Martin shrugged but looked happier.
Mr Tooke smiled slightly. He and his wife, Rita, had moved mostly for Martin’s sake. They had lived in a declining area of Bristol, which was rapidly becoming a no-go area. The job advert had seemed a blessing at the time. If only Martin could settle, they could all be happy out here in the country.
As Mr Tooke looked at his son, a strange rattling sound caught his attention. They both looked in puzzlement at the glass of water on the bedside cabinet. It was trembling; the water was spilling over the top, yet the rest of the room was motionless. The rattling got worse, until the glass was violently swept aside as though struck by an invisible hand.
A hot wind blew around Martin’s bed, whipping at the covers and tugging at his hair. Martin tried to leap up but a pale blue light appeared around his body, enveloping him completely. “Dad!” he screamed in shock and fear. He stared in horror at his arms, which were glowing blue, as was the rest of his body.
His father tried to reach out and grab his son, but he too was enveloped in the pulsing blue light. He couldn’t move or even shout for help. All he could do was watch helplessly as the light around his son intensified and lifted the hysterical boy from the bed.
There was an explosion and a tornado appeared, swirling over the trembling boy and obscuring the ceiling and walls of the bedroom. Blue lightning shot out of the tornado, arcing themselves into the furniture without leaving a mark. One struck Martin on the leg and stayed, almost as though it had grabbed hold of the boy. More lightning bolts leapt down and took hold of Martin, grasping his defenceless body.
With a roar of thunder, the bolts retracted, dragging Martin upward into the swirling tornado, his body reducing in size as though he were being pulled at unbelievable speed to a distant place. His bed followed, then his wardrobe, all his books and toys and even the posters on his walls, as though the tornado was removing every last bit of Martin’s existence from the world. The tornado slammed shut, leaving the room dark and cold.
Mr Tooke blinked and looked around the spare room, wondering why he had walked in. There was nothing in the room except some old furniture and the suitcases he and Rita used on their holidays. He surprised himself by feeling a few tears in his eyes. He had hoped one day to have a child, and this would have been the room his son or daughter would have had, but it had never happened. He had thought he had got over the disappointment years ago, but maybe he hadn’t.
Wiping his hand over his face, Mr Tooke walked out of the room, turning off the light. The moonlight shining through the window illuminated a single thread hanging from the ceiling–the sort of thread a small boy would hang a model spaceship from. But there was no ship and no boy and never had been. Just the thread, slightly warm to the touch and burnt at the end.
Chapter Four
Seven weeks later, Pandora and her family were on their way to Willowcombe Clatford.
After the argument in the twins’ bedroom, Mr Laskaris had started applying in and around the village for various posts and, by pure luck, had found a similar job to what he was already doing–administrative manager of a medium-sized company. The money was reasonable and the job respectable.
The impending move had put Mrs Laskaris in her element. She started packing clothes, abandoned this to sort the ornaments, left the ornaments to concentrate on kitchen utensils and finally ignored the kitchen to whine continually that she was the only one doing any real work, thus making life hell for everyone.
Mr Laskaris called it Mother’s Martyrdom. Pandora called it being a drama queen and a royal pain in the neck.
Eventually, however, the packing was done and moving day arrived. The removal men loaded their van, the family climbed into their elderly, battered car and they left the urban decay of Lowell for the greener, safer pastures of Willowcombe Clatford. No one came to see them off. Lowell didn’t encourage neighbourly concern.
They drove for the last time through the grimy town centre. Even before midday, the drunks were clustered around the shopping precinct, men and women, grubby, unkempt, with tawdry gold chains hanging over stained football shirts, glowering in hatred at anyone who was different or who still had hope in their eyes.
Not that many in Lowell had any hope, except the hope of oblivion through drink or drugs. Teenage girls pushed neglected babies through the streets, texting, smoking, drinking and only occasionally glancing at their children. Pandora saw one mother who was still technically at school, given that she was fifteen. She was already showing the swelling of her second pregnancy.
“Goodbye, Charlie’s Fish and Chip Shop, no greasy, burnt chips where we’re going!” cried Mrs Laskaris ecstatically, despite the fact she had often sent Pandora to Charlie’s to buy the family meal rather than cook herself.
Pandora looked at the bins at the side of the shop where, two years ago, a tramp had been discovered frozen to death in the mean winter.
“No more overpriced milk and bread from Pajel’s newsagent,” hooted Mrs Laskaris, who seemed almost hysterical with happiness.
“No, I suppose not,” said Mr Laskaris sadly. He had enjoyed his chats with Mr Pajel. They shared a bond, both being foreigners in England, albeit long established in the country.
Pandora looked at the shop front and recalled the time she had seen Chas Walters and Steven Fielding huddled in the doorway, beating up a twelve-year-old boy who just happened to be passing.
“Goodbye, Dell Sports Field,” continued Mrs Laskaris, waving at the neglected field and cracked athletics track. It was there that Timothy Bradbourne had forced himself on Tina Wilkes. A week later, it had been Donna Smith. Both girls had been too scared to tell their families or the police, and as a result, Bradbourne’s reputation had soared in the area.
Almost as if reading Pandora’s mind, her mother turned in the front passenger seat and squinted at her eldest daughter. “You’ll see,” she said. “At Willowcombe Clatford, there’ll be much nicer people. Much nicer boys.” She peered in suspicion at Pandora. Mrs Laskaris was increasingly disturbed by the fact that Pandora, at fourteen, had never had a boyfriend, or even mentioned liking any boys. She feared there was something wrong with her eldest daughter. What girl didn’t want to wear makeup, high heels and a short skirt, and go out on dates with boys?
Pandora sighed quietly. She knew exactly what her mother was thinking. They had been through it all before. She couldn’t be bothered with makeup, she much preferred trainers, jeans and a T-shirt for everyday wear, and she just wasn’t interested in boys. Hardly surprising when examples included Phil Welding, who thought he was god’s gift to women despite being under five feet tall, or Daryl Hipkins, who thought it acceptable to pick his nose in front of you before trying to grope under your school skirt.
They continued in the spitting rain along grey, greasy roads, on which school children clustered to throw stones, abuse pedestrians and scavenge for cigarettes. One threw a lager can at the car as it passed. The family continued, past the many derelict houses and shops, past the ineffectual police station, past the pensioners shuffling in fear as they quickly did their shopping and fled back to the relative safety of their homes, praying they hadn’t been burgled in the meantime. Finally, the car nosed its way into the near-permanent traffic jam on the filthy ring road which strangled the town. Forty minutes later, they were free of Lowell and on the motorway.
Pandora dozed. A vision rose in her slumbering mind of a beautiful open field, containing an incongruous white temple. Children played outside, chasing each other, having races, wrestling or fighting with wooden swords. They all wore togas and were all barefoot.
Pandora watched, feeling a warm summer breeze blow over the scene. It seemed an idyllic world. Then the screaming started.
Something was in the middle of the children, something large and snakelike, but the top half of the gigantic snake was that of a woman. The creature laughed as it snatched up a child and clamped its distorted mouth to the hysterical girl, drain
ing the child of her blood.
Pandora screamed and the creature looked round.
Its face froze in anger. Casting the dead child aside, it slithered at unbelievable speed toward Pandora, who tried to run but found she was unable to move. The serpent woman reached out and clamped her hands around Pandora’s face, crushing her, and screeched in fury, “Release us! Open the box!”
Lights flashed in front of Pandora’s vision, blue and white, surrounding the snake woman, entwining around her figure until, with a blinding explosion, the snake woman, the field and the screaming children were all gone.
Pandora’s head jerked up and she stared, disorientated, out of the car window. They had arrived at Willowcombe Clatford. Pandora looked at the village of solid, prosperous houses, thatched cottages and other rustic dwellings. It looked like something out of an old film, one where everybody spoke with a precise upper-class accent.
There was a huge expanse of grass in the middle of the village where a few men, dressed in dazzling white clothing, were playing cricket. Several shops, including a newsagent, fishmonger, butcher, greengrocer and ironmonger, ran down the one side of the village. At the near side of the green was a duck pond, while at the far end, on a slight rise to dominate the area, was the village church, looking down through stained-glass windows which seemed to peer closely at the scenes going on below. It hardly seemed real to Pandora, yet it was realer than her dream which was quickly fading from her mind.
“Ohh, there’s Aunt Mabel’s place,” exclaimed Mrs Laskaris, pointing to a neat, expensive, semi-detached house, which sat inconspicuously with its neighbours. There was a very long row of them. “We’ll be meeting aunty on Sunday. She’s invited us over for lunch. A real Sunday lunch! That’s how they do things here.”
“Yes, dear, you have mentioned that once or twice,” replied Mr Laskaris.
Pandora got the impression that her father didn’t like Aunt Mabel. She shrugged and turned her attention back to the village.
Mothers, neatly attired in blouses and long skirts, pushed old-fashioned prams or else walked while firmly holding the hands of their children. Pensioners strolled along the pavement, stopping to chat to their friends every few yards, and even the blue shape of a policeman could be seen slowly ambling around the green, casting a paternal eye on the substantial houses, expensive cars, orchards and gardens that made up the village. The sun was shining, there were no clouds in the sky and all seemed right in the world of Willowcombe Clatford.
They turned off the road that ran along the green and drove down a wide, clean street resplendent with lush trees and houses with well-maintained front gardens. They stopped outside the house at the end of the road. It was smaller than the others on the street but still larger than their old home in Lowell.
“Well,” said Mr Laskaris. “Here we are.”
Chapter Five
“Here’s the removal van,” said Mrs Laskaris with satisfaction. “Oh, there’s St Hilda’s, your new school, at the end of the road.”
The family turned and saw an old building with a modern extension grafted on, an odd mix of solid red brick and prefabricated plastic and glass.
“Can I trust you to supervise the unloading and unpacking, Georges?” she demanded of her husband. “It’s just gone three. I can whizz the girls up to the school and introduce them to the staff, ready for Monday morning.”
“Mum!” said Pandora, rolling her eyes. “We’ll meet everyone on Monday anyway, so why make a fuss?”
“It creates a good impression,” snapped her mother in a tone which brooked no argument. She looked critically at her three daughters and wiped her handkerchief against Sarah’s cheek, despite the squirming girl’s protests.
Pandora sighed to herself. There wasn’t anything on Sarah’s face. Her mother just had to fuss.
“Come on, girls,” said Mrs Laskaris, straightening not only her coat but also her accent, adopting what her family called her posh telephone voice. Would she attempt to keep her telephone voice in place all the time now they were in Willowcombe Clatford?
Mrs Laskaris grabbed the twins and frogmarched them along the road, holding each hand tightly. Pandora trailed behind.
“Oh, do keep up,” scowled her mother. “And straighten yourself up. And why couldn’t you have put on a nice dress instead of those awful jeans?”
“I could hardly wear a dress to finish the packing,” replied Pandora. “It would have got dirty.”
Mrs Laskaris opened and shut her mouth a few times.
Pandora counted under her breath to see how long it took her mother to come up with a response. She could never, ever admit when she was wrong.
“You could have changed after the packing was done, before we got in the car.”
“Four seconds.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Mrs Laskaris glared in suspicion but was prevented from saying anything by their arrival at the school gates.
School was over for the day. Pandora watched with interest as the pupils streamed out of the building, some chatting, some packing items away into rucksacks, all bright and smiling and cheerful.
“Don’t they look well turned out?” demanded Mrs Laskaris, looking at the school uniform of green dress and straw boater for the girls, and dark trousers, shirt, tie and blue blazer for the boys. “Everyone in uniform, as they should be. Unlike at Lowell.”
“Most families in Lowell couldn’t afford to buy a uniform for their kids,” pointed out Pandora. “The rest just didn’t bother.”
Mrs Laskaris scowled at Pandora. Not for the first time, she had the suspicion that her eldest daughter was rather more observant than she let on.
She turned her attention back to the school children. No such issues of poverty or fecklessness seemed to be a problem at St Hilda’s. The children all looked healthy, cared for and well adjusted. Groups clustered together, chatting brightly as they left the school, smiling at their parents and eager to tell them of their day. The whole thing charmed Mrs Laskaris.
“Isn’t it nice?” she beamed. “I do like to see families together. I don’t know why you never let me pick you up from Lowell Secondary.”
Pandora tried to remember when her mother had actually offered to meet them at the school, but that way would just lead to an argument. “Nobody wanted their parents to pick them up,” she replied. “It would have meant being beaten up by the other kids.”
“You do talk some rubbish,” screeched Mrs Laskaris, her accent slipping back to pure Lowell before she caught herself.
“It’s true,” muttered Pandora but without much energy. Facts didn’t matter to her mother. Anything that disagreed with her view of the world would be stories or misunderstandings or even, on occasion, lies. Yet, her mother had attended Lowell Secondary when she had been a girl and things couldn’t have changed that much since her time. The school had a lousy reputation, going back years. So why look back in nostalgia at something that never existed?
“No bullies here, I’m sure,” said Mrs Laskaris, her telephone voice screwed back into place. “You’ll make lots of lovely new friends.”
This, even as a concept, was alien to Pandora and the twins. They hadn’t really had friends at the old school. No one did. It was too decayed and vicious for that. What you had, if you were lucky, was someone willing to watch your back in return for covering theirs as you stood in tight corners in the grey school yard, keeping your head down so as not to be noticed by anyone.
The twins had each other for company, but Pandora had often felt isolated and sometimes rather lonely. Maybe the new school would be different, as her mother claimed. Maybe she could make friends. She looked at a girl and her mother who happened to be walking past.
The girl smiled politely but looked a little blank. The mother smiled a little more warmly and said hello to the new family.
“Hello,” said Mrs Laskaris, ratcheting up her telephone voice to another level. “W
e’ve just moved in here.”
“Oh, yes, you’ll be the Laskaris family,” replied the woman, her reserve instantly gone now that she knew who the strangers were, though she stumbled a little over the name. “Mabel’s niece.”
“That’s right.” Aunt Mabel was well known in the community, and Mrs Laskaris hoped that her aunt’s standing would be reflected on her family.
“How are you settling in?” asked the woman. “I’m Mrs Harris, by the way, and this is my daughter, Helen.”
Pandora glanced at Helen, who stood with her hands folded in front of her while gazing up patiently at her mother’s face. She saw Pandora looking at her and smiled politely, but again, the smile had no real feeling behind it. Snotty cow, thought Pandora.
“We’ve only just arrived and I wanted the girls to see the school. And I wanted to see some of the area.”
“Oh, it’s lovely around here,” said Mrs Harris. “We’ve got a lovely butcher, a greengrocer, a corner shop, the church is Victorian, the vicar does some lovely sermons there and the woods and the green are quite lovely and the neighbours are really lovely. We all know each other well. It’s a small community, but it’s lovely.”
“Lovely,” murmured Sarah to Anne, who giggled behind her hands.
“I’m sure you’re looking forward to settling in and finding your way around,” continued Mrs Harris.
“That won’t be a problem,” smirked Mrs Laskaris in a superior manner. “I used to spend my summer holidays here, so I know the village quite well. Intimately, you might say.”
“Oh,” replied Mrs Harris uncertainly. “That’s lovely for you, I’m sure.”
Pandora, having grown bored of the conversation and embarrassed by her mother’s social-superiority complex, had been looking around at the points of interest enumerated by Mrs Harris. The church looked like it belonged in an old horror film thanks to the huge gothic spire and extensive graveyard. Her eye was drawn to something lurking in the darkest, furthest corner of the graveyard, something that seemed to flicker momentarily under a faint blue light.
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