‘And what about the other ones, what did you do to them, Arthur?’ I asked.
I don’t know what would have happened if the policeman who had been in the church a few minutes earlier had not reappeared, drawn in by the noise. Arthur shook himself free, and I heard all of them talking in low voices, my friends obviously trying to reassure the policeman that there was nothing to worry about. As their discussions became more animated, I noticed Evan back away and approach me.
‘I told the copper I’m going to walk you home so you won’t be bothering anyone else,’ he explained. ‘Come on, let’s get away.’
We walked together briskly by the side of the pews and then ran as soon as we were out of the church.
‘Go and check on whatever’s left of that bloody farm, will you?’ Evan said eventually, coming to a standstill.
‘I have to get to work!’
‘Of course you do, as do I. But you know better than to trust what Arthur says. I think you should check for yourself.’
‘I’ve always been horrid to you, Evan; why are you being so nice?’ I was confused and yet curious too.
‘You saved my life last night, Charlie, don’t you remember?’ he said, looking at his bandaged finger.
‘I do, but it’s a struggle. Like it was a while ago.’
‘You know, they all laugh at how you can’t remember stuff, but if you could somehow memorise things better, you could run rings around the lot of them!’
‘I remember you were shaking on a burning roof, and there was a man trying to shoot you.’
‘Yes, and you seriously fucked him up—you saved me! So no need to ask why I’m nice, I owe you,’ he said, before walking off.
I watched as Evan made his way back to the church and considered his advice, before heading towards the farm. By the time I got to New Pond, an army truck came speeding past me from the direction of the farmhouse, and I saw four military drivers on motorcycles heading towards it.
Finding a spot amongst the bushes, I sat huddled, looking into the murky waters of the pond. Where was the skull now? Sunk in the mud and silt at the bottom, no doubt. I had dreamt the skull would be at that farmhouse, but why did Arthur really call it Henry? Arthur was right, I had mentioned my brother when I was younger and I used to get confused which life I was in, but this hardly seemed reason enough to decree that the skull I found, was called Henry?
I no longer knew who my friends were, whom I could trust. And I had a horrible feeling that the two worlds of Richard and Charlie were starting to collide, with consequences that could only be disastrous.
Disconsolately, I chucked a stone into the lake and watched the ripples fan out. It was then that I noticed the colour of the water. Steel grey. I looked up to see the huge airship hovering silently above me, uniformed men in the gondola below it scanning the ground beneath them with binoculars. I froze. Then two engines spluttered as they fired up and it moved away, like a great whale gliding through the ocean, its destination unknown but with a dominance that was unquestioned.
It was not safe to stay here. I got up and started to walk back into Kings Heath. To my consternation, there were soldiers in the woods, heads down, using their rifle butts to search through the foliage. What were they looking for? I thought of George’s knife and hoped that it would remain lost amongst the embers.
***
I arrived at Pa’s workshop to see him talking to Catherine. I took off my coat and grabbed an apron, hoping that if I started work quickly, he wouldn’t be able to have a go at me for being so late. At least not while she was still here. He was clearly not in a good humour, but, unfortunately, neither was she. Her little chin was in the air and her mouth set in a determined line.
‘Charlie! Miss Catherine’s here to see you. Perhaps you’d be so good as to have a word with her and then you might be able to do some work today. Or is that too much to hope for?’
‘Sorry I’m late, Pa,’ I muttered sheepishly. ‘I promise I’ll make the time up.’ I put the apron down and walked out of the workshop with her. There was a bench some yards away, and we sat down together. ‘How are you, Catherine?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t seen you lately.’
‘Oh, really?’ she retorted, indignantly. ‘Perhaps you are suffering from some lapse in memory?’
She sat ramrod straight, refusing to look at me. Her long blonde hair was dressed in an elaborate style under her hat. I wondered what it would be like to unpin it and watch it flow down her back. It was soft and golden, and I longed to touch it.
‘Well, it’s been a couple of weeks, I’m sure,’ I answered, unclear as to what she was getting at. She had written to me inviting me to come round yesterday, and wasn’t there.
‘Goodness, a couple of weeks!’ Her voice was rising in pitch and volume, and a colour had come into her cheeks. She was so beautiful. She turned and looked at me, her eyes glittering.
‘I had thought us friends, Charlie,’ she began. ‘But really, your behaviour last night was unpardonable.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I asked, genuinely at a loss.
‘You know very well what I’m talking about. I saw you staring up at me into my bedroom window! You were there for at least half an hour! Like some...’ she struggled for the right words, ‘...like some disgusting Peeping Tom.’
I had done no such thing. ‘But Catherine!’ I cried, ‘how could you think I would do anything like that?’
She looked at me, a mixture of hope and disbelief etched across her features. But before I could say anything more, an agonising pain pierced my back and I groaned, clutching at her. She pulled away from me.
‘Good heavens, Charlie! Whatever is the matter?’
The world rocked before me, and I slumped back onto the bench and closed my eyes, hoping to regain my equilibrium.
‘You’re sweating! Are you unwell?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I whispered. ‘It’s my back.’
‘Where?’
I showed her where the pain was coming from, in the lower part of my spine. Gently, she lifted my shirt and looked at the area.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘How did you get this?’
‘Get what?’ I murmured.
‘You have a puncture mark by your spine. The area around it’s all red and inflamed—you need to see my father!’
I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea how a puncture mark could have appeared on my back. Had something happened last night, something I’d been unaware of? Or perhaps I’d been bitten by something—a spider, maybe? All I knew was that I had to lie down soon if I wasn’t to faint.
Her wide blue eyes gazed into mine, full of concern. Then, helping me stand, she slipped her arm around my waist and put my arm over her shoulder so that I could lean on her, and together we went back into the workshop. The next thing I knew, I was being bundled onto the grocer’s cart with Catherine sitting next to me, holding my hand. The horse was going at a smart trot and we were home within minutes.
My mother must have got me into bed. The sheets were clean and there was a metal bucket beside the bed, in case I was sick. I thought about the last time someone in our household was seriously ill. My little brother Alfred had been running a fever for days, with an acute pain in his side. Catherine’s father had come and announced it was appendicitis and he had no option but to operate. I was told to wait in the bedroom while the doctor attended to Alfred on the kitchen table. I remember hearing his whimpers and cries, and then silence, followed by a howl of such anguish it haunted me for months afterwards. It was my mother. Alfred had died. I felt so useless; nothing I did assuaged my parents’ grief. Darkness descended over the household. Once the funeral was out of the way, Alfred was not mentioned again, and for a while my parents became lifeless themselves, like they too had died on that kitchen table.
I wondered what would happen if I died as well. The loss of one son had nearly killed them, so what would the loss of two do? These thoughts meandered around my brain, muddled up with images of airships and fires. I fe
lt as though I were fighting to remain conscious and that for some reason something awful would happen if I allowed myself to drift off.
Catherine’s father had never been back to our house after that terrible day. But now here he was again, with his leather bag and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His hands were cold.
‘Just roll onto your side please,’ he commanded, his voice distant and echoing, triggering some vague memory of another voice. The words ‘Stop!’ and ‘Reset!’ flashed into my head. What did that mean?
But I would not roll over just because I had been told to do so, and certainly not for a voice that I instinctively resented.
Babbling Brook, 1168
Rough hands are pushing me, moving my limbs around and then pulling me onto my side. Pain sears through me like a burning flame, and I think I scream, although it sounds like someone else’s voice. I cannot open my eyes, but I can hear voices trickling in and out of my consciousness like the babbling of a brook. Amongst those echoing voices, I hear men talk of treachery, bloodshed, my tutor Robert, vengeance and death. I inhale the scent of soil, roses, wine, and the blood of those that lie already dead around me. The smell of Yvette, still discernible; but her presence gone.
And then I hear her. The first sound you hear and the last sound you ever want to hear. For the first time in hours, maybe centuries, I open my lungs and suck in every drop of Earth’s air. Then I feel warm, soft hands and smell the familiar scent of my mother—cloves and lavender. She is talking to me, and I need to hear what she’s saying but I’m struggling to pull myself out of this swamp.
‘Richard, Richard, my darling boy. Come on, sit up now, I’m here now, I’m here. It’s all right.’
Gently, I’m lifted up into a sitting position and I’m cradled in her arms. Pain smarts like a red-hot needle in my back and a tear trickles down my cheek. I want to cry like a newborn, but I don’t have the strength for that. I feel her breath against my ear as she speaks.
‘You must drink this.’
She puts a cup to my lips and obediently I open my mouth and allow her to pour the liquid down my throat. I am expecting water or wine but this is bitter and foul. Involuntarily I gag, yet I keep it down.
‘You’re my beloved son, so I will never lie to you. This potion will either kill you or make you stronger. I know you are too weak to speak, but I pray you can hear. Soon your whole body will set alight, but know you are not on fire. Then it will freeze, but remember you are under Anjou’s summer’s sun. And then your own body will push you away. You must stay. You must hold on.’
I move my hand and manage to squeeze her arm, I think, and she pauses for a moment. I use this time to take a breath. Already I can feel a warmth coursing through me.
‘You will shake too. Far too much for me to hold you through this, and it will feel like minutes are hours and the agony will not stop. Despite this, know that I will stay here throughout and that it will stop.’
I am not sure when she stopped speaking or when she let go, as the warmth becomes an acid that burns my every morsel. Part of me longs for when life seemed distant, but my mind focuses on the voices that form that babbling brook. I imagine the water soothing my body.
The ice cold comes a long while later and is different to how I expected. Imagining sunshine makes no impact, there is nothing to be done, no sensation to fight, and I just accept that I cannot move at all and am frozen through. This seems easier, but at times I wonder if this feeling is in fact death, and I have already failed to get through this potion’s ultimate trial. But then I realise that this is the final warning and that my own mind is trying to trick me into leaving. My body feels nothing now; it has been burnt through and then frozen, and I use that as a comfort. What body would feel a thing after both of these? My body is dead, now must be the time to let go!
All traces of light and noise fade away as I feel myself being pulled down, down into a place of intense darkness. I have no power here to speak or move, yet I feel no fear—I am being pulled along at enormous speed as though through a tunnel. I do not feel the wind, as one might do when travelling quickly, it is simply a sensation of being sucked along. I see a pinpoint of light which gradually becomes ever more dazzling, and suddenly I emerge into a place that is suffused by a blinding brightness, yet behind me I feel a surging river of sounds. Ahead stands a small hump-backed bridge. The sounds turn to familiar voices, luring me like sirens from a raging sea.
‘Having a funny turn?’ asks Arthur, belligerently, goading me in death as he does in life.
Up on the bridge ahead I can see Yvette; beside her my brother, Alfred; and my mother too. My mother from my Vicky life.
‘You did this, brother. It is on your head!’ says Henry.
Above the bridge are countless spherical objects, like silvery planets, only darting about in waves like a swarm of starlings. Their presence seems ominous, scary even.
‘Life after death!’ cackles Konrad.
I look toward the three standing upon the bridge and acknowledge our love, but I desire life too much, despite their siren call. I let the river of sound swallow and sweep me back.
And so I hold on to this life as if it were my last.
Stop! Reset!
I was observing the scene through a lens. I knew this because it was in colour and had depth, but I could tell it was a faked depth. Almost reality, but not quite. Here I was again in this repetitive nightmare. I knew this scene well, watching mankind perish in numbers beyond comprehension, all those souls, all those consciousnesses, hopes and desires—each one dashed.
People with every right to a life that was now being cut short. It sickened me, wearied me. Bah! Perhaps we are all but droplets in a brook, powerless to prevent our fall. I would not play out this dream anymore. I was no longer curious to investigate the suffering, for I had seen enough. I no longer felt empowered to stop it, as I knew I could not. I hovered overhead, disengaged.
‘Go! Go! Go!’
The distant voice echoed around me, but I ignored it and continued viewing from afar. At one point, I noticed the dome of a mosque explode while all the buildings around it remained undamaged. Why was that? Had it been deliberately targeted?
I sensed the motors around me whirl into action, speeding up in order to catapult me into the fray. So I stopped the questions, ceased all thought, and tried to close my eyes until I realised that I had no eyelids to close. My eyes were the lens. I waited. And then the voice came again:
‘Stop! Reset!’
Boarding School, 1996
A sudden cold draft of air from an opening car door jolted me awake. My mouth was dry, and when I rubbed it with my hand I felt flecks of dribble on my chin. Had Tom seen me sleeping with my mouth open? How embarrassing. My head was fuzzy, but otherwise I was OK—no vestiges of pain. Richard’s life actually felt like it truly was 828 years ago.
Tom’s face was uncomfortably close; almost close enough to kiss, which was a bit of a shock.
‘Come on, Miss Vicky, wake up!’ he said.
He was kneeling over me in the back of the car with his hands on my shoulders. Behind him I could see a frowning Miss Harper, the games mistress, who was rubbing her arms in an attempt to keep warm in the freezing night air. I roused myself slowly, taking my time, enjoying watching the old bitch shiver and stamp her feet. Making sure to do up each and every coat button before leaving the car, I walked silently behind her, with Tom bringing up the rear with my suitcases.
It was not even ten, and already the school dorm block was in darkness. Normal lights-out time in the upper school dorm was ten, but our housemistress had decided that at certain times she would call lights-out sooner. Apparently she’d noticed that some girls looked tired, and she’d naively thought this method would encourage them to sleep more, whilst in fact it simply meant that those girls could creep out and into the woods sooner. If I were to believe all the rumours, these girls did everything there—held wild orgies with boys from the town, smoked illicit substances, dr
ank vodka like it was milk. In truth it was more likely to be the odd fag and a snog with some spotty youth who couldn’t get it anywhere else. They’d invited me once, but it wasn’t my thing. I preferred to stay in and read about computing or physics. They thought I was square, but I knew they were just a bunch of silly kids who thought they were cooler than they really were.
I said goodbye to Tom as I opened the door to my dorm. The lights may have been out, but rustling, coughing, and the odd giggle indicated that no one had gone to sleep yet. Finding my cubicle, I shut the door and unlatched my suitcase so as not to wake anyone later. All the dorms had had separate partitions built around the beds. We all shared the same high ceiling, and if you stood on your bed and jumped, you could catch a glimpse into the next cubicle. It was privacy enough, I suppose.
Opening the window, I climbed straight out and jumped onto the felt-covered roof below. Sometimes, certain girls would wait there and demand entrance or exit fees that you had to pay with cigarettes or owed favours. If you didn’t pay up, they threatened to tell Miss Harper, who had her own way of punishing you. It usually involved being made to do some sort of physical exercise just with her, which of course entailed you changing first, and she would watch, smirking as you took your top off. But not tonight—tonight I was safe. It was too close to the start of term, and it was too cold for anyone to hang out there for long.
Dropping down to the ground below, I crept along to the library toilets, climbed through an unlatched window and then into the library itself. At one end was a stained glass window that had been whitewashed over. In daylight you could see some of the colours shine through the lower panes, as the girls reading nearby would routinely peel off the paint. How typical of the school to hide something so beautiful. I guess they would say it had religious overtones or smacked of the bourgeois art that we needed to be protected from.
Paralysis Paradox (Time Travel Through Past Lives Adventure Series Book 1) Page 7