Cold Fire

by James Hartley

  And then, when she was ready, she walked back to school

  Angela showered and was changing when the bell rung. As usual she had thought a lot in the shower. For some reason ideas came to her in the shower. Now she dried herself as quickly as she could, irritated, as usual, that she had to dry herself. How come they can invent bombs and washing machines and spaceships but they can’t invent something that can dry you after a shower?

  In the dorm she pulled on her green tights and remembered the plan she’d come up with. Yes, it still seemed possible. Still made sense

  Angela had been thinking about what Leana had said, about how there might be a writer in the family, about how it didn’t have to be her – and she’d decided that all the strange things that had been happening were connected to her new sister. She wanted to write something for her sister but she also wanted to test Leana’s theory. If what Leana said, and what they all believed at the school, this would all make sense. If not, it wouldn’t. After the weirdness she’d been through these last few days she was leaning towards thinking there was some truth in it all

  With her wet hair dripping onto the paper, Angela scrawled out a note to her sister who hadn’t even been born yet. She kept it simple:

  If strange things are happening to you and you feel like you’ve got no one to talk to and you don’t understand what’s happening, remember you can always talk to me. I was here once, like you, and strange things happened to me. You’re not crazy. Wherever I am, come and talk to me and I’ll tell you what’s happening. Don’t feel alone. Don’t feel like you’re going mad. I am your sister and I love you. Find me.

  She finished. “I’m nuts.”

  Angela combed her hair fast, shaking her head at the typically rotten state of her skin, folded the note and walked out into the corridor. It was empty. She could hear the last of the girls banging down the main stairs, going to class and she looked about. Where to hide the note?

  The Common Room was the most obvious place. She looked at the old furniture. Yes, it had been there years but there was no way it was going to be there in twenty years’ time – no way. The floorboards creaked but putting something under them was too risky. There were pipes and leaks and, besides, she’d have to dig them up or pull them up and she didn’t have time

  From the window she looked out over the back lawn, the school pond, swimming pool and Assembly Hall. Down below, groups of students walked the pathways in groups, rucksacks slung from their shoulders, boys teasing the girls, girls flicking their hair

  What is never going to change about this place? she thought. Looking around the room she saw some dusty old volumes on one of the shelves and walked across to them. Books?

  She read along the spines. They were old editions with some new books squeezed in, even some homework sheets and old exams. There were CDs and DVDs and a broken mobile phone, the screen smashed like a cobweb, and there was The Collected Works of William Shakespeare. Angela laughed. Of course!

  She drew down the book and flicked open the cover

  This book belongs to Enid Waters, it said

  “Who?”

  Angela felt time pressing down on her and closed her eyes. She flicked through the pages, smelling the musty, dusty age of the book, and slipped her note into a random page. Although she didn’t want to, she had to peep at the name of the play she’d chosen. It was Julius Caesar. “Oh, no,” she said, flipping on to Anthony and Cleopatra and nodding. “Cleopatra, better.” She slid the note in between the pages

  “Right, then. Let’s see.”

  Back went the book, into its place. Angela wiped the dust off her hands, picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder and walked across the creaking floorboards to the door. She glanced back once, just to check she hadn’t moved anything she shouldn’t have, and then left

  From the empty Common Room you could hear her footfalls on the stairs as she raced downwards to class

  And then there was nothing, only an old clock ticking

  The clock, as it always had and always would, was showing the wrong time

  12

  Alain followed his heart

  All was ice and night had fallen. He was more afraid than he thought he’d be at being here, at having given up his life to find Gillian again, but now that he was here, what could he do? He had to find her. Had to tell her how he felt. He had to convince her to love him again

  The ground was knee-deep in snow although the blizzard had stopped. The sky was somewhere above, watching; the full moon glaring down and lighting everything silverfish grey

  The trees cast grim shadows and, in the distance, Alain made out the leaning, tired fence which marked the boundary of the school. He’d studied his history; he knew the way the school had grown, where the old road ran. He’d read the legends of the site, of the ancient churches and Roman forts, of all that had happened here, in this weird little corner of the grounds which had somehow resisted ever being built on

  And then he saw the grave. The burial mound

  He felt as sad as he’d ever felt in his life; great sadness like a blow. He’d made Kizzie write that she must take him to Gillian and here he was. But he was too late. She was dead. Worse, because the soil on the mound had less snow on it than on the surrounding land – it was warm! Fresh! – she was recently dead! Recently gone! He’d been too slow. His indecision had killed her!

  Alain collapsed, falling to his knees and crying out in frustration. He buried the torch he’d been carrying into the highest point of the mound, sheer brute strength overcoming nature’s best attempt to freeze the earth

  “Oh, my love! Gillian! I came back for you!” With red eyes Alain stared up at the sky and shouted at God and fate for bringing him here late, for not allowing him to be with his love at all. “Oh, but you taught me love,” he said, addressing the grave, suddenly realising that she had – she really had.

  He dug out a G in the snow, deep and bold. “You taught me what it is to love without giving me even a kiss. Without touching me. And now I know what love is. It’s not gentle and sweet but rough and painful. Now I know. And I know because of you.”

  Alain lay with his head on the cold, hard soil and noticed an approaching torchlight. Someone was coming

  He stood up, acting on instinct, withdrawing into the flickering shadows, crouching next to the trunk of a tree, which might have been a witch. It was alive and sharp and watched with him as Romeo arrived, sinking into the snow on each step, panting hard

  What’s this? Romeo thought, noticing the dying embers of Alain’s torch being gradually snuffed out by the frost. And he saw what could only be a burial mound: there were dead flowers pressed into it, rimed with hoary frost, quite beautiful. Someone had left a cup nearby. In the snowy rise he saw the letter G which Alain had traced out and dropped to his knees as though before an altar

  “No!”

  Without thinking of what he was doing, Romeo began to claw at the dirt, ignoring the pain, pulling great handfuls of frozen ground away and throwing them over his shoulder, behind him, anywhere, thinking: She may still be alive in there! I will claw her back from death! Death cannot defeat this love I feel!

  “No!” Alain dived onto the other boy’s shoulders and Romeo, growling wildly, rolled them both over backwards and sprang to his feet

  “Get back!” Romeo pulled out a short, sharp dagger. “Honestly, man. Get back. Stay away from me. I’ll cut you open.”

  “She’s dead, you idiot! Dead!”

  “Get back!” Spittle and desperation shot out into the circle of darkness between the two men as they turned in a strange dance. Alain, too, had armed himself. He had a small pickaxe he’d found on the floor by the tree

  “No good will come of digging up a grave, believe me,” Alain said, half-crouching

  “I’m begging you to leave me alone. I can’t answer for what I will do to you if you do not leave me alone.” Romeo was pleading. “Just walk away and all will be well.”

  “You will leave he
r in peace now.” Alain swallowed hard. “We both must. She’s gone. What’s done is done. Leave her in peace. Leave her to God.”

  “Get away from me!” screamed Romeo, lunging at Alain with the knife. He held it high above his head and brought it down so close to Alain’s ear that the Frenchman heard wind

  “Are you mad? How much death do you want tonight?”

  “For the last time,” the other boy answered, still turning, “take your leave, man, and let me stay here in peace.”

  “If you touch that grave I’ll make sure you’re punished.”

  “You have no authority here!” Romeo jerked the knife. “You’ve got no authority anywhere, you fool.”

  “You will pay for your actions, boy! I promise you that!”

  “I don’t care!” Romeo lunged in again, catching Alain in the thigh. Alain tried to bring the pickaxe down but Romeo saw it – he was so alive, his senses on fire, that the axe seemed to come at him in slow motion

  A split second after he’d ducked, the sharp blade he thrust went in under Alain’s trailing, flailing arm and buried its blade snug between the boy’s exposed ribs. The sharp metal pierced Verne’s heart and – eyes wide open in shock – the leader of the Magistrate fell and was dead before he hit the cold earth

  Romeo took his knife, wiped it clean and sheathed it. The adrenalin was already beginning to wear off, his fingers and knees trembling, and he took himself back to the grave and stood before the mound thinking dark thoughts. He had a knife. His life was no longer worth living

  From the lightening gloaming beyond he saw what might have been eyes lit by the dying torchlight. Watching eyes. The glint of a fox’s eye, or a wolf’s. But no

  “Gillian?”

  Romeo walked around the mound and shook his head in disbelief. There was a body on the snowy ground under a small shelter, the head slightly inclined. Her body. It was her! Romeo raced across. Gillian was pale, very grey, her eyes wide open. Romeo held her close but she was rigid and cold. “My love!”

  He tried to hold her but her clothes seemed attached to the ground, stuck to it. Throughout all this she stared as though hypnotised

  “My love, my love.”

  Romeo took her hand, pulled open the fingers and cried out in pain and recognition when he saw the small acorn, still warm, in her grey palm

  “My wife, my darling wife,” he said, whispering, kissing her frozen cheek. “My soul. My reason. My everything!”

  Romeo did his best to gather her clothes about her but there was no way to do it without tearing them so he began to remove his own, placing them over her body, feeling the cold but not caring. Eventually he was as naked as he’d been on the first day he’d come into this odd world, trembling at the terrible cold, which began to burn him inside and out, but not caring

  “Look, my love,” he told her, with his purple lips next to hers. In his hand he had his own acorn: their wedding gift. “Like our love, we will always be together now.”

  And he lay there, with her, on top of her, next to her, until he froze to death

  It was sometime in the night, a lonely private time when the stars oscillate and the planets hum, when Gillian opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was her husband: his eyes, just like the first time. But now they would never close again. They were frozen open, locked by death

  She noticed his clothes on her. Realised what must have happened

  Gillian had come back from somewhere to see him, that she knew. But she was too late. He had gone, gone ahead of her, and now she must follow. Now she would join her husband in death’s kingdom. The saddest loneliest place in the world would be like heaven if they were both there. Yes, it would! They must be together in death

  This place, this world, was not where she should be. It never had been

  It was not the world itself – the world was not interested in love or people, it was indifferent. The world was a wild thing, like the sea, like life, like moods, like love. No, it was to be human in the world. That was the difficult thing. Never far from love, perhaps, but also always close to illness, fear and death. There was no escape from this world if you were human, she thought. Love eases the way to death. All is death

  They had tamed love together. Tamed it and been forever bonded by it. Gillian believed that. Both of them had believed their vows. Theirs was a bond that had crossed different zones of consciousness and now it would cross the ultimate barrier. Gillian was convinced of it

  She must go and be with him. Go and be with her husband. Go to where their love would save them

  She took the small dagger from her husband’s belt and raised it methodically, to a height she instinctively knew would be enough, before bringing it down into her body, taking herself back to him

  Back to them.

  Sunday

  Dawn arrived like good news

  Darkness and shadows became colour and form

  The night and storm withdrew, sucked back to the high hills and into the sky. The snow glowed with warm, red light and the sound of the day breaking woke a sparrow which hadn’t sung for months

  Will Shakespeare, lying face down beside the small, frozen pond, lifted his frost-encrusted face and could hardly believe such night had ever ended. He could hardly believe he’d survived

  Groaning, he stared at the frozen pond before him and, with a dirty fingernail, scratched out his signature on its frosty surface. It was an instinctive action, proving to himself he was alive; that he’d made it through the night

  I must leave here, he thought. The boy is gone.

  He had searched all night, until exhaustion had grounded him. The blizzard had stopped him making it right down to The Dips and he’d fallen in his tracks not really knowing where he was. The wind had been fierce and blinding. Nothing and nobody could have survived in those conditions

  Will muttered a prayer. He could sense he was alone. He knew Romeo and Juliet were gone

  There is nothing left for me here. I have the play. I must carry on.

  Will thought of his wife and children. He loved them. He would make them proud

  I will use everything that happens to me in life to make my writing better.

  He thought of Bethsabe and smiled ruefully

  Yes, I will write about you, too.

  Ah, humans were strange animals. Brothers and sisters, children of the earth, always fighting and squabbling and desperate to see the differences among themselves rather than the similarities. So quick to oppose and divide; so slow to understand and forgive. Always fighting – between countries, between religions, within families, among siblings, friends and neighbours. And weren’t humans always fighting in their hearts, too?

  But they could love and what was life without love? Without feeling? Without moments of enervating, shimmering, wonderful thought and sensation? What was life without emotion? Without tears, joy, suffering and triumph?

  The young lovers are dead, Will concluded, adding quickly, but then everyone dies in the end.

  As the first, warm beams of sunlight reached him and coaxed the heat back into his bones, those words suddenly felt very profound. He thought of his play, of the story of his student Romeo and the girl Juliet, and knew what he must do: what he must change

  Let the others have their romantic twaddle: it was the pain of love that was universal! That is what he would write about. That is what would take London by storm!

  Everyone dies in the end!

  Will got to his feet and was about to set off when he heard a crack from somewhere nearby. It was the ice in the pond, breaking under pressure from the fingers of the sun

  You will always be here with us, as will I. It is written. I have written it.

  You must write on the moon before you leave here, before you can leave here.

  A part of you will always be here with us, as will I.

  Neither of us shall never truly leave. Myself in spirit, you in words and deeds.

  Write on the moon and watch it disappear.

 
Will watched his name sink away and the reflection of the full moon took its place on the surface of the dark, rippling water

  He looked up at the ruins, lit like a golden temple by the rising sun, and began to walk in the opposite direction, heading for the London road

  As he came through The Dips he saw The Master’s grave but paid no attention to the three unremarkable humps in the snow nearby. Hungry, skinny dogs yapped at him as he took off his hat. “It is done, Master.” Will walked past the burial mound and out of the school without looking back. “Adieu.”

  Down in The Dips the snow would melt

  Poor Alain’s corpse became breakfast for the dogs as it lay on slightly higher ground and the thin layer of snow covering his grave melted first. Sated, and with plenty of other food available from the other buildings, the strays left the two remaining bodies long enough for the acorns Romeo and Gillian had lain on, clutched tightly to their bellies, to sprout

  Slowly the lovers’ corpses rotted and were picked apart and eaten away but the acorns made the earth their home, burying their roots deep in the red soil to grow towards the sun together until, many years later, the two trunks interlocked and the two lovers became one again, somewhere between heaven and earth

  In the end, even death could not part them

  Also by the Author

  The Invisible Hand

  (Lodestone Books 978-1-78535-498-4)

  The Invisible Hand is about a boy, Sam, who has just started life at a boarding school and finds himself able to travel back in time to medieval Scotland. There he meets a girl, Leana, who can travel to the future, and the two of them become wrapped up in events in Macbeth, the Shakespeare play, and in the daily life of the school

  The book is the first part of a series called Shakespeare’s Moon. Each book is set in the same boarding school but focuses on a different Shakespeare play