Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  She had escaped it somehow and emerged here, back in the graveyard at St Mary’s church, Moseley. And she knew exactly what this was: she was meeting Charlie for the very first time, in 1934.

  This was the time when she would persuade him to help her in all the subsequent years. She knew it because he’d told her about it in 1940.

  “Are you quite sure you haven’t been attacked? Was it those bloody Blackshirts?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She let him pull her gently to her feet, staggering against him. He held her firmly, but not as strongly as future Charlie would. Had.

  “They’ve been busy locally,” he said. “Unfortunately, the place name seems to have attracted them.” He looked at her now and stopped, as if he recognized her. Could he possibly recognize her?

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Just a strange... Quite peculiar. Almost as if someone walked over my grave.” He dismissed it with a tight smile. “I suppose that’s what you get for walking through a graveyard.”

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  She had a sudden desire to know exactly what had made their paths cross. This was their first ever meeting. Why was it Charlie here now and not someone else?

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  That tight, self-deprecating smile again. He’s shy, she thought.

  “I’ve never actually been here before. I was walking to Moseley and sort of just found myself here. Quite peculiar.” He rubbed his neck. “Still, good job I did.”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said. “You’ve saved me.”

  “Just what exactly happened?”

  “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

  He smiled uncertainly and she knew he was already a little bit spooked by her. She let herself wilt in his arms and he tried to steady her. If you act helpless, he’ll want to help you, she thought.

  “Look, we really should get you somewhere safe. The rally’s out at Bingley Hall, but there might be a few still around.”

  She put her hand to her face, pretending to be dizzy, groggy. “What rally?”

  “Wretched Oswald Mosley. The Blackshirts. There are thousands of the idiots all over Birmingham today.”

  “Oh... yes... Blackshirts,” she mumbled. She didn’t know what he was talking about specifically, but she’d read about Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. His surname had made her wince at the irony (Moseley village in her time being the epitome of liberal cool). In history books and old newsreels it had seemed unbelievable that a mass movement of Nazis had goose-stepped all over Britain in the 1930s. Britain: the country that would face Hitler alone for much of the war that was yet to come.

  “Was it them?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she lied.

  Charlie seethed. “Those bloody, hateful thugs. Why can’t they just live and let live? Promoting hate and envy, when it’s the opposite of that that life is all about.”

  “The opposite?”

  “Love,” he said. “The opposite of hate.”

  He blushed suddenly and she saw the teenage boy he was; ardent, passionate, full of belief. For a brief moment she wondered if she were about to destroy all of that in him.

  Charlie looked around wildly and walked her towards the green wrought-iron gate at the rear of the cemetery.

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  She walked alongside him, occasionally pretending to trip as they edged down the alley and emerged at the village green.

  It was fairly similar to Moseley as she’d seen it in 1940, but without the sandbags, the public information posters and people walking here and there with white gas mask boxes bobbing at their waists. It was Moseley in peace time. Moseley before the bombers would come.

  She felt a sudden sadness for them all and wanted to warn them: enjoy this, appreciate this; really live this, because it’s about to disappear.

  “I live just up there,” he said. “You can sit there till I call an ambulance.”

  She looked up and was surprised that he wasn’t pointing at the stucco battlements of the corner house: Charlie’s flat above the street in 1940 and 1966, which he’d left to her in 2012.

  He wasn’t pointing there at all. He was pointing across the street to one of the windows above the shops on Victoria Parade. It was Barrow’s Stores now, but she knew the place. It was above what would one day become Mrs Hudson’s costume hire store.

  — 3 —

  KATH BRIGHT DUG HER iPhone from her pocket and paused on the village green, about to cross the road. The traffic whizzed past, busy even on Sunday. A fleet of middle-aged men on a scooter run went by so she decided to check her phone before crossing.

  No one was calling her and it wasn’t even a text message, just the reminder for the meeting she was about to attend above Mrs Hudson’s shop. I am so Belinda No Mates, she thought.

  She swiped the appointment clear and waited for a gap in the traffic. The shop was closed for the day and her gaze wandered up to the bay window above it. The two-storey flat Mrs Hudson owned, which had become a headquarters for their group. In the upstairs back attic room was a safe in the wall where they could deposit reports from various time zones. It was an awkward but effective method to communicate with each other across the decades.

  The traffic thinned and she stepped across the street, walking down the hill to the side of Boots on the corner and turning in to the courtyard at the rear of the shops, up the steel staircase to the flats above.

  Mrs Hudson opened the door and smiled kindly, kissing her on both cheeks, ushering her through to the lounge.

  Mitch was sitting in the armchair with a blanket across his lap. “Hello, Kath,” he croaked.

  She stopped cold and couldn’t hide her shock. “You look awful.”

  “Thanks,” he chuckled.

  “I mean it,” said Kath. “You look at death’s door.” She looked to Mrs Hudson for support.

  “Nonsense,” said Mitch, waving a hand towards the coffee table at his side where a pitcher of orange liquid sat. “Nothing that a few thousand milligrams of Vitamin C won’t put right.” He laughed and coughed and spluttered and sank back into his chair, wheezing.

  “Mrs Hudson, he shouldn’t be here.”

  Mrs Hudson shrugged and sat down and poured a cup of tea for her. “Mitch is fine, Katherine. He’s like this every time he has to do a possession. He was the same after he had to rescue you from your Untime episode, if I remember rightly.”

  Kath sat across from Mitch and patted his weak hand and blushed a little.

  “He’ll be right as rain in a couple of days.” The old woman’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “It’s only a bit of Time Flu.”

  Mitch smiled and Kath gave in to the mood, sipping at her tea and nodding agreement. She was the junior member and had to bow to their experience. But Mitch looked like the uncle she’d visited once on his death bed. His skin had a translucent sheen that you could almost see through, as if he were already fading away from the world. It scared her.

  Mitch polished his glasses before tangling them back behind his ears, grunting as if he were lifting weights. He sat back and idly twirled his moustache, curling the edges up into Dali points.

  “So,” said Mrs Hudson, tapping her lap for emphasis. “What do we do about this Rachel Hines girl now we’ve dragged her out of her Untime episode?”

  “Do we know where she is?” asked Kath.

  They both looked to Mitch. He shook his head. “Not yet. Not got a fix, I’m afraid. It’ll come.”

  “She might even be here,” said Mrs Hudson. “Back in the present, where she belongs.”

  Kath glanced out of the window across the village green to the rooms above the corner pub, where they knew she lived. “I could go and call on her,” she said.

  Mrs Hudson shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Kath felt a flush of anger. Why was Mrs Hudson constantly holding her back on this?”But we need
her.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “She’s more powerful than any of us,” said Kath, looking into her teacup, aware that her voice was rising with anger. “If we don’t get her on our side, Fenwick will get her on his.”

  “That is entirely possible,” said Mrs Hudson. “And might already have happened.”

  Kath shook her head. “I rescued her from that padded cell. She’s not on Fenwick’s side at all. I can tell.”

  Mrs Hudson surprised her by smiling, leaning forward and patting her on the knee. “I know, Katherine,” she said sweetly. “You have faith in her, and believe me, I trust that. And there’s a part of you that resents me a little because I’m too cautious and you’ve made a commitment to this girl.”

  “No, I don’t think that.”

  “It’s all right. I understand. I would feel the same if it were me. But it’s my job to be sure about who we recruit. It’s a matter of security. We know how dangerous Fenwick can be and I have to be totally sure she’s not already under his influence. Her closeness to the boy Danny is a real concern.”

  Kath nodded. The old woman was right. But it didn’t stop her feeling that they were missing a great opportunity. Rachel had skills she’d never seen in anyone, including Mitch and Mrs Hudson.

  “And I needn’t remind you how dangerous it can be. This meeting would have more than three people present if it wasn’t for Fenwick. We all know what happened in 2005.”

  Mrs Hudson glanced up at a cluster of framed photographs on the wall. All three of them were there, plus a number of others she’d never seen, and one she’d known briefly who was now wiped out forever: Kieran Fickley.

  His face stared out of the frame, like a man imprisoned in time. A real person, who was now nothing but a fossil on a photograph.

  “Yes,” she mumbled. “You’re right.”

  “No,” sighed Mrs Hudson. “No one’s right or wrong. I’m just a cautious old biddy. And I trust your instincts. You’ve worked hard to contact this girl. You plucked her right out of Hell, so you know a little bit about her. And you’ve spent some time with Danny too...”

  Kath blushed a little. Here, in this room, serving him his breakfast in 1966, pretending to be the footloose hippy chick, wanting him in her bed.

  “... so I think I should pay you the respect of trusting your experience on the matter. We’ll talk to her. As soon as we find out where the hell she is.”

  Mitch let out a strangled gargle and they both turned to him with alarm.

  He was shaking, gripped by a seizure, eyes rolling, the Vitamin C drink spilling all over the blanket across his lap.

  Kath leaped across to him and took the glass from his spasming hand.

  His body stiffened and jerked right and left, his body arching as if a million volts were shooting through him.

  “He’s having an episode,” shouted Mrs Hudson.

  “What do we do?”

  Mrs Hudson calmly took his head and eased him down to the floor. She held his head safe as his body writhed, jolting, his heels slamming the carpet.

  Kath felt herself panicking. Don’t die, please don’t die.

  A fleck of froth speckled from his mouth.

  “New... poor... raw...” he croaked.

  Kath looked at Mrs Hudson.

  The old woman was whispering a soothing, “Shhhhhhhh,” to him, as if putting a baby to sleep.

  “There... for...”

  Therefore? What was he saying?

  He sucked a giant gulp of air deep into his lungs and collapsed.

  Kath thought for a moment it was his dying breath, but no, his chest rose gently again. He was breathing. His eyes fluttered open. “Oh God, Mitch. Are you all right?”

  He smiled weakly, coughed, winced at the pain. “My word, that was a bad one,” he croaked.

  Mrs Hudson was smiling, as if she’d seen it many times before.

  “I know where she is,” he said.

  “What?” said Kath. “You just travelled?”

  “It’s what I call his episodes, Katherine. Mitch has a talent for seeing things. Feeling them, actually. He can lock in on a disturbance, sense it somehow. Like he’s a lightning rod.”

  “Feels like it too,” he groaned, lifting his head. He sat up and rubbed his neck. “That was a particularly painful bolt as well.”

  Mrs Hudson wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and Kath helped her lift him back into his chair.

  “Did you see her?”

  “Not her,” he said. “Someone else. A man. Might be him: Danny. Can’t be sure.”

  “Where?”

  “Thirty-four,” he said. “Nineteen thirty-four.”

  Mrs Hudson clutched her throat, suddenly pale. “No,” she said. “Please, no.”

  “What is it?” asked Kath.

  “Did you see a dance hall?”

  Mitch shook his head. “No, a door. A house on Newport Road.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “It wasn’t a dance hall,” said Mitch. “But... the strangest thing...”

  “What?”

  “I could hear music really clearly. As if it were being sung right into my ear. An old tune. A man singing. A crooner.”

  He hummed a tune and Mrs Hudson covered her face.

  Kath had never seen her look scared before. “What is it?” she asked.

  Mrs Hudson stared up at a picture frame on the wall. It contained an old concert bill for someone named Benny Orphan. Her hand dropped to her neck, as if she’d seen her own death.

  “He’s going after me now,” she said.

  — 4 —

  DANNY WALKED DOWN THE stone path towards the rear of the graveyard. It looked like the place had been cleaned. It wasn’t so overgrown as it used to be. At least, he thought so. He’d seen it in so many different times now that he could hardly remember that first time.

  Fenwick walked ahead, clutching a leather document folder under his arm, an eager spring in his step, as if he were the student, not Danny.

  He reached the familiar gravestone that was almost like a stone bench or a baby’s cot.

  The touchstone.

  “So it’s not really a time travel portal?”

  Fenwick laughed. “You know that’s not true.”

  “Well, if we’re talking about experience as opposed to theory, I’d say the opposite.”

  He knew more than Fenwick; felt stronger, knew he had outgrown his mentor but was keeping him close, pretending deference, because there were still things Fenwick might say that could be useful to him.

  He’d been reading a lot. This was unusual. Despite being a history undergraduate he’d never really been one for reading books. But recently he’d been speed reading a great many. Everything he could find on time travel. Tapping the screen of his Kindle every second and absorbing the books without really reading them. It was astonishing, when he stopped to think about it: he had suddenly developed this new skill of photoreading. Just like his skill for time travel.

  Yes, he had outgrown Fenwick. His teacher still seemed gleefully excited by it all, but his smile fell at Danny’s irritated tone.

  “Look, Danny. I have no talent for this,” he said. “I can’t do what you do. But I’ve learned from people like you. I understand it a little bit more than you. Despite your undoubted experience.”

  Danny pushed his hands into his pockets. “What people?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you’ve learned from people like me. Who else has done this?”

  Fenwick grinned, caught out, and half laughed at a private thought. “You don’t really think you’re the first person to do this?”

  Danny shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Well, you’re not. There have been others. You’ve met them.”

  Danny tried to think. Of course. “You mean that Mrs Hudson?”

  “And a certain gentleman who runs your local junk shop.”

  The bloke at Buygones with the silly mo
ustache and waistcoat who drank tea from an Art Deco tea set and ate cucumber sandwiches.

  “And,” Fenwick added, “a certain redhead you spent some time with in 1966?”

  Danny looked at him with alarm now. This was something he hadn’t known. “You mean Kath? She was...?”

  “I’m surprised you’ve never recognized her as the girl who works in the Central Library. She’s handed you fiche records, Danny.”

  He tried to remember the girl at the library. Rachel had accused him of flirting with her, but he couldn’t remember her face. Was it really the same girl who’d befriended him in ‘66?

  “They’re all in Mrs Hudson’s bloody cabal,” said Fenwick. “And there have been others too.” Fenwick reached over and touched the gravestone, his fingers tapping at the exact same place Danny had always touched to pass through into the past. “You see? Nothing.” Fenwick couldn’t hide his bitterness. “It doesn’t work, Danny. I’ve tried it.”

  Danny frowned and tried to work it out. “I used it to pass through to 1912, the first time. Here. On your field trip. It sent me back there a few more times. Then it sent me back to 1940, twice. Nineteen-sixty-six, again, twice. Each time I went through by touching that gravestone in that exact spot.”

  “And what about the last time, Danny? What about 1959?”

  Danny floundered. It was more like the bad memory of a trance, as if he’d been hypnotized. It was a far off dream: just a few flashes of images that might tell a much more involved and detailed story if only he could remember more of it.

  But he remembered standing on Kings Heath railway station platform in bitter cold. A demonstration at University on a bright sunny day. He had kissed Rachel in the middle of it. Why had he done that? He didn’t even fancy her. He was in love with Amy Parker.

  “Can you remember using this to get there?” said Fenwick, pointing at the gravestone.

  “I can’t remember anything.”

  There was something else; something behind those few random images flashing inside his head. It was big and dark and terrible and it made him shiver with fear. But he couldn’t see it.

  Fenwick put an arm around him and patted him on the back. “Hey, Danny. What you have is a natural talent. It’s inside you; not in that gravestone. I envy you so much. I’ve never travelled. I thought one time I’d managed it — a sensation, nothing more. I can theorize about it, write it up, research it. But you’ve been there. You’ve walked the streets of the past. You can do anything you want.”