His hands curled into tight fists as he redoubled his efforts on the gaping hole in the cavern wall, and tried to control the shapes, colours and things he couldn’t even describe that poured continuously from it. After a while he found that the more he concentrated on certain colours or certain shapes, the more he almost understood them and what they meant, as if they were all pieces in a puzzle and he had to fit them together. The more he did just that, the easier it became, until finally he became certain that the gateway now pointed back home and had opened. The energies are now all lined up instead of scattered about everywhere, he thought,. That’s what I had to do. The Lost can’t see them properly, but I can. I can see them and I can control them somehow.
Suddenly weak, he staggered to the ground and his eyes flickered open. “One way only,” he found himself saying.
“Is it open?” Andrew demanded.
“It’s open,” Joe whispered. He could barely raise his head. “One way only.”
“One way only!” Andrew exclaimed. He looked around at the dozens of other Lost gathered around the cavern. “Anyone interested in a return ticket?” A laugh of amused contempt answered his question.
Andrew grabbed Joe by the chin and forced him to look back at him. “Ah, he’s telling the truth,” he called out. “He’s opened it. I can see it in his eyes.” In a quieter voice, he added for Joe’s benefit, “That’s a special ability that I have, you see. I would have been able to tell straight away if you were lying. And then I would have really made you suffer.”
“We don’t yet know exactly where it leads,” Andrew continued a little more loudly. “But we do know that Joe won’t risk the life of his friend Amber. He won’t step through alone. He won’t take her with him if it’s to their deaths. This is why Joe will be going through first, with Amber...”
“And Stephen,” Joe said.
“And Stephen. Of course. I’m sure he’ll enjoy his new life in the old world. The Order will be hunting him as soon as he arrives. And so will we.” He looked across the cavern. “We’ll be coming for you, Stephen. I hope you can run fast and hide yourself well. Please, make it a little difficult for us. Not much of a sport otherwise, is it?”
Stephen simply stared back at him.
“What about us?” Amber asked suddenly. “You don’t need to hunt us.”
Laughter echoed around the cavern. “I tell you what, Amber,” Andrew said once the harsh sound had died away. “We’ll give you a head start. That’s fair, don’t you think? A bit like a game of hide and seek. We’ll count to a hundred and then come looking for you.”
Something about Andrew’s words gave Joe a thought. It was a faint hope rather than an actual idea, but the more he considered it the more he found himself persuaded.
If I could somehow change the gateway as we step through, or just after we step through...
I would just change one of the patterns, he thought. Maybe that would be enough to change where the gateway points- just enough. And if that means that they come through in a slightly different place to myself, Amber and Stephen, maybe then that will give us time to escape.
It was a desperate hope, but it was the only one he had.
Andrew motioned to the two men who were holding Stephen. “Take him to the gateway and throw him in,” he commanded. Amber cried out in protest but they ignored her.
Stephen was cast into the darkness of the gateway. No sound came from it. It was as if he simply winked out of existence, silently and immediately.
Joe took a few steps back and grasped Amber’s hand. “We’re going together,” he said.
“How cute,” Andrew said coldly. “Go on then, sweethearts.”
The Lost fell silent as the two children walked towards the gateway. As they drew nearer, Joe realised that most of the powerful energy of the portal now poured into it rather than out of it.
“Is it really working?” Amber whispered as they reached the entrance.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“They’ll come after us,” she said. “All the work of the Order will be for nothing.”
“Please Amber, just trust me,” he whispered. He wanted to tell her about his idea, but knew that it was unlikely to work. He could only try.
“Hold on,” he said. “Just keep holding on. Don’t let go whatever happens.”
Amber and Joe stepped into the void.
Chapter 14
Amber screamed as she fell through absolute darkness, but her voice made no sound. Her hand gripped Joe’s so tightly that she thought she might crush his bones. Sometimes she saw distant flashes of light, as if a storm was taking place far away. She felt utterly cold inside, as if her body was slowing down even as she fell like a stone. Her heart thudded as if it struggled to keep going at all.
Where are we? she wondered. This can’t be space. I’m still breathing. So where is this? Is it anywhere at all?
Then the two of them were rushing towards a fixed, bright light in the distance. As it got nearer and brighter, Amber felt a terrible fear grip her. Wasn’t this what those near-death experiences were supposed to be like? Were they just hurtling to their deaths? Please no, she cried out in the dark.
But she had no time to think anything else because they reached the light, and then the light became everything all around her.
Amber opened her eyes. At first she could see nothing except a white ceiling. When she raised her head and looked around she found that she was lying in a bed, in a room that looked like a hospital ward.
But it’s so quiet, she thought. I’ve been to hospitals before. They’re never this quiet.
At first she couldn’t remember or understand how or why she was here. Have I been ill? she wondered. How long have I been here?
But then her memory of recent events came back to her, slowly at first but then in a sudden rush.
The boy in the woods. Joe disappearing and then coming back. The things Dad and Emma told us about. The cottage. The Emptiness. Stephen.
The Lost. The gateway.
The Lost are coming for me!
Amber screamed out loud and got up in a panic, her eyes fixed on the door across the room. She had to get out of here. If she wasn’t already a prisoner of the Lost again, then she would be soon. And where was Joe?
But she managed only three or four steps before her vision began to fade at the edges and her legs suddenly gave way. She was vaguely aware of the door opening and someone- perhaps two people, because she could hear footsteps to either side- walking quickly towards her. They helped her to her feet and back to the bed, but by then she was hardly aware of anything and couldn’t speak. By the time they laid her back on the bed she was unconscious.
When she woke again sometime later, she immediately noticed someone sitting at the bedside and turned her head. “Dad!” she whispered, wide-eyed in disbelief as she saw him. “What happened? How did you find us? Where’s Joe? Is he all right? What about...”
Her dad squeezed her hand and smiled. “Everything’s okay,” he said. “Joe is fine.” His smile faded as he stroked her hair and continued, “I’m so sorry that all this happened, Amber. I love you so much, but I wasn’t able to protect you. It should never have happened.”
“The Lost are coming,” she whispered. “They said they would hunt us down.”
“We found only yourself and Joe,” he said. “No one else. Nothing else.”
“How did you find us?” Amber asked. She felt upset by the look in his eyes, as if she had somehow caused the worry and hurt in him, and the only thing she could think of doing was to ask a question to stop him talking about it.
“We were looking for you the whole while. Others from the Order helped as well- but it was Emma and I who found you. Both of us could feel something happening near the cottage again so we stayed there. We didn’t know if it was going to be you and Joe, or anyone at all. We had no idea. We just hoped.”
“What happened to Patrick?”
“Patrick? Nothing happened to him. He w
ent to look elsewhere. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering.” So maybe he wasn’t what I thought he was, Amber thought.
Slowly she told him what she remembered from their time in the Emptiness, and he listened in silence until she mentioned how they had stepped into the gateway.
“I can’t bear the thought of you there... with them,” her dad said. He looked at her suddenly and Amber saw a look of fear in his eyes. “Did they... I mean...”
She knew exactly what he was trying to say and quickly interrupted him. “No,” she said. “They just kept me locked up.” I don’t want to think about what might have happened if Joe hadn’t opened the gateway, she thought, but she didn’t say anything about that. It would only upset him further.
“Did you find Stephen?” she asked suddenly.
He gave her a strange look. “Stephen?”
“We met him.” Amber launched into a hurried explanation of how they had met Stephen and how he had led them to where the Lost had been trying to build their portal. “But he knew all along that the gateway was there and that Joe could make it work. He lied to us about that. He was just so desperate to come back here.”
Her dad shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Amber. But I think I know who you mean. He was sent away by the Order.”
“They banished him to the Emptiness, you mean,” Amber said.
“Yes.” Her dad didn’t look as if he wanted to talk about it. Amber wondered for a moment if he had had anything to do with what the Order had done to Stephen.
“Joe’s awake and has spoken about him already,” he continued after a moment. “And I can understand why Stephen behaved as he did. Between you and me, Amber, I didn’t approve of what the Order chose to do. Many others have gone against their rules over the years, over the centuries. Your mother and I were just two of dozens.”
Amber didn’t say anything. She still wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk about that. Maybe I’ll be ready to in a few days, she thought. Right now I can barely think at all with everything that’s happened.
She felt hurt and betrayed by Stephen, who had deceived them just for the chance to find a way back home. But she couldn’t help but feel she might have done the same thing. It was difficult to know one way or the other. I don’t know what it’s like to have a partner and children of my own, she thought, but I know most people who have them would do anything in the world for them.
She wondered what had happened to Stephen. Had he just become lost inside the gateway? What would that have been like? Was he there even now, falling through the darkness forever? Amber shuddered.
A sudden chill went through her. “Dad, the Lost will find a way through! Even if they haven’t done yet...”
Her dad shook his head. “The gateway disappeared after you and Joe came through,” he said. “Some of us waited a while, but I promise you no one else has come through.”
“Are you sure?” Amber could scarcely believe it.
“I’m sure.” He smiled. “You need to recover for a little while longer.”
He had already left by the time Amber realised that she’d forgotten to ask where she was. She fell asleep, and when she woke again she wasn’t in the hospital room at all. She was back home in her bedroom.
The faint memory of the last few days nagged at her. It felt like a dream, but also like a separate life, one that might have been lived by someone else.
She tried to cling on to it, knowing that it might be of terrible importance, as the reality of a sunlit bedroom swam towards her. But by the time she had got up and made her way downstairs, the details had become even more muddled.
“I can’t remember properly,” was the first thing she said to her dad when she walked into the living room.
“Come and sit down, Amber.” When she did, he turned the television off and sat silently for a while. Amber glanced at him from time to time and tried to be patient and not fidget.
“It will come back to you slowly,” he said eventually. “It’s better that way. And sooner or later you’ll need to be trained. Then you’ll know more about all of this than you ever wanted to know.”
The look he gave her was one of such sadness that she wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him forever. But before she could even say anything, he continued, “I can’t give you much, Amber. But I thought to myself that I’d at least give you the chance to just be a normal kid for a little while longer. I think that’s the best thing I can do for you now. You’ll go to senior school after the summer holidays, just as we’d already talked about. But in a few years time, you’ll need to start training for the Order...”
“I don’t think I want to,” she said.
“You don’t have any choice,” he said gently. “And neither do I. This is important, Amber. Both you and Joe are part of the Order, whether you like it or not.”
He sighed. “Let me put it another way. You might think that only a force that’s just as powerful can destroy an evil power. Wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose.”
“But that isn’t necessarily true.”
Amber frowned. “Why not?”
“Well, imagine something for minute,” he said. “Imagine that everyone in the world just decided to change their plans for the day, whatever they might have been, and instead do a good deed for someone. Maybe not even someone they know. In fact, it would be better if it was someone they didn’t know. Someone who wasn’t expecting a random act of kindness.”
Amber thought about that. “The world would be a very different place,” she said eventually. “If everyone did that, it would change everything.” Then she added sadly, “But that would never happen.”
“Perhaps not,” he agreed, “but even if a smaller number of people did it, that still might change things. I know it won’t happen exactly like that, Amber. Things never do. But my point is that teaching people to show kindness to others is perhaps the most important thing of all.”
“And that can defeat the Lost? I don’t see how.”
“The Lost prey on people who are alone and afraid, people who feel that they have absolutely no one and nothing in the world. People who are angry and full of hate and feel that they have nothing to lose.
“But supposing that one day something changes in their life. Maybe something that seems quite small.”
“A small act of kindness,” Amber said.
“Yes, exactly. And supposing that small act of kindness changes them in some way and they do something for someone else that was in the same position as them. Someone whose hate and misery they can understand. And on it goes...”
Amber jumped as the doorbell rang. When her dad went to open the door, for a moment she felt scared without knowing exactly why. Don’t be silly, she told herself. The Lost that were in that other place and couldn’t get back here. I remember that much.
Despite those thoughts, she couldn’t help but smile with relief when she saw Joe in the doorway.
A little later Amber and Joe sat by the lake, looking out over the water and enjoying the late afternoon sun.
“Does it still feel like a dream to you?” Joe asked after a while.
Amber nodded. “Except there’s no waking up from it,” she said. “I still find it hard to believe the things I’ve seen and done. It’s weird. I can remember most of it, but it seems vague.”
But it wasn’t a dream, she silently added. It feels more like waking up. Waking up from my old life into a new one, and there isn’t anything I can do about it. Dad said he wanted me to have the chance to just be a normal kid for a little while longer. But I’m not sure that’s possible now.
“What’s the matter?” Joe asked, looking across at her.
Amber couldn’t reply for a while. She had no idea how to describe how she was feeling. She had seen incredible, horrifying, amazing things over the last few days. Her world would never be the same again.
“I suppose I’m afraid,” she said eventually.
“Afraid of
what?” Joe asked her.
“I don’t know. Growing up. A lot of things. The future. Aren’t you?”
He nodded reluctantly. “ Things are going to be different for us, aren’t they? It’s like we have a huge secret that we have to keep. We’re not going to be like other people. We can never be like them.”
“No, I don’t suppose we can. Anyway, who would believe us if we did tell anyone?” Then she quickly added, “Not that I’d tell anyone, of course. Even if we were allowed to.”
“Do you think there was a reason why it happened when it did?”
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “It was probably because of who we are and who we’re related to. Maybe it was always going to happen at some point.”
Joe shrugged. “Well, I’m glad it’s all over. For now, anyway.”
It’s all over, Amber silently echoed, but she was thinking of something else. I don’t feel like I used to anymore, she realised. I don’t know what I feel like. But after everything that’s happened, it’s as if a door’s shut behind me. I can’t ever go back to the time before all this. I can’t forget everything I’ve seen and done. And neither can Joe.
She felt oddly sad about that, and she began to realise what it might be like for her dad. He was trying to protect her for as long as he could, but sooner or later he wouldn’t be able to, even in this world. A door had closed behind him as well.
As afternoon drifted into evening they made their way back through the field towards their homes. Joe almost stumbled over himself with shock when Amber reached out suddenly and held his hand. He stared helplessly down and then glanced across at her, but she was looking ahead, towards the gate at the edge of the park that led them back into town.
Joe didn’t know what to do. He only knew that he didn’t want to let go of her. He squeezed her hand gently and she squeezed his back, then looked across at him and smiled.
They reached the gate. Amber lived in a different direction to him, so she would go one way and he would go the other.
They stopped at the road, and turned to look at each other. Joe opened his mouth, desperate to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Summer's Dark Waters Page 12