‘I will,’ she said. ‘Be careful.’
‘You too.’
It was nearly midnight when I arrived at Tara’s house. I knocked urgently on the door, and saw her foster father Oliver do a faintly comical double-take through the glass when he saw me. ‘Stanly!’ he exclaimed, hurriedly opening the door. ‘What are you doing here this late?’
‘I’m sorry, Oliver,’ I said. ‘I don’t have time to explain, but I have to get Tara out of London.’
‘What? I—’
‘There’s no time,’ I insisted. ‘Please, you have to trust me. She’s my daughter, you know I’d do anything to keep her safe, and London just became extremely not safe. I have to take her away with me.’
Oliver stood still for a moment, then nodded and stood aside.
‘She’s asleep?’ I asked, as I went in.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll wake her and Jacqueline.’
‘Get a sleeping bag,’ I said, ‘pack her some spare clothes, and wrap her up in the warmest ones she has. It’s going to be cold.’
I waited downstairs in their living room, pacing, clenching and unclenching my fists. I took in the cosy bits and bobs, the family pictures, the tacky but comforting china figurines. I’d seen them so many times on visits. They were an integral part of the fabric of Tara’s life, and now I couldn’t promise when she’d see them again. What the hell am I doing? I stomped that thought down, stomped on its face. There was no time for anything resembling doubt. I just had to keep going.
A few minutes later Oliver and Jacqueline came downstairs with a sleepy Tara. She looked funny, bundled up in jumpers and extra trousers and socks and a coat. ‘Stanly!’ she cried, waking up a bit and running clumsily over to me like a little Eskimo. Not so little anymore. I hugged her. ‘Tara,’ I said, ‘you remember I told you that there were bad things happening?’
She nodded.
‘Well, we’re going to have to leave London for a while. It’s a bad place to be at the moment, and it’ll be safer for you and me if we’re as far away from it as possible.’
‘Where are we going?’
There was only one place I could think of for now. ‘First, we’re going to go to my mum’s. Then . . . we’ll see.’
‘I’m really tired. Do we have to go now?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but we really do.’
She looked at her foster parents, their faces full of so much strength, but so much pain too. ‘What about—’
‘We’ll be fine, darling,’ said Jacqueline. ‘You go with Stanly now.’
My little girl turned back to me, a mess of confusion, and nodded reluctantly. ‘OK then. When are we coming back?’
‘Soon,’ I lied. ‘Do you have a sleeping bag?’
‘It’s in the cupboard,’ said Oliver.
‘Also,’ I said, trying to maintain an unnaturally cheerful tone, ‘I seem to have left my gloves at home. You don’t have any I could borrow, do you?’
He nodded, and fetched me some thick black gloves. ‘Could I have a quick word?’ he asked. ‘In private?’
‘Of course.’ We went through to the kitchen and Oliver opened a small bronze box on the sideboard, one I’d never noticed before. He removed an envelope and handed it over. It had my name on it. The handwriting looked very familiar. ‘What is this?’ I asked.
‘You left it with us,’ said Oliver. ‘The older you. When you first brought Tara. You said that one day you’d come bursting in, saying that you needed to take Tara out of London, and that when you did I was to give you this.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, slightly shaken. I opened it. It contained a letter, a key and a piece of paper with directions written on it, directions from Tref-y-Celwyn to . . . to where? I quickly unfolded the letter. The handwriting looked sort of like mine, but somehow different. As though my handwriting had aged. Well, obviously. Nice one. I forgave myself for having a stupid thought, there was a lot going on in my brain.
Dear Stanly
I remember being very confused about all this. Don’t worry, it does eventually make sense. Kind of. The directions below indicate a hidden spot not far from Tref-y-Celwyn, a safe haven that I’ve left for you. For me. One day you’ll go back in time and you’ll build it for the next version of yourself, and it goes on. You must take Kloe and Tara there as soon as possible because at this point in your time things are about to get really bad, and they need to be as elsewhere as possible. You can leave them there and rest assured that they’ll be completely fine. I know, OK? You can trust every single syllable of this letter, because I know it all happens.
You’ll need to stock up on supplies for the two of them. Enough for about a week and a half will do. And even though it’s a faintly sinister-looking place in the middle of a substantially more sinister-looking place, it’s absolutely safe.
I know it would be the sensible and most obvious thing to leave a detailed list of everything that happens next, so you could approach what’s coming with more information. Like a walkthrough for a computer game. Trust me again, there would be a hell of a lot more of a mess if I did that. So all I’m going to say is: be careful. And don’t spend too much time thinking.
Take care of the girls. And take care of yourself. Please! I got through all this crap the first time, just about, so you can too.
See you soon.
Stanly
p.s. There may be a shimmer in the forest. Don’t let it get inside your head.
‘Does it make sense?’ asked Oliver.
Absolutely not.
‘Yeah.’ I quickly replaced the letter, directions and key in the envelope and tucked it in my pocket. ‘It does. I . . . I should be going now.’
‘If anything happens to Tara . . .’
‘Nothing will,’ I said. ‘You have my word.’ I shook his hand. ‘It might be a good idea for you to get out of town as well. As far as you can.’
‘Things are really bad, aren’t they?’ he said, looking so grave I could barely look him in the eye.
‘They are.’
‘We can go to my sister’s,’ said Oliver, although I felt like he was only saying it because I wanted to hear it.
We walked back through to the living room, where Tara was standing ready with Jacqueline. The goodbyes were tearful, painful to watch, and I stood off to one side, hating myself for dragging this little girl away from everything she knew, off to some uncertain future in a strange place. I hated the Angel Group for whatever they were doing, and I hated the phantom image of Morter Smith. Too many things to hate.
Finally, it was time to go. Tara was wrapped up as snugly as possible in her thick layers, and I zipped her into her sleeping bag and gathered her up in my arms, channelling some mental energy into the action as she was way too heavy for a scrawny specimen like me to carry. We went outside, and turned back for one last goodbye. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘See you soon.’ Will you?
I will, I thought, fiercely.
‘Take care,’ said Jacqueline. ‘Fly safely.’
‘Always,’ I said, and took off into the sky, full as ever with unknowable cosmic shapes. We flew, carried on the night breeze, over and out of the city, away across the patchwork countryside, following the snaking patterns of railway lines and the roll and swish of hills. For the first half an hour or so Tara asked questions and I answered her as best I could, but after a while she fell asleep and I flew us silently over the same rivers and houses and undulating green that I had seen . . . how long ago? A week? Less? Ridiculous.
A lot can happen in a week.
A lot didn’t happen in a week, a lot happened in about ninety minutes.
Yeah, OK then.
I didn’t sleep, of course, but I did shut down as much of my mind as possible to give it a break, allowing the remainder to take over, flying on instinct, autopilot. It steered us left and right when it n
eeded to, kept us in the air, acknowledged the night birds and the half-formed creations of clouds, the lunar cut-outs skating through the black. It meant that I didn’t have to think properly for a bit, which was good.
Too many thoughts to think.
Chapter Ten
I WAS FULLY AWAKE again by the time we reached Tref-y-Celwyn. The town seemed to shimmer into view, nestled sleepily in the crooked arms of the valley, and the strangest, most potent cocktail of feelings bubbled up in my stomach. I saw flashes of the night that I left, like a montage of painful film clips: fighting with Ben King, everyone’s eyes on me as I hurled him through the air with my mind; mine and Kloe’s first non-staged kiss, hugging each other in the rain; then off into the darkness, to this new life, this warped new screenplay, reels changing so abruptly that if I’d woken up the next day and found that it had all been a dream, I doubt I’d have been surprised.
Tara was still asleep as we touched down on my mum’s patio, and I laid the little girl down as gently as possible on the wooden bench outside the house. There was a conservatory now. I wondered how long that had taken, whether it had been a joint decision before my dad left, or if Mum had just decided on a whim. Focus, Stanly. I rang the doorbell and waited, fiddling nervously with my hands. A light came on upstairs. My mum had always been a light sleeper. I heard her coming down the stairs, saw her come to the door and look through, bleary-eyed. When she realised that it was me the tiredness fled from her face and she hurriedly unlocked the door and ran out, and we collided in a fierce hug. ‘Stanly,’ she whispered. ‘Oh my God . . .’
‘I’m back,’ I said, stupidly.
We hugged for a long time, and when we broke apart my mum was smiling so widely I thought her face might crack. ‘What are you doing here? I mean, how . . . if I’d known . . .’
‘Last minute decision,’ I said. ‘Some crazy stuff occurring.’ I picked Tara up again.
‘Who’s that?’ my mum frowned.
‘Tara,’ I said. ‘The little girl I told you about.’
‘Oh . . . why is she here?’
‘I’ll tell you in a sec,’ I said. ‘First, let’s get her inside. Freezing out here.’ I carried Tara into the kitchen and set her down on the sofa by the Rayburn. Some of the furniture was new, and there were unfamiliar pictures on the walls.
Mum put the kettle on and we sat at the table. ‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘You haven’t phoned in ages . . .’
‘A lot’s been happening,’ I said. ‘An awful lot, in a disorientatingly short amount of time. But I’m OK, I think. How are you?’
‘Oh, you know,’ she said. ‘All right. Things are going well at the moment. I haven’t spoken to your father for a while.’
‘Oh.’ A bit of awkwardness, but I pushed it aside. ‘Mum,’ I said, ‘London isn’t safe for Tara any more. There are extremely bad people there, and maybe other things, and I can’t risk them getting their hands on her. I had to bring her here.’
‘Will they come after her?’
I shook my head, even though I wasn’t at all sure about that. ‘I don’t think so. But I’m not leaving her here anyway, we just need to sleep the night. I’m going to go and get Kloe tomorrow, and then I’m taking the two of them to a safe place out of town.’
‘Where?’
I have absolutely no idea. ‘It’s probably best that I don’t say,’ I said. ‘Then if someone does come looking for her, you won’t have to lie.’ I’m putting a lot on her. If they come here . . . God. I hadn’t even thought of that. What if they came and hurt my mum? What would I do then? Don’t think about that now. Too many things to think about. She’ll be OK.
But for the record, what you would do is communicate to the Angel Group, in a very violent way, just how terrible an idea it was to come near your mother. Maybe with explosions.
Mum put her hands over her face and shook her head. ‘Stanly, what is going on? I don’t understand! It’s been over a year since you ran away. I haven’t been able to tell anyone the real reason. I don’t even know the real reason! You have . . . magical powers! Is that even it?’
Not really knowing what to say, I opted to make the tea, and we sat and drank it and I gave my mum as much information as it was safe to give. She had heard the news about some escaped animal in London, but it seemed that the Angel Group were still doing a pretty good job of suppressing the specifics, so I decided not to go into too much detail. I don’t know how much she took in, but once the initial befuddlement wore off I saw her strength come through, the strength that she’d always had but hadn’t always known how to show. I knew that she trusted me, despite everything that had happened. She was my mum. ‘I’m going to put Tara to bed,’ I said.
I carried her upstairs to my room. She was still sound asleep, breathing deeply and regularly, sighing softly every now and then. My bedroom was exactly the same, every poster, every piece of junk, every scrunched up bit of paper. The bed had been made, but apart from that it was the same. Everything in its right place. That was comforting, if weird. I put Tara down on the bed, and her eyes flickered open. ‘Are we there?’ she mumbled quietly.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’re here. We’re safe. You can sleep here, I’ll be close by.’
She sat up, and started to extricate herself from her fifty or so jackets. ‘OK.’
‘Goodnight,’ I said.
‘I need to brush my teeth.’
That almost made me laugh. Good kid. I showed her to the bathroom and she brushed her teeth, then I took her back upstairs. ‘’Night.’
‘Night,’ she yawned.
‘Sleep well.’
Mum was waiting at the bottom of the stairs and we went back into the kitchen to finish our tea and chatted about normal stuff. I asked her if she’d seen Kloe at all, and she smiled and nodded. ‘She pops by regularly. She’s such a lovely girl, Stanly.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve not done too badly, for a superpowered delinquent who didn’t finish school.’
‘Please, don’t remind me,’ said Mum. But she smiled, and I smiled, and we both laughed. Thank Christ for laughing. When it had subsided I stood up, suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness.
‘I’m going to have to go to bed. I’m completely wiped.’
‘OK. You can sleep in the spare room.’
She helped me make the bed up, stretching the sheet over the mattress as carefully as she always had, and insisted on giving me a duvet cover and pillow cases, asking if I needed a hot water bottle or another cup of tea. It made me realise how much I missed having a parent. Eddie and Connor and Sharon were amazing, but there’s no real substitute.
I wondered what they were all doing. Eddie would blatantly have got in touch with Connor and Sharon by now. Would they have assembled? Had they talked to Mr Freeman? I didn’t want to imagine how awkward and hostile their first meeting with him would be. I decided to turn my phone off and not think about it. I’d done all I could for now.
Plus, I didn’t feel ready to speak to any of them. Particularly Eddie.
Jesus. Evil corporations and soldiers and monsters, and you’re worried about your cousin.
‘What time do you want me to wake you up in the morning?’ Mum asked.
‘Eight,’ I said. ‘No . . . nine.’ I was thinking more about Tara than myself, she needed to have something resembling a decent night’s sleep. ‘If I get up at nine, I can wake Tara at half past. Or ten.’
‘Stanly, what is it about this little girl?’ My mum’s arms were folded, and I knew she knew there was more going on than I was willing to divulge. ‘Why is she your responsibility? What about her parents?’
‘I can’t explain,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t even know the full deal myself. I just know that she’s special, and that I have to look after her.’ For a moment I felt an almost overpowering urge to tell her the truth, to say that her grandchild was slumbering in my
room, but I couldn’t. It was impossible. ‘I have to look after her,’ I said again.
‘All right,’ said Mum. ‘I believe you. It’s all just so strange . . .’ She laughed. ‘But I suppose I should expect nothing less from my strange son.’
‘Thanks for that.’
‘You know what I mean.’ She hugged me. ‘I love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I unfolded the letter I’d left for myself, years ago. I was trying not to dwell on the tangled timeline. It messed with my head too much. I re-read the message several times, my frown growing progressively bigger with each read.
There may be a shimmer in the forest. Don’t let it get inside your head.
I sat for a few minutes, marvelling at what a douchebag my future self must be. Why would I leave myself a cryptic clue, rather than an explanation of some kind? A shimmer in the forest? What the hell did that mean? I vowed to leave a forensically detailed forty-page manuscript with strategies and footnotes and high quality full-colour photographs and a bibliography when I got to the future. Or the past. Or wherever – whenever, said an irritating voice in my brain – the hell it would be when I arrived at where – when, insisted the voice, smugly – I was going to come back from.
I really need to go to bed.
I looked at the directions, which were followable, then re-read the letter one more time, shook my head and called myself a four-letter word. It was a word I’d once said in front of my mum when I was quite young, and immediately wished I hadn’t.
Once in bed, even though I’d had a pretty awful night’s sleep last night, I lay awake for a long time. Why not just leave Tara here with Mum? Then Kloe can stay home too, she won’t have to come with me and the daughter she shouldn’t have yet. She won’t have to hide.
I wouldn’t have left myself that message if I could just leave Tara here.
That means people are going to come looking for her. And for Kloe.
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