me. I curse and try slotting it in again. This time it slides immediately to the bottom of the stone. I ignore the voices as I sit contemplating my next move. Then, it hits me - the stones move outwards anyway! I’ve been pulling inwards. I hoist myself to my feet-feeling empowered by the Dutch Courage. I place both palms on the flat stone and heave with all my might. The stone budges about a centimetre and then falls back. I try again and again, but nothing gives and I wonder if an object has been placed on the other side to add more weight.

  There’s got to be a way out of here. I feel around on the walls for a good five minutes, fruitlessly examining for a lever or anything that might aid our escape. I find nothing.

  I try letting my hands guide me around, stepping over Camille who no longer wants to talk to me. I let the other bell ringers know that I am going to try and find a way out at the back. I step over the last of the people on my right and then glide along the walls. They feel smooth and damp to the touch. My hands glide over sticky moss. I persevere. I realise this place is much, much bigger than I expected. The floor starts to slope downwards and all the voices are now coming from a few feet behind me. I continue down, aware of, but not unduly caring, about the steep angle of decline.

  On I go - ten, fifteen, and at least twenty feet away from the receding calls that now seem above me.

  Something doesn’t feel right.

  Suddenly, my left foot slides away into nothingness and I pitch sideways, clinging to the wall in an attempt to stop myself plummeting.

  Where I should feel shock, I experience only numbness.

  There appears to be a ledge and what feels like a bottomless drop in the dark.

  I crawl along the edge to the other side of the tomb, dipping my hand over frequently to see if there’s anything, but as I eventually collide with the opposite wall, I realise there’s nothing below.

  It seems to be a chasm, but it might only be a few feet in depth, who knows?

  It’s while I’m hoisting myself to my feet, that something the Reverend barked at the Carrion Crow comes to mind.

  ‘Why are you in there again? What is in there?’

  I stop dead.

  What is this place?

  “Goosey-Goosey Gander, where do I wander, upstairs and downstairs in my ladies chamber. There, I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers, so I took him by his left leg and flung him down the stairs.”

  The illustration in my book was of the Reverend pushing somebody down the stairs.

  I don’t move.

  Are there stairs here?

  I think of the Virgin Mary’s statue standing guard outside…

  In my Ladies Chamber.

  The Reverend knows about this place; The Crow’s words didn’t seem to affect or get to him. Did Llewellyn suspect Walker all along, and more importantly, how did they both know about this place?

  I stand up as high as I can and stretch to a non-existent ceiling.

  There’s nothing there at all.

  It’s pitch black. There’s nothing for my eyes to adjust to.

  I then take my boldest ever step, and with my foot tipping over the edge a fraction, I slide back along in complete darkness, knowing that if I lose balance, I’m over.

  I push my hands back upwards and jerk along hoping that I might connect with something above me. It feels as if I’m free-falling while
standing and I hope that I am not going to drunkenly teeter over the edge.

  I’m no more than six feet from my starting point, when my face collides with jagged stone. I immediately cling to it, ignoring dulled pain across my forehead.

  Grateful that I have something other than my trapeze-like balance to rely upon, I rest for a moment. My suspicions have been confirmed and I feel the contours of steps ascending and descending, and at this angle, someway down and out into the precipice, and someway up too, but not too far –surely.

  It’s not too high for me to hoist myself on to them, and I’m spurred on by the desperate realisation that there’s a way out of here…

  Every impulse within, wants to make my escape, but then I think about Camille.

  Camille.

  My thoughts are drawn to her in such a powerful way, that I hold back on my imminent escape. The voices continue to shout from within the cavern and before I know it, I’m crawling back towards the captives.

  I know that I have to choose my next words carefully, and that’s going to be tricky.

  As I finally clamber into Dezza, I’m whispering to him that it’s all going to be okay.

  As he implores me to tell him more, I crawl past; he’s just going to have to trust me.

  Others call out to me.

  I then feel the next set of chains along, those of the subdued Camille. Even in the darkness, I sense her broken spirit.

  ‘Stand up.’ I whisper.

  She doesn’t move.

  ‘Please, Camille, we have to get out; I’ve found a way, and I need you with me.’

  ‘There’s no point to this…to any of this anymore.’

  That’s all she can muster.

  ‘You’re key to all of this, Camille, don’t give up hope. You have such a massive part in all of this.’

  I stand and try dragging her to her feet, but even though I can’t see her, I know she is making herself a dead-weight.

  ‘Leave me here.’

  She isn’t going to budge. I have to help her somehow. I trace her fetters up to their attachment on the wall. I ignore her sallow despair and with this unusual confidence still flowing through my veins, I take hold of her chains and clamber up the wall with both feet so It look like I’m abseiling.

  I tug on them with all my might.

  I lean back a little more, bringing my legs higher than my head. I feel like I am suspended in nothingness, relying more on the strength in my thighs and calves. I pull and strain, grunting with exertion.

  As Camille sits below me, I picture her as a discarded life-less puppet with only me pulling life back into her strings. There’s a crunch – only one – and I barely have time to think, ‘It’s working’, when the whole plate shoots off the wall and I fly backwards crashing to the floor. I’m not quite winded and I feel resolutely determined, so I make my way back to her and slide my hands back towards the next plate, repeating the process. I take an even better angle this time, and my weight against the aged attachment is too great. This one springs off immediately.

  I’m glad when I land on top of Camille this time and she grunts in pain. I’m hoping this knocks some sense into her.

  As I pant, I push myself off her and turn to kneel.

  ‘You’re free, you’re free.’

  She doesn’t say anything, but I take one of her cold hands, still bound to its manacle, and hold it in my warm hand for a few moments.

  ‘You’re free.’ I repeat.

  In the quiet, it all feels rather surreal.

  I’m reminded of holding Eren’s hands in mine, and how strange but comfortable it felt, despite the circumstances, and how extraordinarily abstract and different the hand of my enemy feels. It begins to get uncomfortable, so I stand up and hoist her to her feet. She doesn’t say a thing, but this time there’s some give on her part. I lead her hand carefully in the gloom towards the stairs and call out the words I’ve been desperate to tell the others.

  ‘I think I’ve found a way out. I’m going to climb up and then we’ll jump down and pull the doors open.’

  There’s a clamour and a tumult with excitement from all, but then as we walk away, more cries of derision.

  ‘Come-back!’ Panic suddenly seizes them again.

  What if we’re not coming back?

  I try to keep reassuring them, but I guess the blackness of the loneliness and isolation, has driven out reason. I completely understand.

  Camille lets me lead her along silently, the ends of her chains scraping along the stone floor. I slow and move down onto my knees, with my free hand stretched out. She lowers herself as well.

  ‘I was mad enough to kill you back at Astra’s.’

  I stop.

  ‘W-what?’

  ‘I saw you creeping inside.’

  ‘You were there too?’

  There’s a moment of quiet, as if she doesn’t know how to respond.

  ‘Well, your Aunty came back and I legged it.’

  My hand makes contact with the ledge – just as I’m about to respond to this.

  Did I mistake Camille for Evelyn? No way. That was definitely Evelyn I saw. Something is nagging at me, but it will have to wait.

  I know what to do and so I move to my left - my hand now up in the air – reaching for the stairs.

  I take a crouched position and turn in the gloom to Camille. I have been in here for ages – or so it seems – and there is nothing for my eyes to adjust to.

  ‘These Stairs lead up. Climb with me, Camille.’

  I grab one of her chains and give it a coaxing tug.

  I then carefully pull myself up onto the stone slightly above me and reach down and grab for her, my hand landing on her shoulder and neck. There’s a pause and then I hear the sound of the chains rising from the ground. I hold onto the other side of the stone, a little precarious upon this makeshift platform, before helping the clunking Camille on to the stairs, so that she rests below me.

  ‘This way.’

  We ascend.

  My hand’s raised, knowing that it will connect with the ceiling of the ladies chamber very shortly. No more than fifteen small steps up – I make out a thin, but dim, strip of light. We go further and my excitement and hope bursts out of my chest. I will push my way out of here no matter what is in the way. A little further now and I’m in a position to poke my fingers through a tiny gap. It’s only a couple of centimetres in width. I’m praying that it isn’t heavy, so I place my battered and bruised palms on the smooth stone and push it up and out with all my strength. The stone moves only a fraction, but then immediately slides along sideways.

  It’s only the half-light of dusk that floods over me, but I feel an overwhelming sense of life as my eyes search below for the dusty crown of Camille’s blonde head.

  I rest back on the steps. Pure relief. I swallow the night air.

  Panting hard, I manage to find the strength to take her hand and pull her up and out so that we are sat on dirty stone on top of the tomb.

  What on earth was that place?

  We stare at each other for a few moments. There’s no sisterly bond here.

  I suppose now is as good a time as any.

  ‘Camille, why did you write those death-threats to me on the gravestones?’

  She averts her eyes for the tiniest fraction of a second, before looking back at me coldly.

  ‘I wanted you to feel the pain I was feeling. Elvis said he was going to hurt you, really hurt you, and I was happy to let him.’

  I breathe out deeply.

  ‘I couldn’t think of anyone to blame...I had so much emotion in that moment…After I was excluded, I went home and there was a letter waiting for me. It was from Mark and it told me everything about who he was. Elvis had given me the other pile of letters that same morning. I always hated you…and now I had more reasons. I always remembered it was you by that stream with me but I didn’t know…we were related.’

  She spits out this line in disgust.

  ‘I bl
amed you for dragging my past back in to my face…daily...every time I saw you. And now, I couldn’t be with your brother anymore either?’

  I can tell from her agitated body-language that she’s said quite enough.

  I look down at her chains still toiling around her wrist and I realise, figuratively speaking, that she’s still very much bound by her past.

  ‘Let’s get down.’

  There’s no sign of the Crow, Elvis or the others.

  We lower ourselves off the tomb, and move around to the front.

  A large stone has been rolled in front of it, and try as we might, we can’t shift it.

  I take out my mobile phone, grateful for the one bar of reception, and dial for immediate police assistance. I’m surprised when they start asking me for my post-code, so I bark down the phone several times that there are people trapped inside a tomb at St. Harold’s – there is no bloody postcode.

  No sooner have I hung-up then I hear sirens in the distance. The collapsing church, smouldering behind us has drawn a few people who stand at the edge of the cemetery.

  I shout, ‘Roll this stone away. There are people trapped inside.’

  ‘C’mon – quickly.’ I turn to Camille.

  Camille follows me as I head back towards Astra’s old Robin Reliant, stepping carefully through sharp debris. Those DIY driving lessons Mrs Dawson gave me, are going to have to come to fruition.

  ‘What...you drive?’

  ‘We’re the Clover family, Camille. Joy-riding is in our blood.’

  She gets into the passenger side.

  The whole car is covered in dust.

  The keys are still in the ignition so I fire up and hit the accelerator. Stone and broken pieces of wood shake and vibrate off the bonnet. The windscreen wipers struggle to shift some of the heavier debris.

  My three-point turn would be hilarious under other circumstances.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The old school.’

  I can see people concerned for our safety ahead of me shouting and calling at the car, as they start to move into the church yard. The old brown car bobs along, its front wheel hitting the grassy turf in the middle of the track as I pick up speed and glide past the bewildered spectators, staring in through the windshield.

  I wind down the window.

  ‘Help those people in the tomb.’

  I hit the gas again and swing the car onto the road without looking, just missing a wailing fire engine, pulling up to the church. I veer left and the car nearly topples over with the hasty turn. Camille screeches.

  I swallow hard, but still feel energised and empowered – Dutch Courage and drink driving? I hit the throttle once more and power in the direction of the old school; hoping that I’m not too late and that we can save Astra and the Reverend.

  It suddenly hits me; the Rev’s preach. The one with bloodied tongue in the assembly: the most destructive weapon known to man. It was a powerful but weird sermon at the time and it’s only now that I have some inkling that its target audience wasn’t necessarily the pupils.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hidden Wings