Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  She lifted his face to her, placed her fingers to his lips.

  His eyes beseeching her. He really did want to die.

  “Wait,” he said. “Your parents. Kath. In the graveyard. Stop her.”

  Rachel nodded, sensing his thoughts, feeling his regret, seeing the plan he’d hatched with Kath, as if she’d been there herself. Danny would deal with Rachel while Kath attacked Martyn and Lorna. Their final attempt to destroy her.

  There was still some good in him. Still something of the Danny she’d first liked.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Now you have to go.”

  Her palm sparked with fire, a single flame glowing and growing.

  It bloomed into a ball of light, a shimmering sphere of fire that grew and grew, all Christmassy gold and radiant with love and she could see that it broke his heart, as if it was the very heart of all the love in the world, the light of the world. It was so beautiful, so bewitching, that he could only gaze into its incandescent heart, entranced.

  It grew and grew until it consumed him.

  He was standing in firelight that licked and danced all around him, burning, lost in flame, with no fear.

  And then he was hurtling through decades of light to a place where he could do no harm.

  Banished.

  — 46 —

  A GREAT GUST OF WIND blew through the station at the end of time, white fog swirling in anger. Just as it had that moment she’d stood on the tracks, the unseen nuclear train hurtling towards her.

  But no train came.

  The station was silent. She knew that she could walk into the guard’s hut across the tracks and she would find no stationmaster brewing tea. A stationmaster who looked a little bit like Mitch.

  She knew she could walk into the tea room and find no old lady asking her what she fancied.

  She knew there would be none of the horrors she’d faced when she’d been trapped here.

  She was alone.

  The station at the end of time was empty. She could stay here forever if she chose.

  She ached everywhere. She was too tired to fight.

  She had to fight.

  She shrugged off the leopardskin coat, took in a deep breath of damp, fog-thick air and thought of Lorna and Martyn and Kath Bright.

  And she was falling through night sky, stars blurring, wind howling, turning in the air to plummet face first, the dark earth rushing towards her, a criss-cross of streetlights, the dark mass of a church, the village, St. Mary’s tower, someone climbing the turret and jumping, swooping down on the dark graveyard, there, the touchstone, a couple.

  She crashed into Kath a second before Kath hit Martyn and Lorna.

  Time froze.

  Just for a moment.

  The night sky exploded with light.

  Like a Catherine Wheel, she thought, and laughed.

  And they hit the icy platform.

  Kath skittered away and landed on the train tracks.

  Rachel jumped to her feet.

  The rails hummed.

  Kath sat up, dazed, saw Rachel and snarled.

  A roaring from within the white fog.

  Kath glanced up the track, realizing what was hurtling towards her.

  Too late.

  The nuclear train screamed out of the fog and through the station.

  Rachel turned her face, then realized she’d heard no collision. As she looked back, something came flying out of the fog towards her: a swooping angel of death.

  Kath hit her with the force of a steam hammer, snatching the breath from her body, as they landed on a rough asphalt road.

  Women screamed. Rachel sat up in the middle of Alcester Road, 1912. A crowd of Edwardians all around. The tram rushing towards her.

  Kath stood on the pavement, grinning, waving goodbye.

  Rachel sprang up, soaring, vaulting the tram, arcing in the air and descending on Kath’s startled face, raining a bolt of fire down on her head.

  They rolled on the floor of a padded cell in Winson Green Insane Asylum in 1959.

  Kath’s hair was on fire. She screamed and punched Rachel across her jaw.

  Blood spurted from Rachel’s lip and flew across the burning police station in 1940. Flames roared all around and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh overcame her. She grabbed a handful of Kath’s burning hair and yanked her into an abandoned warehouse in 1966.

  They collapsed on dust-coated floorboards, coughing.

  Rachel could feel her lungs singed inside. Her jaw hurt like hell. Blood on her fingers.

  “You’ve developed a few skills, Rachel,” Kath said, climbing to her feet and dusting herself down. “But not quickly enough. You should have waited a few more months before tackling me. You might have had the edge, then.”

  Rachel spat blood on the dusty floor and tried to stand. It felt like her bone marrow was bruised. “Would have been too late,” she said. Her voice sounded thick from her fat lip. “Needed my parents alive and all that.”

  Kath rolled her eyes. “Well, duh. Go away and practice and come back to the same time.”

  Rachel felt fury churn inside her. There was something about Kath’s mocking voice that reminded her of stuck-up Jessica. A lifetime of casual school bullying that had carried over into university burned in her. She twisted away as Kath ran at her, her shoes rattling the floorboards. She was too slow.

  Kath kicked her in the face.

  Her teeth clicked and she thought an electric shock had passed through her. She fell back, her head hitting the Persian rug in Mr Fenwick’s study at the University, papers and reports on time travel flying around the room.

  Kath stood over her, shaking her head, laughing.

  Rachel lashed out and grabbed her ankle, toppling her onto the dance floor of the Moseley and Balsall Heath Institute in 1934.

  Lester Johnson’s dance band were stomping through a swing song and the floor was packed with dancers.

  A foot trampled her fingers and she squealed in pain. Her fingers throbbed, as if all the blood in her body wanted to burst out of them She snatched out with her other hand and found Kath’s leg and dragged her into the Kingsway cinema.

  Rachel scrambled to her feet too late.

  Kath was on her again, an arm around her throat, choking her.

  Her fingers didn’t hurt so much anymore. It was her face that wanted to burst now.

  Kath flew down the steps to the balcony and held Rachel over the edge.

  The cinema was on fire.

  “Now didn’t you start this, Rachel?”

  She choked, her words curdling in her throat.

  “Speak up!”

  Kath upended her and Rachel felt herself falling to the inferno below. This was it. She was going to die in the old Kingsway cinema, the night it burned down.

  No, she thought. Not like this.

  As she fell, she twisted and grabbed Kath’s wrist, pulling her with her. They plummeted into flame, Kath clawing and scratching at her face as they fell.

  But they landed on grass.

  Rachel rolled away from her, coughing, gasping, the precious midnight air flooding her lungs. There were stars in the sky.

  The Dovecote.

  She was lying on the grass by the Dovecote.

  Wasn’t this the place Kath had called her touchstone? The place where she drew all her power. Kath would be stronger than her here. Kath was stronger than her already.

  Rachel could barely lift her head from the grass. She wondered if she’d broken her back. She might be paralysed. This was the end. She was going to die after all. Just when she’d righted everything so she could be born.

  And she felt that she didn’t mind. She was half in love with easeful death. Wasn’t that a line from a poem she’d studied at school? Keats. Yes. Half in love with easeful death. This was what it felt like.

  Kath’s face came into view, blocking out the moonlit Dovecote. Her hair was flame red and her eyes burned like black coals.

  This was the face of the
woman who was going to kill her.

  Rachel wasn’t going to be the village girl. She wasn’t going to be the goddess. She would not get to choose.

  She was just a girl who was going to die.

  She thought of Henry, sweet Henry in 1934, hugging her and whispering in her ear Szia, Délibáb. It had seemed that he’d had a premonition about her, had seen who she really was. But of course he hadn’t. He was just a normal guy who’d seen a myth from his childhood appear before his eyes: a boy conjuring a tornado from his fingers magicked away by a girl shooting the sun from her eyes. He’d thought she was Délibáb defeating the Szélkirály, but she wasn’t.

  She was just a girl who was going to die.

  She was just a mirage.

  But it didn’t matter anymore. She wasn’t Délibáb.

  She was just a girl who was going to die.

  She heard Kath say, “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Rachel. You should have stayed out of it. You’ve spoiled everything.”

  And she felt the floor change into an ocean.

  She found herself standing on a cobbled street, a full moon in the sky, and she knew where she was without even looking at the street sign. She knew this was somewhere in Yorkshire.

  In the shadow by a wall, a man was hunched over a woman. She could see the woman’s bare feet sticking out into the light.

  Rachel stepped closer. The man’s dark back bent over the woman, a hammer in his hand. It was as if he was made out of a million flies, swarming their evil.

  “Stop,” she said.

  He turned and she looked into his bearded face. The serial killer who thought the gods were talking to him.

  “Stop,” she said.

  She felt the wave of remorse course through him. He let a rope tied around the woman’s neck fall.

  “I’m sorry,” he yelped, and ran, his footsteps echoing on the cobbles.

  The woman moaned, still breathing. A pillow of ink black blood under her head. Rachel leaned in close and stroked her face. She was beautiful.

  Someone opened their back door over the wall. The police would come. They would find her here. All of this had happened. He would kill again, but she had done this at least. She had done this one good thing.

  Hadn’t she?

  He had killed so many women. The gods were playing with her. Letting her think she could make a difference, when nothing she did made a difference, ever.

  Anger boiled in her again, and suddenly it was Rachel who was the victim lying on the floor in the dark, looking up at a woman leaning over her.

  Kath’s face.

  “I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  Future Kath, who’d come to her in 1934 and threatened her. So she’d already done that.

  “Now, before you die, I’m going to let you decide which of your parents I kill first. Do you want your mum to watch your father die, or him to watch her get it?”

  Rachel tried to raise her head but she was paralysed. She felt herself sinking again. No, stay in this moment. You’re about to be killed.

  A camp fire on the Great Plain.

  A ring of village girls dancing.

  A man playing guitar, his fingers a blur, the same melody looping at three different speeds. He looked up at her, still playing the melody, the firelight dancing in his eyes. His face lined like old parchment, his black moustache drooping.

  “The village girl must die,” he said. “When the goddess is born, night will turn to day.”

  And she recognized him.

  “It’s you, Mitch,” she cried. “You’re trying to help me.”

  The faster melodies faded, leaving just the simple slow five notes repeating. If she chose to be a goddess, she would never get back to her life. She would never be the village girl again. She might as well die.

  “It’s time to choose,” he said.

  “What’s it to be?” said Kath.

  The night sky, the outline of the Dovecote, Kath’s silhouette looming over her.

  Rachel knew she was going to die now.

  “Why did you help Danny the first time?” Rachel croaked.

  Her words were slurred, her lip still bleeding, but the fresh night air was reviving her, flowing into her, making her strong.

  “What do you mean?” said Kath, suddenly wary.

  “You helped him research Amy Parker’s past. Hunted out a photograph of her. You gave it to me to give to him.”

  “What about it? I was a librarian.”

  “You fed his obsession, even when you wanted him for yourself.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “It makes you look a little weak.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “You might even say it was the act of someone with pathetically low self esteem.”

  “Shut up!”

  “And then you blame me for him ending up with her, when I was the one trying to stop it.”

  “You ruined everything!”

  “No. It was you.”

  “Shut up!”

  “You did it.”

  “Shut up!”

  “You pushed him towards her because you knew he’d never look at you.”

  “No!”

  “He never did look at you.”

  “Shut up!” She was screaming like a child now. A poor, hurt child.

  “Because you hate yourself.”

  “I’m going to kill you!”

  “No,” said Rachel, quite calmly.

  The burning hate in Kath’s face melted and her mouth fell open in a bewildered O.

  It was because Rachel’s eyes had turned to stars.

  — 47 —

  MARTYN AND LORNA HAD reached the foot of Kings Heath High Street when night turned to day.

  He had his arm over her shoulder and they were walking slowly, enjoying this new sensation of being a couple. They passed the black mouth of Highbury Park and crossed the bottom of Valentine Road along a row of green railings that looked down on where the old Kings Heath station used to be.

  Later, for many years, he wondered why they were walking there so late at night, when it was out of the way of his house. That part of the story didn’t ring true, and he began to dismiss it as a dream. But he’d always remembered so vividly what happened, and discussed it with Lorna several times.

  They had been in the graveyard at St. Mary’s where they’d first kissed. And there had been a flash of lightning that had scared them. Lorna had joked about the power of her kiss causing fireworks.

  Then they’d been walking past the row of coal merchants where the entrance to the old train station had been. And it made no sense because neither of them lived that way. And they’d been joking about the band splitting up, which was why he’d always known it was that night of the first kiss, even after the memory of it became hazy.

  As they walked, it was as if someone had turned a floodlight on them. He thought of old war movies where prisoners tried to escape and guards turned the searchlights on. It clicked on just like that and lit the street. They both jumped and he gripped Lorna close to him.

  But it wasn’t a floodlight, even though it was as bright as the floodlights that had blinded them at the gig earlier. And it wasn’t a firework shooting up into the night and exploding in a shower of starlight. They looked up at a blue sky. It was daylight. Night had turned to sudden day.

  He thought they’d dropped The Bomb. He was seeing the start of the nuclear holocaust. A bang and then the blinding flash, followed by the nuclear wind. No time to duck and cover.

  But it wasn’t The Bomb. The street was just as empty, but now lit as if with a fierce midday sun. It was simply daylight.

  It must have lasted only seconds, as they quivered, dumbfounded.

  And then it was night again.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  “Did that just happen?”

  They had both seen it.

  They had talked about it often, even told others about it, but had stopped when people had given them that funny look yo
u gave to conspiracy theorists and religious extremists. Sometimes they’d begun to doubt it themselves, but the fact remained they both had the same memory of it, so if it had been a dream, they’d both dreamt it.

  And then Lorna had died, far too young, and he was the only person left with the memory, and eventually he gave up believing in it, even felt annoyed when he remembered it. When you’d lost the woman you loved and had to raise a daughter alone, a spooky dream that might never have happened just got lost in the stream of life.

  — 48 —

  RACHEL STOOD AT THE foot of the volcano, its smooth cliff-face lit with moonlight. She stared in horror at the summit, crowned in forge-bright scarlet flame spilling over, spurting and showering a lava flow that would engulf her. She would drown in fire and become a goddess, the village girl inside her lost forever.

  She had used her godpower to defeat Kath, whose face had melted, her mouth opened in a scream as white hot starlight had poured from Rachel’s eyes. And in that moment she had known she was Délibáb.

  Kath had been blown away, flying, falling, careering, lost in light.

  Gone.

  And Rachel was a goddess.

  She turned away from the lava flame pouring from the volcano and screamed to the black night.

  “I’m not Délibáb! I’m Rachel Hines!”

  The dark night answered with its own wall of indifferent blackness. Out there, somewhere, she knew, was the village, but the flames would take her and she would never see it again. In banishing Kath and Danny, she had banished herself forever.

  “Dad!” she screamed.

  A voice called from somewhere in the black void. A woman’s voice. Faint, distant. Then another. A call, a wail, women’s voices clustering in the thick night air, chanting, echoing out over a vast darkness. They were not women’s voices, but those of girls.

  Village girls.

  Rachel peered into the blackness, wondering if she was actually blindfolded, there was such a void of detail. But she heard another shower of sparks spume from the volcano behind her and it lit up the faint outline of village huts, closer than she’d thought.

  Pin pricks of light bloomed in the blackness and gathered, growing, the village girls’ voices chanting, calling to her.