The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue

by Heneghan, Lou

  ‘It was you! In the kitchen, with Gloria that time! She said the name Scathferox!’ he cried. ‘It must have been you! You were talking to her, but I – I couldn’t see you.’

  ‘I was still invisible to you then, like I am to everyone else. Your abilities are only fully mature when you come of age.’

  ‘Come of age?’ Valen cried. ‘I’m twelve years old!’ she snapped. ‘In what universe does that make me ‘of age’?’

  ‘The ancient Britons would have considered you an adult from the day of your twelfth birthday.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Seth. ‘What about Alfie, then? He’s just a little kid. He won’t be twelve for years!’

  ‘I am in the room you know,’ said Alfie. ‘And I’ll be twelve in eighteen months, as it goes.’

  Ambrose’s eyes twinkled. ‘Alfie is different, yes. The Brigantes tribe considered people adults from the age of ten.’

  Alfie smirked at Seth. ‘You alright with that, mate?’

  ‘Forget all that!’ said Leon. He took a couple of shaky steps forward and grasped Ralf by the arm. ‘You remember Scathferox, now! Do you remember our promise?’

  Ralf froze. There was something, voices echoing in his head, speaking as if over a long distance ‘I vow by the blood of my Father, my Mother, my sisters and brothers and all their generations…’

  Yes. He did remember that. The wall inside his head began to crumble. The feeling of embarrassment he’d had about The Knowing abruptly left him. He met Ambrose’s eyes and realised suddenly they were the eyes of an old friend. His final acceptance of all this was such a relief he felt weak. But if Ambrose had come to find them that could only mean one thing – Britain was under threat.

  Ralf’s heart was still racing but he felt a cool rush of blood through his veins, a sudden energy that needed to be used. ‘Right,’ he said, rubbing the sweat from his palms. ‘What’s happening? Why now?’

  Ambrose clapped his hands then sprang into action, ‘Come and look at this!’ He reached for a huge, calfskin bound book, took a moment to search for a page and thumped it down on the table triumphantly. ‘There!’

  Leo, Valen and Alfie clustered round to gawk at the pages in front of them. There were mass of minute black letters and symbols in an impossible number of lines threading across the vellum’s surface. ‘I don’t get it,’ Alfie mumbled.

  Seth, who’d been pacing the wall of the tent, stopped to listen.

  ‘I don’t expect you to be able to read it,’ said Ambrose. ‘This is The Book. The Book where all the possibilities are written.’

  ‘O–kay…,’ said Alfie, not understanding at all.

  ‘Initially events and possibilities are seen as a faint moving thread, but as each decision is made it is recorded indelibly in this book and the past becomes fixed. All fine and dandy, except that three weeks ago, on the twenty-first of June, to be precise, I opened the book and found this.’

  Ambrose turned more pages and then stopped, somewhere in the middle of the book and tapped at the open page. ‘This is the page for May 1940,’ he said grimly.

  ‘I still don’t...’ Alfie began.

  On this page the writing was alive, writhing, moving of its own accord, constantly changing and developing in front of their eyes. For a second Ralf felt like he was back in Science class, peering down a microscope at minute sea worms undulating across a slide. His brow furrowed and he beckoned Seth over.

  Seth didn’t have to be asked twice. He nudged Alfie to one side and stared down at the book. ‘It’s alive!’ he breathed. ‘How is it doing that?’

  ‘That’s not all. Look,’ said Ambrose. The next few pages were worse. The letters were still moving but, more than that, they were faded, as though the pen they’d been written with was running out of ink. A couple of pages further on, the writing disappeared altogether. The page marked ‘1945’ was as crisp and white as snow.

  ‘What’s happened to it?’ Leon asked. He reached forward to touch the page with his finger. ‘Why is it blank?’

  ‘History is being re-written,’ said Ambrose gravely. ‘Three weeks ago something happened which had a profound effect on the past. The past is no longer unchangeable and that’s dangerous.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Alfie.

  ‘Absolutely. We haven’t started to feel the effects yet because things in 1940 haven’t gone sufficiently off course. But if they do – if someone dies who shouldn’t or someone doesn’t go somewhere they’re supposed to – the effects could be catastrophic. And this is all happening just as the Second World War kicks off. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘But how can you change the past?’ Ralf asked.

  ‘Well, that’s just the point, you see,’ said Ambrose. ‘By rights, the only person who has enough power to do this kind of thing is me. But three weeks ago someone, I don’t know who, did something so terrible, and I don’t know what, that Time itself is now under threat.’

  ‘And you’re asking us for help?’ Ralf said, real fear now clutching at his belly.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Ambrose. ‘But I had to warn you. Time is in flux. You all saw what happened on the way here. The effect was magnified because you were with me. Things are changing. The general population is in no immediate danger. But you’re all Turnarounders. You’ve lived before and you have a natural affinity with Time. When things are disturbed the way they are at the moment, leaks happen.’

  Seth looked up from his examination of the pages, first at Ralf, then Ambrose. ‘Leaks?’

  ‘Time, as I said, is like a constantly moving body of water, travelling through different channels that diverge and split then merge and split again. I can safely navigate between the streams because of who I am. The tools I have can cut openings between these different timelines, like...like locks in a canal. But sometimes, during times of war and fear the banks of the rivers become weakened. Very occasionally, a timeline will leak and join another, like one tributary bursting its banks to cascade into another.

  ‘That’s what is happening now and you five have to be on your guard. Be careful. Shimmers in the air, patches of light or darkness, objects that look out of place. Anything like that at all. Stay well away.’

  ‘Like we’d jump in for jokes!’ snorted Alfie. He yanked off his hat, wiped his forehead with it and threw it on a cushion. His hair was sweaty and ruffled and he looked oddly incomplete.

  ‘No,’ Ambrose said. ‘I don’t suppose any of you would be stupid enough to go jumping around in history willingly, but the danger is there.’

  A horn sounded in the distance. Three notes – short, long, short – from far away. ‘I really must get that,’ Ambrose said, with an anxious look in his eye. He glanced at the hourglass on the table. Ralf blinked as the first few grains from the top started to trickle through to the bottom.

  ‘Woah!’ cried Alfie, pointing.

  The hourglass wasn’t broken after all.

  Ambrose’s attention snapped back to the shell-shocked faces in front of him.

  ‘Wish I could talk longer,’ he said striding to an alcove at the rear of the tent, ‘but the time stop only lasts an hour. Any longer than that and someone always notices. People are much less stupid than you think, you know.’ There was a dull thud of a chest being opened followed by rustling and clanking noises as he searched for something. He emerged from the shadows in leather armour, strapping on a decorated breastplate. He swirled a blue cloak around his shoulders and grinned at their astonished faces.

  ‘It’s best to try and fit in as much as possible.’ A long, rather bushy looking beard sprouted from his face suddenly and he stroked it with poorly concealed pride.

  ‘Going somewhen?’ Valen smiled.

  ‘Oh, very good, Valen!’ chortled Ambrose. ‘No time to explain! And if that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is! Ha!’

  He thrust the hot kettle, teapot and one of the cups into a rough cloth bag. ‘Don’t mind, do you?’ he asked, grabbing the rest of the fruitcake and waving it in Ralf’s direction. Ra
lf could only shake his head dumbly. He watched as Ambrose flicked a hand in the direction of the hourglass and shimmering sand immediately trickled down into the bottom more rapidly than before. ‘Two minutes.’

  Ambrose briefly consulted the calfskin Book, ran his finger over one of the pages and then tapped decisively on a spot somewhere in the middle of the fourth century. It was only when he picked up his scythe that Ralf began to panic. Ambrose couldn’t go yet! There was so much he wanted to know. It was too late to say anything though, because Ambrose had walked over to the side of the tent and, with the scythe’s tip, sliced a hole in the fabric of the universe.

  An iridescent line glimmered there in the middle of the fabric. Resting the scythe against the desk, Ambrose stepped forward and, eyes closed, felt along the length of the shimmering line with his fingertips. He pulled. Delicately, as if separating a grape from its skin, he inched back the covering to reveal a swirling mass of lightness beyond.

  Ambrose opened his eyes and, with a look of satisfaction at the hole he’d created, turned to face them.

  ‘Do finish the scones, Valen. No one eats them except you.’

  And with that, he thrust a domed helmet on the top of his head, picked up the scythe, the cloth bag and strode into – into nothingness. The flaps either side of the hole fell back against each other and the light winked out.

  For a long time they just stood there. Eventually, Ralf went over to inspect the wall. He touched it gingerly, expecting it to be hot. But the cloth was just cloth.

  ‘He was very good wasn’t he?’ Seth said.

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘He was good, Ambrose I mean. He really had us going didn’t he? When he convinced us we were all talking a different language. There was a point back there when I actually believed him!’

  ‘But, the tapestry – ‘

  ‘CGI,’ said Seth. ‘All you need is a good P.C. If I could just find it…’ and he was up searching the tent for a computer Ralf was sure would not be there.

  ‘How can you not believe him?’ Ralf shouted. ‘He’s just walked through the wall of the tent into another Time!’

  Seth looked from Ralf to Leo as if he was missing a joke. ‘It’s all some kind of trick! I’m not saying I know how he did it, but all those things he said can’t be true. It’s just not logical!’

  Valen sniggered. ‘That’s the point isn’t it, Seth? We can’t explain what’s happened to us today can we? The Saxons? The dinosaur? Doh! No one could fake that.’

  ‘Er – everyone?’ Alfie had been wandering round as they talked and was now at the door of the tent. No one seemed that keen to listen to him though, they were all focused on Seth.

  ‘Leaks in time?’ said Seth. ‘I happen to know a bit about physics and –’

  ‘Burrowes said you were a genius –’ said Valen.

  ‘Yes, well,’ Seth gave a little smile. ‘I do know that you’d need an event equivalent to an exploding star to create enough energy to open a wormhole big enough to theoretically transport you in time and space. And then –’

  ‘Yo! Guys?’ Alfie’s voice sounded shrill.

  ‘ – then, even if you managed to create a wormhole, there’d be no way you’d be able to predict where you’d end up with any kind of accuracy. It must all be –’

  ‘SHUT UP!!’ Alfie was practically screaming, his face drained of all colour. ‘Bluds, you gotta come see this!’

  They rushed to the door of the tent, Ralf’s mind churning with new disasters that might have happened while they’d been inside. He gasped as he raised the tent flap then shakily stepped outside. The others followed.

  Swann’s Circus was gone. There wasn’t a sweet wrapper or a hoof print or a patch of flattened grass – no sign that it had ever been there. Instead, they were in the middle of a broad stretch of green in the slowly turning shadow of the London Eye. People were strolling down the side of the Thames. Birds were singing. Traffic droned in the distance.

  Seth shrugged. ‘I’ve got a problem explaining this, I admit. Unless we’ve all had some kind of joint hallucination…’

  ‘Do me a favour!’ said Alfie. ‘Oh, wait up, I’ve left my hat.’ He dodged back into the tent behind them but emerged a second later hatless and hopeless. ‘Gone!’

  ‘It must be there somewhere,’ said Valen, impatiently. ‘Have you looked under the cushions?’

  Alfie shook his head. ‘What cushions, though? All gone. All different. Trust.’

  Sure enough, the sign outside the tent now read: ‘Local Artists. Work for Sale.’ Inside the tent was light and airy; there was no fire, no table, just rows of paintings and a frosty looking woman who obviously suspected they were not art lovers.

  Back outside Seth was turning in circles and scratching his head. Valen was grinning madly. Alfie, meanwhile, seemed to have forgotten all that had happened and was just scowling and kicking the grass at the loss of his hat. Leo, looking more like his old self, asked, ‘What now?’ But Ralf didn’t know how to answer him. He was trying to get his thoughts in order when he registered the smell. That sharp ozone tang was back, earthy and damp, with the promise of rain.

  ‘No way, man! Look!’ Alfie yelled suddenly. ‘Is that pure lucky or what?’ He darted ahead, pointing to a splash of colour on steps leading down to the river. He ran down the steps.

  Ralf’s neck prickled. He opened his mouth but Leo was there ahead of him.

  ‘ALFIE, NO!’

  As one, the others broke in to a run. Alfie turned, his face flushed with happiness. ‘What?’

  They were sprinting now and, almost on top of each other, they clattered down the stairs after Alfie. Ralf reached out. Leo shouted. Valen knocked Seth as she overtook him. ‘Don’t go near it!’ she shrieked desperately,

  Alfie was laughing now. ‘It’s only a hat!’

  Alfie’s small hand reached for a patch of colour in a square of haze. There was a shimmer in the air, a crackle of electricity. Ralf felt the jolt at the exact same moment he grabbed Alfie’s arm.

  The riverbank disappeared. It was as if a sudden cold fog had descended and Ralf lurched through it blindly, flailing and stumbling. Someone banged into his back. He got an elbow in the face. He was shouting and somewhere in the murk he could hear the others shouting too. Abruptly, the ground fell away from under him as if he’d fallen off the edge of a gigantic waterfall. He couldn’t breathe. He must have fallen off the bank and into the river and he thought, madly, that the water didn’t feel as wet as it should. Pulled and pummelled by currents all around him, it was taking him a long time to drown and he wondered with detached curiosity, whether it would hurt much when he did.

  In his last seconds of consciousness, Ralf’s mind somersaulted in time with his rapidly spinning body. Strings of unrelated words and images flicked though his brain as though he was turning the pages of fifteen different books at once: Ambrose, the boy from Highgate Ponds, an impossibly large dog, a Roman Centurion, a fishing boat, Gloria…

  Everywhere there was a pale, misty glow, a swirling mass of lightness and he thrashed and bucked to surface from it. He couldn’t breathe.

  CHAPTER SIX

  King’s Hadow

  ‘Wolf! Get up! You’ve got to see this!’

  It was Leo speaking and, judging by the way Ralf was now being rocked roughly from side to side he was giving him a good shake. Ralf opened his eyes. ‘Aaargh!’

  He was staring directly into bright summer’s sun. He sat up quickly, blinked until the spots disappeared and then looked around. They were all there, Leo, Seth, Valen and Alfie, huddled in a group, next to a picket fence at the back of an old station.

  ‘Where are we?’

  Seth shook his head but Leo answered. ‘More like when, mate,’ he said. ‘Look around you.’

  Ralf did as he was told. There was a rush of noise to his left and Ralf’s vision cleared enough for him to see a gleaming black steam train chug in to join another already at the station.

  ‘King’s Hadow! King’s
Hadow Station! All change!’ A uniformed guard in a stiff collar and black peaked cap bellowed down the platform. A multitude of hands reached through the train’s open windows to grab door handles, and passengers stepped down from the train on to the wooden platform.

  Ralf and the others stared open mouthed as soldiers with kit bags, smartly dressed women with rolled hair and box hats and suited men in trilbies hurried to leave. Porters rushed to help with their luggage. More people emerged from a tiny brick building marked ‘Waiting Room’ and Ralf found himself wondering what idiot had decided to criss-cross all its windows with tape. The tape was the only fault in an otherwise perfect picture. There were pots of flowers dotted around and everything was neat, and swept clean. A small kiosk selling newspapers stood next to the waiting room. Ralf blanched at the headline on the board, which read: GERMANS INVADE AND BOMB POLAND. BRITAIN MOBILISES. The date in the corner was 2nd September 1939. He grabbed at the whitewashed fence to steady himself. ‘Breathe,’ he told himself. ‘Everything will be all right, if you just keep breathing.’ He turned nervously to face the opposite direction and, when he saw what lay there, he was glad he’d had the foresight to hang on to something. There was no doubt about it. They were definitely not in London anymore.

  There was the sea. It stretched, vast and impossibly blue until it melted into the sky at a blurred horizon. Down to the right was a sheltered harbour where small boats were tied in every available spot. In front was a village. Rows of stone cottages with slate or thatched roofs snaked down a narrow lane to the sea.

  Ralf’s fingers clutched at the whitewashed fence. This was the village he’d seen in Gloria’s photograph. But it was also so much more.

  ‘I’ve been here before,’ he whispered.

  The others did not share his recognition. They were understandably too busy panicking.

  Abruptly, Valen moved. She rushed to the spot where Ralf had been lying just a few seconds before. There was an odd patch of haze at the foot of the fence. The place they must have travelled through!