The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (38 page)

‘Whether it’s been by accident or design remains to be seen, Wolf,’ said Ambrose. ‘The point is that the grizzly events in King’s Hadow over the past few months have, as you’ve witnessed, caused leakages in the flow of Time. Whoever has been orchestrating them has let loose powers beyond their understanding. The Fear has stirred the Monster.’

‘But Seth says
the Shadow King is just a legend!’ Ralf protested, hoping for once that his friend was right.

Ambrose looked up from the
circular device he’d been examining. ‘I told you before, Wolf. All legends have a kernel of truth.’

‘
“At a time of War and Fear, the walls of the prison will be broken and the monster will return to seek its revenge’’
, ’ gasped Ralf. ‘It’s real? It’s going to happen now?’

A shadow flickered across Ambrose’s eyes and he paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘People create stories to explain things they don’t understand, Wolf. The legends of the fey, of fairies and wood nymphs, were born of brief glimpses of
the Hidden, magnified and distorted over time. The Shadow King legend is just the same. A long time ago, something terrible happened here.’

He reached forward to lay a hand on Ralf’s shoulder. When he spoke next he sounded sad and weary and, for the first time, his eyes showed all of his millions of years. ‘You have the memories of it if you search deep enough,’ he said gently.

Ralf frowned, trying to remember but nothing would come. Ambrose patted his shoulder and spoke again, more briskly now. ‘The important thing is that people of King’s Hadow believe the legend. Whether someone is deliberately endeavouring to fulfil the prophecy remains to be seen. Maybe it began as an accident? Or perhaps there are a number of factors here working together? Whichever is the case, the conditions for death, destruction and the end of all things have been created. That’s why you were dragged back here.’

Ralf gave a half smile. ‘Alfie’ll be relieved. All this time he’s been thinking it was his fault.’

‘It
was
an extreme method of getting a new hat!’ Ambrose chuckled. ‘After all my dire warnings, he wasn’t quite as cautious as I hoped he’d be. But no, Alfie can relax on that score. I knew that something was off kilter back in the tent that day but I had no idea the situation was as grave as it is.’ He frowned again and turned the dial in the middle of the circular contraption in his lap.

‘No, you’d have been pulled back here sooner or later. To this place. This Time.’ His blue eyes, Ralf noticed looked quite cold. ‘This is the battleground. Right here. And soon.’

‘So what do we have to do?’ Ralf asked.

‘You have to identify the final Natus and ensure they do what they’re supposed to do.’

‘But Ambrose, it’s impossible!’ Ralf cried. ‘These Echoes don’t know how important they are.’

Ambrose saw the hopeless expression on Ralf’s face and gave a wan smile. ‘I know and that’s where Fate comes in to play. I cannot interfere and all you can do is try. Try, as you did before, to keep the universe unfolding as it should.’

The responsibility crashed onto Ralf’s young shoulders like an avalanche. It seemed a ridiculously tall order for five kids.

‘Yeah, right,’ he laughed. ‘And what do you want us to do after breakfast?’

‘You can do it!’ Ambrose urged, shaking Ralf encouragingly. ‘I have every faith in all of you!

‘But we’re running blind!’ Ralf cried. ‘We don’t know who to help or how to help them!’

Ambrose nodded sympathetically. ‘Ordinarily The Book would direct us but now it’s worse than useless. There is something I might try, though,’ he was encouraged when he saw the look on Ralf’s face. ‘I’ve been working on automatic for the last couple of millennia but I can still run on manual!’ He patted the wheel in his lap as if it were a small animal. ‘I can use the Ankah! Once you’ve learned, you never forget. It’s like riding a bike.’

Ralf had absolutely no idea what the man was talking about but sensed that this was not the time for questions and kept quiet. Ambrose closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

‘Listen to what I say now,’ he instructed. He opened his eyes again and focused all his attention on the wheel he was holding. This then, must be the Ankah, Ralf thought. What was it? What did it do? Ambrose’s fingers roamed the surface of the wheel and Ralf saw now the central section was moveable, an intricately carved dial. Ambrose turned it and studied the minute shapes around the wheel’s edge. The man seemed to go into a kind of trance and when he spoke next his voice was hoarse.

‘Mother Nature is the key. Her delicate balance has been disturbed and she fights against it. Watch the animals, the birds and creatures of the sea, they tell of what is to come.
So, too, do those close to the Veil. Listen to those that remain unheard. They too have their story and there is often truth in madness.

‘There will come a time of despair but you must carry on when all seems lost. And there will come a time when the cir
cle is broken, when Five becomes Four. You must not be disheartened, but continue to the end of your journey, though the path has forked.

‘Take courage. The
Hidden are watching, although they may not aid you openly, they are a light in the darkness. There are allies where you least expect them.

‘Your P
owers give you strength. Your weapons provided. Use them well.’ Ambrose’s eyes refocused and his voice took on its normal tone. ‘Not bad, eh?’ he said, pleased with himself. ‘First time since the Romans were here and I think I got some good stuff!’ Ralf looked at him helplessly and Ambrose frowned.

‘That eye really does look shocking,’ he said. ‘How many times have you hit your head now? Three?’

Ralf nodded.

‘Ha!’ Ambrose slapped his thigh in obvious delight. ‘Well, keep ‘em peeled, eh?’ he winked. ‘The colours will change but use what you’ve been given.’

Ralf looked at him in total confusion. ‘What?’

But Ambrose was distracted by a soft pattering sound from behind him and Ralf realised that the sand in the hourglass was now moving rapidly from top to bottom. He watched Ambrose thrust the Ankah in to a fold of his voluminous cloak and clapped his hands.

‘But what does all of that mean?’ Ralf asked desperately.

‘Look and you will see,’ Ambrose said matter-of-factly but then he frowned sudde
nly. ‘You have discovered your Skills, I suppose?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Then practise them!’ urged Ambrose, hauling Ralf to his feet. ‘Hone your abilities! They are ancient, precious Gifts and the most important weapons you will have in the coming struggle. Refine them until they are second nature, but do not be seen!’ He glanced at the hourglass and the water that surrounded them, placed a hand on Ralf’s shoulder and looked at him appraisingly. ‘You can still swim?’

Ralf nodded.

‘Good! Now, out of the boat!’

‘What?’

Ambrose pointed to the almost empty hourglass. ‘Time’s up!’ he yelled and bundled Ralf over the side.

Suddenly, Ralf was underwater, buffeted by the tide. He hadn’t had chance to take a breath and for a moment he panicked. Then his feet met shingle and he burst into the a
ir, a human waterfall.

The rowing boat and Ambrose were gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

True Colours

Ralf woke feeling like death on a dish. He stumbled down to the kitchen to find Hilda already in her Sunday hat.

‘Six inches of rain over night,’ she said, struggling to pull on her galoshes. ‘But my guess is that’s the last of it. Spring’s been a long time coming but I think it’s finally here.’

‘What time is it?’ he asked groggily,

‘Just after eight,’ said Hilda, looking up. ‘Oh my good Lord! Your eye!’

‘Eh?’

‘What’s happened to your eye?’

He blinked at her but couldn’t really focus on answering because of what he was seeing. Hilda was enveloped in light. No, she was producing it! Ralf shook his head as he tried to make sense of it. All around his sister, extending a good six inches out from her body was
, a shimmering halo of colour, which ranged from palest blue to an extraordinary shade of violet. She rushed to him and pulled him towards the mirror.

‘Look!’

The mirror showed Ralf what she meant. The left hand side of his face was a particularly vivid shade of purple. His eyelid, up to the brow bone, was swollen like a ripe plum.

‘Oh, yeah,’ he said experimentally frowning then raising his eyebrows and wincing. ‘I had a bit of a close encounter with a tree yesterday.’ His eyes moved to her shocked face reflected in the mirror. ‘Don’t worry, Hild. It’s only a bruise. It’ll go down.’

Hilda’s lips went thin and she grasped his shoulders. ‘Not the face, you mooncalf! The eye! Your eye’s changed colour!’

It was true. His left eye was no longer deep blue. Over night, the colour had been leeched out of it. It was now a pale, almost silver, grey. He rubbed at the eye but it made no difference. He blinked at Hilda but that made no difference either. If he made his vision slide out of focus, he could still see the light around her with his changed eye. She looked devastated by the change in him and, hand to her face, the colours around her wavered and dimmed. He rushed to hug her.

‘It’s fine,’ he smiled. ‘I’m not bothered at all. It makes me look quite tough.’

After much protestation, and after he’d eaten a gargantuan breakfast to reassure her, Hilda was eventually convinced that Ralf was, despite his odd new appearance, all right. Hilda spent the rest of the day clucking over him, bathing his eye in salt water, tending his cuts and bruises and polishing the trophy, whilst Ralf marvelled at the glow surrounding her and wondered, half seriously, whether the pressure was finally getting to him.

Though Hilda’s ministrations eased his soreness and cured his headache, they didn’t (as Ralf knew they wouldn’t) have any effect on his new eye colour. And, when he opened the door to Leo on Monday morning, his friend did a double take and gave a low whistle. Ralf felt like doing the same. Leo had a colour round him too. Like Hilda’s it pulsed with light but whilst hers was the colour of summer evening, Leo’s was autumn leaves.

‘Do you think it’s permanent?’ Leo asked.

Ralf could hardly talk for staring at his friend. His colours were so vivid! ‘I don’t know,’ he breathed, eventually. ‘But I’m not worried about how it looks. I’m too freaked out by what I can see!’

As they walked up to the station, Ralf told him of the Time Stop, his meeting with Ambrose and the change in his vision.

‘It’s all bouncing round my head in a jumble at the moment, though,’ he said. ‘I need to get it straight before I tell everyone, okay?’

‘No worries,’ said Leo. ‘No point having to go through it more than once, anyway. You sure you’re alright, though? You look pretty bashed up.’

Ralf nodded and, as they
walked to the station, gave him a running commentary on the spectrum of colours that now bombarded him.

‘See Alice Cheeseman over there?’ He pointed to a plaited girl, one of Alfie’s Crew, who was hurrying down the High Street and unfocussed his gaze. ‘She’s got loads of different shades, all swirling around her like it hasn’t made up its mind what colour it’s going to be!’  He gestured towards Hettie Timmins who was unlocking the Post Office door. ‘Very thin colour round her. Pale green.’

‘Weird,’ said Leo.

‘I suppose,’ said Ralf. ‘But it kinda feels right, you know? It’s like when you sometimes just get a feeling about someone. You either like them or hate them but you can’t really say why. Well, I can see that now! Actually see people’s characters!’

‘What about him?’ Leo asked when they reached the station, but Ralf just shook his head. However much he toyed with his focus, the stationmaster had no colour at all. Neither, he noticed, did many people on the train.

Of the ones who did, there seemed no end to the shades that surrounded them and Ralf could see immediately what they were like. There were sour old women of puce and acid yellow, short tempered men who scowled from within auras of flaming red, more small children who, like Alice Cheeseman, had yet to develop their true personalities and whose colours had not crystallised. What unnerved Ralf most, though, were the number of fearful people whose colours were thin and dimming.

Leo left him at Dark Ferry and he had the rest of the journey to muse on his strange new skill. Why did some people have it but not others? What did it mean?

Unsure how he’d be received by the other boys and feeling oddly vulnerable, Ralf walked into school with his jaw set firm. He kept his head down and arrived early at History to find Winters chalking up the day’s lesson on the blackboard.

‘Come in, Ralf,’ the master said, without turning.

Whoa
! Ralf froze in the doorway and adjusted his vision to get a better view. Winters had a shimmer and a half! The History Master’s colour was a silver cloak. It looked almost as though the man was standing in the centre of a star and Ralf had an urge to shade his eyes.

Suddenly realising how odd he must look staring with his mouth open, Ralf went to his desk and started to take out his books.

‘You’re leaving it then?’ Winters asked. He perched on the edge of his desk looking quizzical.

Ralf blinked into the brightness. ‘Sir?’

‘The white feather.’ He shrugged off Ralf’s astonishment with a mischievous smile. ‘I have a snoop in the desks every so often to check for knuckle dusters – and mint imperials if any one’s got ‘em.’

‘I didn’t want to carry it around,’ said Ralf.

‘It belongs in the waste basket.’

‘I – I wanted to keep it, sir. To remind me, I suppose.’

‘It was a shabby thing for someone to do, Osborne. And anyway, you won didn’t you? Showed them what you were made of. Jolly good finish, by the way.’

Ralf grinned. ‘Thanks.’

Winters held up a finger and wagged it in Ralf’s direction. ‘Bin it and forget it. That’s my advice. And put a cold fish on that. It’ll bring out the bruise.’

Ralf nodded as the first boys arrived and took their seats. Maybe he should do just that? Seth came in then and Ralf let out a breath at the deep royal blue that pulsed around him. He said something as he sat but Ralf was so wrapped up the brightness of his colour and the vivid shades surrounding some of his classmates that he could only mumble in reply. He was still staring round when he realised the mood in the room had abruptly changed.

‘Why aren’t you in France, sir?’

The question came mid-way through Winters’ introduction to the lesson and made the master start.

‘Did you think of that question all by yourself, Aston?’ Winters perched on the edge of his desk. The left-hand side of his face twitched involuntarily and there was a pulse of light from the colour that surrounded him.

‘A group of us were talking, sir, and we wondered. I mean, you’re younger than some of the fathers who’ve already gone.’ Aston’s colour had been a vibrant orange but it was tinged with darkness now. Swirls of shadow muddied the shade and Ralf watched, open mouthed, learning the colour vocabulary of the boy’s changing emotions.

‘Quite right. Only natural that you should wonder, I s-suppose,’ Winters replied. ‘I have not yet been called up. Teachers are low on the list because it is considered, by those in p-power, that we do a job of importance. Shall we move on?’ Winters reached for his chalk and Ralf saw that his fingers were trembling. His aura was thinning. Ralf frowned. Was it dimmer than before, too?

‘But you could join up, couldn’t you, if you wanted to?’ Ross Childs spoke this time, looking nervous ye
t exhilarated at his own daring but displaying no aura at all.

Seth threw Ralf a worried look and raised his eyebrows.

Winters sighed. Another twitch. ‘I could, as you say, do just that.’ The aura was definitely thinner. It was less silver now, more grey. Winters looked around the room letting his eye rest on each face in front of him. As he turned to the board he did a kind of shudder – the whole left side of his body seemed to convulse and then he was speaking again. ‘S-so...we were discussing the quarrel between Austria and S-Serbia, which had become increasingly more explosive since 1908.’ Ralf snatched up his pen and began to take rapid notes.

At the end of the lesson and, as the last boys were leaving, Ralf made his way to Winters’ desk to hand in his book. He was standing right there when Winters opened his drawer to reveal he had a white feather of his own. The entire left side of Winters’ body jerked. His left eye began to wink and his hands shook uncontrollably. Ralf took an involuntary step back as Winters’ aura flared white hot in anger then shrank to almost nothing, the barest trace of a line around his body.

‘Leave now, please Osborne.’

Ralf hesitated. Winters slammed the drawer shut and in one wild movement, swept everything on his desk to the floor. ‘LEAVE!’ 

‘Will said you’d hurt your eye but that’s’ a doozy,’ Seth said when Ralf caught up with him on his way to Physics.

‘Too complicated to go into now,’ said Ralf in a low voice. ‘Tell you later.’

‘Alright,’ Seth agreed easily. ‘Listen, I have to get to OTC after school, you wouldn’t go back and check on Winters, would you?’

Ralf nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say but when he got there at the end of the day, he knew Seth was right to have been worried. Winters sat hunched over a newspaper, hands shaking uncontrollably. The silver light that had pulsed from him earlier was now only a sparkling thread. He caught sight of Ralf just as he’d started to back out of the door.

‘O–Osborne?’

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. I forgot a book.’

The strain of talking seemed too much for the teacher because he just waved him into the room. Ralf fumbled at his desk for a minute or two but straightened up when he heard a shout from Winters, who’d thrown his fountain pen across the room. Ralf hurried to retrieve it.

‘Eighteen a-across,’ smiled Winters. ‘Sure it’s wrong. T– too easy.’

Ralf placed the pen and his books on top of the huge pile of paper on the front desk.

‘You came back to see how I was, didn’t you?’ Winters said.

Ralf wasn’t sure what to say.

‘You needn’t have, you know,’ Winters continued. ‘I’ll be p-perfectly all right. The st-stuttering I can cope with but,’ he held up his hands, ‘it’s the damned shakes that are annoying.’

‘Sir, I –’

Winters went on as if he'd not spoken. ‘Ypres 1917. Joined up as s-soon as I was old enough. I was quite keen the first time around, but since then I’ve rather lost my enthusiasm for killing p-people.’ He took in Ralf’s shocked expression and laughed wryly. ‘And, of course, there’s the fact that I don’t suppose I’d be much good at it anymore. Wasn’t that good at it before come to think of it, but I’m thirty-eight now. That’s pretty much over the hill, I’d say.’

‘Not really sir.’

‘You saw what happened at the church last summer, Osborne. I’m a bloody mess!’

Ralf was appalled at this outburst. ‘Sir –’

‘A grown man hallucinating, Osborne? It was bad enough when I got back from France, then I only s-saw friends who’d died. Now I’m seeing s-strangers from a variety of p-professions.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I saw a Nun the other day, Osborne! What does that tell you about my state of mind? Add that to the shakes – they come back in times of stress – and I’m a bit of a recipe for disaster.’ He laughed again but as he spoke Ralf saw the shadows building in his faint aura. ‘I’d think being shot at by Germans qualifies as a ‘time of s-stress’ wouldn’t you?’

Ralf found his voice. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

‘No reason why you should be. But, other than Seth, the boys don’t know.’ He met Ralf’s eye. ‘I’d like to keep it that way, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Off you t-toddle then.’

Ralf scooped up his things and left but paused outside the classroom door. It was difficult to tell over the noise of the Third Form leaving one of Asinus’ detentions but he could have sworn he heard something from the room he’d just left. Ralf’s innards seemed to freeze. Winters was crying.

Something inside him burst. The internal dam that had, until now, held back all his fear, confusion and the sheer, appalling weight of his worry gave way. Ralf turned and ran. Scattering Third Formers, he barrelled along the corridor, down the stairs to the main doors and burst through them with the force of a bolting horse. He didn’t care that boys were staring, that he was moving too fast to seem possible. He had to be alone.