by James Bow
Then Rosemary shoved her wrists around the dangling end of the crowbar, pressing it into the gap in the handcuffs. She could feel the metal scrape across her skin, slip between the two prongs of the cuffs, and catch. This will work, she told herself. “Hnow ... Heder ... Hol’ highdt!”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “Hol’ highdt! Hol’ highdt! Hod id?”
The light dawned. “Hold tight! Got it.” He clasped the crowbar tightly.
Rosemary braced her chair against a nearby table leg. “Hnow! Hull!”
Peter pulled. Rosemary squealed as the crowbar bit into her wrists and twisted her arms. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Peter stopped. “Are you okay?”
Rosemary growled.
Peter took a firmer hold and pulled again.
Rosemary clamped her eyes shut against the pain, and pressed harder against the crowbar. The pressure increased until she thought her arms would break. She was about to beg for Peter to stop when she heard a crack and the sound of metal clattering in a far corner. The crowbar fell and the pressure eased from her wrists.
She shook her hands free and pulled them in front of her. She lay curled up, gasping with pain and relief.
“Did it work?” Peter struggled to see her. “Rosemary?”
She grunted for silence. Reaching up, she pulled at the gag. It took several minutes, but eventually she had it around her neck. She pulled the vile rag from her teeth and flexed her aching jaw. “I’m ... I’m okay. I’m still tied to this chair, but I have more options.”
“Rosemary, I’m sorry, I —”
“First of all ...,” Rosemary picked up the crowbar and grabbed the back of Peter’s seat with it, dragging herself and her chair upright. “Stop apologizing. You weren’t the only one who got us into this mess. Secondly, we’re not even close to out of the woods, so shut up and help me untie you.”
Peter struggled to hold his wrists out to her. “Oh God, yes. I’ve almost lost the feeling to my arms and legs. What’s with this guy? Why leave us tied up for so long?”
“He’s torturing us,” said Rosemary. She slipped the crowbar between Peter’s chafed and bleeding wrists. “Pretty effectively, I might add.”
“Uh oh,” said Peter.
She stopped. “What uh oh?”
“I can feel what you’re doing. I think we’re going to wish I was still gagged.”
She patted his shoulder. “Bear up. I’ll have these off you soon, then you’ll feel much better. Ready?”
He took a deep breath. “Ready.” Then he looked sharply at the door. “Someone’s coming!”
Rosemary paled. “If they look in on us, they’ll tie us back up again!”
The doorknob twisted. Rosemary tightened her grip on the crowbar and wheeled herself toward the door. “One chance. I hope this guy’s alone!”
The door clicked, then slowly swung open. A figure sidled in, looked around, then cried out as Rosemary barrelled into him. He crashed into the wall and raised his hands. “Please! Do not hurt me!”
Rosemary lowered the crowbar.
“Edmund?” Edmund sat up, rubbing the back of his head. He stared at her in awe. “You’re already out?”
“Hardly!” She rattled her cuffed ankles against the centre leg of the chair. “Are you going to help us?”
He pulled a key from his pocket. “I took this from Aldous’s desk.”
“He let you?” asked Peter in disbelief.
“They didn’t see me. They think I’m still —”
She turned her seat around, holding out her ankles as far as possible. “Never mind how you got the key, hurry up and untie us!”
He fitted the key into the cuffs around Rosemary’s ankles. Rosemary grunted as he pulled at them for leverage. Then the cuffs clicked and slipped off. She gasped in relief.
Edmund used a pocket knife to cut through the remaining bonds, then helped Rosemary out of her seat. She held on to him while her cramped legs protested. She looked into his eyes. “Thank you,” she said. Then she slapped him.
He stared at her, holding his cheek. “What did you do that for?”
“For getting us into this mess in the first place.” She rolled her eyes at his hurt expression. “Come on! I’m glad you came to your senses, but what would you have done in my place?”
He drooped. “I’m sorry, Rosemary, I —”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “It’s Peter’s turn!”
“He isn’t going to hit me as well, is he?”
“Just go!” She pushed Edmund toward Peter, then grabbed a shelf for support. Edmund knelt by his chair and got to work.
Peter gasped in pain and relief as the cuffs came off. The ropes took longer to saw through. Finally he was free and helped to his feet. The next moment he was on the floor, curled up in a ball. “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”
“What is it?” Rosemary grabbed at him.
Tears streamed down Peter’s cheeks. “I’ve got cramps everywhere! I can’t move!”
“He has been tied up too long,” muttered Edmund.
“Come on, Peter, straighten up.” She pulled him back to his feet. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Peter tried to stand, but doubled over again. He fell back into the chair. “You’ll have to leave me here.”
She grabbed his arm. “No way.”
“I can’t walk,” he gasped. “I can’t —”
Then Rosemary took his face in her hands and planted a firm, long kiss on his lips that left him gasping. He gaped at her. “Why —?”
She stepped back. “To remind you of what you’ll lose if you don’t.” She held out her hands.
“Oh,” he said. “Right.” He took her hand and grabbed Edmund’s shoulder, using both to heave himself out of his seat. He winced, then took a deep breath. “Let’s go. Slowly.”
Supporting him as if he had two sprained ankles, Edmund and Rosemary led Peter out the door and into the dimly lit hallway. They shuffled to the entrance of the great hall and gazed out at the bustling warehouse.
“Are all those crates from the future?” asked Peter.
“You tell us, Edmund,” said Rosemary.
He stared at her. “The future? You mean that insane conversation with Birge was not humouring a madman?”
Rosemary gave him a look. “What’s in those crates, Edmund?”
He looked away, ashamed. “Tobacco. Spirits. Whatever it was Aldous stumbled upon, he wasn’t looking for it. He is, first of all, a smuggler. He wanted to use the sewers as a means of shipping goods to the interior, beneath the feet of the tax inspectors.”
“We thought so,” said Peter. “That’s why he’s so interested in the burial of Taddle Creek.”
Edmund nodded. “It provides him with the link he needs to the north. And my store was en route, the perfect halfway house.”
“He’s either the luckiest person in the world or we’re the unluckiest,” muttered Rosemary. “If Faith arrived now with a lot of policemen, would they find enough to nail Aldous for his crimes?”
“You mean, to indict him? Perhaps,” said Edmund. “But look at the size of his operation. He must have ways of deflecting suspicion.”
“And there’s no guarantee that Faith is out of the sewer yet,” said Rosemary. “So we have to find a way out.” She nodded to a set of crates stacked by the wall. “We’ll hide there. Go.”
Keeping to the shadows, they tiptoed to the cover of the crates. Peter shook off their hands and used the boxes for support, limping along on both legs. “I’m getting better.” Then he stifled a yell and tottered from foot to foot. “I’m getting worse! Pins and needles!”
Rosemary knelt and massaged Peter’s legs. “Getting out is not going to be easy.”
Edmund’s eyes tracked along the warehouse floor. “It has just become harder. Aldous is heading for our storeroom.”
Rosemary stood up. Peter turned around. All peered past the edge of the crate and saw Aldous, flanked by Rob (his nose bandag
ed again) and a group of other boys, striding forward purposefully.
Rosemary swallowed hard. “He doesn’t look happy.” Aldous entered the hallway. Despite the presence of people moving boxes, the warehouse seemed to go quiet. The three glanced at each other. “Hide or run?” asked Peter.
Yells erupted from the hallway, followed by the scuffle of feet.
“Hide!” gasped Rosemary, and they ducked back into the shadows.
Aldous emerged from the hallway and stopped dead, holding back the tide of boys that ran into him. He scanned the warehouse floor. Rosemary watched him from behind the crates. There weren’t that many places to hide, and Aldous knew it. She could see him checking off the less likely places: the part of the floor he’d walked down, other parts with too much open ground to cover. His gaze settled on her stack, and he strode toward it.
“Run!” She shooed Peter and Edmund out the other way.
They staggered into the open, past youths who almost dropped the boxes they were lifting in surprise, past others who just stood looking to anybody for guidance and finding none until Aldous shouted, “Seize them!”
Straight out of a B movie, Rosemary thought. But it did the trick. Men ran toward her. She knocked aside the first boy that grabbed at her. They were halfway across the floor, racing for the front door. Edmund dragged Peter along.
“Five dollars to the first man or boy who secures that woman and those two men!” Aldous bellowed, pointing.
Then the place came alive. Dozens of men and boys jumped up from behind crates, dropped boxes to the sound of breaking glass, and ran. Rosemary grabbed Peter for extra speed, but a circle converged on them. They kicked and punched, but there were too many. Rosemary gasped as she was grabbed from behind. Peter and Edmund vanished beneath the melee. Rosemary fell to the floor. Bodies pressed on top of her. She curled up into a ball to protect herself from flailing limbs.
“Stop!” Aldous yelled, and the seething mass on top of them froze. “Get them on their feet.”
Rough hands grabbed Rosemary under the shoulders and hauled her up. They set her beside Edmund and Peter, who looked battered and bruised.
Aldous marched up to Edmund and stood face to face with him. “When did you grow a backbone?”
Edmund drew himself up. “Much too late, I regret. I should never have helped you. I will not help you again.”
“Fair enough,” said Aldous. “Take them to the port.”
They marched their prisoners across the warehouse floor and past the double doors into the underground port. There, they halted. Aldous nodded to the boy nearest him. “Order everybody out.” The boy nodded and left. The port started to clear out.
Rosemary frowned. “What are you doing?”
Edmund tried to step forward. “Aldous, no, I’ll do anything —”
Aldous pinched the bridge of his nose. “Edmund, I’m going to kill you anyway. It is better to die defiant than to expire snivelling.”
Rosemary shot upright. “What?” She struggled against the restraining hands.
“I am sorry, Miss Watson,” said Aldous. He nodded to another boy. “Fetch me a crate. We’ll nail them in to drown.”
“No!” Rosemary gasped. “Smuggling is one thing, but murder?”
“Sir,” said the man holding Rosemary. “You can’t —”
Rob shouldered him aside and grabbed Rosemary’s arm. “I’ll take things from here. You go tend to the warehouse.”
“Why don’t you just shoot us?” said Peter bitterly.
“Because the presence of bullet holes would leave the police no doubt that it was foul play,” said Aldous. “As for why I am doing this, I’m afraid Faith Watson leaves me no choice.”
Rosemary blinked, then broke into a grin. “She escaped, didn’t she?”
“I appear to have miscalculated,” said Aldous. “With Faith Watson trapped and soon to be captured, I thought I could interrogate you at my leisure, but my scouts confirm that she has left the sewers and has almost certainly gone to the police with quite a story to tell. My hope is to discredit her: to suggest that her story is the overwrought imagination of a woman whose mind has been broken by the tragic death of her family in a boating accident.”
“You haven’t actually met Faith before, have you?”
A boat docked at a nearby jetty and the oarsman hopped out and came running over. “Mr. Birge, sir?”
He waved him off. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Around them, the gaslights flickered. The bricks began to take on a phosphor glow.
Peter frowned. “What, the —”
“But sir,” the young man persisted. “The northern drop points — the boys up there have done a runner. There’s no sign of them or the merchandise we traded for.” He stopped short, staring at Peter, Edmund, and Rosemary, lined up by the water’s edge.
Rosemary took a deep breath. “The portal is flowing downstream!”
Rob shook her. “Be quiet.”
“Don’t hurt her!” Peter tried to strike out at Rob, but his captor pulled him back.
“Sir?” said the oarsman. “What’s going on here?”
“None of your business!” Aldous snapped. He glared at Peter and Rosemary. “Stop struggling, you two! Don’t make me gag you again, Miss Watson.”
“Don’t you see?” Rosemary’s voice rang off the brick and gaslight. Heads rose. “Don’t you understand? The gates are disappearing. Aldous has left all your friends trapped in the future!”
Faces blanched. Eyes shifted. Uncertainty rippled through the port.
Rob clapped a hand over Rosemary’s mouth, then cried out as she bit him again. “Are you going to just stand there and let him kill us?” she yelled.
“Quiet!” Aldous shouted. “Rob, silence her!”
Rosemary choked as Rob wrapped an arm around her throat.
Aldous clenched his fist. He clicked his lighter faster, sparks flashing in the dim light. “What’s taking that crate so long?” He turned and saw the warehouse doors standing open, a crowd of boys standing there, watching, blocking the way, arms folded. He glared at them. “Get back to work!”
They didn’t move.
Aldous strode toward them. “I said, get back to work!”
Then a sound stopped them all. A low, echoing moan slipped across the water and resonated through the walls and jetties. The gaslights guttered. Some went out. A stagnant-smelling breeze ruffled their hair and caught at Rosemary’s skirt.
“What was that?” muttered Edmund’s captor.
“The wind, nothing more.” Aldous rounded on the obstinate crowd. “What did I just tell you?”
The river moaned again. The sound was low at first, then rising until it wailed like a dying man. The phosphor glow slid downstream, seeping up the walls and shining off the jetties until everyone blinked against its brilliance.
“What is this madness?” Aldous growled.
Then the water started flowing backwards. The boys on the boats yelled and scrambled onto the jetties as the river sank and Lake Ontario flowed in. Wood clattered on sodden wood. Water slapped on stone.
Rosemary kicked back against Rob’s knee. He yelled, then clutched at her, but Rosemary was fighting for her life and screaming at the top of her lungs. Peter struggled and struck back against the boy holding him. Edmund stared, then caught his staring captor unawares with a punch in the face.
A rumble drowned out whatever noise they made. The water shook. Around the corner of the tunnel, a giant wave rolled into view, filling the tunnel to the ceiling. The boys on the jetties rushed for the warehouse door, fighting their way through the shocked and panicking crowd. Edmund and his captor dove into the crowd for safety. Peter shoved his after them, then turned to Rosemary, who was still fighting with Rob.
Rosemary felled Rob with a punch and turned for the door. Peter grabbed her wrist, then fell when Rob tackled Rosemary, knocking her into him.
The water rushed toward them, smashing the first jetty to splinters.
/> Rosemary rolled around and kicked Rob in the face. He clutched his nose, yelling, and they were free. Peter hauled Rosemary to her feet, grabbed her hand, and ran for the warehouse door.
Behind them, Rob screamed.
They reached the door just as the wave hit. It knocked them into the warehouse and drove them to
the floor. Water rushed over them, then receded. Peter and Rosemary, soaked, struggled up on their hands and knees, and stared. They were at the centre of a great, spreading puddle. Behind them was the sound of breaking wood as the port snapped.
A stunned silence descended on the warehouse. People picked themselves up.
“Is everybody all right?”
“Jim? Has anybody seen Jim?”
“What the hell happened?”
Then the front doors burst open, and a mass of constabulary came through the opening. “Right! This is a raid! Everybody stay where you are!”
The crowd of boys broke in all directions. Some fell to the floor. Others looked for escape routes, and panicked when they found none.
“It’s the cops!”
“We’ve got to get out of here!”
Still more ran at the officers, hands in the air, pointing behind them.
“I had nothing to do with it!”
“It were Mr. Birge! He was going to murder that young lady!”
“I saw everything, copper!”
The stream of officers filled the front part of the warehouse. Gloved hands clapped on scruffy shoulders and hauled kicking lads out the door. Others fanned out into the crowd. “Come quietly, now. We’ll take your statement at the station. Co-operate, and we’ll be lenient.”
Peter helped Rosemary to her feet, and then staggered when a policeman grabbed him by the shoulder. “Come on. You’re coming with us.”
“Hey!” yelled Rosemary, scrambling after them.
Peter gaped. “What are you —,” he grunted as the officer hustled him into the crowd. Rosemary vanished from his view, blocked by the crowd of confusion. “Look, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not with these people; I was their prisoner!”