Chaos Clock

by Gill Arbuthnott

  “Yeah, it was great,” said David. “Lots of extra food too.”

  “Do you ever think about anything else?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Enjoy the football. See you later.” Off he went to the car, laden with rucksacks and sleeping bags.

  As it was early, there wasn’t much traffic around, so they heard the sound of barking as they went down the steps, even though it sounded as if it was further away this time.

  “Do you think it’s the same dog?”

  “Dunno. Sounds the same. Where is it?”

  They stood in silence, trying to locate the source of the sound.

  “Over there,” said Kate, pointing. “It’s across the road in the churchyard.”

  They crossed the road and followed the sound of the invisible dog. Once inside the churchyard they stopped again, listening.

  “That way. Look, there he is.”

  A little dog lay on the short turf in front of a gravestone. He quietened when he saw the children approaching, thumping his tail on the ground instead, but he wouldn’t come to them.

  As they walked towards him, Kate said, “Listen.”

  “What? There’s nothing to listen to.”

  “I know. That’s what I mean. It’s awfully quiet; there’s no traffic noise at all.”

  They reached the place where the dog lay, and played with him and stroked him for a few minutes, but he wouldn’t leave the grave.

  “Let’s go, shall we?” asked David. “It’s too quiet. It’s a bit creepy somehow.”

  “Yes. Come on.”

  They walked quickly back towards the gate, staying close together. As they reached it, the unnatural silence stopped quite suddenly, as though someone had flicked a switch, and the normal sounds of the city were restored.

  They looked at each other.

  “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know.” Kate was looking at the statue, which stood just across the road from the churchyard entrance – of a little dog; a rough-coated terrier of some sort.

  “You don’t suppose …?”

  David followed Kate’s gaze.

  “No … no, that’s …”

  “Impossible?”

  “Yeah.”

  ***

  Once the last of the children had been picked up, Gordon and Sandy went to check the places they’d slept and pick up the inevitable litter. Two of the kids who’d been in the mammal hall had made up some story about a rat. Gordon could see a scatter of crumbs and pieces of biscuit. They’d made it quite convincing, leading under the artificial rocks where a real animal might take food.

  He crouched down, and shone his torch in for a good look. There were some more bits of biscuit in a corner by the mountain hare. The cleaners wouldn’t be pleased. He straightened up and saw as he did so a little paw-print on the glass at the front of the display. Not a rat; it was too big for that. A little handprint rather that a paw-print.

  He remembered half-seeing something whisk out of sight behind a display case that night a couple of weeks ago, and shivered without knowing why.

  MR FLOWERDEW

  Mr Flowerdew lived in one of a terrace of houses with small gardens in front and long ones behind. Ruth insisted on coming to the door with them. Just to say hello, she said, but Kate thought she wanted to make sure that he remembered inviting them.

  The iron gate squeaked on its hinges as David pushed it open and they walked up the path under a rowan tree weighted with ripening berries. The door opened before they got to it.

  “Good afternoon,” said Mr Flowerdew. “A squeaky gate is sometimes an advantage. I am often able to surprise guests, even when they mean to surprise me. Come in, come in.”

  He ushered them into a hall dominated by a grandfather clock with a deep, slow tick, its face enamelled with stars and moons.

  “That clock,” he said, seeing them study it, “is exactly as old as I am. It was made for my birth and set going on the day I was born – a family tradition. It has never stopped since.”

  “My goodness,” said Ruth, “how impressive. I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  “It isn’t always here.”

  What an odd thing to say, thought David. It would be very difficult to move.

  “Anyway,” Ruth was saying, “I must be getting along. It’s very kind of you to invite them. I’ll be back about seven.”

  “Splendid. Goodbye for now.”

  He saw her out, then turned back to the children. “Come into the drawing room first.”

  It was a big room with a bay window, and from the fireplace a wood-burning stove threw heat to every corner. Tall bookshelves took up one whole wall, and another was almost completely covered with paintings and sketches and photographs. There was a music system with shelves of CDs beside it and, more surprisingly, a wide-screen TV.

  “I enjoy watching films,” Mr Flowerdew said when he saw them looking at it, “and many of them don’t look their best crushed onto a square screen.”

  David had moved across to the wall of pictures. “Look – it’s us!”

  And so it was. The two of them, aged five, shining clean in new uniforms, ready for their first day at school.

  “I remember Dad taking that photo,” said Kate.

  “Me too. He got really annoyed because we wouldn’t stand still.”

  “Weren’t we small? Yet I remember thinking I was so grown up because I was starting school.” Kate’s gaze drifted upwards. “There’s Grandma.”

  Grandma Alice beamed out at them, as blue-eyed as her granddaughter, seated on a straight-backed chair with a very new baby in her arms.

  “Who’s the baby?”

  “It’s you, Kate.”

  Mr Flowerdew was looking at the photo now.

  “Is it? I’ve never seen this photo before.”

  “No. I took it, and this is the only copy. You were just a week old when it was taken.”

  Kate studied her tiny self with interest, not that she could see much: just a squidged-up face and one fist. Grandma looked very happy, holding her with practised ease. Round her neck Kate could make out the gold necklace that was now her own.

  “Now where have I put my reading glasses …?” He patted his pockets and looked around the room. “Hmmn. They must be upstairs. Bring the project up and we’ll look at it in my study.”

  The study was up two flights of stairs, and they settled there like birds amongst a fabulous clutter of objects.

  An astronomical telescope stood ready by the window, with binoculars and a small notebook nearby on the windowsill. From the mantelpiece, a stuffed tawny owl surveyed the room. Its breast feathers, when Kate touched it, were impossibly soft. There were more shelves of books – many about natural history – and a neat stack of sketchbooks with a little set of watercolours beside them.

  Beside the tawny owl were a number of small objects: little carvings, mostly in wood, but a couple that looked like ivory.

  “Look, Kate,” said David, who had come over for a closer look. “Isn’t that the same as the one you like in the museum?”

  He was pointing at a tiny otter, back legs curved, front paws pressed to the side of its head.

  “Oh yes! Is it all right to touch it?”

  “Go ahead. It’s survived hundreds of years of quite rough treatment. I doubt you could hurt it even if you tried.”

  Kate carried it to the window where the light was better.

  “This is my favourite thing in the whole museum. Oh – there’s a hole through it.”

  You couldn’t see the hole unless you turned it over to see the bottom, which would have been the otter’s back.

  “It would have been a fastening for a coat originally: like a toggle. There would have been a piece of sinew or something of the sort through there to attach it.”

  “I love the way it holds its head in its paws.”

  They wandered about the room, looking and touching to their hearts’ content as Mr Flowerdew read the project.
When he finished, he said, “It’s excellent; just as I thought it would be. Strange, isn’t it, to think that we live in the same places they did, that are so different now. What would we each do if we came face to face, I wonder?” He took his glasses off, and chewed reflectively on one of the legs. “Did you know there was once a big settlement on Arthur’s Seat?”

  David nodded. “Dad told me a bit about that.” He hesitated for a few seconds, then plunged on, “When we met you at the museum – not when you took us to see the stones – the first time. You knew about the project but we hadn’t told you. How did you know?” His heart was beating fast.

  Mr Flowerdew beamed. “I am very old. At my age you know a great many things without having to be told. It is one of the few advantages of the ageing process.”

  It wasn’t an answer, but it was all that he got before Mr Flowerdew changed the subject.

  “It’s time I started to make tea. Come down to the kitchen; I’m sure I bought some food and drink for you.”

  In the big kitchen he rolled up his sleeves, tied on a long white apron like French waiters wore in films, and Kate and David busied themselves with coke and chocolate biscuits while he made an enormous pizza.

  He saw them share a look of surprise as he worked. “What? You think old men can’t make pizza? Just you wait!”

  Once it had gone into the oven he poured himself a big glass of red wine. “Did you know it’s good for the heart?”

  “Dad always says that too,” said Kate.

  They ate the pizza blistering hot. There was more than they could manage. When he was utterly, totally full, David said, “Thanks. That was delicious.”

  Kate mumbled agreement through her final mouthful.

  Mr Flowerdew was silent, twirling the stem of his glass between his fingers so that the wine spread in ruby veils up the sides. In the quiet, the ticking of the grandfather clock sounded very loud, and when Kate looked at Mr Flowerdew’s face he seemed suddenly sad and far away.

  As though he sensed her watching, he looked up, straight into her eyes, unsmiling, something more than the old friend of her grandma’s she had always known.

  He sighed. “And now, Kate, David, there are some things I must tell you.”

  They looked at each other and then back at Mr Flowerdew. What could he mean? For a moment there was silence except for the tick of the great clock.

  “Time,” began Mr Flowerdew, “goes in one direction only, does it not? From the past to the future, no turning round, no going back.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” said Kate.

  He shook his head. “It is not inevitable that it should behave like that, and there are some whose greatest desire is to see it change. If they were to have their way, time would come unstuck; past and present would be jumbled together.”

  “But that’s impossible,” said David.

  Mr Flowerdew shook his head again. “Not impossible, only unimaginable, but if the Lords of Chaos ever have their way, that is what will happen. Opposed to them are the Guardians of Time, who fight to keep the stream of time flowing smoothly. This is a conflict that has gone on since the world first formed and will always continue, unless the Lords of Chaos win and time spins out of control forever.”

  The children exchanged glances and Kate shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  “Oh come on, that’s not true. You’re just making it up as a joke. Why are you saying all this? Anyway, how would you know about it, or why wouldn’t everybody know about it?”

  “I know,” he said gently, “because I am one of the Guardians of Time.

  “You ask why everyone would not know about this war – for that is what it is. The answer is that people are blind to most of what is around and in front of them. Sometimes a battle breaks through into the human world, and appears as a war or plague, or some event which no one can explain, but your race forgets the true significance of things quickly.

  “You think I’m a delusional old man, who’s raving,” he said with a smile, “but think. Remember what happened in the room with the Pictish stones.”

  Kate’s eyes widened as she remembered the strange buzzing. How could she have forgotten that?

  “The dream,” said David wonderingly. “It’s something to do with the dream I’ve been having, isn’t it?”

  “Tell me,” said Mr Flowerdew.

  He described the lake and its stony shore and, his voice a little unsteady, his fear of the unknown presence. “I’m scared I’m going to see whatever it is before I can wake up.”

  Mr Flowerdew steepled his fingers and sat in silence for a few seconds. “What about your dream, Kate?”

  “How did you know?” She hadn’t meant to sound angry, but she did.

  “From your face. Tell me, please.”

  So she described the desert and the wolves and the dripping figure of Tethys.

  When she had finished, he drew himself up straight in his chair. “This is one of the occasions when the war between Chaos and Time is breaking through to your world. I’m not surprised you both dreamed in the museum, for it is the focus of what is happening.”

  “Why?” asked David, drawn along, for the moment, with the old man’s story.

  “Power! It is a focus because of all the powerful objects held there. This power has been building up for years, like water behind a dam, and since the Duddingston Hoard was found …”

  “The Duddingston Hoard? What’s that?”

  “To the eye, nothing more than a cache of old and broken weapons; but the power of the Guardians was poured into some of those weapons at their forging, for they were made for one of the great battles between Time and Chaos, three thousand years ago. After the battle, they were thrown into the loch to take them out of the world of men and dissipate their power. They should not have been taken from the loch. Now there is too much power for the dam to contain and it has begun to leak; in Edinburgh, time is coming unstuck.

  “It has always been a city where the past has left a strong imprint, and it is easier here than it would be in most places for the Lords to open the door to the past a little. We push it shut from the present of course, but it is slowly opening, and the past is rising up all around us.”

  He rubbed a hand across his face, as though he was suddenly very tired. “I’m truly sorry that I have to involve you in this, but there is no help for it. I know that what I say sounds incredible, but please think about what I have told you and consider whether it could be true, because without your help, I do not know how the Guardians can force the door to the past shut.”

  “Our help?” It was Kate who spoke. “How could we possibly help? We’re eleven years old.”

  “I don’t want …” Whatever Mr Flowerdew was about to say was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. He looked at his watch in surprise. “It’s later than I thought,” he said. “That must be your mother, Kate. All I ask is that you think about what I have said and, if you decide it could be true, let me tell you more about it. Now, Kate, you had better let your mother in.”

  Kate got up slowly, dazed with words, and went to the front door. David made to follow, but Mr Flowerdew put a hand on his arm. “David, I know your dream is frightening you. It cannot hurt you, I promise you that; but as long as you are afraid, it has power over you. Next time it comes, raise your head and find out who is there with you.”

  ***

  “You two are very quiet,” said Ruth on the way home. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We looked round the house – there are loads of interesting things.”

  “And he made really good pizza for tea.”

  “And we talked.”

  “Yes, we talked.”

  “That’s all.”

  DISCUSSIONS

  Mary Sinclair locked the door behind her and put the key in her pocket. It was a beautiful bright autumn morning, a touch of frost in the air. She could see
her own breath and that of the dog hanging in the air as they walked into Holyrood Park and up the path towards Dunsapie Loch.

  Once they had crossed over the road she took off Holly’s lead and the Jack Russell ran off up the hill at once, barking happily. Mary stayed just above the road, breathing the sharp air deeply, knowing that Holly wouldn’t stray too far.

  The dog began to bark again, as though she’d seen a rabbit – common enough up here. Mary looked to see where she was; while Holly was normally obedient, she might well take off after a rabbit.

  The dog was standing still, hackles up, barking furiously at something on the skyline, not a rabbit after all. Mary squinted up; she really should get glasses, she couldn’t see very clearly at that distance.

  “Holly, stop barking! It’s just people out for a walk, like us.”

  Five people were silhouetted against the sky. She couldn’t make sense of their clothes, they looked odd somehow; and they were carrying long sticks.

  “Holly!”

  The dog wouldn’t stop barking; Mary climbed up to where she was and clipped the lead back onto her collar, then looked up again.

  They were still there with their sticks, sharp against the skyline in a huddled group. The low sun glanced off the end of one shaft as though there were metal there.

  Mary felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

  “Come on, Holly,” she said quietly, pulling on the lead. “Let’s go home now.”

  As the pair of them headed back down the hill she glanced over her shoulder frequently, watching the figures on the horizon until the slope of the ground hid them from view.

  ***

  “Well, what do you think?” David tore off a piece of bread and threw it into the water for the ducks to fight over.

  It was the day after their extraordinary visit to Mr Flowerdew. When Kate had phoned David to suggest a walk to Blackford Pond he had accepted at once.

  There was an eruption of quacking as three mallard laid claim to the same piece of bread.

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. He’s probably just a crazy old man, but …”