by Robin Jarvis
‘Oi!’ a deep voice suddenly roared.
Neil whipped around and the torchbeam glared in the face of a large man wearing a tin hat.
‘ARP,’ Ted breathed with relief in the boy's ear, ‘stick with him, he'll see you right.’
Arnold Porter stormed over to them, his fat face quivering with rage. ‘Put that light out!’ he trumpeted, snatching the torch from Neil's hand. ‘Gawd's sake, that's too bright for the blackout. Why in't there no tissue paper over the bulb?’
He shone his own smaller torch into the boy's face and scowled, making his blubbery chins wobble. ‘Now who the ‘ell might you be?’ he declared. ‘Know most o’ the nippers round ‘ere I do, ain't seen you afore. What you doin’ out in the middle of the raid? Where's your house, who's your mum and dad? What they thinkin’ of—lettin’ you sneak out?’
Before Neil could answer, the corpulent warden took hold of his arm and sternly frogmarched him into the next street.
‘Back to the post with you, my lad,’ Fat Arnold said. ‘I reckons your dad'll ‘ave your guts fer garters when he learns about this. You want to get yourself murdered out here? I've a mind to give you a good hidin’ myself— bloomin’ perisher.’
Wriggling in the man's grasp, Neil twisted and turned, then, over the warden's shoulder he saw a sight that made him stumble and come to a halt.
Clearly defined against the burning heavens, a large, dark shape was gracefully floating down through the wisps of smoke—almost directly over their heads. It was so big that Neil thought it could only be a car, but his mind rebelled against such a preposterous idea.
Arnold Porter turned to see what he was staring at and at once his chubby jowls dropped in dread.
‘Bleedin’ Ada!’ he spluttered. ‘A parachute mine!’
With a crunch, the lethal device disappeared behind the chimney stacks of the house opposite, splintering straight through the roof and crashing through the ceilings of the rooms below. It was followed by a vast, flapping tarpaulin that twirled briefly over the roof top before it was dragged after it with a clatter of slates and tiles.
Suddenly, Neil's world was flung into chaos and it was a moment that remained with him for the rest of his life. Arnold Porter roared like a wounded lion, scooped Neil up in his great hands and charged like a maniac into the nearest doorway.
The breath was forced from Neil's lungs as the heavy man flattened him against the door, but whilst he was gasping for air with his face squashed into the buttons on the warden's coat, there came a loud rushing noise and a flash of brilliant light from inside the house where the mine had landed.
Neil felt the force of the explosion before he actually heard it, but the sound hit him a fraction of an instant later. The world was torn apart and his head crashed violently against the wooden door as the ground leaped under him. It was the most awful moment of his life and he clenched his teeth as the shock wave blasted through his bones. It had only taken a moment, but to Neil the experience seemed to last for ever. Eventually, the doorstep stopped shivering and though his ears continued to ring, he knew that it was over.
Choking, he struggled to breathe, but the full weight of the warden was pressing down on him and his arms were trapped beneath the man's heavy stomach.
‘Get off,’ his muffled voice implored, but still the man refused to budge.
Crushed and frantic for air, Neil used all his strength to move him. After several attempts, fat Arnold shifted and the great, flabby man slumped limply to the floor.
Neil staggered to his feet and leaned against the porch, gladly gulping down the fume-filled air.
Across the street, a mere twenty feet away, there was now a large crater, but the house that had once stood opposite the very doorway in which he coughed and spluttered was nowhere to be seen. All that was left was a cloud of dust and a scattering of timbers that were strewn over the street like gigantic straws.
Neil knelt beside the warden and shook him gently. ‘Are you all right?’
But Arnold Porter did not move.
In the doorway, Ted pulled his paws away from his ears and tottered unsteadily from the step. Then he saw the warden and scooted round to the man's plump hands to check his pulse.
Neil swallowed in horror as the bear let the hand drop from his paw and beheld the ghastly expression on the furry face.
'The guy's dead,’ Ted muttered, ‘musta absorbed most of the shock. A body can only take so much—you was lucky, kid. He done saved your life.’
Appalled and distraught, Neil reeled away from the warden's body, covering his mouth to keep down the rising bile.
Ted gave Arnold Porter one final glance, then looked grimly up at Neil.
“We can't stay here,’ he uttered fearfully, ‘We gotta find somewhere safe till the raid's over.’
Without saying a word, Neil picked him up and together they fled into the darkness.
Edie Dorkins carefully picked her way over the ruins. Her jumbled mind was bewildered. She had witnessed something exceedingly strange that night, the boy's teddy bear had walked and talked with him and she had to return to her beloved sanctuary to try and figure it out.
This time, the marvellous window had disappointed her—she thought it had appeared only for her and her alone. Where had that boy come from, what did he want here?’ He'd better not try and recover the first gift she had seen spinning from the fiery circle—what if he had already found it and was even now stealing the lovely thing?
Hastening through the desolate acres of the bomb site, the scraggy girl drew near to the skeletal remains of three buildings which jutted starkly from the ravaged landscape and reared before her like the twisted crown of a titanic and fallen god.
Deep wells of shadow were spread before the entrances to her secret refuge. She was safe there, not one of the iron heads had found her—they thought it was dangerous and all had heard the strange rumours that were circulating about it.
Pattering up to the central door of her fortress which was hanging off its hinges, she ducked smartly beneath and entered the dark kitchen beyond.
The shattered fragments of a broken sink winked and shimmered in the reflected light of the ruddy glare that poured in through a gaping window. A perpetual, solemn drip from one of the taps disturbed the silence and trickled a meandering trail over the dust-covered linoleum. Shards of crockery were strewn everywhere and on the corner of a buckled table a battered, metal teapot balanced precariously.
Edie paused. There was a movement in the hallway and from the murky shadows an indistinct shape was shambling towards her.
The misty figure of an old man, dressed in a glimmering grey shirt with trousers hitched up almost to his chest, shuffled to the sink and halted by the leaking tap, moving his gnarled hands into the line of drips. But the water poured straight through him.
The old man did not seem to care and rubbed his phantom hands together in a ghastly pretence. Then he turned and smiled kindly at the small girl.
‘Evening Miss Edie,’ came the hollow rasping of his dead voice, ‘you been gone a tidy while, the others will be pleased to see you. They was all askin’ after you and when you'd be back. It gets so ... so very lonely on us own.’
He stood before her, blinking in the pulsing, garish glow that streamed in through the broken window—the fiery light passing clean through his spectral form. Turning towards the back door, the shade stared at the devastation as if for the first time and struggled to remember what had befallen him. But pitted against the fierce will of the small girl, his faded mind was powerless. Pressing his fingers to his forehead, the spirit trembled, then looked up falteringly.
'Is it nice out?' he finally murmured.
With a triumphant grin, the girl considered him for a moment then nodded.
‘Does the garden still look lovely?' he asked, his pale, corpse-like face wrung with worry and confusion. ‘I do hope so, my pride and joy that is.’
Edie ignored the question and bustled past him into the hallway.
‘I think the others are coming,' he called after her, ‘listen, Miss Edie, there's more tonight... Miss Edie..?'
Broken stair rods hung from the damaged bannister like bent reeds but the girl was short enough to walk beneath them without having to stoop over.
In through the parlour door she trailed and sat down upon a pile of cushions she had salvaged from various houses. The room was extremely draughty, for all the windows had been blown out and most of the ceiling was missing. Tossing her head back, Edie looked beyond the walls of the room above and the few remaining rafters of the roof, up to the troubled sky. The bombers were passing now, soon the raid would be over.
Lowering her eyes, she leaned forward to a low table and gazed enchanted at the treasures heaped upon its dusty surface.
This was her personal hoard, a splendid collection of cherished trinkets she had abstracted and rescued from nearly a hundred decimated homes. There was a bronze figurine of a dancer with ivory hands and an eternal smile moulded on her gorgeous face, the cut-glass top of a decanter, a small travelling clock, a gilt picture frame, four silver teaspoons, two fox stoles, a pair of black high-heeled shoes, a blonde wig complete with fake ringlets, three lipsticks, a pearl-sequined dress and a dented biscuit tin that contained a fantastic wealth of costume jewellery.
Edie reached across and let the riches run between her fingers. Taking up one of the fox furs, she draped it round her shoulders then wiped a lipstick over her mouth. Delving into the biscuit tin, she grabbed handfuls of diamante earrings and bracelets, then spent the following minutes decorating herself with them. Finally, she pulled the wig on over her pixie hood and reclined on the cushions like some miniature and grotesque goblin countess.
A piece of broken mirror hung on the blackened wall and the girl sauntered over, treading like a tightrope walker to keep all of her booty in place. Admiring herself in the glass, she pulled a succession of faces before the fussy wig slipped down over her eyes.
Edie returned to the cushions and carefully removed the adornments. The jewels had always been her favourite treasures and she had enjoyed hunting through the ruined houses to find them—until that is, the latest marvel arrived.
At one end of the table this new dainty had pride of place. It had arrived three nights ago, tumbling from a ring of fire, just like the one the boy and his teddy bear had emerged from.
The girl knelt before this lovely addition to her collection and stroked it lovingly. The object was a small box of black wood, carved with mysterious symbols and surmounted by the image of a hideous demon with glittering, red eyes.
An adoring expression spread over her face, then her enchantment increased a thousandfold—the box began to move.
As if it were filled with angry wasps, the Casket of Belial twitched and jerked upon the table, almost as though the horror it contained could sense the violence and destruction happening in the outside world and was eager to break free to savour it to the full. Then the erratic movements subsided and it was still once more.
Elated, Edie fished into her jewel tin once more and brought out glittering brooches and twinkling bangles which she placed around the box in a gleaming circle, as tribute to the in-dwelling deity. Then, her handiwork done, she frowned and looked distractedly at the parlour door.
Taking a final look at her latest treasure, she hurried into the hall and saw that the kitchen was now crowded with shadowy figures.
In the deep gloom, over a dozen shapes were standing with downcast faces, shifting aimlessly from side to side and whispering to themselves in soft, mournful whispers.
At the sound of Edie's approach, the spectres lifted their heads and murmured faintly.
‘Edie has returned? the rippling voices chanted, ‘the child is come back to us?
Slowly, the dark crowd raised their shadowy hands and reached out to her, beseechingly.
The girl chuckled as she gazed at each troubled face, by the power that was steadily growing within her she was holding and keeping them in the living world. These forlorn, earth-bound souls were now her family and she was both their captor and fierce guardian. Then an exultant cry sprang from her lips as she recognized a morose, bulky figure that was staring around uncertainly.
The shade of Arnold Porter looked blankly at his surroundings before uttering a pitiful sob. ‘What the bleedin’ ‘ell happened?’ he murmured. ‘Why am I here? I should be someplace else, why can't I leave? How did I get here?
Edie only laughed in reply and danced before the distressed spectre of the dead air-raid warden. With every raid her ethereal family grew. No longer would she be alone, no longer would the darkness be silent. They would remain with her for ever and in that, her scrambled thoughts found comfort.
Then her peculiar, disjointed mind jumped like a scratched record and a new thought gripped her.
With her giggling laughter rising into the night, she pushed through the congregating souls as if they were nothing more than clouds of vapour and hurried out into the bomb site.
Chapter 9 The Stokes Family
Into a sky that was filled with winding threads of wood smoke, a bleary dawn was edging, gilding the ghostly shapes of the barrage balloons that floated way in the distance and climbing decorously up the church steeples which towered over the small terraces of the East End.
Barker's Row was one of the few streets that had as yet escaped the bombing. It was a quaint, almost unreal place whose inhabitants took great pride in the appearance of their homes. Doorsteps were swept every morning and, although crosses of gummed tape covered the windows, the panes gleamed like crystal.
In the boxroom of number twenty-three, Neil Chapman waited for the door to close behind him, then turned on the bear in his hands.
‘Now!’ he demanded. ‘You tell me exactly what is going on here!’
Ted glanced at the door and cocked an ear as he heard heavy footsteps descend into the hall.
The past few hours had flown by in a confusing whirl and the bear blinked in a daze as he tried to gather his usually sharp wits and sort them into order.
After fleeing from the corpse of Arnold Porter, he and Neil had been found by two of the dead warden's colleagues and taken to an ARP hut until the raid was over.
It was there, in the dim light of a naked, low-wattage bulb, surrounded by official posters and spare injury labels, that Ted had recognised one of the men and stifled a gasp of surprise at the sight of him—much to Neil's consternation.
When Wailing Winnie had sounded, that same man had brought the boy back to his home and it was here that Ted now found himself and he didn't like it, not one little bit.
‘Well?’ Neil snapped. ‘What's got into you? Why did you tell me to keep quiet and act dumb back at that hut? Now this Mr Stokes thinks I've been bombed out and hit my head in the process. What are we doing here? This is crazy—we ought to be out there looking for Josh! Where is he—where's my brother?’
But the bear wasn't listening to him. Ted's glass eyes were roving about the small bedroom, gazing mournfully at the collection of old toys ranged carefully upon the chest of drawers and the stack of film magazines piled below the window.
‘It weren't supposed to be like this,’ he murmured despondently, ‘it was meant to be easy an’ quick, that's all I agreed to. What are they playing at? Them daffy broads have got somethin’ cookin’ of their own—I mighta guessed they weren't doin’ this outta the kindness of their hearts!’
His dismal voice trailed off as he spotted a crumpled telegram on the floor and covered his face with his paws.
‘I dunno if I can take this a second time,’ he whimpered. ‘Why do this to me? Son of a- do they wanna torment me or what? If I'd known this was gonna be so tough...’
Puzzled by the bear's morose behaviour, Neil sat on the bed next to him. ‘Something's gone wrong, hasn't it?’ he said. ‘Back there in the hut, you saw something, didn't you? What happened? Is it to do with Josh?’
Ted stared at the boy keenly and in a grim
voice told him: 'We're too early, kid. We popped outta that gateway ahead of schedule, seeing that Stokes guy was the first clue, then I saw the date on the paper the Warden was readin’. Yesterday was the twenty-sixth of February, that's no use to me nor no one—leastways, I hope it ain't.’
‘I don't understand,’ Neil said. Too early for what?’
Staring down at his stumpy feet, Ted wrinkled his nose and wondered how much he could reveal to the boy.
‘OK,’ he finally began. ‘If it's gonna keep you happy I'll say this much an’ no more. If you don't like it then it's just too bad—I got my orders, I'm sorry if this has been tough on you but I figure it'll get a whole lot worse before we're done. All I can say is that, for the moment, your brother is fine and safe.
‘I told ya time is a tricky gizmo to tinker with. Well, that hocus-pocus we went through was a shortcut to the past—don't ask me where it came from ‘cos I won't tell ya. All you need to know is that them babies ain't easy to rustle up—takes years of plannin’ to get the right dispensations and a whole mess of one vital ingredient, which is in mighty short supply where we come from. Anyhows, these time gadgets gotta be approached right—the longer you wait before jumpin’ in, the further back they go. Think of it like a drill, the more you drill the deeper the hole. That plain enough fer you?’
‘I haven't a clue what you're on about.’
The bear gave an irritated grunt. ‘Little Joshy went through first, yeah? Well, where he'll pop out is now bound to be somewhere in the future ‘cos you took so long debatin’ what to do. All that while the gateway was boring farther back, past the point where it dropped off your kid brother.’
‘It's very confusing.’
‘An’ highly specialised, they can't have just anyone punchin’ holes in the cloth of time, you know—you gotta restrict that kinda stuff.’
Neil chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. ‘So all we have to do is wait until Josh turns up. When is that going to be?’
The bear sniffed and looked away. ‘He's due on the third of March,’ he answered.