by Rhian Ivory
‘Limbo,’ I answer quietly. She’s right; it is desperate. What a hideous way to end your life, being stolen down an underground tunnel, your body bought and then returned as a bag of bones bouncing along these bricks on the back of a cart. A Corpse Tunnel, the name suits the place. I want to get out, I need to leave now and take Beth with me.
‘Let’s just get out of here, let’s run to the end!’ I blurt out, wanting to take Beth into the daylight. She’s worrying me; she isn’t acting like herself going on about limbo and death. I look up the tunnel and can just see Eva and Georgia’s backs as they turn the corner following the others out. I take her arm to follow them, but she won’t move.
‘Where’s my necklace? The one I gave you with the special stone?’ she asks, standing in front of me, blocking my way.
‘I lost it. I’m sorry. I was going to tell you.’ My words tumble out, sounding vacant and limp. I try to take her hand again, but she shakes me off.
‘You lost it? Lost it how and when? I told you it was special.’ She places her hands on hips, waiting for an answer. She looks hurt but angry too and I know there’s no easy way out of this.
‘Um … I think I lost it yesterday or the day before maybe. I can’t remember. I’m so sorry, I know it’s special.’ I’m embarrassed, remembering how Theo ripped it from my neck.
‘What are you not telling me, Noah?’ she asks and I count up all the secrets I’m keeping from her and wonder where to start.
‘I told you not to give it to me,’ I whisper instead, my hand going to my empty neck, where her stone should be.
‘Well … that’s a little bit shit, isn’t it?’ she snaps at me and marches off down the tunnel into the darkness.
‘Wait! Beth, wait?’
But she’s started running now, away from me. I run to catch her up, she could easily slip and fall in here, it is so damp. She reaches the end of the tunnel, ready to turn the corner; we are the only ones left. All the others must have already climbed the sharp flight of steps in front of us. The big door looks locked and bolted. The steps must lead back up into the courtyard. I can’t wait to get us both out of there. I hear Beth panting, short and sharp, as she stops to catch her breath.
‘After you,’ she snaps, still refusing to look at me. I move past Beth, running up the first few steps, trying to get out, to get some air. My head is getting tight; a buzzing in my temples makes it hard to focus. All I can think is that when we get to the top, I’ll tell her. I decide, I’ll tell her everything then. I look at the steps in front of me then close my eyes. I’ve captured every scratch and dip and curve of the stone with my pencil. I know before I open my eyes, before I even have the chance to count them exactly how many steps it will take to get us to the top.
Then I hear it, the drop and fall of something behind me down in the tunnel.
I smell the water before I see it, stale and stagnant. I turn around and see Beth about to lose her balance on the bottom step, her mouth hanging open in surprise as the sound of wood cracking and splintering fills the narrow tunnel. In less than a second everything is in motion, water charging, white crested waves of foam and movement so fast I can’t make sense of it. I see her blue flip-flops fly off her feet as a torrent of water knocks her over. She screams and disappears underneath the dark water. I hear a crack, something smashing and breaking, followed by her hollow howl as she tries to push her way up. I spin too quickly on my ankle, which becomes numb with painful pins and needles. Instead of jumping down the steps to Beth, I slip and fall on top of her in a heavy heap as the old door at the end of the tunnel shatters, finally giving way to the force.
Bits of wood are in the air and under the water, smashing into the walls and off the roof. Splinters fly past our heads as we duck under the black water together. It’s like a river out of control. I pull Beth up and out of the water by her arms. I try to stand her up but she just keeps screaming, her leg folding underneath her threatening to plunge her back into the water and the debris. I can just about hear her roaring in pain under the rush of the water. I have to get her out but both of us are struggling to stand. My legs are shaking, spasms running up and down my thighs which are freezing and useless. The water is coming down the steps from above as well as through the old doorway, all charging along the tunnel we came down.
I can see we won’t be able to make it out that way; I am going to have to climb the steps which are somewhere underneath the waterfall. I manage to stand for a moment, my feet planted wide apart, and lift Beth up into my arms. She squirms and writhes in pain, her long black hair lying across her face. She’s clinging to my neck, almost choking me. There’s a big cut on the side of her head running with blood.
And the water keeps rising.
I place my foot on the first step and heave myself up. I lift my legs awkwardly in the fast water. Beth is small but her clothes are wet and she feels heavy in my arms. As I climb the second step the sharp ledge cuts through my soggy baseball boots. Beth must have passed out, her eyes are now closed. I don’t know if I am holding her right. I don’t know what she’s broken. The pain must be coming from a broken ankle or leg looking at the weird position she’s in. Her hands are hanging lifelessly behind my neck; I need to wake her up. I try to talk to her, to keep her conscious, but I can barely get the words out as I stagger up the next three steps trying to stay away from the uneven stone wall. The flow of the water seems to be focused on the middle of the steps like a jet stream. My jeans are soaking, getting heavy very quickly, dragging me down and I nearly lose my balance as my torn boots slip again on the sharp steps. The ledge is uneven and doesn’t dip in the middle as the other steps had; it dips all over the place. I push back against the water which keeps pushing us dangerously close to the jagged wall. I can’t steady myself as I hold Beth tightly with one arm balancing her weight on my thighs. I’m going to fall and take her down with me. My muscles strain as I start to slide off the step. She’s making whimpering noises but her eyes stay closed, her arms hanging so loosely around my neck. I need her to hold on but she can’t. My thighs convulse as I slip. I reach out with my left hand to try and stop the inevitable, or at least break our fall. I search in the freezing water for the edge of the step that I know is here. My fingers scrape against something at last connecting with the stone and I feel the solid mass underneath my feet and I tell myself to count.
A breath in is one step.
A breath out is another.
Climbing, carrying and counting from memory I force my way up the last few steps, away from the water and the corpse tunnel.
CHAPTER 36
BLAZE
None of the keys worked, they were all the wrong shape and size. I turned to go up the steps, knowing there was another door at the top and hopefully another way out, like last time, but the great big door clicked and cracked, making me jump back up the steps catching my shin on the hard stone. I silenced my cry of pain and felt my leg weep with blood. The large door fell open to reveal a man. There was nowhere to hide, but even so, I covered my mouth, quietened myself and waited.
And watched.
And waited.
The man tried to push a cart through the door and paused, looking up the tunnel for help; it was too heavy for one man. He held a lantern up and then saw me, crouching on the steps.
‘Good God! Who are you? What are you doing up there?’ he asked. I said nothing because I knew who he was. I’d seen him before in my drawings. I’d drawn him swimming up to the surface, I knew this man and I knew his sister. He was the sailor, the only survivor. And now it was my turn to survive, to swim up to the surface and find my way out and with the keys in his hand he would show me the way.
‘Are you the latchkey lad?’ he asked, looking past me for someone else, someone with the answers.
‘Yes,’ I replied without hesitation.
‘Good, then take hold of this cart and help me pull it in, quick now before someone spots us. Come on now, they’re waiting out there.’ He reached out his han
d to me and pulled me up off the step.
‘Don’t want the horses to alert anyone, do we?’ he asked looking over his shoulder through the open door into the tunnel. I did as I was told and helped the man pull the long wooden cart all the way into the tunnel. When we were done he stopped, hands on his knees and caught his breath before pulling the door shut behind him.
‘We’re late getting back tonight. Shipping them they are, over the sea. Bit of a change to the usual order, eh?’ I had no idea what he was talking about but nodded confidently.
‘You new then?’ He looked me up and down, sizing me up.
‘Yes,’ I replied, trying to say as little as possible.
‘Where’s the other lad?’ he asked. I shrugged my shoulders, as if I didn’t care one way or the other.
‘Well, I suppose you’ll do as well as him. Are you coming with us then? I said I’d bring a lad or two onto the boat with me. You can learn the ropes, better than staying in this place, eh?’ He started walking towards the door, stopping only to look at me again.
‘Yes.’ I said, trying to stand taller, look stronger and able. ‘Yes, I’m coming.’ He nodded, rubbing the sweat away from his forehead and pushed a cap down low.
‘What’s your name then, latchkey?’ he asked.
‘Blaze,’ I replied, telling the truth for the first time.
‘Haven’t heard that one before. Well, I’m Daniel. Daniel White but you can call me Dan; everyone does, except for my sister Jenny. Come on then, quick. We’ve got a few hours left before the ship sails, we’ll need to change the horses too, I should think. Are you in or are you out?’ He saw my uncertainty.
‘Where are we going? I mean where are we sailing to, Daniel?’ I tried to lower my voice, to fit in with his image of me, trying to say his name as if he were a complete stranger.
‘France o’course. Don’t they tell you anything in here? I thought you were a seafaring lad, that’s what they promised, a seafaring lad who wouldn’t be seasick, not like the last one we had. Good job he wasn’t on the boat with me afore that because that didn’t end well. Not to worry lad, not to worry I’m sure we’ll be fine this time, no more earthquakes I promise and a better boat I have never seen, just the right size for the cargo we’ll be carrying.’ He nudged me as if I was in on the joke. I smiled.
‘Corpse cargo! Ah don’t mind me, I find it easier to have a bit of gallows humour about this work. Those new schools over there want some of our English bones, brains and bodies to do their studies on. Come on now, lad, you have to laugh, else you’d cry. I don’t ask no questions mind and neither should you. Keep this shut and those open and you’ll be fine.’ He laughed at me, pointing at my mouth and eyes.
‘So, what’s it to be, Blaze boy, are you ready for a bit of adventure?’ he asked me one last time as he heaved his weight against the great door and pushed hard to open it.
‘Yes I am,’ I answered stepping outside. I looked across at the snorting horses and the steam from their nostrils in the cold night air, they were attached to a large cart and two men were pulling sheeting of some kind over awkward shapes and tying it down with rope. A corpse cart. We’d all heard the rumours about them and the comings and goings in the tunnels at night. He turned to shut the corpse tunnel away, twisted the key in the lock then pocketed it.
‘Good, good answer, lad. Look at those stars eh? It’s a great night to set sail, a great night for it. We’ll follow those stars across the sea, all the way to France.’
I ran alongside him, trying to keep up as the horses started to pull away and the cart rolled slow and steady down the bumpy path. We jumped up onto the back and sat down facing the tunnel and the workhouse which become smaller and less clear as the horses picked up pace.
I looked up to watch the stars and saw my future set out before me. It was all in the stars now, all in the stars.
CHAPTER 37
NOAH
Beth has broken her leg in two places and she has mild concussion from the bang to her head. The paramedic tells Mr Bourne it is a clean break as they lift her stretcher up into the back of the ambulance. The doors shut but not before I see a small fragment of bone sticking out from her skin. Her blue jeans are ripped open and the paramedics are cutting them away from her legs as they shut the doors. And then I can’t see her anymore just as the rain starts. The lights flash and the sirens sound as they pull out of the workhouse car park and head towards Halstead Hospital.
All I can see is blue and bone and blood.
And water.
I asked to go with her in the back of the ambulance but Mr Bourne said no, sending Miss Empingham instead. I have to travel back on the bus, at the front, on my own. I sit on a towel in my wet jeans with another towel wrapped around my arms and chest, which are covered in Beth’s blood. My ripped and ruined baseball boots hang uselessly from my cold and battered feet. No one calls my name out on the silent return journey. No one whispers ‘freak’ down the bus. Sam sits behind me but doesn’t speak to me, doesn’t even ask if I’m alright, which is fine with me. I don’t want to talk to anyone, not even Sam.
I close my eyes and keep them shut, seeing pictures of bones, ledges, steps and fast flowing water like a child’s flashcards over and over, trying to show me something, to tell me something. I shiver and remember those two small squares of paper and the stubby blue biro from my mum’s handbag. Did I prevent something or make things even worse? Again.
We are both visited at home by Mr Bourne. He comes straight round to my house after he’s been to Beth’s. My mum sits him down in the lounge and fusses over him, bringing cups of tea and homemade shortbread as if it was parents’ evening again and we’re on show. He tells us what happened at the workhouse.
‘The heavy rainfall we’ve had has caused flash flooding, not just in our area, as I’m sure you’ve seen on the news. The trust at the workhouse have run their own investigation into the incident. They phoned me this morning to let me know what they think happened and will be sending us a report in due course.’ He pauses to take a sip of tea.
‘And of course the school will be looking into things as there were reports of the water pump being tampered with or damaged, so leave that with me. The trust are going to brick up the old entrance or put a new door in but certainly replace the pipework, which was part of their long-term plans anyway.’ He goes on and on about rain levels, risk assessment and new school policies. Mum and Dad nod their heads in a very serious manner. He keeps looking at me, praising me, saying words like hero and admirable behaviour. Mum and Dad smile back at him, agreeing with him. I can’t stand it; I have to leave the room. I pick up a cup and mumble something about washing-up. I can’t hear the rest from the kitchen but I’ve understood enough to get what happened down there, in the corpse tunnels.
Once he’d gone Mum and Dad call me back into the lounge for a chat.
‘We need to talk.’ They sit close to one another on the sofa, propping each other up. There’s nothing worse than hearing ‘we need to talk’. It means they want to talk and I’ve got to listen. I throw myself down into the chair next to them and prepare myself for a lecture, for disappointment, for something unpleasant. So it comes as a bit of a shock when they launch into their ‘talk’ without doom in their voices.
‘I’ve spoken to Beth’s mum and we’ve come up with a bit of a plan. We’ve booked you in for some sessions with YoungMinds over the summer holidays.’ Mum starts. I open my mouth to ask questions but she holds her hand up and carries on. Clearly this is the bit where I just get to listen.
‘YoungMinds run art therapy sessions, so it’s not as bad as you think before you start shutting down. They’re a charity which helps young people dealing with … difficult issues, mental health issues. In the art sessions you can paint, use clay, sculpt and if you want to you can draw. Yes, Noah, you are allowed to draw. You’ve just got to start to control this, to understand it better and I think, and Dad does too, that they’ll help you, more than we can anyway.’ Mum stops to
see if Dad wants to add anything. Apparently he does.
‘This is all beyond us, we don’t know what we’re doing, mate, we need some help here,’ Dad adds in support but then runs out of steam so Mum chips in again.
‘Try to look at it as a place to talk about what you’ve done, what you’ve drawn or painted and I guess any problems you might be struggling with. As you know Rebecca, Beth’s mum, is a GP and has sat in on a few sessions as part of a mental health course she went on. She was really impressed with what they do. So are we.’
They both stop talking. It all came out really fast, as if they thought I might just get up and leave before they’d got to the end of their speeches.
‘I think it’s the way forward. I know we’ve been burying our heads in the sand over this and that’s not been very fair to you and I’m to blame for that. I’m sorry, mate, I really am,’ Dad offers, his voice cracking on the last few words, and I can’t open my mouth because I don’t know what sound will come out. I force myself to look at the carpet; I can’t look at them while they’re saying stuff like this, being so nice and quiet. No shouting.
No being grounded.
No silent treatment.
No blame.
‘And you are not to blame, for anything that’s happened.’ Dad adds, smiling at me.
I want to smile back but don’t trust my face. I blink hard a few times and have a word with myself as I get to my feet, hoping this talk has come to an end but Mum has more to say. I sit back down.
‘No, that’s right, you’re not to blame. None of us know why these things happen to you, love, none of it makes much sense but clearly there’s something about you, something inside you that can … see things.’ Mum isn’t quite so well rehearsed now she is getting to the difficult bit that we’ve never managed to talk about before. We’ve always turned our backs on it, like a shadow.