“It really isn’t,” Katie argued. “Why don’t you have a shower in the gym, and then meet us there when you’re squeaky clean?”
Still rubbing the lumpy blood through his fingers, Owen decided that the dingy gym showers were the last place you would want to go to get clean. “It’d be just as quick to go home. I’ll meet you at the bar later.”
“Anything to get out of buying me a drink,” Katie smiled, but then switched to a frown. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem distracted.” She always was far too intuitive for her own good.
“Post exam and post head injury blues, is all,” Owen offered as an explanation, deciding not to share the experience of hanging onto thin air and being rescued by kindly winds and an elderly neighbour. “I’m fine. Quick shower and I’ll be the happy-go-lucky scamp that you know and love”. He tried to sound as chipper as possible, and it seemed to work as Katie’s frown was banished by a wide grin.
“Don’t be too long. We’re heading down to see my granddad first thing tomorrow remember, so my sister’s set a curfew for this evening”. She rolled her eyes, although Owen knew that she would never really think or say anything bad about her sister Fiona. Owen had never met their grandfather, but from Katie’s accounts he was quite mad and lived in an old shack on the coast. They made a yearly pilgrimage to see him and each time he had an odd request for something that Katie had to bring along (this year it was glass bottles).
“I won’t be long,” said Owen.
“Cool. See you in a bit.” She turned away and took a few steps, but then stopped abruptly. She looked at him with a frown and skipped back, planting a kiss on his left cheek. She smiled again and trotted off down the corridor.
Despite climbing up seemingly invisible rock faces, and being rescued from serious injury by freak weather, Owen felt more dumbfounded than he had been all day. Had she used her hairspray today, Owen knew he would have collapsed into an unconscious heap on the corridor floor.
Frozen
Owen walked back to his house, feeling a mixture of happiness and confusion. Katie’s kiss, whilst hardly passionate, was the first sign of physical affection that she had ever shown him. He had always hoped that she thought of him in the same way that he did of her, but was terrified that their friendship would be broken if he acted upon such feelings.
He decided to revisit the scene of the earlier peculiarities by walking back through the park, which by now was busy with young families and joggers going about their morning routines. He looked toward the leisure centre and thought back on this morning’s adventures.
The top of the building that he had scaled looked even higher from afar. How on earth had he climbed up? The use of invisible bricks now seemed like the ravings of a madman. Mind you, prior to this morning so did the likelihood of Katie kissing him, so anything was possible.
He crossed the park without incident, and was about to take the exit towards his home, when he noticed the man in the narrow-brimmed hat was back under his tree on the opposite side to Owen. He wondered why someone would hang around a park all day and hoped that he didn’t have any sinister intentions. The man seemed to be following Owen’s movements, so he hastened his pace.
Leaving the park, Owen turned left and crossed over to the entrance to his road, then continued towards his house. As he passed her house he noticed that Mrs Argyle was not to be seen behind any of her windows.
Unusually his father’s car was still on the drive. Owen thought back to the morning and couldn’t remember him saying he was working from home, which he occasionally did. As he neared the house Owen noticed that the front door was wide open as well. “Dad must be running late,” Owen thought. He stepped through the front door.
“Dad?!” he called out. No answer. The hairs on the back of his neck were tingling, as were his hands as if there was a static charge in the air. Venturing into the kitchen he saw that the breakfast plates had not been cleared away. That definitely was not like his father, who was fastidious in his tidiness.
He went to the hallway and peered up the stairs. “You there, Dad?”
He was starting to become concerned. He ran up the stairs and quickly scanned each of the upstairs rooms, bathrooms included. No sign of his father.
Deciding he would call the power plant, he went downstairs to the living room where the telephone lived by the front window. On the notepad beside it his father had started to write a note addressed to Celia, presumably referring to Mrs Argyle as Owen didn’t think he knew any other Celias. The note consisted of a large letter ‘p’ with a circle drawn around it, and written below a single word: ‘RUN’.
Owen tore the note off the pad, deciding to quiz his neighbour about it urgently. As he turned around he saw movement from the back of the room. At the far end, which ran the length of the house, was a man in a long grey jacket and a hat with a narrow brim. It was the man he had seen in the park on his journeys to and from school.
“Who..?” Owen began to ask, but instinct told him that now was not the time for questions. He ran from the room to the hallway and made for the front door. Before he could reach it something cold hit his back and he stumbled. Landing on his hands he noticed that the tingling sensation had returned to them, as had the feint glow.
He turned his head and saw the man standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his hands raised towards him.
“Do not run,” it instructed in a strained, rasping voice that was so strange sounding it encouraged Owen to do the exact opposite.
Owen slowly stood up and felt his back, his hands quickly withdrawing from the sudden cold sensation they felt. His bag was covered in ice.
The front door behind him burst open, through which walked Mrs Argyle purposefully.
“Run!” Owen shouted. Mrs Argyle stood firm, and swung her right arm in a wide arc towards the centre of her body. As her hand passed in front of her chest Owen felt a strong force push him from his left hand side, launching him through the air into the living room where he landed safely on the sofa. Before he landed though, he saw a white ball of light pass quickly down the hall, through the spot that he had stood. He sprang back up to see Mrs Argyle striding down the hallway, holding her arms close together in front of her, her palms facing together.
“Go!” she called out, not looking at him but staring toward the kitchen and the man that stood within. Owen ran back out of the room into the hallway, just behind Mrs Argyle as she passed by. The long window by the front door was frosted over, whereas normally it was completely clear. He was about to exit through the front door when he noticed a bright light coming from behind him. Stopping he turned back to look over his shoulder.
The kitchen was bathed in a white glow, and even from what must have been over three metres away Owen could feel the bitter cold that was emanating from it. He could see the outline of Mrs Argyle and her hat, still stood with her arms held forward. He could also see the man silhouetted in the kitchen, a dark shadow from which the light seemed to be emitting. The black and white tiled floor on which he stood was slowly being replaced by a layer of ice.
“Who are you?” Mrs Argyle responded in her usual calm voice, unperturbed by the arctic conditions that were enveloping the house.
There was no vocal response from the kitchen, but the light did seem to become more intense. Mrs Argyle took a couple of steps back then lunged forward, resting down on one knee. She thrust her arms further towards the kitchen, hands apart and palms pointing ahead.
The man lurched back but remained standing, directing his arms towards Mrs Argyle as she did to him, focusing the light upon her. Owen could see her grey coat was becoming covered in ice, which was making a crunching sound as she moved back slightly. Then the man jumped forward suddenly, sending a ball of light at her which Mrs Argyle deflected back past the man. It hit the kitchen cabinets which were instantly encased in a thick layer of ice.
From the light, flurries of snow were starting to form, swirling around the man so that he looked like he was stan
ding in a giant snow globe. He pushed forward again, knocking Mrs Argyle into the air, her back hitting the ceiling. She fell back to the ground but landed cat-like on all fours; her hat still perched on her head as if stuck there with glue.
Pouncing forwards she sprinted towards the kitchen, her arms thrust before her. The man was flung backwards, crashing into the kitchen cupboards, shattering the icy covering he had just created. He fell and slid on the icy floor, settling by the glass doors that led to the garden where he struggled to stand back up.
Mrs Argyle gave one last push towards him with her arms and he blasted through the doors and into the garden, landing through the roof of the shed which in turn collapsed in on itself. Mrs Argyle knelt and rested on one hand, looking down toward the ground.
Owen could hear that her breathing sounded laboured. He ran to her side, asking if she was okay.
Mrs Argyle paused, and then stood up effortlessly. “Right as nine-pence,” she declared, taking a few steps towards the kitchen. The entire room was encased in a thick layer of ice, as if it had been sitting in a deep freeze for months, a thick layer of snow covering the floor. Owen skidded on the floor and had to use Mrs Argyle to stop himself from falling over.
“What the bloody hell?” Owen asked, referring both to the man and the sub-zero environment that had manifested itself the space of minutes.
Mrs Argyle didn’t answer at first, as she was busy scanning the remains of the garden shed for any sign of the expelled man. “We should leave,” she announced, brushing the ice off of her coat.
“Dad,” Owen said, remembering that his father was missing under mysterious circumstances.
“Where is your father?” Mrs Argyle asked. “I presumed that he was at home, what with his car being on the drive.”
“No, the place was empty when I got home; the front door was wide open too.” Owen remembered the note, which he handed to her explaining where he had found it. Mrs Argyle frowned and went pale. She screwed the note up in her hand, and then slipped it into her coat pocket.
“We should leave,” she repeated.
“What about Dad?” Owen asked, concerned at how anxious his usually unflappable neighbour had become.
“Your father is in danger and so are you. Where does he keep his car keys?”
“Usually in the drawer of that cabinet in the hall. How is he in danger?”
Mrs Argyle ignored him and walked to the drawer in which she rummaged for the keys. Retrieving them she beckoned for Owen to follow her. “Come on, you can drive”.
“I haven’t had any lessons yet,” Owen pointed out.
Mrs Argyle’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Well I can’t,” she replied in a manner that implied that the merest suggestion that someone of her age might have learned to drive at some point was the height of absurdity. “Why haven’t you learned yet?” she countered.
“I’m sixteen,” Owen explained, although he felt that an explanation really wasn’t necessary. “I think you’ve had more opportunities than me,” he added, then remembering what had occurred just moments before: “And what happened in the kitchen with the man and the flash? And the ice? And what’s happened to my dad?!”
“Plenty of time to explain all that,” she said firmly, and then with a smile, “please Owen, you must trust me.”
Owen stared back at the woman he had known for most of his life and decided to put his faith in her, as his father had done on so many occasions in the past. He nodded and walked towards her.
Mrs Argyle nodded in response then marched out to the car and pulled at the car handle. She looked up at Owen quizzically, who by now was at the passenger door. “It’s locked”.
“You have to press the button on the key,” he explained. Mrs Argyle fumbled with the key and the doors clicked open.
“Oh that’s very clever,” she declared, beaming at the little piece of plastic in her hand. The fact that Mrs Argyle was impressed by a car remote and unfazed by today’s events had not escaped Owen’s notice. He shook his head at her in bewilderment.
“Get in then,” she called from the driver’s seat, where she had just clicked her seat belt in to place. Owen climbed in beside her.
“Now then,” she said to no-one in particular, then after locating where the key went and managing to start the engine she cried “onwards!”, as if she was going into battle.
Wreckage
Mrs Argyle and Owen surveyed the damage that she had just caused by driving a large estate car into a garage door.
“Well that was unexpected,” Mrs Argyle commented.
Not to Owen it wasn’t, his day being far from humdrum thus far.
“Well we can’t drive that now,” she declared, giving the concertinaed front wing an assessing kick. It quivered in response for a moment, before clattering onto the floor in defeat. Mrs Argyle shrugged. “I suppose we’d better make a dash for it on foot.”
Owen stared at the car in disbelief; it was a good half a metre shorter than it was a minute ago and had now also undressed itself of its other front wing.
“Come on then slow coach!” Mrs Argyle called out cheerfully. Owen trotted after her, who by now was halfway down their street. “Where are we going?” Owen asked.
“Somewhere far away and sharpish,” she replied, her head darting from side to side. At the end of the road she motioned for him to stop behind her, and peered around the hedge on the corner. “All clear.” Again she made a hand signal, this time for Owen to follow her. She’d clearly been watching too many old war films as she was behaving as if she was about to storm an enemy stronghold.
“Where are we going?” Owen repeated.
“You’ve asked me that.” Mrs Argyle looked directly at him but kept walking. “Is your head bothering you?”
“My head?” replied Owen incredulously. “My head is the least of my worries. What’s bothering me is: who was that man and where is my dad?!”
Mrs Argyle shrugged her shoulders unhelpfully. This rather annoyed Owen as it was pretty clear she was more aware of what was occurring today than she was letting on. “I don’t know exactly where your father is. But what with all the bother over the years from that wretched plant of his, we had an agreement that if you or your brother were ever in danger I’d take you away somewhere safe, like we used to in the past, remember?”
Owen did indeed remember. He must have been about seven or eight when they first started building the plant. There was anger from local residents who didn’t want the landscape ruined or their air and water polluted, but that was usually confined to council meetings and angry letters to the local newspaper.
But some of the protestors targeted those who worked at the plant, including Owen’s dad and Katie’s parents. Both families had bricks thrown through their car windows and threats of violence delivered to their houses. On one occasion Owen and Jack had spent the entire summer holidays away with Mrs Argyle because of the frequency of attacks.
Mrs Argyle took the crumpled note out of her pocket and looked at it again, before tucking it away once more. “Was there any sign of a struggle when you first got home?” she asked.
“Not that I could tell. But he left the door open and that’s really unlike him, as is leaving his car. Has he been kidnapped or something?”
Mrs Argyle frowned briefly, but resumed smiling shortly after. “More likely that he got a taxi or left by foot.” She patted him on the shoulder reassuredly. It had no effect whatsoever.
“We should still go to the police though, tell them about that man in the kitchen,” Owen suggested.
“And tell them what? There was no sign of a struggle, so they won’t start a search for your father. We’ll call his work in a bit, he’s probably there. And as for that man, he was likely to have been a burglar who we scared off, and I don’t fancy spending an afternoon in a police station explaining why I gave him a thick ear.”
Owen stopped in his tracks. “A thick ear?! You did more than that! You knocked him back without even laying a
finger on him, and you did the same to me! It’s a good job that sofa was there!” Although his head was spinning, his thoughts did seem to be starting to settle. “And it was you that stopped me from hitting the ground earlier.” He was starting to feel scared of this unassuming old lady. “What are you?”
Mrs Argyle’s face was stony serious, her lips pursed. She appeared to be wrestling with conflicting thoughts as she stared at Owen, before she settled into a frown. “Now listen to me, Owen Johnson. There is a time for questions and answers but that time is not now. There are things in this world that you do not currently understand, but you will soon. There are powers in us that you don’t understand, but you will soon. Right now you need to trust me.”
“But my dad….”
“Please, Owen.” She held out her hand, her features softening. “Trust me as your father always has done. The safest course of action is for us to get out of town for a while; it’s what he’d want us to do.”
Owen had so many questions, so many things that had happened that he didn’t understand, but one thing was clear: Mrs Argyle was clearly going to do her upmost to keep him from harm. In fact, when he thought about the manner in which she had evicted the man from his kitchen, she was probably the safest person to be with right now. He took her hand and she squeezed it back, before letting go.
“Come on then,” she smiled, but this was quickly replaced by a cross look. “Damn it!” she cursed. “I haven’t got my purse. Have you got any money?”
“A few quid in my bag,” and then remembering why he had the money: “I’m supposed to be meeting Katie!”
“She’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. We need to get to the train station, pronto.”
Owen remembered back to the morning and Katie’s kiss. “I really ought to see her before we leave.”
“Why? She’s not going anywhere. And her parents would not have wanted her being dragged into all of this.” Mrs Argyle clearly did not have the time nor the inclination to be trifled with affairs of the heart, so Owen didn’t bother explaining to her about Katie’s imminent trip to her grandfather’s.
The Remarkables (The Remarkable Owen Johnson, part 1) Page 4