Heart of Winter

by James Hartley

  IV

   

  Molly wakes Mr Dedalus by licking his face. Mr Dedalus is in the middle of a dream. He grunts, shifts in the bed, but then the magic is gone and he remembers where he is.

  “Hungry, eh?” he asks, strapping on his eyepatch and stroking Molly´s back. Molly arches her spine and purrs contentedly. She hops off the blankets and pads through to the kitchenette.

  The headmaster walks across to the garret window and draws the curtains. The sight that greets his eye is bright and shocking. The back lawns are strewn with branches and dismembered bushes; the copse in the middle of the school playing fields, comprising five strong birches, has vanished. All along the hills which ring the school grounds the trees have been felled like dominos. The sky seems startlingly low and shines like a press flash. Molly, who has no interest in any of this, rubs herself against Mr Dedalus´ ankle and begs his attention.

  “I´m coming, my dear, I´m coming.”

  Mr Dedalus is sleeping in the garret at the top of the Main Building until the new term starts. It is cramped, with a sloping roof, and he has to go downstairs to where the dormitories are to use the lavatory. As soon as he steps out of his room, after feeding Molly, he hears murmuring voices below. Mr and Mrs Graves? Already? It´s not two voices, though, but a multitude: people laughing and talking. How long did I sleep? Is it the first day of term already?

  Dressing gown tied loosely over his flannel pyjamas, Mr Dedalus comes inching down the creaking stairs and peers over the banisters. The entire front hall is full of bodies: pupils in uniforms, teachers and staff. They are standing in groups, talking, some wandering about, the youngest chasing each other around the backs of masters who are rocking their heads with laughter.

  But what is this?

  Mr Dedalus passes his office landing and comes to the last set of stairs, looking directly out over the crowd. Now he recognises some of the pupils and teachers. Instead of being comforted, though, he feels sick with unease: many of the people he can see he knows are long dead. He notices a young boy he remembers as a student and, looking about, spots the same boy two, three, four times in the crowd - each time older.

  What the devil is going on here?

  Mr Dedalus comes to the bottom of the staircase and begins to walk through the people. They don´t seem to notice him and he thinks, perhaps, he is in a dream. He hopes he is in a dream. The thought strikes him that his wife might be here, somewhere, in the room, and the idea that he might meet her – although he´d hoped and prayed too many times to over the years since her passing – gives him the chills and spurs him forwards. A moment later he is face to face with himself: younger, taller, darker, lither. Neither of them say a word. Mr Dedalus, he who is in pyjamas and breathing heavily, moves on.

  On the wall where the corridor leads down to the Library the headmaster sees eight empty school photographs. The benches the teachers were sitting on are there. The backgrounds - the school lawn, the playing fields, the pond, a summer´s day - are there, but no people. The subjects, the pupils and teachers, are all here, Mr Dedalus realises, in the Main Hall, with him.

  This information sobers Mr Dedalus and immediately he has an idea of what is happening. He walks quickly to the Library and finds the door has been left unlocked. He castigates himself for this: he was here yesterday trying to sort out the oldest books in time for term. Worse follows: the Library floor is wet with rain, somehow the storm has entered and damaged some of the books. Mr Dedalus cries out in pain at the mess.

  But then he notices something worse still. The prize possession of the Library – of the school – is lying on the floor like a dead bird. This is The Book, the most sacred treasure of St Francis´. The Book is as old as the school and it contains the school’s history and the school´s present and future.

  Walking across the wet floor to where the great book is lying, Mr Dedalus feels a knot forming in his stomach. The fact that those people are here, in the Main Hall is no accident. The fact that The Book has been displaced is no accident.

  Something terrible is going on.