by Ben Jeapes
But, by the time he had accumulated a small pile, the witch had seen enough Robertness to start work herself and she did it much better. She could bring together the finer-grained items: favourite colours, tastes, feelings; and of course their opposites, the things Robert disliked or feared or hated. They were all him, and each thing had a further chain of items linked to it so they could all be retrieved together.
Now Ted learned off her, and he could start to dig even deeper than that. He found influences no one would ever have guessed at in life. The time the kitten Mr Furry had scratched Robert on the hand, making him forever afraid of the cat. The pastels on the walls of his room that had so entranced him as a baby, meaning that some colours would always soothe him for the rest of his life. Warm and red-lit in his mother’s womb, dimly hearing the vibrations of their dad’s beloved Beethoven that would shape the future Robert’s own taste in music.
Together Ted and the witch burrowed as far as they could go, right down to the genetic legacy of Robert’s parents: the base plate for everything else that shaped him.
It did occur to Ted that with a little re-engineering he could build a better brother, all strength and no weakness; but he doubted the witch would allow that, and it would be way more complicated, and besides, he loved Robert as he was. Any tampering would mean that what they brought back would no longer be the real thing. So, slowly but surely they rebuilt Ted’s nine-year-old brother, from scratch, exactly as he should have been.
When they had finished, the Robert-object hung in front of them, assembled out of a billion smaller memories and ideas and concepts. It was lifeless but it was bursting with the potential of life. All it needed was something to put it in.
Ted looked triumphantly at the witch. He was on a roll and he had unfinished business.
“One down, one to go!” Then he saw how the witch looked at him. “What?”
“You cannot get your friend back.”
“Yeah? Watch me!”
“Dude, it won’t work.”
It wasn’t the witch who spoke. Ted frowned at the old man, who had yet to come any closer. The word ‘dude’ ought not to come out of the mouth of an ancient-looking wizard.
“Look, I’m going to and you can’t stop me!”
“Nope. We can’t. Not here – um, that’s right, isn’t it?” The old man seemed to glance at the witch for approval. Ted had no idea what weird relationship existed between these two, and didn’t care. As far as he was concerned he had just got carte blanche. The old guy was about to say something else, but Ted was ahead of him. He knew how to do this on his own now. A mental twitch, and he had grown again to dominate the sky of meta-Salisbury. After a moment, the witch shot up to join him. Her lips, if such a thing were possible, were pursed even more tightly.
“The only way you will accept the harsh truth is to try. How will you do this? His body is smashed beyond the ability to sustain life.”
“Then, I, uh …” No way was he going to admit defeat. Not when he was so close. “Then I fix it. It’s just a case of putting things back together, right?” He had dim memories from GCSE Biology of cell death, necrosis, all the things that set in the moment oxygen stopped happening. Arse to that. He could reverse it. “And then I, uh …” He made vague gathering motions with his hands. “Pull him together, like I did for Robs, and I put him into the body.”
She stood back and opened a hand in a ‘go ahead’ gesture. Ted dived back into meta-Salisbury.
He and Stephen had lived on opposite sides of the same road all their lives. He immediately identify and pick up a thousand different objects that were his old friend. He grinned in triumph as he started to assemble them together.
“See?”
“Very good,” she admitted with grace, “but not yet enough.”
“No, but I’m working on that–”
It was the same as with Robert. He couldn’t just assemble a rough sort of Stephen-robot. He had to get deep down into the very essence of his friend, find everything that had made Stephen unique and valued. He prepared to dive down into meta-Salisbury again – and he realised, suddenly, he didn’t know where to go.
Without thinking he raised himself up again to be a giant that filled the sky. The witch came up beside him as he scanned the city below. There had to be more Stephen down there! Somewhere?
“He was not your brother. You knew him well, but not as well as someone with the bond of family. You were able to find Robert because he is so similar to you but you could search for a hundred years and never assemble enough to create a new Stephen.”
“I knew him well enough!” Doubt flickered deep in Ted’s heart and he had to raise his voice to keep it down there. “I knew ... I knew his birthday! I knew, uh, his favourite colour. He got hay fever. He had a scar above one eye. He got it on the dodgems. He was allergic to penicillin. He ... uh ... he–”
“Do you know why the thief chose him to be his vessel? Of all the young men in the bloodlines, do you know what it was about him that made him suitable?”
“Uh – no.” Ted looked sideways at her. “Do you?”
If she knew the answer, she dodged the question.
“If you don’t know that, how do you presume to know enough about him to rebuild him? Besides, there is one further obstacle to your plan.”
“Yeah? What?”
“He is already here.”
They had shrunk back down to normal size without Ted noticing. She took his shoulders and turned him to face the old man.
“Hi, Ted.”
Ted looked to the left and the right of the old man, then at the man himself.
“Balls. That’s not Stephen. No offence.”
“Is too and none taken.” The old man took a couple of steps forward. “He, uh … he swapped with me, Ted. This is how he was … Look, what can I say to convince you? Want me to talk to you about STOOPID? Or what else? We’ve known each other for sixteen years. There’s things only you and I know. Go on. Test me.”
The voice was an old man’s but the tone, and above all the look in the eyes …
“Stephen?” Ted whispered.
“’Fraid so.”
Ted rallied.
“So what’s the problem? You can come back with me …” He remembered the crumpled thing on the ground. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. There’s nothing for me to come back into. Kind of an own goal, showing you how to do that.”
The first intimations of an awful reality began to loom over Ted’s head. He fought it back with a desperate smile and a weak joke.
“Now I know you’re a fake. Stephen, talking sprot?”
Sprot was their own private joke, an indication of how much either of them actually cared about the correctly spelt article. The old man – Stephen – half smiled, looking down at the ground.
“Yeah. Who’d have thought?”
Silence.
“So … you’re stuck here?”
“Well, not here here.” Stephen’s face took on the look Ted knew so well: his friend, getting animatedly interested in something. “I’ve got a really comfy, uh, tower to live in, back in, uh, this lady’s, uh, version of the world. Apparently. But she says I can stay and … Ted, the way everything works – it’s STOOPID! STOOPID is, like, a law of the universe, it’s how things are, it’s how they do it–”
Ted bit on something that was like a laugh and a sob.
“You want to stay and learn it, don’t you?”
“Hell yeah! And I know for a fact I’ve got the head for it …”
That embarrassed look again. Stephen glanced away, then back.
“I saw my mum die,” he said very quietly.
“Uh. Yeah. Me too. Sorry.”
“So this is worth it, if it means we got him.” He tugged at the pointed forelock between his eyes. “But I am totally losing this.” He waved down at the robes. “And these.”
More silence.
“So we … can we … stay in touch?” Ted asked in a small voice.
“Nope.”
They stared at each other.
“Fuck.” Ted put every ounce of feeling into the one syllable.
“Yeah. Total wank.”
“Arse.”
“Bollocks.”
Ted felt his mouth twitching into a smile.
“Poo.”
“Fart.”
“Bum.”
“Wee wee.”
They shared the obligatory ‘hurr-rr-rr’, and then the mood drained away like water in sand. Ted studied the old man’s face. This couldn’t be his last memory of his friend.
“Can I see you like you, uh, used to be? Can I see you like Stephen?”
They both glanced at the witch, who moved an eyebrow in her way of giving a ‘why not’ shrug.
And there Stephen was. Hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, slightly embarrassed look on his face. His eyes met Ted’s but the rest of him seemed turned away, not wanting to be there. Stephen had a wry smile stamped on his lips but Ted saw them tremble, and he saw the near panic that pressed through the smile. Stephen was on the verge of tears, both exhilarated and terrified at the thought of staying with the witch.
Stephen pointed at his face.
“Brave, huh?
“Totally.”
But Ted could feel his own face crumpling with the inevitable fact that at some point, and soon, this conversation would end. He felt that he was hanging over a dark pit of bereavement, and any moment now he would let go and tumble down towards the stark fact that Stephen was not coming back.
“Arse,” Ted whispered. “Why did he have to choose you?”
Stephen came slowly forward and stood just inches away. Then he reached out and took Ted’s hands.
“Well, since you ask, and since I'm already being so brave ... He chose me because I love you, Ted.”
“Yeah, well …” Ted forced a nervous laugh. “I guess … I mean … but …”
Still holding Ted’s hands, Stephen took another step forward and gazed into his face. Ted stared at him and felt the instinctive barriers of denial falling away.
“And he knew I would never do anything about it.”
If Ted could have said anything at all, it would have come out something like “?”
“But that doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“?”
And Stephen leaned forward, and Ted felt his lips brush his own. Stephen grinned, though his eyes streamed.
“Something to remember.”
Ted didn’t even bother with “?” Right then, he could not have said anything even if Stephen had just asked his name.
The witch broke into the moment.
“Go back now, Ted, and take care of the living.”
Ted broke out of the spell, stared at her, stared at Stephen. And then he flung himself at his friend and pulled him into the hardest hug he could, and just had time to feel Stephen returning it when he fell back into darkness.
*
Without the slightest sense of transition, he was lying on the cold, hard ground next to the car. Zoe was supporting him with her arm, and Sarah was rubbing his hand and saying his name over and over again.
“Ted? Ted! Wake up!”
He blinked up at her through eyes that were suddenly blurred with tears. Grief was a heavy weight that hung off his heart. “How long did that take?”
“About thirty seconds,” Zoe said. “What were you doing?”
He closed his eyes and blinked the tears away. Where to start? But then there was a cough from the car and immediately the weight was gone. The witch had told him to take care of the living, and here the living were. He leapt to his feet as the cough turned into a moan and then a wail, and suddenly Robert was thrashing about in a panic and choking words through vocal chords that hadn’t been used for four years.
“Hey, Robs!” Ted crouched in the car door and grabbed his brother’s hands. Robert had been tugging at the seatbelt to get it off him. “Robs! It’s me, Ted!”
There was intelligence in Robert’s face! Awareness! Expression! Ted exulted at the sight. He had seen it before when the thief had masqueraded as his brother, but now that he saw the real thing, Ted wondered how he had ever fallen for the fake. This was Robert!
But it was Robert on the edge of panic. Eyes wide and staring, mouth gaping, needing just the right (or wrong) nudge to howl. The body was thirteen, the mind that was back in it was still nine: the age Robert had been the last time he had a mind. He had spent the last four years scattered in fragments throughout meta-Salisbury: he would have no memory of his time there. If his last memory was being in his room, and now suddenly he was here, Ted could see it would be upsetting.
“And Sarah’s here too–”
Sarah stuck her head past Ted.
“Hi, Robs!”
Robert stared at her and his head shook slowly from side to side. Then he suddenly sucked in a breath and Ted knew they were about half a second away from the howling.
“Okay, okay!” Ted said quickly. “I know we’re both a bit different to what you remember ... look, I’m going to call Mum, okay? Right? Promise not to scream?”
Robert nodded, very slowly. Ted backed away from the car, keeping eye contact, and dug his phone out of his pocket. He wondered where his mum was. Still at St Ossie’s, trying to get sense out of a policeman? Or back home, sobbing with heartbreak that her disobedient son had let her down yet again while Barry raged and ranted and prepared the grandmother of all groundings? Well, only one way to find out.
It rang three times and Ted winced at the torrent of words that came pouring out.
“Hi, Mum. Uh ... I’m in the Close and ... uh ... well, guess who’s with me?”
Chapter 30
Barry slammed the teacup down on the kitchen table, a gnat’s whisker away from rudeness.
“Thank you,” said Malcolm, as if this was the most normal thing in the world, and he picked the cup up to drink.
Ted and Sarah meekly sat and watched. Ted hadn’t insulted Sarah’s intelligence by telling her to keep quiet.
“So,” said Barry, in a let’s-try-one-more-time tone that was just one level above a seething tub of fury. “Ted called you.”
“He contacted me,” Malcolm agreed.
“Because the man he saw taking Robert away from St Ossie’s, he recognised from the shop.”
Malcolm glanced at Ted, who swallowed and spoke just above a dry whisper.
“I thought I recog–”
“You thought you recognised him from the shop.” Barry’s face began to twist into a sneer but it couldn’t quite hold up to Malcolm’s calm, level gaze.
“Obviously, if Ted had reason to believe someone was a regular customer, someone I knew, his first thought was to contact me,” Malcolm said.
“And you took Sarah because–”
“He couldn’t leave a child alone in the house,” Malcolm said reasonably. Ted earnestly shook his head to back Malcolm up. “I was a little surprised when I first saw her but, I have to say, I have become very impressed with Ted’s maturity and sense of responsibility.”
“But,” Barry almost shouted. Then it subsided to almost a whisper, pleading, addressed to Ted. “Why didn’t you tell the police? They were at St Ossie’s, weren’t they? Why did you have to go all Famous Five?”
Ted swallowed, looked at the floor, flushed a furious red.
“Didn’t think they’d believe me,” he muttered. “They’d look me up in their computer.”
God, this was the lamest story EVER, he thought, and only a total moron would believe a word of it ...
But Barry did believe it and it wasn’t because he was a total moron. Malcolm’s tone of voice made his words so reasonable. They just slid past all the mental barriers that might reject them and made his version of events so reasonable, so obvious that no one could doubt it. Ted sat back and marvelled at seeing a wizard at work.
*
The sheer parental euphoria of getting Robert back had meant the awkw
ard questions were postponed but, even then, common sense and the twinkle in Barry’s eye had told Ted that there would be a reckoning. They were over the moon to have Robert back but they weren’t just going to accept it quietly as a miracle.
Once they all got back home, he had had a shower and gone straight to bed – two things he badly needed to do. He might as well face the firing squad looking clean and rested. Which meant he lay under the duvet and looked blankly at the ceiling for a couple of hours, until his phone rang. He was a little surprised to see the shop’s name flash on the screen.
“Hello ...?”
“Ted. Good.” Malcolm’s voice was crisp and businesslike. “Are you alone?”
“For the moment.”
“Zoe has just got back from the police station, where she went to give a statement about how she happened to find a dead body lying in the Close–”
Ted squeezed his eyes closed against another stab of grief. Knowing that Stephen’s body lay a short distance away while he waited to be picked up ... that had been hard. But what could Ted have done? Robert was the priority.
Zoe had waited until Ted and his family were out of the way before calling the cops. Ted’s mum and Barry didn’t need to know.
“Her account might not have been one hundred per cent factual,” Malcolm continued, “but under the circumstances that’s probably best.”
“Yeah,” Ted agreed dully.
“She’s told me everything that happened, and she has pointed out to me that in your present domestic situation you could well be in need of an advocate. You know I’m more accustomed to prosecuting but under the circumstances ... well, I wonder if you would accept me for the part.”
Ted felt the first squirming of a very faint hope.
“Uh–”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Are your parents in?”
“Barry is. Mum took my brother to the hospital to check up.”
“And where are you right now, exactly?”
“Right now, I’m exactly in bed.”
“Stay there until I come round, which will be about twenty minutes. Have you said anything at all on this subject?”
“Not yet.”