by Tim O'Rourke
His face broke into a sudden smile and I felt my heart somersault in my chest. “How could I ever forget,” he said. “In the gatehouse at Hallowed Manor.”
“What you doing?” I heard someone say.
I peered over my shoulder to see that Potter had joined me in front of the fountain. I looked back into the water but that reflection of Potter had gone. I splashed the water with the flat of my hand, hoping that he might come back, but all I could see were a collection of coins that people had thrown into the fountain, hoping that their wishes would come true. I hit the water again, making waves, desperate to see if there was some kind of hole – hatch – tunnel – that Potter might have been looking back at me through. But there wasn’t, just coins that had turned green at the edges with age.
“Nothing,” I whispered in response to Potter’s question. “Nothing at all.”
“Nice tits,” Potter said, glancing up.
“What?” I asked.
“The statue – she has a nice pair of tits,” he said. His mood seemed to have lightened.
“Do you think she looks like me?” I asked him, looking up at her.
“Take your top off and I’ll tell you,” he smiled sideways at me.
“Don’t you remember?” I asked him.
“I haven’t ever seen them. I’m sure I would have remembered,” he said with a disarming smile.
I looked at him. “Where did we first kiss?”
“In the corridor that leads to the cellblock back at the office,” he said. “Why, have you forgotten?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” I whispered, looking back down into the water. I suddenly felt more confused than I ever had.
“Maybe we should get going,” he said. “It’s getting dark and we still have to find Neville.”
“Nev,” I said as Potter wandered away again.
I glanced down at the plinth on which the statue stood. Nev had been right; the name of whoever the woman had once been had worn away over the years and was now unreadable. But there was something. It looked like some kind of inscription that had long since faded and only a few letters remained. Bending forward at the waist, I screwed up my eyes and read what was left of the inscription. There was the letter ‘L’ followed by the letter ‘O’. This was followed by a big space where a large part of the inscription was unreadable. The next two readable letters were an ‘I’ followed by an ‘S’. These two letters were followed by another big gap of unreadable words. The two last remaining letters that were legible were ‘L’ and ‘I’.
I leant back from the statue, lining the letters out in my mind like a mental game of scrabble. L, O, I, S, L, I. It didn’t make any sense at first. But as if taking a step back in my mind and looking at the letters again, I could see that they formed the words – the name – LOIS LI!
Chapter Thirteen
I followed Potter across the square in the opposite direction we had approached it from. I glanced back at the statue, and from a distance, it did look like me. It looked like how I had once been, when I’d almost turned to stone – became a statue. Looking back at her was like looking in the mirror and seeing me covered in those cracks again. But was it me? And if so, why had someone created a statue? And why had they placed it in the centre of Snake Weed?
“…you died a long time ago in this place,” I suddenly remembered Jack telling me in the dream we had shared. “There’s a statue of you…”
As I stood glancing back at the statue in the square, that dream I’d had of Jack and I standing together at that remote railway station in some far off wasteland came flooding back.
“A statue?” I had frowned back at him. “Why is there a statue of me?”
“You and Potter became legends,” Jack had said, rubbing his whiskered chin. “Now things must have been pretty fucked up if that fuck-wit Potter became a legend. Maybe he won a prize for being the biggest nob-head in this layer…”
“Potter?” I’d gasped. “Potter is here?”
“He’s dead,” Jack had told me. “Both of you are.”
I turned my back on the statue and watched Potter striding away across the square. I glanced back at the fountains of water at the feet of the statue. Had I really seen Potter looking back at me from within it? Had he really spoken to me? And was it really him? He knew where we had shared our first kiss. Only my Potter would have known such a thing. That had been our secret. But if it was my Potter? Was he trying to connect with me from another layer – from some other where and when? If it was, who really was the man now striding away across the square – the man who claimed to be in love with me?
“Hey, Kiera, I thought you were in some mad rush to find Neville,” he called out, his voice rebounding off the buildings that surrounded the square.
If he truly wasn’t my Potter and belonged in this where and when, perhaps my Potter was using him as some kind of conduit to reach out to me – to make contact with me like he had via the fountain? The Potter who was with me now had told me that it was like there was another Potter deep inside of him – a Potter that he’d never known about – that was trying to come forward. Was that why the Potter in this where and when went from being snarky towards me then declaring his undying love? Was the side of him that was in love with me, my Potter, trying to reach out from some other layer? If so, then he hadn’t forgotten me. He remembered me and what we had once shared together. I didn’t know if this filled me with hope or despair. Would we ever be able to reach each other again?
“C’mon, Kiera,” Potter called out to me again. “It’s getting dark and…”
“I’m coming,” I muttered, my brain aching with confusion and doubt. I started back across the square toward him. And what of the writing, the partial inscription that was barely visible on the concrete plinth at the foot of the statue? The remaining letters spelt the name Lois Li. But was it really a name or not just the remaining fragment of a longer inscription – a longer message? And if so, why was someone using it? Was someone trying to send me a message far more important than just a name?
“Are you okay?” Potter asked as I drew level with him. “You look kind of lost again.”
“I’m okay,” I said, shaking my head so I could think more clearly.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.
“Maybe,” I whispered, brushing past him and heading out of the square.
Potter caught up with me and we walked side by side away from Snake Weed down a single-lane track. Trees stretched up into the darkening night sky and swayed in the wind on either side of us. “Do you have any idea where to even start looking for this Neville guy?”
“His name is Nev,” I reminded him for what seemed like the hundredth time. Potter knew full well what Nev’s name was and how to pronounce it, he just liked to tease. He had done it all the time when with Isidor. “He likes to camp in the hills,” I said.
“Well, that certainly narrows down our search,” he sighed, glancing to the left then the right. “We’re surrounded on all sides by fucking fields. I think we should just fly. Who gives a fuck what Nigel thinks if he sees your wings? I’ll persuade him not to ever mention…”
“Shhh,” I said, cocking my head to the right.
“What?”
“Shhh,” I said again. “I can hear the sound of running water.”
“So?” he shrugged.
“Nev told me that when he came out to the hills outside Snake Weed, he liked to set up camp near to a stream,” I explained. “That sounds like a stream to me.”
I stepped off the track and into the crop of nearby trees. The sound of flowing water grew louder. I followed the sound and before I’d gone very far, I found what I’d been looking for. A small stream meandered away in both directions. It flowed down from the nearby hill and into Snake Weed and was probably the source of water that fed the fountain there.
“I know what you’re thinking, Kiera, but there could be lots of streams running off these fields,” Potter said, coming to stand
beside me. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted in the evening air.
I’d been in these hills before. My friends and I had hidden in them before heading down into Snake Weed and confronting Luke and his army of wolves. There was no other stream I had ever seen or could remember.
“This is the stream,” I said, turning and following it back in the direction of the hill.
Chapter Fourteen
The river wound its way back up the side of the hill as I followed it. Potter walked just a little way behind, his head down, a cigarette jutting from the corner of his lips. When I glanced back, he looked deep in thought, like he was trying to analyse some internal conflict – battling some internal demon that was trying to possess him. Was it my Potter that he was having an internal struggle with? Was there some way that I might be able to draw the real Potter out? But the Potter that trailed behind me in the growing dark was real – he was real in this where and when. He had a real life with real friends. He had a fiancée who was carrying his child. So would it be fair of me to entice my Potter forward to overshadow and finally consume the Potter from this where and when? But something told me that everything wasn’t quite right in this place. Something told me that there was more going on beneath the surface that I had yet to discover and figure out. My instincts told me there was something very unreal going on in this where and when. For instance, the name, Lois Li. I wasn’t convinced now that it was someone’s name. I was starting to doubt that any such person existed. Those letters were part of a riddle that I would only figure out if I unearthed the complete inscription that had once been written at the foot of that statue. The true question was, who was behind the riddle and why did they want me to solve it? And I would solve it. There was no doubt about that. Tempting me with a riddle was like showing a red flag to a bull. I was going to charge right at it. It was what I did. It was all I’d ever known. I would solve the riddle. I would see who was behind it. I was Kiera Hudson.
I looked up to see how far we had come and stopped. I could see a flash of orange set back from the river between the nearby trees. I peered into the fast growing darkness at whatever it was.
“There,” I said to Potter as he drew level with me.
“There, what?” Potter said, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the stream.
“Someone has made camp,” I said, creeping forward. The flash of orange I had seen was a small tent.
“Wait, Kiera,” Potter said, placing one hand on my arm. “Anyone could be in that tent.”
I glanced back at him. “Like who?”
“I dunno, maybe a couple of lovers. They could be having some jiggy-jiggy and they might not be happy to discover you peering through the tent flaps at them,” Potter said.
Without saying anything, I took my phone from my pocket and pressed Nev’s number with my thumb. After just a few short seconds, I heard the sound of his phone ringing from the direction of the small orange coloured tent. “This is where Nev made camp,” I said, placing the phone back into my pocket and heading toward the tent. Potter followed close behind.
“Neville!” he suddenly called out. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
“Shhh!” I hissed back at him. “This isn’t some sort of joke.”
“Who’s laughing?” Potter said, prodding at a pile of ash with his boot.
“Stop doing that, you could be destroying clues,” I warned him.
“Clues? It’s a burnt out campfire, that’s all,” Potter groaned.
“It might be able to tell us who took Nev,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper.
“Who took Neville?” Potter mocked. “How do you figure that out by looking at some old campfire?”
“Look,” I said. “What do you see?”
“That he was a messy little fucker,” Potter said.
“This mess has been caused by some kind of struggle,” I said, pointing down at the overturned camping equipment, the discarded sleeping bag, and torn clothes that lay strewn before the tent.
“He might have just got spooked and run off,” Potter said.
“So what spooked him?” I said, pulling open the flaps of the tent and crawling inside.
“I dunno, an owl hooting or something,” Potter said.
“Give me a break,” I sighed under my breath. The floor of the camp was scattered with paintbrushes that had been snapped in half and torn up pieces of paper. It appeared that the place had been ransacked. There was no blood that I could see, which suggested that Nev hadn’t been injured or hurt – not at the camp at least. I then saw something flashing brightly from beneath a discarded sock. I reached beneath it and pulled out Nev’s phone. The front of it flashed with the words, Missed Call. My name and number were written beneath this message. With the phone in my hand, I crawled from the tent and stood up. I could see that there were three missed calls from me and the last text Nev had sent had been his plea for help.
“So what now?” Potter asked.
“Shhh,” I said again, dropping to my knees. With my nose no more than an inch from above the ground, I slowly and thoroughly made an inspection of the earth around the tent. Potter stood and watched from beneath a nearby tree as I worked. The tip of the cigarette he smoked shone red in the darkness.
“How can you see anything? It would be better to do this tomorrow when there is some light,” he said.
“I can see just fine,” I said, brushing my fingertips back and forth over the leaves, earth, and broken twigs. I could see so much. Crouching, I made my way forward, then leaping to my feet, I darted to the left and right, toward the nearest tree then back again. I spun around, went to the stream, then made my way back toward the tent. I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand. “Of course,” I muttered to myself as I went back to my work, dropping to my knees again. “Clever, clever, clever,” I muttered to myself as I examined the clues in the darkness.
“Do you always talk to yourself?” I heard Potter ask.
“Shhh!” I insisted, raising one finger in the air, and looking down at the clues that lay all around the tent from which Nev had been snatched. Crawling forward I went back into the tent, my fingers dancing over the broken pieces of paint brushes. As if trying to solve a puzzle, I lay out the remaining pieces of the brushes. I then scooped them up, placing them into the pocket of my jeans. Crawling from the tent, I sprang to my feet.
“This way,” I said, heading off back up the hill.
“Hang on, not so fast,” Potter said, grabbing my arm, spinning me around to face him.
“We’ve got to get going,” I said, resisting his hold on me.
“Go where?”
“After Nev,” I said, pulling my arm free of his grip.
“What have you seen?” he asked.
“They were good.” I smiled more to myself than him. I admired their cunning.
“Who were?” Potter frowned at me.
“The Lycanthrope that snatched Nev,” I said. “But Nev was more cunning than any of them.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Lycanthrope?” Potter said, a look of disgust on his face. My Potter or not, he still hated the wolves. “Impossible.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They don’t leave their caves,” he said. “The Creeping Men have made sure of that. The wolves have their own world – they don’t venture into ours.”
“Well, they have, and they took Nev,” I said.
“How can you be so sure wolves took him?” Potter said, eyes narrowing.
“The tracks,” I said, turning around and looking back at the small camp Nev had made. “There were four of them. They came as wolves but left as men. The prints suggest that they came into the camp as wolves. They circled the tent, sniffing out their prey. Nev must have heard them, looked out and seen them not as wolves but men. I believe he knew they were going to take him – perhaps he heard them saying so. It was then he sent the message for help to me.”
“Why not just call you – speak to you?” Potter ask
ed.
“Because he had something else on his mind,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Leaving some kind of trail for me to follow. The paint brushes told me that,” I explained.
“Paint brushes? What the fuck are you talking about?” Potter moaned. “What have paint brushes got to do with anything?”
“This is what happened,” I said, heading toward the tent. I walked around and around it as I relived what had happened. “Nev heard the wolves approach. There are Lycanthrope tracks here, here, here, and here,” I said, pointing to the ground on all four sides of the tent. “But the tracks then become that of men. One of them was at least six feet tall. The gait between his strides tells me that. Knowing that they had come across a lone camper, they decided to take him. They must have discussed their intentions or why else would Nev have set a plan in place in the short time he had remaining before his was captured? He used those last few remaining moments to send a message to alert me he was in danger, then he snapped his paint brushes into pieces,” I explained.
“You know what, if I thought I was just about to be taken by a bunch of filthy wolves, I wouldn’t be sitting there working on my next masterpiece,” Potter cut in.
“Not a masterpiece, but master plan,” I smiled back at him.
“Look, this is all very interesting but can you just stop talking in riddles and explain what the fuck is going on?” Potter said, fast running out of patience with me.
“At first I didn’t see it myself,” I started to explain. “The biggest of the group took Nev from the tent. That was where the struggle took place. There are no scuff marks on the ground outside the tent. The clothes that lay scattered about are because the wolves were probably looking for anything of any value before leaving camp. The tallest of the group carried Nev away. This is obvious because there are no signs of tracks left by Nev. He carried Nev so we wouldn’t know which direction to head…”
“We just follow the footprints, don’t we?” Potter sighed.