Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  Or perhaps go back to Charlie and spend a final few moments with him. Could she do that? Or should she leave him alone?

  She felt the breath of someone behind her. She thought it was Charlie, realized it couldn’t be.

  And she turned and met Danny’s eyes.

  — 44 —

  LORNA SWAYED TO THE song throughout, blissful, Martyn’s arms around her; holding her. Strong arms. The kind of arms that would keep you safe.

  She shivered every time she remembered crazy Esther slashing at her with the bottle, falling backwards into the bath and unable to move.

  She laughed. It was the memory of the shower curtain snapping from the rail. She’d thought about Hitchcock’s Psycho and it was ridiculous to think that, when it came time to die, you weren’t having your whole life flash before your eyes, you were thinking of some movie.

  The new Visage single finished and a cheer went up and Vince played Bowie’s Be My Wife.

  She looked at Martyn and he grinned down at her and said, “Fancy a walk?”

  She nodded and looked around for Rachel, but she was gone. She looked for her everywhere, even the bathroom, but Rachel was nowhere, and she realized her daughter had gone for good, mission accomplished.

  She found Martyn again, saying goodbye to his friend Mark, arranging to come back and collect their equipment tomorrow.

  “You find her?”

  “No. She’s gone.”

  She couldn’t hide her sadness. Martyn shrugged and they took the stairs down to the street below. The village was empty, all the pubs long closed up and drinkers either at the party, other parties around Moseley or down the road at the Moseley Dance Centre.

  She didn’t know where they were going, but she followed Martyn. He seemed to know.

  They crossed over to the green and walked past the stinking men’s toilets on the corner. She glanced up the dark alley next to the bank. Was that where Rachel had gone?

  “Oh, you know those photos you took,” she said. “When we were at your place?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Funny. Can’t wait to see them now.”

  “Have you had them developed?”

  “Not finished the roll yet,” he said. “We should take some pics tomorrow. Could take it to Boots on Monday.”

  She hadn’t doubted it. She’d seen her future self with her daughter. But she smiled to herself. It was true. She’d seen the photos that were still undeveloped in his camera; the photos that wouldn’t exist for another few days.

  She wondered if Martyn would remember her friend who’d brought them together. Surely he’d forget. Sometime in the future, a decade from now, she’d have to persuade him to name their child after her. Maybe he would have even forgotten her name by then too.

  They were walking past the high wall of the church.

  At the lychgate, Martyn laughed and grabbed her hand and pulled her into the church yard. “Come on!” he said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’re visiting a special place.”

  They walked around the side of the church, over broken paving, and round the back to the dark graveyard.

  “Martyn, this is a bit spooky.”

  “Don’t be scared,” he laughed.

  They crept down the path towards the lower end of the graveyard. Was he heading towards the gravestone Rachel had talked about — the touchstone — the place that had first given her a portal to the past? Did he know about it?

  It should have been creepy, but it felt strangely peaceful, a sanctuary from the hubbub of Moseley, even though it was long after midnight and Moseley was all quiet. All except the party. She could still hear the throb of bass rattling the windows of the flat.

  Martyn sat on a gravestone that was like a small bench or a child’s cot and pulled her towards him. Was this the touchstone? Would they go to the past? No, Rachel had explained that the gravestone itself had no powers. It was all apparently something inside her — some strange talent she possessed.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just a nice spot.”

  “Have you brought other girls here, Martyn Hines?”

  Shock on his face, genuine hurt. It was cute. “No!” he stammered. “I’ve never been here!”

  “You seem to know the place.”

  “I promise. First time here.”

  She grinned and snuggled up to him. “I like it,” she said.

  “Listen,” he said, finger in the air.

  The music drifting across the village from the party. They both recognized Hiroshima, Mon Amour.

  He smiled again and seemed uncertain about whether to kiss her or not, so she closed her eyes and leaned towards him and felt his lips touch hers, hoping that this time they wouldn’t be interrupted by a crazy psychotic trying to murder them both.

  They were so lost in their first kiss that neither of them saw Kath Bright appear at the church tower battlements.

  Neither did they hear her as she swooped down on them like a bird of prey.

  — 45 —

  DANNY BLEW. THE WAY you might blow a kiss, or blow out a candle.

  Rachel flinched and shrank back.

  Time froze.

  When the blow didn’t come, she opened her eyes and saw it emerge from his mouth, a cloud of energy that ballooned into a liquid dart of venom aiming for her face.

  She realized several things at once: Danny was about to blow her head off; time had slowed to a slow motion crawl; and she had caused it.

  She had almost stopped time. She wasn’t sure how she’d done it, or how to control it, but she knew it gave her a crucial second to save herself.

  She ducked and slammed against Danny. Her movements were slow too, like moving through a liquid broth, like trying to run across the shallow end of the swimming pool as a child. But she was faster than Danny, and could think faster than him. She slammed into his torso. Another rugby tackle that made her think of Martyn.

  No, don’t think about Martyn. She had to stay away from everyone she knew. Keep them safe from him.

  Danny fell back and Rachel knew they would land somewhere else — just as she had both times with Lorna — but she knew there was no time in which it was safe to go. No time at all.

  Before they hit the floor, she realized it meant there was only UnTime.

  She felt the frost burn her lungs as they fell on the icy ground.

  She was first to her feet.

  Everything fast now.

  Glancing around.

  She was back at the station at the end of time. The old Kings Heath station lost in a thick, white fog.

  But this time she wasn’t afraid. She had brought Danny here. She was in control.

  He scrambled to his feet and threw something at her.

  Time crawled again.

  She watched it float through the air, a ball of squirming energy, a glass sphere that contained a coiling mass of cyclones. It was beautiful. She watched it with fascination, growing in size as it floated to her, knowing that it was about to wreak utter devastation on her, but unable to resist its beauty.

  As it reached her, she held out a hand, thinking she might catch it, but something inside her — almost as if it was someone working through her — flashed fire at it. It consumed it in a second, burned it to nothing, and it turned to ashes.

  Time unfroze and Danny watched appalled as it exploded in a harmless shower of ash, littering the icy floor between them.

  He glared with wonder. How had she done that?

  She didn’t know. But she felt she could do the same to him if she wanted: turn him to a shower of ash with just a snap of her fingers.

  She could kill him right here and end it all.

  And she sensed he knew it.

  For the first time since they’d found themselves in an Edwardian gin house, she saw fear on Danny’s face.

  He threw another hurricane at her.

  She didn’t even freeze time. She caught it, screw
ed it up like a ball of paper and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “How the hell did you—?” he stammered.

  “It’s over, Danny,” she said. “We have to end it now.”

  He looked around in panic now, wondering where he was.

  “Don’t you remember this place? You tried to kill me here.”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ve never been here...’ But as he looked all around him, trying to see through the thick fog, she could see the recognition dawn on his face, flashes of memory punching him.

  “It was 1959,” she said. “And it was no time at all.”

  He shook his head, flinching at the battery of thoughts assailing him.

  Did he see her now, at the station at the end of time? Did he see how she’d only escaped by jumping onto the tracks?

  “Why don’t you leave me alone!” he cried.

  “You need to face up to what you did,” she said quietly.

  “I didn’t do anything!” he screamed.

  He really didn’t know. There was something about their visit to 1959 that had been like a dream. He didn’t even remember it. But unlike a dream, it had been real. He’d created something real.

  She grabbed his face in her hands. She knew she could crush his skull into stardust with a mere thought.

  His pale face lit up all crimson gold and she realized it was a burning light shining from her eyes.

  She was a goddess.

  No, not yet. She had to hold that back. If she became a goddess she’d never be able to get back to her old life and be the village girl.

  There was a white flash, blinding, and a burning in her fingers and a smell of singed hair and they were standing on the touchstone.

  It was a winter’s morning, crisp and bright. The crooked gravestones forlorn.

  A woman sat on the touchstone.

  Rachel could reach out and tap her on the shoulder if she wanted. She remembered that first time she’d gone through — or was it the second? — flitting through from 2011 to 1912 and the old drunk appearing before her eyes.

  But this woman couldn’t see her.

  She was wearing a tweed suit, black velvet gloves, a brown leather handbag, her blonde hair in a bouffant.

  Rachel knew who she was immediately. She sensed it.

  Danny blinked and struggled to turn his head.

  Rachel gripped the scruff of his neck. He was going nowhere.

  “Amy?” he said.

  The woman didn’t turn.

  “She can’t hear you,” said Rachel. “We’re not really here. Just watching.”

  The woman looked up at a sound, glancing up the graveyard to the man who was walking down towards her.

  Danny gasped at the sight of himself. “This is my dream,” he said.

  Rachel shook her head. “This is 1959. This happened.”

  She saw him and rose, uncertain, half waving a velvet hand.

  He walked to her, drinking her in, and smiled as she blushed and looked at her feet and clutched her brown leather handbag closer to her.

  “It can’t be,” said Danny. “Amy was sixty in 1959.”

  “Yes, she was,” said Rachel.

  He rushed to her, nervous of his absurd grin. She scanned his face, only the faintest flicker of a smile breaking through her frown.

  Then she half closed her eyes as he took her in his arms and she succumbed to his lips on hers.

  Together again.

  “This is a dream,” said Danny.

  “This happened,” said Rachel.

  That beautiful moment when her eyes fell on him and he saw a concerto of emotions dance across her face: joy, fear, guilt, desire.

  What was she afraid of?

  What made her guilty?

  “Amy would be older,” he said, shaking his head.

  “It’s not Amy,” said Rachel.

  Amy’s face. Wanting him.

  Amy, beautiful and scared: wanting him.

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her.

  A flash of light and they were in a bedroom. Rachel still holding Danny by the scruff of the neck.

  See this. See what you did.

  They were looking down at a couple in a rumpled bed. Danny and Amy curled up together. She was on his shoulder, smiling as he examined a brooch in his hand, turning it over in his hand.

  “It’s 1934,” he said. “The morning after the concert.”

  “It’s 1959,” said Rachel.

  He saw that it wasn’t the Amy of 1934. It was the Amy they had just seen in the graveyard, with her 1950s bouffant hair. Something was wrong about this.

  Footsteps down the landing.

  Amy clutched the blankets, fear in her eyes.

  “Oh no,” she hissed. “My mum!”

  “But Amy Parker never had a mother,” Danny cried. “There was only her and her father in 1912, and her father died in the asylum that year!”

  The door flew open and an old woman glared down at them.

  Danny moaned at the sight of her. He knew her face. It was Amy’s face. Amy as an older woman. Amy in her sixties.

  Then she screamed.

  And he remembered that scream.

  He’d called at the door that night in 1966 and Amy had screamed at him then. Amy as an old woman, screaming at him to get away from them. Just a moment after he’d mistaken her daughter for her.

  Her daughter.

  Maddy.

  And he knew that this old woman was Amy. And the girl in the bed was Maddy.

  Her daughter.

  His daughter.

  He howled and a tornado swept through the room and took him like a tsunami.

  Rachel held onto him, the force sweeping them through a torrent, riding a wave of time. She felt herself losing control, overpowered by the cyclone, Dorothy in the log cabin, taken up and snatched from Kansas. She was going to lose her grip and he would be gone again.

  She remembered that same moment — trying to outrun the tram as it hurtled towards Amy Parker, the girl in the street.

  Rachel ran towards them, panic on her face, arm outstretched, too late, and shouted, “Don’t!”

  Someone screamed.

  The cyclone died. They were standing in a hospital corridor. She still had hold of Danny’s collar.

  A nurse rushed past. Blue dress, white pinafore, black stockings, white bonnet. She rushed to greet a woman being walked down the corridor. Maddy, heavily pregnant, leaning on her mother, Amy.

  Maddy screamed again.

  The nurse led her through the doors marked Maternity Ward.

  Amy Parker stayed. She sank back against the wall, looking right at Danny, as if she could see him, when she couldn’t possibly, and she said to herself, “Dear God, save us.”

  “It’s the same hospital,” said Rachel.

  “I don’t want to see this,” Danny groaned.

  “I was here, in 1966,” she said.

  Rachel pulled him away, leaving Amy behind, dragged him round the corner.

  He was helpless now, tears and snot streaming down his face.

  As they turned the corner, she felt time shift to 1966. She saw the two women up ahead, sitting on a bench

  Maddy and Rachel.

  Her scalp tingled and she shivered all over. The shock of seeing yourself, outside yourself.

  “I wish he hadn’t come back,” Maddy sobbed. “I wish my mum didn’t hate him so much. This was too much for her.”

  “I don’t want to see this!” Danny cried.

  “Open your eyes!” Rachel hissed. “See what you did!”

  Danny stared at Maddy through his own tears.

  Rachel felt her face burning. “Hate who?”

  “It was Danny turning up at the door that gave her this turn. She went mad, screaming, horrible.”

  Rachel nodded, pretending to understand. “And why’s that?”

  Maddy sniffed into a crumpled handkerchief. “It’s because of what he did to me; how he left me.”

  Rachel shrugged, head
craning, offering her sympathetic ear.

  “We’ve not seen him since... well... you know.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “No,” Danny groaned. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  Maddy looked surprised. “Oh. You think everyone knows your business in Moseley. Danny hasn’t been seen since... well...’ she lowered her voice and leaned in close, almost miming the words. “He’s Esther’s father.”

  The end of the long corridor leapt for their faces and Rachel jerked back as the ground shifted beneath them.

  They were at sea, drifting, unanchored, and her face was burning so badly.

  A blast of cold air soothed her. White fog. The station again. The station at the end of time.

  Danny was on his knees, coughing up an ocean, a shipwreck survivor wanting to die on the beach. Rachel pulled him up. He had no more strength. She had defeated him.

  “You did this,” she said. “You created this mess from your own selfishness. I told you, right at the start, but you wouldn’t listen. You had to have her.”

  “I couldn’t let her die,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me you did it for her! You did it for you. You did everything for you.”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know I’d done... that. Oh God. Oh no. Oh no.”

  The howl of pain that came from him reminded her of a pig being killed in the village when she was a girl. She had never been a girl in a village. She had been every girl in every village. The pig squealing its life out as its plum-dark blood ran from it like a river.

  This was not her own memory. She was not Délibáb. Yet she felt it. She knew it.

  She was a goddess.

  The volcano roared and she felt the wave of fire about to consume her.

  “You have to go now,” she said.

  She didn’t know what she meant, or what she was going to do with him. The words came from her lips as if someone else was speaking them through her.

  “You have to go to a place where you can do no more harm.”

  “Just kill me,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “You have to live with it.”

  The words came from her but she had no idea what she was going to do to him.