The Invisible Hand

by James Hartley

  And on it went.

  Sam bowed his head, pretending to be sorry for all he had done but in reality looking down at the reflection in his watch face to scan the mantelpiece and the room behind him. He moved his wrist to take in the back wall.

  “Which is why we’ve informed, at great difficulty with no little reluctance, your father about all of this and why, first thing tomorrow, you shall be picked up by your uncle and taken away from the school.”

  “What?”

  Mrs Water’s unscrewed her fountain pen and began writing. “As you know, I had an agreement with both you and your guardian regarding your comportment here at the school. Despite my efforts, this worrying behaviour of yours has recurred and this recurrence has provoked the course of action I’m now sadly forced to follow. Your father and your uncle are both in agreement that St Francis’s is not the best environment for you at this present moment as we’re all of the opinion that –” she glanced up, batting her dark eye-lashes – “you’re not a very well little boy.”

  “And you’re Hecate, the Queen of the witches,” Sam almost replied. But he didn’t. He didn’t because some speedy mental gymnastics reminded him that he still had a night left. Uncle Quentin was coming tomorrow; tomorrow first thing, Waters had just said. In one night he could sort this thing out. He would go to wherever Leana was, or Leana would come here, they would resolve the issue and that would be that.

  “Do you mind if I go now, miss? I’d like a drink of water and a lie down.”

  “Very well. I’ve informed Mr Dahl of what we’ve decided. You’re excused Prep. Spend the time you have left tonight packing, please.”

  “Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.”

  “Can I trust you to make it back to the House alone without any further mishaps?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Very well, then. Off you go.”

  Sam walked out to find Katy and her friend waiting on the landing. “Did you get expelled?” tall Katy asked. Sam nodded and heard them both run into the girl’s common room and announce, “Lawrence got kicked out!”

  In the time it took him to walk out of the back door of the Main Building and wander around to St Nick’s, Katy had opened a window and shouted the news across the driveway to some boys sitting on a bench outside the house. When Sam walked in through the locker room door, everyone knew.

  He spent the two hours of Prep packing his things, the only awkward moment coming when Eddie Burroughs came in just before the bell and asked him why he’d stolen his jumper. “And why did you have to drag me into all this?” Burroughs asked, hurt.

  “Sorry, man. I needed the badge.”

  “I thought it was all secret, what we said?”

  “It was. I didn’t tell them anything about you.”

  “You didn’t have to.” As he was leaving Burroughs stopped at the door and said, “You need to get your head sorted, man. Seriously.”

  Sam stayed on his own until lights out. He lay facing the wall, already in bed, as the others came in. There was little conversation but when the lights went off Walt’s voice struck up. “Well, it was nice knowing you, Sammo, mate. Be careful out there.”

  “Take care, Sammo,” came another voice.

  “Be good.”

  “Lucky sod.”

  “Selfish idiot.”

  When the voices stopped and the owl’s hoots began, Sam lay waiting to sleep. But Orhan had a cough. And Simon Stainrod in Dorm Five was snivelling so loud it was like he was standing next to Sam and shouting down his ear. The Hindi sleep-talker chose that night, at about two, to begin reciting verses of the Bhagavad Gita in his dreams – “I am death! The creator of worlds!” – and Little Billy Astbury in Dorm One had a four o’clock nightmare and screamed the house down, wailing about wolves and motorbikes.

  But just before dawn, when he wasn’t expecting it, as usual, Sam dropped off.

  23

  Believe That Life Is Worth Living And Your Belief Will Help Create The Fact

  Leana was chained to something that felt like snakeskin.

  The noise around her was pitiful and terrifying: screams of pain and cries for mercy. Shadows hung on either side, limbs shaking their chains while grime covered the floor like a brown sea. But she was alive! Why had the giant chained her to this slimy wall instead of killing her? Something had made him panic.

  There was one window in the dungeon, high up. It generated a beam of divine light which cut across the smudged, bleak interior space as though solid. Sometimes a prisoner might pop up in the silver line, eyes bulging, teeth missing, and try to eat or drink it. Whips cracked and doors squealed. A woman was laughing manically.

  A hole in the wall opposite Leana burst open with blinding light. Leana felt and then saw a great blade poised above her head and screamed with the little energy she had left. But there was no pain and no blow. Instead she felt a series of hot sparks burn the soft skin on the insides of her wrists and a moment later she fell to the filthy floor.

  On hands and knees, she heard someone bellow, “Every man, woman and child in this wretched, ungodly hive of sin is hereby freed and ordered to fight for and defend the rightful King, their liberator, for the love of God and country!”

  Someone grabbed Leana’s shoulders and hoisted her to her feet. “Stand up and fight, girl! You are liberated!”

  “Traitor!” came a voice from behind, in the light, and a fight broke out.

  Leana joined the reeking, heaving mass surging to escape. They passed through the doorway in the wall and came out into a cold gale blowing over the balustrades. They were on a long passageway open to the elements and Leana joined the others in taking in the countryside as though it was their first ever view of the earth.

  “Hark!” a scared voice cried. “The wood’s moving!”

  “’Tis Malcolm!”

  Leana watched as Birnam Wood in the distance did indeed seem to move forwards, the great green mushrooms of the tree canopies bobbing in step to the soldiers supporting them. Her heart fluttered like the standards she spotted between the boughs. Down below Macbeth’s troops were hurriedly digging earth works and forming defensive lines of archers.

  “My daughter! My daughter!”

  “Make way for the Queen! Make way for the Queen!”

  Leana stood on tiptoes and, looking down upon the walkway below, caught the eye of a pale, worried looking Lady Macbeth staring upwards. Her skin was an unhealthy grey. Behind her, his expensive French cloak flapping in the wind, stood the doctor. Leana ducked back onto her own balustrade and began pushing through the prisoners. She heard a cry from below. “My daughter! I saw her! Up there! Catch her!”

  Leana ran back to the open dungeon. It was empty of bodies but skittering with rats. She needed a place to hide. Was there another way out?

  Standing in the centre of the chamber she noticed darker than normal shadows near the bottom of the walls and skidded across to investigate. She almost cried out with joy when she found holes and small indents which must have been dug and scraped out by prisoner’s fingernails.

  “My child!” Lady Macbeth’s voice echoed through the dungeon and scared a small colony of bats somewhere in the high roof. They swooped, squealed and flapped out above and around the Queen’s head. “Where are you?”

  Leana crushed herself into the largest of the cavities and immediately felt something warm, furry and alive inside with her. The living thing growled. Not loudly, but softly, as a warning. “Please allow me to share this space with you,” Leana whispered. “I promise I will look after you or do whatever you want when I get out of here, even though I know you can’t understand a word I’m saying.”

  “My darling! Come back to me! Come to me!”

  The bundle of fur pressing against her was a dog. Leana knew it by the way it licked her nose. The smell of it. She opened her eyes and pushed herself further into the sunken hole the dog allowed her to enter and together they crouched in the dank pit.

  “If she’s in here, find her!
” the Queen demanded of her closest guard. The sweet, slightly mad, cooing voice she’d been using changed. “Find the wretch and drag her out to me!” Her voice was horrible now, as though she were gargling bile. “How dare she play games with me!”

  Leana, buried with Camilo the dog, her back to the dungeon, closed her eyes against the spiky fur and listened to the sploshing and squelching and lunging and huffing of the brutes sent in to find her. Some noises sounded too close for comfort but Leana was soothed by the calmness of her canine companion. The dog hardly moved. She could hear its steadily beating heart beside her ear and loved it.

  “They’ve breached the moat, ma’am!” a worried, echoing voice cried out.

  “She’s not here, ma’am!” another voice shouted, closer.

  The Queen’s banshee shriek made Leana’s teeth hurt and the dog shake.

  When she could sense it was safe to do so, Leana eased her way out and beckoned for the dog to come with her. “Come on, boy. I’ll give you whatever you want.” But Camilo was adamant he didn’t want to move. He remained at the mouth of the small cave, tongue lolled out, dropping his head whenever she caught his eye. Leana kissed his wet button nose and left.

  She stayed close to the wall as she edged towards the doorway, ready to hide at any time. Occasional arrows came skittering down the dungeon steps and stuck in the mud while great battering noises shook dust from the ceiling. The omnipresent crackle of flames grew as Leana emerged onto the battlements again, now shrouded in thick, acrid smoke. When it cleared she caught a glimpse of the full moon hanging low over the stubs of Birnam, watching the chaos like a baleful, monophthalmic god.

  Leana became aware of a body tumbling through the air from the battlements above her – a woman’s body – and in the brief second it took to pass she recognised the Queen’s clothing. Looking down over the edge of the grey stone she saw long ladders being slapped into place against the walls. Between them there was a huddle on the ground around a lady staring up to the sky with dead eyes. An odd white imitation of the queen floated out of the body and vanished upwards into the smoke above the mourners and Leana was overcome by a premonition that finally – as it just had done for the Queen – everything was about to end.

  “Die, traitor!” A man in armour was charging towards her with a lance. “Prepare to meet your master!”

  Although people were being speared and thrown from the walls on either side of her like rubbish, and although there were fireballs rising in plumes to her left and tar being emptied down upon whoever was climbing up the ladders, Leana found herself very calm and composed of mind. In fact, she thought of the dog. That poor dog. Up to its neck in dirt and filth. But swimming in it. Not drowning. Who will take care of that lovely dog? And why does he not want to escape?

  “Leana!”

  A familiar voice. “Sam?”

  In his eyes – for it was Sam, as Robbie, running towards her in the opposite direction as the man with the lance, with the sky at his back and blood splashed across his face – Leana saw love. He had come back to save her. He had reunited with the Thane’s army. He had marched on the castle. Macbeth would be defeated. Scotland would once again be at peace! But in the same moment Leana froze with horror as she realised that Sam was going to die.

  Sam grabbed Leana by the shoulders and turned her out of the path of the onrushing soldier. Their eyes met in a wordless, deep connection which seemed to freeze time. But then the lance meant for Leana pierced Sam’s chest, killing him instantly and, after staggering a moment, he dropped to the stone in a crumpled, bloody heap.

  Leana fell sideways into the arms of the Queen’s chambermaid who rushed them both away through the thickest part of the smoke to the stairwell. There were arrows poking out of door but it opened at a stiff kick from the chambermaid’s clog. She dragged Leana inside through the sticky, drying tar that was steaming off the steps.

  “Is it over?” asked Leana as they came out into the courtyard. Malcolm’s soldiers were swarming the castle now and hoisting their flag from the tower.

  “The King is dead!” a figure yelled from the roof of the keep.

  “Long live the King!” came the shouted reply from the castle gate, where Malcolm came striding in with his elite troops.

  “Yes, my dear,” the chambermaid said. “It’s all over.”

  24

  Dreams Are True While They Last and Do We Not Live In Dreams?

  “The uncle swore he’d be here by ten.”

  “I can’t wait anymore.”

  “I can. Don’t worry, I’ll stay, you go.”

  “Keep this door securely locked.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that.”

  “Ah, one thing before I go. Do we know anything about the father?”

  “Flying back from the desert this afternoon. The uncle said he’ll have the boy until then. The father knows someone, apparently. A decent doctor.”

  “Same one who’s treating the mother?”

  “Perhaps they’ll get a family deal?”

  Sam opened one eye. He tried to move but was immobile. Had he broken every bone in his body? No. He was restrained. Lying face up.

  “I’m surprised the boy lasted being out all night in this weather.”

  “But that’s the thing, you see. If he wasn’t aware of it, there’s a good chance that he hardly noticed. He could have thought he was anywhere.”

  “But the cold’s the cold, Malcolm.”

  “He’s just lucky he decided to bed down in the church. He could have really gone walkabout – been hit by a car, or anything. Sleepwalkers are a liability to themselves.”

  Sam wriggled the restraints off his feet and this gave him purchase to slide out from under the straps which wrapped him to the bed. Now he could see where he was: Sick Bay again. This place is like my second home.

  Obviously the teachers in the corridor were talking about him but Sam didn’t care. He lifted his pyjama top and stared down at his chest. No hole. No wound. But he remembered everything from Scotland. That part he remembered. But sleeping outside? In the church? The last thing he could remember here, at the school, was the coughing, snivelling and talking last night. The endless noise. But he’d slept, hadn’t he?

  There was nothing there, when he thought back. A void.

  But in Scotland he’d seen Leana and she had been alive.

  I must keep going. I must get out of here. He thought of the map he’d seen in The Eleusinian Room and decided, I will get into Water’s office. If The Book is anywhere, it’s there.

  As quietly as he could, Sam slipped off the bed. The springs creaked but the voices outside continued conversing: now they were talking about Sam’s mother, the writer, and her mysterious disappearance. It was Mr Dahl and, Sam thought, Mr Seneca, the senior boy’s housemaster.

  Sam stuffed the bed as best he could to make it look as though he was still lying beneath the sheets before going over to the pile of damp clothes on the chair by the door. He needed his shoes and jacket: everything else could wait.

  Creeping over to the window, Sam examined the panes. There was one large window which had been secured with a combination padlock. It wouldn’t budge. The small, narrow top-window was ajar, just as it had been when he’d first come here with Pram.

  He heard the Indonesian’s voice in his mind. What had he said? Close the window if you want to get out of here.

  Close it? Feeling slightly mad, Sam pulled the small window closed and stepped back. He half expected some kind of magic to happen but nothing occurred. The room became very warm very quickly: the clinking radiators under the windows were working at full power.

  Sam considered trying to break the glass, to throw something through it, but a moment later he began to laugh. As the windows had steamed up the panes revealed a three-digit number.

  Close window if you want to get out, he heard Pram say again.

  “Thanks, mate!”

  Sam tried the three digits on the combination lock. They worked. H
e was out.

  Sam was an animal, crouched, hustling; a Yeti; a ghost.

  He moved from car to car along the school drive, crouching in the bracken and behind the drifts as vehicles bringing in the day bugs slid past through the slush.

  The bell rang for Assembly and it sounded faraway and strange. He waited three minutes, counting out the seconds, and then began moving up towards the school buildings via the narrow pathway between the tennis courts and the sixth form block. He peeped up into the first window he passed and was happy to see the study cubicle was unoccupied. The tennis courts were empty too, streaked with icy puddles, the nets sagging, torn and sad.

  At the edge of the sixth form block Sam saw the fire escape door of the Assembly Hall and watched green-jumpered students filing by inside. A Praetor was standing with his back to the window, arms linked behind his back and Sam hated him. If he ever had any power over this school that would be another thing he’d change: no more Magistrate! What where the Quaestors, Praetors and Consuls, anyway, but Hecate’s guards? They unwittingly and willingly maintained all that was wrong with the school while thinking they were doing right, the dumb, deluded, power-hungry fools!

  The snow had begun to fall again, heavy and thick. It would settle.

  Sam darted from his hiding place and ran across to where four paths intersected. He stuck close to the peeling yellow fence outside the kitchens and ran bent over. A kitchen porter was pushing a bin out of the back door and a radio was playing pop music inside. Sam moved on, out towards the front lawn and along the façade of the Main Building. He kept his back close to the ivory-strewn wall, ready to bolt or hide at any moment.

  He glanced across at St Nick’s and wondered if his escape had been noticed. The dark windows stared back at him. The great oak tree reached up into the dark, marble sky. All was quiet.

  Now he was in the main door and running past the fire in the front hall, sprinting up the stairs alongside panels filled with golden lettering. The stairs creaked but he raced on, reaching the green carpet, in sight of his target. A moment later, in front of a sign which read “MRS WATERS: HEADMISTRESS” he stopped for breath.