Time Knot

by M. C. Morison

  Feet thundered up the stairs. A voice I recognised shouted, “Caroline!”

  Charles sounded frantic. I moved from the table and followed the voice. In the room next door, Charles was pulling people away from where someone lay on the carpet.

  “Give her room to breathe, move away. Somebody get a glass of water.” Charles eased his sister into the rescue position.

  Far away, on a bleak hillside, three women wailed. Something went pop in my ears, and I knew I’d come fully back to Hammerford. I left the lounge, descended the stairs three at a time, pushed my way – all grit and purpose – into the kitchen. I rinsed out a glass and filled it with fresh, cold water. Once back upstairs I gave the glass to Charles. Caroline was now sitting up, leaning against an armchair. Charles held the tumbler to Caroline’s lips and she sipped some water. She murmured something to her brother that I couldn’t quite catch.

  “Don’t worry about a cat,” said Charles. “There are no cats here, Carrie.”

  “We’ve got to go,” said Juliette. She held my elbow in a grip that threatened to dislocate my bones.

  “We’re going home,” I said to Charles.

  Caroline had moved herself onto her knees. She sipped more water, the glass shaking slightly in her hand. She looked up at me,

  “You’re okay, Rhory?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “But what about you?”

  “It happens once in a while. I have epilepsy. I’m used to it. It’s more scary for other people. Especially Charlie. I’m pleased you got away, Rhory.”

  “From the Ouija board you mean?”

  Caroline shook her head slightly and shrugged. The claw biting into my elbow became more insistent.

  “From the man with the horse.” Caroline smiled. “And his friends.”

  “We have to go,” said my sister.

  I felt Caroline’s eyes follow me out of the room.

  Pirates

  “So how was the party, mate?”

  Nick grinned at me. We stood in the inner playground waiting for break to end and experiencing global cooling first hand.

  “No, it was all right really,” I said. “I mean it was cool. Seb and Joly have this amazing drum set. I got to do a few—

  “Seb and Joly … wooo,” said Nick, with a see-who’s-joined-the-upper-classes look on his face. Nick and I pretty much hang out together. Best mates and all that. I’d take teasing from him.

  “Actually they were sort of okay. Amazing house. Lots of booze and lots of girls.”

  “Oh yeah?” The sideways twist in Nick’s mouth suggested that the numerous girls wouldn’t have come anywhere near me.

  “Yeah. Actually.” I said. “I even went home with one!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  Nick nodded and shrugged slightly.

  “Unfortunately she was called Juliette.”

  I received a jab in my ribs for my effort at humour.

  “Hey, Rhory.”

  Charles came and joined us.

  “I got a note for you. From Caroline. She wanted to, you know, write.” He gave me a pink envelope with a tiny picture of a pixie in the upper right hand corner, and my name written carefully exactly in the centre.

  “Ha!” said Nick.

  “It’s complex,” I said, feeling suddenly defensive.

  “Always is, mate,” said Nick, as the school bell told us it was time to go to the French hut. I pushed the letter into my inside pocket.

  After French we went straight to the gym. Someone said as they were leaving, “It’s set up for Pirates.”

  Fantastic. I beamed inside. I’m not amazing at gym, but I run fast, jump high and can out-swerve most. I’ve even been known to win. But usually it was Bizet who survived longest. He, after all, had been in the England junior team for gymnastics. Steve Bizet (“pronounced Bizzett mate, I’m not some French woofter”) was okay. He didn’t flaunt his success and even got to miss class on occasion. His picture graced our little hall of fame in the school foyer. His nickname was Carmen. Not sure why.

  We rushed into the gym and saw the mats spread out like green islands on a brown sea, with the ropes dangling from the ceiling at various strategic points. Some of the mats were connected by narrow benches; a sort of bridge over shark infested sprung-wood flooring.

  “Okay, boys,” said Mr Palmerstone to our assembled class, in our regulation blue shorts and white T-shirts, “you know the drill. I select the two pirates. The rest of you are escapees. You’re safe on the mats, benches and the wall-bars. If your feet touch the gym floor you’ve drowned – whether you are pirates or escape artists – and sit over here.”

  He pointed to a row of benches at the far end of the gym. We nodded. Nick and Calvin became the pirates. Anyone they touched would join the eye-patch and parrot brigade. They took up positions on the mat furthest away from the rest of us. The loud chirrup on the whistle started proceedings. Feet thundered around the mats, with boys leaping and shouting, and banging over the benches from mat to mat.

  Carmen immediately climbed the wall-bars and hovered near the ceiling. I pulled a rope close, to be able to swing to a distant mat if necessary. I never get caught early on, being able to outrun even Nick, for all his rugby prowess. Calvin lunged for me, I dodged and he stumbled onto the gym floor. The trill of the whistle confined him to Davy Jones’s benches. I was quietly crowing inside when someone whom Nick had nabbed made a lunge for me. I swung on a rope, didn’t make it across and had to start to climb; normally a good strategy, for a time, as only the strongest would bother to climb up to catch you. But in the end they always do.

  I tried to get the rope swinging once more, to make it back to a mat, but the end was seized by a passing pirate and I lost my grip. I joined Calvin and several others on the benches.

  Two boys decided to corner Carmen on the wall-bars. He let them get close and then scuttled sideways and slightly down to where he could launch himself to a safe mat. The two irate pirates chased him, but he gracefully cartwheeled along the bench from one mat to another. This so shook one of his pursuers that he lost his balance. “Splash!” we all shouted from the sidelines.

  Carmen remained safe for a bit whilst other less nimble boys were dragooned into piracy or drowned in the attempt. Four pirates started to corner him.

  “Go on, Steve!” someone shouted.

  He stood on his mat, near a wall, his hand nonchalantly holding the end of a rope. I couldn’t see a winning strategy from this position and awaited the inevitable. Barry Chasemore, an elephantine lad, all puppy fat and rosy cheeks, banged across the bench, his arms outstretched, with his tongue peeking out of his mouth as a result of concentrating so hard. He made it to the mat. Carmen had no way of escape.

  “Hey, Bizet, you’re done for!” shouted Calvin.

  Just when Barry should have presented Carmen with his final black spot, starting a new game, our gymnast flicked the heavy rope away from him, so it started to swing. He loped swiftly towards the wall and ran two complete steps up the white brickwork, narrowly missing the red fire alarm box and twisting sideways. Momentarily horizontal to the mat below, he launched towards the rope, catching it on its return. Turning with his head down and his legs in the air, he swung far out over the ‘water’. Barry extended his arms wide, awaiting the return swing, which never came.

  The empty rope headed back towards the hapless pirate, but Carmen had dropped into a handstand on the floor, and walked on his hands into deeper water.

  “Ha, you’re drowned,” said Calvin.

  We all looked towards Palmerstone.

  “It says, in the rules, sir,” Steve Bizet said from his aft over telescope posture, “you drown if your feet touch the water. You will notice my feet are dry.” Palmerstone grinned and we all hollered.

  “Nice one, boy. So you get to be the pirate now. Okay, lads, to your mats.”

  I don’t know if Steve Bizet had watched the film Singing in the Rain, but that evening proved a little spooky. Wh
en I returned from school, Juliette had her iPad on and she and Dad were hooting about something. I came over.

  “Look at this guy, Bro,” said Juliette. “He’s amazing.”

  “He is actually,” said Dad. “When I saw a remake at the National Theatre they didn’t find an actor who could do this. Rewind it, Jules. Let Rhory see.”

  The scene showed two dudes on a stage set. One sang and danced and generally made a monkey’s backside of himself, wearing a funny hat. The song, if it could be called that, was Make ‘Em Laugh. Dad laughed like a drain and Juliette giggled. I thought it straight forwardly old-fashioned and boring.

  “Wait, wait, Rhory. Just wait,” said Juliette.

  “Yeah, it’s Donald O’Connor’s most amazing dance.”

  Well, the man in the funny hat started courting a headless dummy. Now that struck me as quite neat. After the dummy and he flew in all sorts of directions, he finished by running straight up a wall, and doing a back flip. Twice. I went hot and cold all over. Just like Carmen at school, sort of. For a crack between two seconds, I sensed seeing this deep underground with nasty people intent on sacrificing me or worse.

  “You all right, Rhory? You don’t seem to have much of a sense of humour these days,” said Juliette.

  I mumbled something and left the room. I had to pack anyway. In two days’ time I was scheduled to fly to Egypt with Natasha and my aunt and uncle. I negotiated the hallway, avoiding the ski equipment that reminded me of the choice I’d made. My stomach lurched. Serious people were out to do me harm. I might be much safer on a snowy piste than staring at blooming pyramids.

  Back in my bedroom I remembered Caroline’s letter. I fished out the pink envelope from my jacket pocket and turned it over. In neat letters on the back, just where the flap had been closed were five letters: S.W.A.L.K.

  What on earth did that mean? Should I open it? Maybe the answer was inside.

  It wasn’t. Just a letter, with the current date and writing so neat, only girls can achieve it. At the top of the pink paper another pixie waved a wand distributing fairy dust. I felt I needed that at that moment.

  Dear Rhory,

  How are you? I am well. Charles probably explained I have epilepsy. I fall down and froth at the mouth and all. I’ve had it now for five years; ever since I came across the tower.

  At the party I worried about you. I sensed something. Or the girl in the tower sensed something, which is sort of the same. Like a web being woven around you, sticky and dangerous. I know it doesn’t make sense but I did not want you to do that squeejee thing or whatever it is. Stress doesn’t usually bring on a fit, but it did on the night of the party.

  I saw you – in a sort of vision thing. More than a dream anyway. And I saw the man on horseback. I shouted really loud and he heard

  me. The picture then broke, like smashed glass in one of those films when an actor is thrown through a window. The vision broke and so did the web.

  But the girl in the tower, she said something. I heard her voice. She said, “Bring back the tumbler.”

  I don’t know what that means. Do you? It is a message for you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Carrie.

  Ceramic Tanks

  The blonde lady with the Armani cream suit flicked open her compact and checked her lipstick. She augmented the pale pink gloss, adjusted some errant strands of hair, straightened her jetblack necklace and looked steadily at the middle-aged security man by the massive front door. He dropped his eyes.

  “Follow me out after three minutes, Graham, and then head back to the office.”

  The young man behind her, standing to the side on the black and white checked floor, nodded. He put down the heavy holdall and flexed his fingers.

  “Okay,” Onyx said to the security man, and he opened the door to Number Ten.

  The cameras were lined up outside and the policeman on the steps appeared taller than on TV. The Prime Minister would be making a statement shortly about the situation in the Middle East. Onyx didn’t look over at the journalists waiting by the barrier or the microphones that would catch the PM’s words later. She knew most journalists had no idea who she was and would assume she worked as a political lobbyist. Only the most unobservant would think she was a secretary. Perhaps only one had rightly guessed she wielded more power than most of the British ministers who met regularly in the Cabinet Room at Number Ten. Just how I like it, she thought, as her heels tapped out a tattoo and she speed-dialled her mobile.

  “Coming out,” she murmured, walking up towards the high iron security gate and Whitehall beyond.

  Ten minutes later she settled back into the soft leather of the Mercedes S65 as it softly purred past the House of Commons. Big Ben sounded the hour with its customary flourish, a sound that briefly stirred something patriotic inside her. She pushed the irrelevant feeling aside and pondered how the morning had gone.

  The multi-national company, of which she was the youngest Vice President, didn’t have an immediately recognisable name, and its logo – a female human body with a lioness’s head – put fear in the heart of only the most knowledgeable. Bastet, the ancient Egyptian deity that slaughtered all who got in her way, provided a suitable symbol for the ADR Corp.

  The Prime Minister’s aide had introduced her as the Vice-President of the Advanced Defence and Response Corporation, in charge of NLW, or New Level Weaponry.

  The PM had shaken her hand with a firm grip, smiled a slightly smarmy smile that men often offered her, assuming her very good looks couldn’t possibly be combined with ruthlessly focused intelligence.

  Onyx had introduced Graham Cavendish, her assistant. He had a cluster of degrees from both England and the USA, as well as his experience from a brief and secret attachment to the Navy. Graham understood how the weapon they were to demonstrate actually worked. Onyx understood politics, power and high finance. She understood the way to use fear of the unknown.

  “I thought we were to have a briefing,” said the PM as Graham began unloading the tripod and assembling the various shiny black and grey parts of the weapon. He looked unsmiling towards Onyx.

  “A demonstration – a simple illustration of the powers of the Disintegrator – will be worth a thousand Power Points, Prime Minister. Most people have no idea that scalar technology exists, and very few at all are aware how it has been miniaturised. ADR have led the field, and we have been careful with our patents and our security. Even our closest competitors cannot imagine what we have now developed.”

  A secretary knocked at the door and the grey-haired aide went across to collect the tray of coffee and freshly baked biscuits, a favourite of the Prime Minister. Graham worked steadily and the weapon appeared bit by bit at one end of the table. When he was done with his clicks and twists, an ‘H’ shaped device, somewhat like the hull of a catamaran, sat on the top of the neat, dark tripod. He flicked a switch and a red oval of light appeared towards the far side of the shiny mahogany surface.

  “This won’t damage the table, will it, Victoria? It’s nearly three hundred years old and is irreplaceable. Lord Wellington wrote most of his major speeches seated here.”

  “No, there will not be a scratch, Prime Minister, I can assure you. The beam has no effect on wood. Graham can focus the beam to within a millimeter…” She smiled, all perfect teeth and blue-grey eyes. “I’m not exaggerating. A millimetre, right, Graham?”

  The young man gave a slightly nervous smile, nodded and said, “Yep. That’s how it is.” He took a small silvery control from his pocket.

  Onyx crossed to the bag and extracted a white ceramic shallow bowl a bit wider than a dinner plate.

  “Are we making soup?” asked the aide, raising his eyebrows as though he had said something very funny.

  “Sort of,” responded Onyx. “Did you bring the expendable object in metal as I requested?”

  “No, I did that,” said the PM. “Lead is metal and I brought along some lead soldiers from my collection. Seemed appropriate somehow.”<
br />
  “Are you sure, Prime Minister?” asked Onyx.

  “Yes. Absolutely. They are surplus to requirements.”

  Onyx took the three little figures, each pointing rifles. They were much heavier in her palm than she expected and slightly cool. She arranged them in a tight formation at the centre of the bowl. They stood bravely, in their red coats, facing outwards.

  “Sort of Custer’s Last Stand,” said the aide.

  “Please be so kind as to put on these goggles.” Onyx gave out the protective glasses. She shepherded the group behind the beam projector.

  “With the glasses on you can watch the figures. Without them on your eyesight might be damaged, so please do not remove them until the demonstration is over. When you are ready, Graham.”

  Turning two of the three serrated circular controls, Graham adjusted the laser light until the three figures glowed with an even brighter red colour. He stood back and undid one button on his dark-blue suit. He toyed nervously with the knot of his tie. The beam projector hummed almost imperceptibly. Outside the room a phone rang. Otherwise they stood in silence.

  Onyx touched the Prime Minister’s hand. The aide frowned. “You can say ‘when’, Prime Minister.”

  The PM looked at her, smiled and then turned towards Graham. “Go on, young man, do your worst.”

  Graham nodded and tapped a button on the remote control. For a moment nothing happened. Then the plate vibrated slightly and the three figures radiated dazzling white light. A sound like steam escaping from a pressure cooker ended with a soft whistle. The figures had entirely disappeared. The bowl had a slight smudging of grey ash.

  “Here, touch this,” said Onyx, carrying over the bowl.

  “Goodness. Goodness gracious,” said the PM. He took off his goggles. “Blow me down. It’s not even hot.” He had gone pale.

  Onyx marvelled at how strong men blanched when they saw technology they neither understood nor quite believed.

  The PM cleared his throat. “So what happens if you point this at a tank?”