by J. R. Wallis
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Thomas Gabriel, dumping down an armful of books on the kitchen table, and peering over her shoulder at the notes and diagrams she’d made. ‘You could write a book about time travel. Badlanders love books. You could use a pen name like Adolphus Squires or something and they’d never know you’re a girl.’
‘I’m going to use my own name. I want the Order to accept me for who I am. Just like Victor Brynn wanted. And Drewman. He said the Order are rotten, remember, and that I can change it.’
Thomas Gabriel checked the pot to see if there was any tea left. It was lukewarm, just the way he liked it. ‘I think you and Drewman might be expecting too much. The Order haven’t changed in centuries.’
‘So everyone keeps saying.’ Ruby clicked her tongue on her teeth and went back to her writing. ‘It doesn’t mean they can’t change, though, does it?’
‘No, I suppose it doesn’t.’ Thomas Gabriel poured out some tea. ‘Ruby, I believe in you. You’ve done things I didn’t think a girl could ever do, but the Order are a different matter. It might be too risky to ever tell them. Look what they’ve done to Drewman. Maybe Victor Brynn was wrong about you being able to shake up the Order. Perhaps it’s just not possible.’
‘Which would make Drewman wrong too. And he’s the greatest Badlander ever. Apparently.’ Ruby closed her notebook with a SLAP!
‘Speaking of Drewman, have you found a moment in his life for me to go back to and get what you need?’ She pointed at the books Thomas Gabriel had dumped on the table. All of them were biographies of Augustus Drewman.
The boy took another sip of tea. Even though he knew Ruby quite well, having never met another girl before, Thomas Gabriel wasn’t always sure how to deal with her. The best way, it seemed, was to think of her as a boy just like him. He drained his tea and put the mug down.
‘It’s difficult to find a moment you can go back to in Drewman’s life and take a little part of him without him knowing. If he sees you, remember, it’s most likely going to change history all the way up to the present. Therefore, we have to be very careful. I’ve only found one moment so far that might work. All the biographies mention it so I’m pretty sure it happened. It’ll be dangerous, though.’
‘Danger’s not great.’
‘No, that’s why I’m still looking—’
Thomas Gabriel paused when he felt a strange buzzing sound in his coat pocket. He reached in a hand and found it closing round the invitation to the High Council meeting. The hands on the clock were spinning round and round at an alarming rate. A little message appeared at the bottom of the card:
A request by Lionel Blarb, member of the High Council, to change the annual meeting date has been formally accepted.
You are now summoned to perform in front of the
Council in one week’s time on 31st March.
The dials on the clock stopped spinning and returned to their gentle ticking.
‘One week!’ shrieked Thomas Gabriel. ‘One bloomin’ week!’
It took Ruby a few minutes to calm the boy down. Then they both sat in silence, digesting the fact that there were only seven days left at most to find the rest of Drewman.
‘How dangerous is this moment you’ve found?’ asked Ruby eventually.
Thomas Gabriel sniffed. Rubbed at his nose.
‘Dangerous,’ he said quietly.
Ruby drew in such a deep breath her toes seemed to swell. ‘Right then,’ she said. ‘Let’s give it a go, shall we?’
‘And you’re definitely sure about this?’ asked Ruby as she stood in front of the mirror, applying more polish. The smell of it mingled with the oil on her skin, which she had reapplied as well. She had also changed her damaged army camouflage jacket to something stouter, an old waxed coat she’d found on a peg in the hallway, which, she’d discovered, had pockets that were charmed to be limitless too.
‘Like I said, it’s mentioned in all the books,’ said Thomas Gabriel. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to use the rope again?’
‘No, it’ll only get in the way. I know what I’m doing now.’
‘I’m glad one of us does,’ said the gun. It was lying on the floor by the mirror. ‘Are you sure you need me to go with you? Don’t you need more practice at this?’
Ruby picked up the weapon. ‘No time really. Not now the High Council meeting’s been rearranged for next week. We haven’t even started looking for the golden boxes yet. Anyway, what are you so scared about?’
‘Of you mucking this up. I do not want to get stuck in the past with you if something goes wrong and we can’t get back.’
‘We won’t get stuck. I promise.’ Ruby smiled as much as she could, but all she could think about was getting stuck too.
‘But—’
Ruby tucked the gun into her waistband and zipped up the waxed jacket all the way to her chin. She nodded at Thomas Gabriel one last time and then turned to look into the mirror.
‘Okay, start reading,’ she said, trying to sound brave.
She heard Thomas Gabriel clear his throat. Heard the creak of the spine as he opened the biography of Augustus Drewman he was using.
‘It was in the year sixteen seventy-four in the month of July,’ he read. ‘Drewman had travelled from the county of Northamptonshire, after completing his business with officials of the Order, and crossed into the county of Rutland after reports of a sickness having afflicted a large number of people in the village of Lyddington as well as a mysterious darkness that had descended during daylight hours. Drewman stayed for a few days, listening to accounts of the village folk concerning strange weather phenomena and descriptions of their nightmares caused by a large swollen creature visiting them in their dreams. The villagers would often wake screaming and sweating, their hearts pounding in their chests. Yet, even so, after calming down, most had found a small gift from the creature on the floor beside their bed. A plant perhaps, a fistful of grass or even a mound of earth. Such afflictions were the unmistakable signs of a Wiht.
‘Drewman tracked the creature to an old Bowl Barrow. It was the burial place of a local chieftain killed centuries before the Badlander Order had been formed in Britain. The barrow was located in a clearing at the top of a hill overlooking the village, surrounded on all sides by conifer woods. It was here that Drewman saw the barrow lit by a green light, like foxfire, from within and he knew he must battle the foe to the death . . .’
Ruby visualized the moment and her reflection disappeared from the mirror, the glass filling with night instead. Moonlight and stars broke the blackness, allowing her to see pine trees around the clearing which looked like a black wall except for the triangular tops silhouetted against the sky.
Ruby swallowed hard and wondered, just for a moment, if she could really pull this off. And then she stepped through the mirror. Thomas Gabriel’s voice faded behind her and all she could hear was the sound of her breathing as she waded through sticky time.
It was much tougher than before. Clearly, travelling through centuries required more arm movement and thigh pumping. She was careful with her reappearance this time and stepped out onto the grass of the clearing as lightly as she could.
Ruby could smell the pine trees. Just. There was a foul stench in the air too. As if something was dead and rotting, and Ruby remembered what Jones had advised her at St Anselm’s Abbey about smelling a Wiht before seeing it.
Before taking a step, she turned to face her entry point. It was easier to find by touch than sight and after pinching out a portion she put it in her pocket. Just to be sure, she kicked a large white stone into place directly in front of what now was going to be her exit point. It would be something easy to see, a marker to aim for.
Next, Ruby snuck fifty metres or so down the hill and into the edge of the pines surrounding the clearing. She suddenly felt safer, hidden away.
The barrow up on the top of the hill looked like a black moon trying to rise out of the ground. A greenish light flickered inside, drawing her eye. Ruby duc
ked lower when she saw a figure emerge from the treeline into the clearing and start running up the hill. It had to be Drewman going to battle the Wiht. Now all she had to do was wait.
She took out the gun and it sneezed almost immediately.
‘Shh,’ hissed Ruby.
‘I can’t help it! It’s the pine smell – too much for me.’ It sniffed as if to make its point. ‘So we’re here then?’
‘Obviously.’
‘And you’ve taken the piece you need, so we can find our way back?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. What do you know about a creature called a Wiht?’
‘Not much. They’re not very common now. I mean where we’re from. They’re usually male. Once a man’s infected, he’ll grow into something much bigger, approaching the size of a large Ogre or a small Ent, but the body starts rotting too. They can be ferocious and difficult to kill as far as I know.’
As if on cue, a terrible shriek rolled down the hill and rattled into the pines.
‘Right. Here we go then.’ Ruby ducked down behind a trunk as she saw a large figure come tramping down the hill towards the treeline. It looked ungainly and swollen in the dark and Ruby caught the terrible whiff of the creature’s rotting flesh more strongly now. Further back up the hill, she could see the silhouette of Drewman. He was chasing after the Wiht.
The creature disappeared further along into the treeline and Ruby scampered towards it, careful not to be seen. The noise of the Wiht crashing through the undergrowth meant that there was little danger of her being heard. Pine needles hissed and branches shook as it tramped between the trees. She followed it carefully, slipping from tree to tree, and then stopped when she saw a man appear, breathless from his run. He quickly collected himself and conjured a large white spark in his hand that gave off a bright glow and lit up his face.
The figure in front of her was clearly Drewman. Ruby recognized him as a much younger version of the head she had seen on the pedestal.
He had an angular face, his nose and cheekbones standing proud beneath a tousled mop of milky white hair. He wore a cape stretched square over broad shoulders that swirled around him as he drew back his arm and flung the spark of magic. It fizzed like a comet, flying like a bird between the trees until it hit the ones just ahead of the Wiht. The trees popped out of the ground and then canted at an angle and struck the creature, batting it on various parts of its large body and sending it flailing to the ground.
The Wiht tried to stand up, but the uprooted trees fell onto the creature, making it squeal. It lay, pinned beneath the trunks, with its arms clawing at the air and its pointed feet stabbing at the ground as it tried to get up.
Ruby kept close to the tree she was hiding behind, careful not to be seen, but such was the power and control of Drewman as he advanced to finish the creature off it was difficult not to be impressed and want to see everything.
And then Drewman stopped.
The Wiht was changing. Growing fast. The trees pinning it down began to fall away. Drewman flashed his hands again and more trees toppled down, smashing the creature back to the turf. It rolled and writhed as Drewman came closer and then the Wiht summoned a huge surge of energy and grew again. With a brute flick of its body, it heaved off the trees, sending them flying. One of them landed close to where Ruby was hiding, but luckily her cry was lost in the noise of the tree crashing into others.
When Ruby looked again, the Wiht was on its feet. It was huge now, taller than some of the trees. It ripped a pine out of the ground and thrust it like a rapier at Drewman with a wild cry, the roots dripping soil. But, as a makeshift weapon, it was useless among the trees and the creature soon tossed it to the ground. Ruby understood the reason for the stench in the air now: the Wiht was huge, lumpy and misshapen, but clearly a rotting corpse of what had once been a man. The smell seemed to curdle the air she was breathing. It was intoxicating.
‘Stay sharp, Ruby,’ hissed the gun.
Drewman was clearly struggling with the stench too, holding a handkerchief to his mouth and nose. He fired up some more magic in his fingers and threw another large spark at the creature. But the creature met it with a huge fist and punched it away. It flew fizzing like a fireball into the trees, sparks flying off it.
Drewman threw another spark. A bigger one. So white and bright that Ruby had to shield her eyes as she watched it.
The Wiht’s fist and the spark hit, causing a huge boom that rippled through the air. Ruby was knocked off her feet by the force of it and flew violently backwards before landing on her back.
She blinked up at the trees and above the ringing in her ears she heard a voice calling her name.
It was the gun.
Ruby scrambled to sit up, pine needles falling from her hair.
‘Ruby,’ said the gun, sounding relieved. ‘For a minute, I thought—’
‘I’m okay,’ she said in a wobbly voice.
The Wiht was lying face down on the ground, its body smouldering as a smell like barbecue wafted through the air. Badly burnt barbecue. In fact, very badly burnt.
Ruby looked around, searching among the trees, and saw Drewman lying motionless on his back.
Ruby got up and hobbled as fast as she could. When she reached Drewman, she saw that his cape had been shredded and was now covered in blood. She tore off a bloodied piece and put it inside a plastic bag that she took from her pocket, which she sealed up and hid away.
‘Is he alive?’ asked the gun.
‘Must be,’ she said. ‘He can’t die now otherwise he wouldn’t be stuck as a head on a pedestal in the present day.’
‘Well, he doesn’t seem to be breathing.’
Ruby bent down and touched his throat. There was no pulse. No heartbeat.
‘But that can’t be right,’ she said, shaking her head.
And then something caught her eye. At first, she thought it was a tattoo on the back of Drewman’s hand, shaped like the feathery fronds of a fern, but the black swirly marks vanished into his skin as she took a closer look.
Ruby saw other marks flash up on Drewman’s skin. On his hands, his throat and face. Intricate shapes that swirled and vanished. She bent closer to watch them and saw the Black Amulet on the man’s wrist. Both sets of green eyes in the serpent heads were shining and moving in their sockets, watching her every move. Each fanged mouth opened and bit down on the man’s forearm. The amulet was alive!
What it was doing, Ruby wasn’t sure. But there was a power in it. She could sense it in those green eyes, full of intelligence, that stared up at her. Suddenly, Drewman jerked and she realized the amulet was working to bring him back to life.
A pulse started pumping in his neck.
Black shapes swirled and whirled with more frenzy over his skin. The mouths of each serpent released the man’s arm, leaving dark puncture wounds that healed instantly. And then the serpents froze and became just ends of the amulet again.
Ruby started walking away as fast as she could without making a sound. When she was at a safe distance, she started running, pausing only to snatch a glance back to see Drewman sitting up slowly. He stumbled to his feet, lurching around like a drunk until he managed to find strength in his legs.
Ruby made it out of the pine forest and into the clearing. When she saw the white stone she’d left as a marker, she ran towards it, reaching into her pocket for the tiny piece of her exit point. She lifted it into the air and felt it pull her on.
And then she stepped through the faint shimmer in the air and left the past behind.
EIGHTEEN
At first, nothing happened when Thomas Gabriel attempted to cast the finding spell to try and discover the location of any of the golden boxes containing Drewman’s body parts. Even the Black Amulet didn’t seem to help. He sat back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling of Ruby’s study and started to worry that the blood on the piece of cape he was holding wasn’t enough to guide the spell and make it work, meaning Ruby’s journey back in time the day befor
e had all been in vain.
‘Great,’ muttered Ruby as she sat watching the boy from the other side of the desk. ‘It’s not working. Why’s it not working?’
‘I didn’t sleep very well last night, worrying about the High Council meeting. Maybe my head’s too fuzzy.’
‘Well, de-fuzz it. Focus harder!’
‘I’m trying to. It’s a difficult spell.’
Ruby sat back and folded her arms and frowned. Midmorning sunlight danced playfully over the desk as Thomas Gabriel started again.
The spell was advanced magic, beyond anything he’d tried before. Not only did the Anglo-Saxon words need careful pronunciation, but Thomas Gabriel was required to focus on wanting the spell to happen much more than any others he’d ever used. The Black Book of Magical Instruction flashed up an instruction to him as he sat back in his chair, defeated for the second time.
Think the magic into the spell to make it come alive.
Thomas Gabriel pursed his lips and sat forward again. He closed his eyes and urged the magic into the spell as he spoke it. He felt the Black Amulet straining to help him, humming with its own peculiar power.
And then something clicked inside him.
As the spell started to work, Thomas Gabriel’s hand jerked to life on its own as if someone else was raising it on a string. He picked up the pencil and proceeded to draw a shape. He didn’t recognize it at first. But, in a matter of minutes, he had made a detailed drawing of an island, a bird’s eye view of it, far more precise than Thomas Gabriel could have drawn on his own. He wrote the name Chiswick Eyot beside it, before his hand became his own again and he put the pen down.
‘Chis-wick Ehhh-yote?’ said Ruby, who had come round to look at the name.