Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  It would be so easy to get out of bed, throw off the stupid winter clothes, go down to the garden, hug them both and just stay here. Stay safe here in this life. It was hers. She’d created it. Why shouldn’t she stay?

  Because it wasn’t real.

  She shut her eyes tight and tried to lose herself to sleep. Sleep would solve everything. Sleep would make the decision for her.

  She didn’t know if — the next time she woke up in this room — she would give in totally and stay here forever. She was tired of the struggle. She would have to fight to return to a lonely apartment in 2013 Moseley where she’d never been born, and from there find a way to get back to her real life, where her father recognized her. Just stay here, she told herself, hating herself for it. Just stay here. Just stay here.

  She whispered it to herself a thousand times before she drifted away and felt the cold blast of winter air hit her feet.

  The night lit by white fog. The haunted platform. Her breath in clouds around her face. How easy to wake herself up right now and return to that warm bed. To wake up and run to the warm embrace of her father.

  She looked up the platform and down it. No one else. Deirdre Foster would be here soon enough. She shuddered now at the thought of each time the train had hit her. Each time a real event. This was reality. Fake ’59 was the dream. She couldn’t let it happen again. She had to stop it. If she stopped it, it would end all of this.

  Wouldn’t it?

  “Oi!”

  A voice from across the tracks. The fog swirled and she could see the outline of a policeman.

  “Put that light out!”

  But he didn’t exist. He’d died in 1940. She’d put him in this recurring dream. So how was it any more real than Fake ’59?

  She heard whistling again from further up the platform to her right, coming closer. The scrape of his shoes on the ice and something else, a tap that punctuated his footsteps.

  She stared, frozen, as the bowler-hatted figure emerged through the mist, tapping his cane. She knew she should run, but the ice seemed to have locked her feet to the floor. He loomed out of the fog and she could almost smell the gin on his breath. His mad gleaming eyes.

  He stopped whistling and flashed his teeth.

  “No,” she said. “This isn't real. You died. You died in 1912 in Winson Green Insane Asylum!”

  “I remember you,” he said.

  She shook her head. Run. Run now.

  “They put me away because of you.”

  “No. You’re not real. You can’t be.”

  He raised his cane, his eyes flashing hate. “Abomination! Whore!”

  She fell back as the cane swished, breathing its hate in her face, and she was stumbling as he advanced on her, raising it again.

  “You can’t be here! This is supposed to be real!”

  The cane flashed again. She whipped her head back and felt it snag at her hair for a moment. Scrambling to her feet, she ran full pelt, not sure which direction she was going. Not caring. If she ran out of platform, she would run right down the track and not stop.

  He swiped at her again. The flash of hot air on the back of her neck.

  The exit. She ran up the slope, her soles skittering on ice, knowing that if she somehow made it to the high street he wouldn’t be able to follow her.

  His footsteps behind her, quicker than hers. He would swing at her again and hit her this time, crack her skull open.

  She felt her breath burning in her chest.

  Charlie. He was watching the end of Vertigo right now and would walk out of the cinema any moment. Charlie would save her. She only had to make it out of the fog. She knew now that Richard Parker would not follow her beyond the fog. It fed him, bred him, as if he were the fog in human form.

  She ran to Charlie, ran through mist up the perilous slope as Mr Parker, an Edwardian ghost, grabbed at her hair.

  She had almost broken through when the world fell from under her and she woke screaming back in the bedroom.

  — 22 —

  MARTYN DRAGGED HER out of the bed, his giant hands shaking her. A woman was screaming and she wished she’d stop. It was annoying.

  She realized it was her own voice.

  Martyn was shouting at her, tears rolling down his face. “What’s the matter with you? Stop this! Please!”

  But she felt quite calm, even though it was herself screaming the place down.

  Doctor Devaz leaned over her. His fat fingers pulled open one of her eyes. She struggled against him. He nodded to the door.

  She could see that the door was hanging off its bottom hinge and the wooden chair was broken in half. Olive was standing out on the landing, fingers to her lips in prayer. She looked in pain.

  Two men in white coats pushed past her and edged around the broken door. One of them lugged in a wheelchair, folded flat. It was all iron and rubber lining and for some reason reminded her of a dentist’s chair. She flinched at the sight of it, knowing it was for her.

  The first man in white called to her but she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the screaming. He had her by the wrists. Strong hands. She couldn’t move against him. He pulled her out of the bed with Martyn and they dragged her to the wheelchair, which the second man in white flipped open with a practised kick. She saw now that there were leather straps on the hand rests.

  She writhed against them but they pulled and shoved and threw her into the wheelchair. Martyn held her legs down while the two men in white quickly strapped her wrists down, then they strapped her ankles in.

  The screaming had turned into a wailing now.

  “I’m sorry!” shouted Martyn.

  The voice that had been screaming and was now wailing said, “Don’t let them do this!” and she felt grateful that someone was taking her side.

  Martyn cried as they wheeled her out of her room and shunted her down the stairs. She twisted her head around and saw Olive embrace him. They were both weeping for her.

  The men in white wheeled her swiftly through the front door, along the drive past the iris blue MGB Roadster and into the back of the waiting ambulance.

  She caught a last glimpse of her father and grandmother at the door. Doctor Devaz was talking to them, holding his Gladstone bag. The men in white lifted the chair into the ambulance and locked it into tracks and slammed the door shut.

  One of the men in white stayed with her. She heard the other run round to the cab, slam the door, start the engine and they roared off.

  There was a strip of tinted window along the top of the ambulance. She saw the stucco battlements of Charlie’s old apartment looking over Moseley village — her apartment — and tried to gauge where they were going through the glimpses of other buildings she saw. It was difficult to keep track because much of it she didn’t recognize. They drove for some time. She knew they had passed through the city centre and continued northwards but it wasn’t until she heard the ambulance rolling over gravel that she knew where they were taking her.

  The ambulance pulled up, they opened the door and she looked out at the building she’d only ever seen in an old newspaper photo story.

  It was a Victorian mansion in Winson Green, a stately home surrounded by rolling lawns. It looked idyllic. But it filled her with terror, because she knew, just before she blacked out, that it was the insane asylum.

  — 23 —

  SHE SCREAMED IN PAIN and yanked her hair free of his grip, pushing him away from her.

  Mr Parker clattered to the icy floor, yelping like a kicked dog, a clump of her hair in his fist.

  He had fallen ahead of her on the slope, barring the exit to the high street. She had only moments before he got to his feet. If she tried to pass him, he might grab her again.

  She turned and ran back down towards the platform. The mist swallowed her. She heard him cry out behind her. Then the unmistakable sound of him panting, dashing after her down the icy slope, his feet skittering on the ice.

  She slipped as she reached the platform and tried
to stop herself skidding over the edge onto the tracks.

  The other side. There must be a way out that side too. She ran down the platform through thick mist and bolted up the steps, crossing the footbridge and down the other side.

  She was about to run the length of the platform and see if there was an exit slope there but as she passed the station master’s hut something told her to hide there.

  She flew through the door and slammed it behind her, turning, her cold hands scrambling for a bolt to lock it. Her fingers found a key sticking out of the lock. She turned it and slammed the bolts shut, her heart beating so madly it pounded against her face.

  “You’re back.”

  The stationmaster, still sitting in his chair, the glow from the wood-burning stove on his face.

  “Did you forget something?”

  She shook her head and tried to breathe again.

  “Come and sit down. Your tea’s still warm.”

  “He’s out there,” she gasped. “He’s trying to kill me.”

  The station master nodded and shrugged, as if she’d said it was still foggy out there, not that there was a psychopathic Edwardian ghost trying to kill her.

  He poured himself another cup from the bone china teapot and she knew now where she’d seen him before.

  “You’re him,” she said. “The guy from Buygones. You’re Mitch.”

  He looked up at her and smiled and nodded.

  “You can help me. Mrs Hudson came to me today. She tried to get me out of here. That’s what you’re trying to do too, isn’t it?”

  Mitch stirred the tea in his enamel mug and sipped it. “Ah, that’s lovely. Come and have another.”

  She sat next to him and grasped his arm, tea spilling onto the floorboards.

  “I need your help. I need you to get me out of here. They’ve locked me up in Winson Green Insane Asylum.”

  Mitch steadied his hand. “I can’t get you out of here. Only you can do that.”

  “Mrs Hudson said that other world was false and this was real, but there’s a psychopath out there who died in 1912. So is it real or not?”

  “Yes. And no.” He had an annoying way of talking as if she were discussing the weather. “It’s more real than your other place, but it’s still created by you.”

  She put her head in her hands and wanted to wake up. Then remembered what she would wake up to.

  “I said there was no touchstone and you agreed with me,” she said. “But if this is real, then the touchstone was real, wasn’t it? Can’t I just get out of this station, run to St Mary’s churchyard and escape back to my time?”

  Mitch took a long slurp of his tea and gazed into the flames. “When your ability manifests,” he said, “it tends to be located to a special place; in your case, a gravestone in Moseley. It’s sort of easier to accept it like that. My colleague Kath still uses the Dovecote in Moseley even though she knows she can do it all by herself.”

  “Are you saying I don’t need the touchstone? I can do it by myself?”

  He carried on with his thread of thought, like he hadn’t heard her. There was something about him that wasn’t all there.

  “After you’ve used that special trigger for a while — this touchstone in your case — it tends to go a little bit mad. You start to flit about randomly. You might have noticed? It’s your ability telling you that you have more control over it than you think.”

  She nodded. At first she’d always gone to St Mary’s churchyard and touched the gravestone in that certain spot before she transported to the past, but now she thought about it there were times she’d had no real memory of using the touchstone. She’d just sort of become aware of being there all of a sudden, making patterns in the sugar on the table with her finger.

  “And then you end up in a place like this. Which is a place and, well, isn’t. A sort of holding station in a parallel universe. A sliver of time that you’ve created for yourself. A dream of time. Outside time.”

  The heat from the fire burned her cheeks and she felt drowsy. There was something she had to do, something really important, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

  “Is it real?” he said. “Not really. Is it a dream? No, it’s more than that. Is it 1959? Well, yes. And no. Because it’s almost outside time.”

  There was a squeaking sound that seemed to be echoing from somewhere far away. It must have been outside the stationmaster’s hut. But it was too close to her to be outside.

  “There’s very real danger here, Rachel. You could end up trapped here. It’s more than a dream. And this is probably the last time I can help you. You see it’s so exhausting to contact you in this place. I’ll be out of action for weeks. So just remember this.”

  Someone was moaning somewhere. Someone in another room far away. It echoed to her as if down a long, empty corridor, sailing on the sharp stench of disinfectant. The light was fading in the room. The fire must have gone out.

  “Just remember this,” he said. “There is no touchstone. You are the touchstone.”

  — 24 —

  SHE WAS FLOATING DOWN a long white corridor. Her wrists strapped to the armrests of the wheelchair. One of the wheels was squeaking. Someone pushing her. The ambulance men in their white coats. Someone was moaning somewhere. Someone in another room far away. It echoed down the corridor, sailing on the sharp stench of disinfectant.

  “Please let me out of here,” she cried. “I need to get back to Moseley. Just let me go to St Mary’s church and I can disappear. Please!”

  They ignored her, just pushed her on down the corridor. The leather straps cut into her wrists as she pulled against them. They wheeled her into a waiting room and were waved through to an office with the label Medical Superintendant on the door. She didn’t see the name as they wheeled her in. It felt like stepping inside the mind of a Victorian gentleman: an oak panelled box lined with leather-bound volumes.

  The Medical Superintendent wore a double-breasted grey suit with a white handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket. His silver hair disagreed with his black moustache. Another man turned to face her.

  “Doctor Devaz!” she cried. “Please tell them there’s been a mistake! I’m not mad. I shouldn’t be here!”

  The two men looked at her for a few seconds then turned back to each other and she was dragged out of there backwards.

  They rolled her into the Medical Office where a doctor and a nurse unstrapped her. She thought of running but they prodded and poked at her and their strength scared her. They talked about her like she wasn’t there. They took her clothes and dressed her in a white smock. They pulled her mouth open and looked inside, measured her circulation, temperature, respiration, pulled at her skin, asked her to pee in a glass and talked about its colour, shone torches in her eyes, hammered her kneecaps, asked her to walk up and down, move her arms, move her legs, twisted her ankles around.

  When she tried to speak to them, they ignored her. When she protested, they shoved her and pushed her till she did what they wanted. All the while, they said things like Left pupil dilated. Right medium but irregular in outline. No tremor, paralysis or nystagmus. Knee jerks unaltered. No ankle clonus.

  She was tired and felt bruised both inside and out and that was when they injected her with something that made her head feel so heavy she could barely keep it on her neck.

  They wheeled her back down the corridor to the Medical Superintendant’s office. They didn’t strap her into the chair. They didn’t need to. She could barely stand, let alone run.

  This time she saw his name on the door: Doctor Ferguson. He was sitting behind his desk, flicking through a written report. Doctor Devaz had gone. She knew that in the notes was everything she’d told her doctor, and perhaps everything Martyn and Olive had told him about her. She had to admit that she’d think she was looking at a crazy person too. Was there anything she could say to get herself out of here?

  Doctor Ferguson looked up from his notes, adjusted his glasses and said, “What year do y
ou think it is?”

  She wondered what she was supposed to say for the best. Was this supposed to be 2013 or was it actually 1959? Mitch’s words echoed in her mind: Is it 1959? Well, yes. And no. Because it’s almost outside time. That applied to the station she dreamed about, but was it the same here when she was supposed to be awake?

  “It’s 1959,” she said, as if he were the mad one.

  “And why do you think it’s 1959?” he asked.

  “Are you telling me it’s not?”

  He wrote something down in his notes.

  The window behind him revealed sunlight on rolling lawns. She could get up and jump out and run for freedom right now. She felt like she could run, but whatever they’d injected her with had somehow made her not want to.

  “You were upset at the new car your father bought today. Why was that?”

  She shrugged. “Wrong colour.” She wanted to laugh but as soon as she giggled she felt her heart sink. This was no joke and it was going to end very badly for her the longer she was trapped here.

  “Tell me about these dreams you’ve been having.”

  “They’re only dreams,” she said, staring at her lap. “Am I here because of what I’m dreaming?”

  “You dress in winter clothes when you go to bed,” he said. “So you don’t feel cold when you arrive in your dream.”

  “You think I’m mad, don’t you?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you don’t really care what I think or what I say. I think you’re going to continue with whatever treatment you’ve already decided on.”

  Doctor Ferguson wrote something down again. “Who is Charlie?”

  “Just a man I dreamed about.” She shrugged again. If she convinced him all of this was a harmless dream, would he let her go, so she could escape back to the present?

  “Tell me about this touchstone,” he said.