by Valija Zinck
A little later, she hesitated on the narrow road on the outskirts of Little Pilling and gazed over a harvested wheat field. She started to wonder whether this was the right way after all. There were no people in sight to ask for directions: the few watery-brown one-storey houses with chain-link fences appeared to be deserted. She didn’t really want to go ringing on doorbells, especially not so early in the morning.
Bam! Boom! A hefty shove from below set her catapulting forward. Penelope flew off the pavement and landed a good distance away into the stubble field. She nearly fell over, but managed to steady herself, holding her arms out for balance. ‘Thanks for the directions,’ she called to the road. Her voice had come back, at least. ‘But couldn’t you have been a little bit gentler?’
No answer. That was always the case at this time of day, but it was a pity all the same – Penelope would have found it comforting to hear a familiar voice.
She started to cross the stubble field towards the forest.
28
Blackslough
The small forest Penelope was crossing had a bright and friendly feel. She inhaled the resinous scent of the trees as she walked, taking care to continue in a straight line as far as possible. It wasn’t long before the little forest gave way to an embankment. Penelope paused and looked down the slope. Her heart leapt: she was here. Down there were the first houses. Down there was Blackslough.
Slipping more than walking, she made her way down the sparsely grown slope and followed the gravel road it led to, which took her to the outskirts of the village. There was no one to be seen except for a small Jack Russell terrier jumping up against a fence. Penelope felt in her pocket for the tube of superglue, hoping she’d be able to find and seal all the postboxes quickly, as her feet were aching. She hadn’t had to walk very far, but her poor night’s sleep combined with the newly dull and heavy feeling in her limbs meant she already felt exhausted. Chickens flocked in the narrow yard of a brick house nearby, then a large woman stepped out of the house and looked at Penelope in surprise.
Don’t be a wuss, Penelope. Be brave, it’ll save you a lot of running around, Penelope thought to herself. ‘Hello,’ she said to the woman. ‘Can you tell me where the nearest postbox is?’
The woman looked at Penelope appraisingly, as if she was deciding whether it was all right to speak to a girl who clearly wasn’t from the village. Penelope smiled her friendliest smile and held the woman’s gaze. The woman’s drooping mouth quirked upwards slightly.
‘The nearest one’s outside the post office. If you go round the bend and cross the road, you’ll see a square on the right with the building society and the village shop. The post office is inside the shop and there’s a postbox right outside the front door.’ She turned away. Penelope thanked the woman – or rather, she thanked the front door, as the woman had already disappeared inside.
The little shop had a sign in the door – it wasn’t opening for another hour. Well, that was OK – Penelope needed time to sabotage the postboxes. Beside the postbox right outside the shop there was a transparent display case on the wall, containing the community bulletin, the opening times of the town hall and a map of the village. A red arrow on the map said, You Are Here, and the other arrows showed the locations of the primary school, church, picnic area and so on. The map also revealed that Plasow Road had a public toilet, New Lane had a war memorial and – Penelope couldn’t believe her luck – Pond Place and Rose Street each had a postbox. She marched off.
‘Wall Street’ would have been a better name than ‘Rose Street’, thought Penelope, as she passed the fifth garden wall as tall as a man. People round here obviously didn’t like anyone looking into their gardens, which was helpful for Penelope, as she didn’t want people looking out from their gardens and seeing her either. Otherwise they’d have seen a brown-haired girl unscrewing a giant tube of superglue, smearing the contents hastily into the letter slot and firmly holding the flap on it. They would have seen the girl rattle the flap experimentally, the flap refusing to budge, and the girl smiling in satisfaction and triumphantly slipping away.
Well, Mr Gardener wouldn’t be posting any letters in the Rose Street postbox today, at any rate – and half an hour later Penelope had seen to it that he wouldn’t get anywhere with the Pond Place postbox either, nor the one at the post office.
29
Waiting
Penelope stood in the village square on one leg. Then on tiptoe. Then on the other leg. She was bored. When would this stupid shop finally open? Surely it had been well over an hour since she’d read the sign! How long was she going to have to stand around in this square until her father came – or until anyone came at all? There probably weren’t any customers in this Blackslough anyway, just walls and distrustful women feeding chickens.
‘Practising to be a dancer when you grow up, are you?’
Penelope jumped. A man with a moustache was leaning his bike against the wall of the shop.
‘No . . . I . . . I’m just bored.’ Penelope’s face reddened. She hadn’t heard the man approaching.
‘Bored – hmph! Wish I had time to be bored,’ the man muttered. A key clinked in his hand. He opened the bars on the door of the shop and disappeared inside. Now we’re in business, thought Penelope. The post office is open! The minute the first customer comes, full concentration.
The first customer was an old lady with a walking stick. She was shuffling so slowly across the square that Penelope had plenty of time to observe her. Well, this obviously wasn’t her father. She was a woman, for one thing – and besides, she was at least ninety, if not a hundred. She disappeared into the shop and emerged after a while with a newspaper and a small bag of sweets. Next came a mother with twins in a twin buggy, and then a bright-red sports car drove up. A lady with short light-blonde hair stepped out, her stiletto heels clacking on the pavement as she tottered up to the postbox. She tried to open the flap, realized it was stuck, and disappeared into the shop.
Penelope’s stomach rumbled. She was about to fish her second cheese roll out of her backpack when the woman in the high-heeled shoes emerged from the shop. Her phone was ringing. The woman was about the same age as Penelope’s mother. Her red-painted fingernails gleamed in the sunlight as she pulled her phone out of her handbag. She glanced briefly at Penelope, then typed something into her phone before climbing back into her car and roaring off down the street.
Penelope’s stomach suddenly plummeted as a possibility popped into her head: what if her father didn’t turn up in person to post the letter? What if he’d sent his new lady friend instead? ‘Holy swamp cow! I’m such an idiot!’ she said out loud to the empty square. Why hadn’t she gone into the shop and watched to see who posted a grey envelope? If the blonde lady had been the new Mrs Gardener, posting a letter on behalf of her husband, then this whole trip had been a waste of time . . .
Her stomach growled again. Penelope fished out the second cheese roll, unwrapped it and chewed it slowly. Between bites, her tongue clicked furiously. Her father’s letter all those years ago had said that he’d met a woman who was ‘the same as him’ – in which case . . . Penelope sighed in relief, brushing a strand of brown hair out of her face. ‘It couldn’t have been the stiletto woman, because I didn’t feel anything. No shivers across the back of my neck, no chills, nothing whatsoever,’ she murmured to herself. Phew, I can relax again, she thought. I’m just going to have to be patient.
30
The Man with theFish Eyes
The Blackslough church clock struck twelve, and the midday sun beat down on the village square. Penelope sat in the inadequate shade of a maple tree, her eyes closed, feeling tired and heavy. Everything in her wanted to just lie down and go to sleep, right here on the paving stones. If her father didn’t turn up soon, she was likely to sleep right through his arrival, despite any neck shivers!
Voices woke Penelope from a doze.
‘A Coke, I’m allowed Coke now.’
‘Big deal, I’ve been al
lowed it for ages, you
baby.’
‘I’m getting some sour snakes.’
Running sandals on the tarmac, laughter and shouting, colourful rucksacks, younger children tugging and shoving each other, and a teacher in a pale linen dress . . . Penelope watched through half-open eyes, as if through a haze. Well, a school class definitely can’t be my father, so I don’t need to go into the shop just yet, she thought blurrily, letting her eyes close again.
Whether she had heard the squealing tyres first, or the car door closing, or whether the first thing she noticed was the fleeting tremor over her back of her neck and the shiver down her spine, Penelope could not say. Someone like me, someone like me . . . the words were beating out a rhythm in her head and her eyes snapped open for real.
Someone like me!
She jumped up. There he was, right in front of her!
Penelope recognized the person like her immediately. It wasn’t exactly difficult: he was holding a familiar grey envelope. He was climbing out of a large silver car and wearing a smart suit. The T-shirt beneath his suit jacket was pale violet, and a black cloth was tied tightly around his head. Penelope guessed he was hiding red hair beneath the turban. He was approaching the postbox with a strutting gait like a cockerel’s, reaching into his jacket pocket. He removed a spectacle case, flicked it open, and perched a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses on his nose. Where have I seen them before? Penelope wondered, finding the sunglasses oddly familiar. He swept past Penelope and her heart leapt. She stared at his back and tried it out, mouthing the word ‘Dad’. But it didn’t feel right. It didn’t fit, it didn’t work somehow. Besides, she really didn’t want to call him by that name, not when he’d sent them such vile letters.
Her father had arrived at the postbox and was trying to post the grey letter. He tugged at the flap but, of course, it was stuck.
‘Dratted piece of rubbish! It’s not working!’ he spat, and went into the shop. Penelope followed.
It was deafeningly noisy, packed with the class of young schoolchildren Penelope had heard outside. The man who might be Penelope’s father joined the queue at the counter.
‘Dad.’ Penelope tried the word out again, but it rolled off the man as if he was a cold, slippery rock.
It’s not him! The thought shot through her head, firm and true. It can’t be! No, it simply can’t be! The fact that he’s got a grey envelope in his hand doesn’t mean a thing. Lots of people might send their post in envelopes like that. The grey envelope over there definitely isn’t our one. Penelope started to feel a little calmer. The man in the grey suit was simply someone of her own kind who happened to also be posting a grey envelope from Black-slough today. That was it. Yes, exactly. That had to be it.
If only I could see if the letter’s got our address on it, then I’d know for sure! But that was impossible, as the man in the grey suit was walking up to the counter at that very moment and passing the letter over to the shopkeeper. Penelope would have needed eyes on stalks to be able to read the sticker on the envelope – or, even better, eyes on flexible telescopic rods. Although . . .
Behind what’s behind, always lies what’s before. You need the below, if above you wish to soar. The words resounded through her head as if from a long way off. Hex videris, hex videris.
A blinding flash shot through Penelope. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself squealing aloud. She felt something dissolving inside her, or something separating, she couldn’t be sure which of the two it was. The thing, whatever it was, seeped out of her and slid through a stream of air right through the students, invisible, moving farther and farther forward towards the counter. It drifted weightlessly under the man’s grey soles, moved through them and into his feet, floated up his legs, then through his upper body, then through his neck, and finally into his head. Here it swirled gently back and forth, slowed its pace and finally settled behind the man’s eyes.
All of a sudden Penelope could see the man’s blue-veined hand as clearly as if it was her own. She could see his hand holding the envelope, she could see the sticker with To Lucia and Penelope Gardener on it, and she could see the waiting face of the moustachioed shopkeeper behind the counter, as if she was standing directly opposite him.
The shopkeeper accepted the letter and popped it in a tray next to the counter. Penelope started to feel dizzy. She wanted to go back to her own eyes, her own body. She’d seen the envelope now, after all – but she couldn’t break free, something was holding her, pulling her in. A dark place, a musty smell, greed, money . . .
‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ The voice of the teacher in the linen dress broke through to her. She was leaning over Penelope’s body and yet it was as if her voice were drifting down from far away. ‘Hey, are you OK?’ The teacher touched Penelope on the shoulder, and when she didn’t respond, shook her gently. Penelope felt the shaking, but she had to stay enveloped in that musty smell and find out what it meant . . . it felt important . . . she had to understand . . .
No! She didn’t have to find out anything – not like this. She couldn’t stay away from her body any longer; she had to return immediately. Otherwise, she knew instinctively, she would lose herself in another person’s eyes.
Sssssssssssssskkkk! Violently, Penelope tore the ‘something’ out of the man who might be her father. It jumped back into her own body, rough and fast. She coughed, her eyes flying open. Her head jerked uncontrollably to the side at the impact. She raised a hand and wiped her mouth.
‘Are your parents here?’ the teacher asked. ‘Or can I call someone for you?’ Her face showed signs of relief that Penelope was awake, but she continued to frown in concern. Schoolchildren crowded around Penelope, curiously.
‘Uh . . . thanks, but I’m OK,’ she stammered to the teacher, not really understanding what had happened. At that moment the man at the counter turned around. He yanked off his sunglasses and raked his eyes across the small shop, a haunted expression on his face. His gaze ran over the teacher, Penelope, and the other children, focusing on each for a fraction of a second. His expression became one of incomprehension. His narrow eyes were grey and cold, the colour of a dead fish. No, those weren’t the eyes Penelope knew from her old black-and-white photo!
The fish-eyed man’s lips moved slightly. His eyes scanned the crowd furiously once more, and finally came to rest on Penelope. For a moment he hesitated, as if wondering if he was thinking the right thing, then he pushed his way through the children towards her . . . and grabbed the redhaired boy standing behind her by the arm. The boy gave a shout.
‘What do you think you’re doing? Let go of my student at once!’ The teacher planted herself in front of the man, but he merely tightened his grip on the red-haired boy’s arm. The boy had turned very pale. Penelope sat still, her heart in her mouth. She could tell from the lack of tingling that the red-haired boy wasn’t magical at all – she guessed that while all magical people had red hair, not all red-haired people were magical! But why didn’t the man realize the little boy was ordinary?
‘I know it was you,’ the man growled, frowning. ‘It must have been, although you’ve hidden it somehow. How dare you? I’ll show you how it feels . . .’
‘You will not show anyone anything in here, Mr Seller. Please leave my shop immediately,’ the shopkeeper shouted from the counter.
The fish-eyed man blinked.
‘Did you hear me, Mr Seller? Let go of that child immediately and leave my shop at once or I will call the police!’
The shopkeeper came out from behind the counter and made his way through the terrified schoolchildren.
Seller was still glaring at the red-haired boy, but slowly his grip relaxed and he let go. ‘It was a mix-up,’ he growled suddenly, glancing around the room once more and shoving his way outside.
Penelope wished she could stay here safely in the shop, with the teacher, the shopkeeper and all the children, but she knew she had to follow that guy. Right away. He had the wrong eyes, and he was call
ed Seller, not Gardener. But he had the right letter, so he must have some connection to her father.
31
Pursuit
Outside, Seller was hurrying to his car. Penelope ducked behind a row of parked cars and watched him reverse from his parking space and drive across the square. She ran after him as fast as she could – but unfortunately that was not very fast, because the combination of her dyed, leaden hair and completing the Hex videris spell had totally exhausted her. The heaviness within her felt even heavier.
Luckily, a huge truck was blocking the silver car’s exit from the square. Once she had caught up, it was easy for her to follow the car at a trot while the slow-moving truck trundled along in front of it. But the truck turned off a short distance afterwards, and the engine of the silver car roared. It sped away, leaving Penelope following breathlessly.
‘Oh, road! Please, road, I need to stay on that fish-eyed guy’s tail!’ she cried. ‘Please help me quickly, it won’t be far.’
The road didn’t reply, and Penelope stamped on the tarmac. ‘I know, I know – you have your own laws, and all of that . . . but if I don’t get behind him right away, then . . . then . . . then . . .’ She sank down on to the road. ‘Please,’ she whispered, her lips almost touching the tarmac. ‘Why won’t you help me?’
‘Spend a lot of time talking to the ground, do you?’ A gangly boy wearing green trainers brought his skateboard to a halt right next to Penelope’s head. She looked up at him, feeling a little foolish.
‘I’ve lost something.’
‘Money? Earring? Lippie?’ asked the boy, with a crooked grin.
‘A car.’ Penelope stood up.
‘Losin’ a car’s no biggie. Losin’ a board would be a biggie.’