The majority looked old, as if no one had moved them for a while. There were several piles of envelopes that had been torn open, stacked along the top of the books, and a pile of old magazines. By standing on tiptoe, Sadie could just get her fingers out of the circle, although the air outside it felt thicker and colder, her movements causing invisible eddies. Her hands brushed the spines of the nearest books, pulling on one that stuck out a bit.
It was an old-fashioned book about the growing of herbs to make medicines. The pictures were line drawings of – well, weeds, really – and the instructions were in strange English. She flipped the book over to look at the back, then rejected it, putting it on the sofa before stretching out for some more. She managed to reach a book of English birds, a more modern book on herbs, and then a story by Agatha Christie. As she pulled the novel out, a handful of old notebooks fell out with it, bouncing over the rug. The dog looked at her, and wagged his tail.
She crouched and lifted one of the booklets up, fighting nausea as she reached over the invisible barrier. It was filled with writing in blue biro, and the edges and corners were filled with sketches and doodles. There were recipes, jottings, phone numbers and the odd diary entry. Intrigued, Sadie pulled the rug towards her until she could reach the rest. The most battered one was written in faded childlike letters, sprawling over the lines.
‘Maggie made me eat this wholemeal crap, it was horrible. I just want pizza.’ The thought of pizza filled Sadie’s mouth with saliva. A few pages further on: ‘they came and took my blood today. I screamed and told Maggie I would bite her but she did it anyway. The baby is in hospital again. Dad will come soon and put them in prison. Not the baby though I’m going to take her home with me as my new little sister. I’m going to teach her to ride, but not Tinker becuase he’s too tempramental.’
Sadie smiled at the spelling, and the sentiment, then looked at the cover of the book. The name was Melissa Harcourt, age ten, the numbers in big, slanted writing. Was this Jack’s, she wondered, leafing through the later pages. ‘More blood, big bruise this time. I hate needles. Maggie brought some strawberries home and she made meringues. Charley is growing her hair back, she looks like a kiwi fruit.’ There was a little cartoon in the margin. ‘I’m teaching her to call me Mel but Maggie tells her my new name is Jack so she calls me Jock because she can’t say Jack …’
The pages rambled on, while Sadie sat and thought about Jack, her occasional flashes of warmth and humour. She had been chained up, maybe on this same old carpet. She must have sat here, grieving for her mum like Sadie did.
Missing her mother oozed through Sadie, leaving her eyes stinging. She rubbed them with the back of her hand, and dried her nose on the sleeve of the old sweatshirt Jack had found for her to wear. Slim though Jack was, Sadie was several inches shorter, and had lost a lot of weight. The clothes hung off her. Sadie wrapped her arms around her newly incurved belly, crawled onto the sofa and huddled in the quilt.
She remembered home, the upstairs flat, the new curtains Mum liked so much, the high stools in the kitchen, watching telly together over a takeaway at the end of Mum’s work. Hugs, little talks late at night on Mum’s bed, it all hurt, as if strings had been yanked in her chest.
Something brushed the window, clattering like leaves. Sadie looked up, at the same time as the dog did. The ivy that clambered around the window was silhouetted in black against the deep blue of the sky. Sadie’s skin prickled, and she held her breath, listening. She could hear the sizzle of a log in the wood burner, the occasional crackle, the soft tick of the clock over the fireplace, and underneath that, her heart beating in her ears like someone tapping sticks together. Then she noticed the almost subsonic rumble coming from the dog.
Turning to Ches, she watched the dog lift his body off the ground as if pulled by strings, the hair along his back arching and his eyes widening until there was a rim of white around the grey irises. The air seemed heavy, as if it was flowing onto her and growing thicker, pinning her in place. She could just hear the trees outside, rustling. She realised the single light bulb was dimmer, growing more yellow, before it started flickering. She stared up at it, willing it to keep glowing. After a few seconds, it exploded like a firework, showering her with hot glass and enfolding her in a layer of darkness.
Sadie screamed. She brought her hand to her mouth, frightened by her own sounds echoing around the still, black room. Her eyes began to adjust to the gloom. The branches of the ash tree in the garden reached into the cobalt sky, and the fire glowed red and orange beside her.
Sadie crept to her feet, over the shackle in the floor, into the middle of the circle where she felt strongest. Glass crunched under her thick socks, and the dog whined. Before she could make him out among the deep shadows, he cannoned into her. She put out a hand to stop herself falling, and it plunged into his fur.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just the light.’ She felt along the dog’s spine until she found his head, just a shape against the faint glow from the wood burner. ‘Good boy.’ She patted him, feeling him panting in distress, every breath out a faint whine. Kneeling beside him, he leaned against her and yawned in her face, enveloping her in warm meaty breath. ‘Silly dog.’ A brief thump on the floor suggested he had wagged his tail.
The stink of smoke made her look at the fire, which had dimmed to red. A rattle against the window made them both jump.
A call came from the back garden, beyond the kitchen, maybe from the trees. Some sort of bird, calling as if in alarm, croaking; then other, lighter voices shrieking. The cawing and crowing rose until it was deafening. Sadie huddled beside the dog, hands over her head to reduce the noise. It still sounded loud, as if the terrified birds were in the room with her. She felt vulnerable, chained up like bait, so she scooted over towards the hearth. Stretching at the end of the chain, she could feel along the fireplace for the poker. The whole stand fell over with a clatter, and she fumbled along its length until she found the metal rod.
The birds stopped screaming, and she crouched, her breath wheezing in the silence. Cold air spread invisible fingers over her skin as she crawled back to the dog, putting her free arm around him. She could hear his paws pedalling on the floor as if he was losing his balance, and smelled the bitterness of dog urine.
A scream broke the quietness, and for a moment Sadie thought it was human. As she processed the sound and realised it was animal, something hit the window with a wet thud, sliding down like a handful of leaves. In the last of the light from the sky, she had the impression of black fingers spread against the smeared glass, then slipping onto the sill. Another shape smashed into the pane, making Ches howl, and more screeches from the birds outside. It sounded as if something was torturing the crows.
Sadie buried her face in Ches’s fur, feeling him shake, her mind filled with the image of the thing, the broken bird on the windowsill. The sound of the wind had risen, wrapping itself around the house with a slow roar, like traffic noise. She waited, tears streaming down her face at the occasional agonised cry, cut short with each missile that splatted the glass.
Air in the room started to move, tugging her clothes and lifting her short hair. She slid her fingers down the chain through the hole in the carpet to the metal ring in the floorboards, tearing at it with her fingernails. The ring was attached to a square metal plate, screwed at each corner into the floorboards. It wouldn’t budge. The sound and the draughts dropped almost as fast as they had started. The silence thickened. The tingling cold made her shiver, even as sweat started to prickle her skin.
‘Sadieeeeee.’
The voice called, and sounded not quite human, as if the wind itself had found a voice. It seemed to come from all directions, and the air snatched at her again, like spiteful fingers. A few books fell from the shelves, their pages fluttering. She heard a tiny, sobbed whimper, and realised it had come from her own dry throat. The next time the voice came from the chimney, and a little soot fell with the smell of tar being sprea
d on a hot road.
‘Sadieeeeee.’ The wind increased and made her stagger, pulling her in a spiral towards the corners of the room.
She crouched low, holding onto the cold shackle, its metal scent released by the sweat on her hands. Rising through the terror like a wave, she started to feel a growing rage at the senseless destruction of Jack’s precious birds. Each wave of fear seemed to bring a little more anger, and she staggered upright. Papers flapped around her in the whirlwind. She wrapped the chain around the poker a few times, leaned her whole weight against it, and pulled until her feet slipped on the carpet. The ring in the floor creaked, but didn’t move. The air buffeted her, thick with the stench of soot and smoke, and books and furniture skidded around the floor. The wind ran through her hair, whipping it into her eyes, pulling at her feet. She heaved on the chain again, feeling the tiniest shudder. Dropping to her knees, she touched the plate through the hole in the carpet, and found it was still solid. But her shaking fingers found a gap in the ring, as if she had opened it up. She forced the end of the poker into the ring and pulled back, the metal biting into her hands. It eased the circle open, and straining, she forced the last link of the chain through the gap.
The wind seemed to grow instantly until it almost lifted her up, and she crouched down, clinging to the ring as her feet were pulled off the floor for a few seconds. She screamed, and again as she felt the dog smash into her. He was dragged away, it was too dark to see where, but his claws scrunched up the carpet and he yowled.
‘Ches!’ She felt around in the direction of his cry. ‘Ches, boy!’
The wind seemed to blow the words straight back at her, and bits of paper and soot flew into her face. She could hear a banging, something intermittently thumping through the racket. The door. She tried crawling across the carpet, but within a couple of feet the coldness and nausea overwhelmed her, and she retreated to pant in a heap on the floor. Jack, please, please come back. Another scraping on her right made her fumble a hand in its direction, as a huge thump was followed by a howl from Ches, this time from behind her. He’s being blown around, he’ll be killed.
Gathering all her strength, she bellowed ‘Ches!’
This time she could track the squeal of his claws as he was shunted around her, and was able to flail in his direction to grab something – a leg or a tail – before it was snatched away from her again. She shuffled closer to the scraping noise, hoping it was the priest-hole door. She held her breath against the rising nausea, and squinted into the flying debris whistling around the edges of the room. She caught a glimpse of light fur, lit perhaps from the starlight outside, as Ches careered around the walls, no longer howling. Reaching with both arms, she caught him as he slid past. Holding him in her arms like a crazy dancer, she staggered to her feet and launched herself into the cold towards the darker shadow of the doorway, and tripped over the step into the priest hole.
Chapter 28
‘The thud of hooves striking the road was deafening, the heaving of the mare’s breath no less so. The road was so poorly lit, even with several lanterns held aloft on short poles, that I expected every moment to be dashed against a tree or thrown down a hillside.’
Edward Kelley
believed 27 November 1585
On the road
The pounding against the saddle, and the utter cold, seeped into me as the journey progressed. It exhausted me, and I must have fallen into insensibility by dawn. I woke with the clatter of iron shoes on cobbles as we turned into a yard in the first light.
I was lifted down as if I were a child. I lurched on my feet, the world seemed to heave more than the horse. The gag was pulled down, and I vomited a mouthful of foul liquid onto my captor’s mud-splashed boots. The guard brought out a dagger the length of my forearm, and in front of my horrified eyes, waved it close to my throat. As I shrank back, he brought the knife down and cut the knot holding my hands in front of me, and turned away with a bellow of laughter.
As my hands came back to life, they burned with pain, and I almost cried out. Another man gestured, and I was waved to a wall where several of the guards were relieving themselves. Dee was there, his face as white as chalk, a bruise obscuring one eye, which was purpled and swollen. He, at least, had put up a fight. I noticed he now wore crude boots.
‘Master—’
‘Who are these men? Have you heard them speak among themselves?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘I can’t believe they are from the Inquisition, they seemed to kill the Swiss guards and the Poles. Are they Istvan’s Hungarians?’
I shrugged, glancing over my shoulder at the group of warriors. ‘They killed one of them on the way out.’
‘Magyars? Mercenaries? Who but the Pope would go to these lengths to take us?’
Who, indeed. An idea crossed my mind, but I dared not give it voice where it might be heard. My giant guard gestured to me to follow him to a doorway, and an old woman handed me a tankard. I drank deep, the ale made delicious by my privations, followed by a hunk of bread filled with some sort of sausage. It took away the acid in my mouth, and I realised I was ravenous. The small kindness filled me with hope, which faltered when another horse was brought forward. The man pulled the rope from a pocket, and I fell back, shaking my head. ‘I will ride. I can ride.’ I mimed holding reins.
He looked at one of his compatriots and held up the rope. Some signal passed between them, and he pointed at the horse. I was shivering with cold, but at least I was trusted to ride with them. I drew comfort from the fact that I was not chained in a carriage surrounded by the Vatican guards.
One side of the track was silvered in moonlight, the trees looked like metal bars making a prison of the road. We set out, heading south-west this time, the men riding in a close group around us. I estimated by its width that it was the highway between Poland and Hungary, but they soon veered onto a track through the forest. We were back into gallops where the road and the light was good. I don’t know how many leagues we traversed, but we only stopped for another tankard and necessary relief, and my rump was so bruised I cried out when I sat back on my next horse, more pony than steed. My captors laughed aloud. In the first daylight they were clearly Magyars, and they were less discreet, hissing in their native language. There were eleven of them, two wounded with rude bandages around limbs.
A third bloodstained man, younger than the others, rode without complaint, but even with his bandages tightened by his comrades, a sheet of blood fell down his side and his face grew whiter in the early light. As we climbed up a steep path in single file, he toppled without warning off his horse, in front of my own pony, which shied. The injured man rolled off the path into the skeletons of brambles lining the track. The man who I had thought of as the leader, dismounted and pushed him with a boot. This raised a groan from the injured man, who rolled onto his back. The captain pulled the scarf from the injured man’s face. The boy – for he was barely bearded – opened his eyes, almost black, surrounded by lashes as long and thick as a girl’s. The captain did not hesitate, drawing a long knife, the one he had threatened me with, I think. He slid the blade under the boy’s ear, slashing it across his neck. The young man died with a gurgle from the gaping throat, his eyes closing.
The big man bent his head for a moment, perhaps in prayer, then hefted the body onto his shoulder. He disappeared off the path into the bushes, followed by a stocky man, whose hair was grizzled like an old terrier. They returned a few minutes later, with everything the boy had been wearing, down to his linens. I was shaking, my eyes meeting Dee’s for a moment. As we rode off, I reflected that perhaps our captors didn’t want anyone to identify the boy, and the animals in the forest around us would soon deal with the naked corpse. The rain started falling again, and trickled down the back of my cloak and along my spine, adding to my miseries.
Chapter 29
Felix was standing in the university car park after a long evening of tutorials when his phone rang.
‘Yes?’ He fumbled with his briefcase, tryi
ng to get the car keys out without dropping the phone.
‘Felix?’ He almost didn’t recognise the voice.
‘Jack? Is that you?’
‘Felix …’ There was a long pause and he could hear other sounds. ‘I need your help.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m at St David’s Hospital.’ She sounded hoarse. ‘I need you to come and get me.’
He unlocked his car and threw his case in. ‘What happened?’
The phone clicked and went dead. He looked at the screen. Jack, thirty-four seconds, and his heart was already hammering in his chest. He started the car and drove over a speed bump in the exit too fast, clunking his exhaust.
Felix turned into a side street, heading towards the hospital. It was already dark, the town centre lit by hundreds of headlights and tail lights, splashes of white and red illuminating shoppers filling up the town. Signs on lampposts and shop windows announced late-night Christmas shopping. He was forced to concentrate as he was boxed in by queues of traffic. In the end, it was twenty minutes before he got to the hospital.
At almost nine o’clock, main reception was closed. That left casualty. He looked around the waiting room, with beige plastic chairs and a handful of huddled drunks, and turned to the casualty receptionist. Before he could open his mouth, he heard Jack’s voice.
‘Felix.’
One of the heaps of clothing turned out to be a muddy and dishevelled Jack, a scrape down one side of her face bruised purple, and one eye shot with scarlet.
‘Jack!’ He reached out his hands for hers, and she clutched his arm as if she was going to fall. ‘What happened? Have you seen a doctor?’
‘Let’s go. Please.’ Her voice was hoarse.
A male nurse in blue scrubs walked up to them. ‘Are you sure I can’t persuade you to stay? Just to warm you up.’
The Secrets of Life and Death Page 14