Phoenix

by Alison Ashley

  I fumbled with the earrings in my pocket. I would do what Ally suggested, but I would also look for Jack before I made the switch in our time. I’d go back tonight when she was asleep. Ally need never know.

  – chapter nine –

  I cleaned Freddie’s flat, chopped veggies for dinner, cleaned some more and paced the floor, but nothing made the night come faster. Even Ally attempted to organise our space to dispel her restlessness.

  “Not hungry, girls?” Mum remarked at dinner.

  “What?” I glanced up from my plate of egg fried rice and realised that Ally was also picking at her food with her fork.

  “Just struggling to get my body used to the time difference, that’s all.” I shrugged and sat back in my seat.

  “Me too.” Ally shot me a daggered look and I realised the potency of my words.

  “Don’t like my cooking, Ally?” I forced a smile to try and ease the tension that felt like a weighted blanket over the whole room.

  She sneered at me and forced herself to eat but I knew that one forkful would be all she could manage.

  “Might just go to bed,” she said. She pushed her chair back and glared at our parents and Freddie, defying them to comment.

  “You feeling all right?” Mum asked, standing up.

  “I just need sleep,” Ally muttered.

  “That’s a first,” Dad said sarcastically, “you admitting you’re tired.”

  Ally scowled and Mum shot him a warning look.

  “I might go to bed too,” I said as Ally slouched to our room.

  “Sure, night girls.” Mum lowered herself back in her seat. “See you in the morning.”

  “You’re going now, aren’t you?” Ally said, climbing into bed and pulling back her top sheet.

  I nodded reluctantly.

  “I’ll come if you want me to,” she said. “You know?”

  To keep an eye on me?

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I know you don’t like it, and like you said, it’s my former life, not yours. I’m the one that’s meant to be there.”

  “Katie?” Ally’s stern voice and glance carried a warning. “Be quick.”

  “As quick as I can,” I said.

  Ally climbed stiffly into bed and turned her back, her bed creaking as she half turned to look at me sitting on mine.

  “You still here?” she said sarcastically. “Or have you been already?”

  “Go to sleep, Ally,” I said quietly. “I’ll see you in the morning. Perhaps you can help me switch the fakes for the real ones tomorrow?”

  “Whatever.”

  I sat with my back against the wall as Ally struggled not to toss and turn, too restless to sleep yet too scared to turn over and see me gone. Eventually the slither of light sneaking around the bedroom door snapped off and the apartment quieted. I inhaled as deep a breath as I could without making a sound then grasped the sapphire and regressed to the past.

  The muggy evening air was laced with the smell of wet soil and the vegetables that grew between the trees alongside the church. A few women were gathering the recently harvested crops in large baskets and taking them inside the church for safe-keeping, ready for distribution the next day.

  To the rear of the abbey, midway between the road and cemetery, Stan Smith and his father-in-law, Mr Brown, were loading the lorry. Stan had his back to me, but they spotted me before I had chance to hide.

  “Kathy Stewart!” Stan yelled, shoving a crate to the back of the lorry. “You tell that cousin of yours I’ll be after him, soon as I got this unloaded in the shelter!”

  “You know where he went?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “But he won’t get far.”

  I turned the earrings over in my pocket. Maybe I should look for Jack before I put them in the statue. And if I tried replacing them now, it would only make Jack look even guiltier.

  Stan opened the driver door, climbed into the cab, slammed it shut and leaned through the open window.

  “I got my eye on you Stewarts,” he said.

  The lorry sputtered into life and the gears crunched.

  But maybe, if I slotted the beads in whilst the head was still in the crate, they’d think they imagined the whole thing.

  Exhaust fumes blasted onto my legs and the lorry lurched forwards as I ducked around the back. I quickly grasped the tailgate, jumped on the rear footplate and hooked my arms over. I couldn’t see either man through the rear window so hopefully they couldn’t see me. The lorry lurched as the gears ground and I frantically clambered into the open tray amongst the crates.

  I tried to shut out the negative thoughts racing through my mind. I probably had no more than five minutes before we’d reach the shelter. How would I ever find the right box in that time?

  I crawled awkwardly around the sealed crates, but the dark interiors concealed what was inside. I tottered as the lorry lurched left and had barely regained my balance when it turned sharp right, slamming me into the side of the lorry.

  “Easy there.” Mr Brown’s voice filtered through the side window and my heart thundered. “Don’t want any more damage done to the statue, eh, Stan?”

  I allowed myself a breath and flattened my hand between the roughly sawn planks of the crate by my shoulder. The statue felt like worn sandpaper and rose in two places. I fumbled either side hoping they were cheeks but there were no indents for eyes and no nose.

  The timber planks shifted slightly as I probed the next crate, giving me more room to feel inside. Warm straw easily slid off the statue and my heart quickened as I groped a bump, thinking it could be the nose. I adjusted my position and felt for indentations but found narrow raised ridges, which I thought could be lips. The planks at the other end of the crate were nailed closer together but I forced my hand inside. At first I found just empty space, but then with the tip of my middle finger I felt an oval indentation, and although it felt quite sharp in places, it could have been an eye socket.

  The lorry handbrake ratcheted into position and I realised that we were no longer moving. I squeezed behind a crate at the rear as the tailgate dropped. My heart beat so hard that I wondered if the men would hear it when they jumped on the back. I shrunk as far into the recess as I could, unable to see what they were doing.

  Sweat beaded on my top lip and more pooled in the small of my back and I was ashamed to smell not only the beginnings of body odour, but also that my hair smelt as greasy as it felt. Had I really not showered since being at Freddie’s, subconsciously trying to make a war ration of just one bar of soap a month last? I just hoped the men smelt worse than me and wouldn’t notice.

  The lorry rocked as they jostled the crate towards the edge then rose slightly and I assumed Stan had jumped off.

  “Ready?” Stan asked.

  “Ready as I’m gonna be,” Mr Brown said.

  They both grunted as the weight of the dissected statue transferred from the lorry to them. Their footsteps were heavy shuffles, their breath short and laboured, and I waited impatiently for the sounds to fade before I broke cover.

  My hands shook as I gripped the earrings but my closed fist wouldn’t fit between the planks by the eyes. I wrestled it through by the lips and fumbled with my left hand from the other end to reach it, but it slipped from my fingers between the side of the head and its timber housing. There was no way I could force my hand down there to retrieve it!

  “Maybe we should get some more hands to help us,” Stan said. His voice preceded the footsteps but was already way too close.

  “Nah, that was the biggest of ’em,” Mr Brown replied. “We can manage.”

  I crept back into my hiding place as the men reached for the next crate and didn’t dare breathe as part of my cover was dragged noisily off the truck. But their focus was on the box.

  Replacing the jewels now felt like a dumb idea but I couldn’t take the fallen one back now and leaving the job half done seemed silly. I quickly forced the second glass earring between the planks above where I
guessed the eyes were, then slithered to the ground and ran back to the church. Even if the earrings didn’t fool them, maybe I could find Jack. At least I could tell Freddie what happened to our cousin.

  A shrill whistle suddenly pierced the silent evening, followed by hurried footsteps. A figure in dark clothing hurried towards me on the shadowed footpath, only his light helmet gave him away.

  “Oh, Kathy!” Mr Bettis gasped. “What are you doing out? You best be getting home love, not safe out here tonight.”

  “Jack,” My voice sounded shrill. “He’s not home!”

  “He’ll no doubt be down at the community shelter, which,” Mr Bettis glanced skywards as an engine droned overhead, “is probably the closest for you to get to as well.”

  He blew loudly into his whistle, took a hurried step forwards then stopped.

  “Maybe I should take you there,” he said. “Make sure you’re safe.”

  “No, Mr Bettis,” I assured him. “You have a job to do. I’ll find my own way.”

  “Promise you’ll go straight there, Kathy?” he asked solemnly.

  “Promise.” I nodded.

  “Then go, go, and hurry!”

  Mr Bettis ran alongside the church towards town. I ran the other way, my heart threatening to explode. Overhead, the engine throbbed nearer. My throat burned as I ran but the path seemed unending, the shelter still so far away.

  Thrumming right overhead seemed to vibrate through my whole body as I ran past the Abbey doors, still a quarter mile to safety.

  And then silence. Total, utter silence. As if the whole world held its breath. I involuntarily braked and held mine. Would death fall on me from the skies? Was that how I died, why I couldn’t remember what happened to the jewels, to Jack?

  On impulse, I let myself through the small arched door of the church, darted past the baskets of potatoes in the cool entrance, and flung the inner door open.

  Low evening light, too weak to break through the stained-glass windows, waited outside the abbey for daybreak, but I scampered along the lofty avenue of darkened columns and dived for sanctuary beneath a pew.

  Kaboom!

  I curled up in a ball, shielding my vibrating eardrums.

  The ground trembled. I trembled. A rumble. Falling stones. Dust spouted from the walls, the roof. The blackened hail of broken glass littered the floor by my face.

  I rolled from my shelter; there was no hiding from a doodlebug.

  Kaboom. Kaboom.

  I fled outside towards the community shelter, but fire glowed on the horizon beyond the cattle market. Was the shortcut still there? Behind me, another explosion, shouts, and the deafening clang as the church bells tumbled from the tower. Beneath my feet the ground shuddered as the rear of the abbey collapsed.

  Guided by firelight, I stumbled over cobbles. The metal pens were not burning, but as I turned the corner at the far end, the place where Cattlemarket Villas were in my future life, the roar of flames and shouts and cries of panicked people greeted me. Fire inhaled the air and breathed out thick, acrid, foul-tasting smoke.

  Twisted girders poked from a yawning chasm that used to be a terrace. Only two houses remained on defiant guard at either end as the fire hungrily devoured anything within reach. Behind it, trees stood like dark skeletons, not yet ablaze but bare, their leaves stripped by the force of the explosion.

  People flitted here, slumped there, sprawled in the road, huddled on the pavement, sobbing and screaming. Scared and homeless, shell-shocked, too afraid to move, too afraid to stay. Disbelieving.

  A whimper drew my attention to a child crouched on the kerb, a pile of rubble all that remained of the house behind him.

  An elderly lady rushed to the boy and scooped him away as three other figures struggled out from the ruins under the weight of his mother’s body. I hoped his dad would come home soon. That he wasn’t an orphan.

  I swallowed bile.

  Kaboom.

  The wall of the end house crumbled like a crushed sandcastle to the ground, but the sights, sounds and smells faded into the background as the image struggled to find reality within me. Part of me wanted to help but part of me wanted to remain the outsider that didn’t belong, that was here for another purpose. I couldn’t change their outcomes, but I could change my family’s. My selfish feet refused to move.

  Dang ding, dang ding, DANG DING. A sound like my old junior school’s hand bell rang out as the fire engine rattled over cobblestones. I realised Stan was driving, his focus on the orange glow ahead.

  Weorrrrorrrr.

  A chill shivered down my spine as the siren wailed its sombre warning and I prayed the bombs wouldn’t be back. But with fire breaking the blackout it would be a bad night.

  I dithered on the street corner. Maybe I should run to the shelter where they took the statue. I knew that that hadn’t been hit, that the statue survived the war. But what about Jack? Suppose he never made it to the shelter?

  My thought trailed. In my past vision of this life, Jack wasn’t on the road bridge that led to the shelter; he was running under it.

  Mr Bettis suddenly ran towards me. “Kathy, love!” he gasped. “What you doing out still!”

  “I – the church.”

  “Let me take you somewhere safe,” Mr Bettis said, holding my elbow. He tried guiding me towards the road bridge, but I couldn’t cooperate. “This is the quickest way!”

  But I took a backwards step.

  “The gunpowder mills!” I gasped. “Won’t that be the target?”

  Mr Bettis shook his head.

  “Production was moved to another location further up the river,” he said. “Out of town.”

  “But do they know that?” I glanced skyward.

  “Oh, my,” Mr Bettis said. “Suppose they don’t?”

  “You go help those people.” I nodded in the direction of the fire. “I’ll go to the shelter off the high street.”

  Mr Bettis nodded and I hurried back to town. The contrast between lumpy cobbles and smooth timber made the trapdoor easy to find. I dropped to my knees, felt for the handle and yanked it upwards. Yellow light filtered up steep stairs and I ducked inside, pulled the lid down and slithered down the steps. Apart from the statue the shelter was empty; people were either in their street shelters or huddled in their basements.

  Engines droned overhead. Not the same sound as doodlebugs, but louder, and more of them. Suppose a bomb fell on the shelter and it collapsed on me! I told myself to breathe. I knew it wouldn’t.

  I dropped to my knees and wrestled the planks aside. One earring was wedged between the lips and I pressed it into an eye socket, wishing I had something to secure it in place. But on the slim chance the earrings fooled them, maybe they’d think it dislodged during relocation.

  The second earring was nowhere to be seen and I guessed it had slipped under the head. I reached down the side and pushed the head with all my weight. It rocked slightly and I quickly groped beneath it. Just as I thought I felt something, it rolled back – yeow! – and jammed my hand under it. And then it wouldn’t move at all!

  “Help!”

  But I wasn’t actually sure I wanted Stan or Mr Brown to come back. That’d only confirm their suspicions that Jack had stolen the sapphires and now I was putting them back.

  Pain, crushing, burning. As much as I tried to pretend I had a high tolerance, I felt ready to chuck or pass out or both.

  But maybe if I left my past life and returned to the future, the pain would be gone.

  I tucked the jewel in my pocket and returned to the dark bedroom. But it was fuzzy, just like Ally’s restless outline. My right hand went out to her but I couldn’t quite reach, trapped by my left hand in the bomb shelter.

  “Ally!” My voice sounded muffled and distorted. The crate, my arm, seemed to ripple and fade; my body, Ally, the bedroom, blurring in and out of focus. The only thing keeping me conscious was the pain in my hand and an incredible earache from the explosion.

  “Ally!”

 
Ally rolled over, reached for her phone and shone the screen at me.

  “W-what the hell,” she squealed. “Only part of you has come back!”

  “I’m trapped,” I moaned. “Can you roll the statue off?”

  “I can’t see it!”

  Her covers flicked against the wall as she jumped out of bed and fumbled the air above my arm.

  “Lower!” I guided her.

  She touched the statue but her fingers slid straight through.

  “Where?” she cried.

  “Ally.” I gulped the fresh air wafting through the open window. “You’ll have to come back with me.”

  Even in the muted streetlight from the window I could see the terror in her eyes, but she nodded.

  “It’s in my pocket,” I said, wincing.

  Her hand felt hot through my pocket lining as she grabbed the sapphire. I flicked my hand to hers and closed my eyes against a fresh wave of nausea.

  “Hold the jewel to my leg or something to keep me here,” she ordered.

  My eyes flickered open and I flopped, relieved, against the crate behind me. The shelter was a solid, unmoving sanctuary; only Ally was fuzzy, here because of me, not because she was meant to be.