The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (7 page)

‘The problem’s in the name, you see. In Britain they call me Old Father Time, but I have many other names too – Ambrose, or rather Ambrosius, was the name I was using when we first met. It means ‘immortal’. So do quite a few of my other names, as it happens  – Phoenix (flashy, I know, I usually save that one for special occasions), Aeon, Barinthus, Chronos –’

‘No way!’ Ralf exclaimed. That did it. The name was like an electric shock and Ralf’s heart thumped so loudly he was sure the others could hear it.

‘That’s the name, Wolf! I can see it means something to you!’ Ambrose clapped his hands in glee. ‘Now for the job. The job should bring it back! I am a Pilot, a navigator of sorts, you know, like the little tugs they use to guide the big ships into harbour.’ Ralf gave a slow nod and Ambrose, encouraged by this reaction went on. ‘Clear enough, I hear you say, except I don’t guide ships – it’s my job to navigate Time.’

‘I still don’t get you,’ said Alfie. He seemed to have lost his initial shyness and was now munching happily on an iced bun as he listened.

‘The idea’s simple,’ Ambrose explained. ‘My job is to make sure things happen as they are supposed to and all at the proper moment. I don’t like to brag, but I’ve been doing this – well, forever really – and I’m quite good at it. I follow the rules. And there are rules. It’s like I was telling you before, Valen. I see out the old and bring in the new. But I don’t make things happen. I don’t interfere with people’s choices.’

‘So you just stand by and watch people die,’ said Valen, accusingly. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘It’s Nature,’ said Ambrose. ‘Everything has its time. Even I can’t change that. I just keep things ticking over. Anyway, for a long time things went like clockwork – the first fifty million years or so were pretty dull, if you want the honest truth. But
The Battle of Darkling Vale changed everything.’

‘Battle?’ Ralf asked. The name seemed familiar.

‘Still nothing? Well, let’s see if I can’t give your minds a little jog there too...’ Ambrose strode across the tent to the tapestry on the far wall and extended a finger. What happened next made Ralf’s legs shake and he had to hold on to his cake to stop it falling to the floor. He heard gasps and cries of wonder from the others.

Where Ambrose’s finger had touched the surface of the tapestry a pool of bright colour formed. It flowed across the stitching like the ripples on a pond and where it touched, the picture came to life. In a matter of seconds Ralf was looking at something like a huge TV screen showing the scene busy with colour and life. Waves rolled, birds flitted across the bright sky, insects buzzed, miniscule stitched leaves swayed in a soft breeze, which somehow puffed from the wall to touch his shocked face.

‘That is bare magic!’ Alfie breathed.

The handle of Valen’s cup snapped off in her hand but Seth snorted.

‘Fibre Optics!’ He marched forward and pulled at the side of the tapestry to search for a power source.

Ambrose ignored him. ‘Look.’

At the right of the picture, a group of straight-backed figures emerged from the trees and stepped into a clearing. Dressed in soft hides, decorated intricately with beads and shells, they were both achingly familiar and yet unlike anything Ralf could ever have imagined.

‘Okay. Why are we looking at Native Americans now? Who are they – Sioux?’ Seth asked.

There was a likeness there, but he wasn’t looking properly, Ralf thought. Like Native Americans the people pictured wore feathers entwined in flowing blue-black hair and carried bows on their shoulders and long, dangerous spears in their hands. Their skin was golden but their eyes, which ought to have been brown, flashed an array of different, impossible colours: violet, acid green, palest rose and shining silver.

‘The Hidden,’ said Leon in a croaky voice. He was suddenly bolt upright and staring. ‘I remember!’

‘Yes!’ cried Ambrose, incongruously punching the air in his excitement. ‘The Hidden! An ancient race. They walked the woods and fields of Britain long before humans arrived.’

‘Right, so who’s this crew?’ Alfie asked, nodding at the band of small dark haired people, clad in rough skins and furs, who came from the depths of the tapestry forest. They knelt before
the Hidden unloading gemstones and freshly caught fish.

‘Celts,’ said Ambrose. ‘Ancestors of the Welsh and Irish. They worshipped
the Hidden as Gods’.

‘Why?’ Alfie asked. ‘I mean, they’re fit and everything, but they don’t look that hard to me.’

‘Ah,’ said Ambrose. ‘A good question. The Celts revered them because the Hidden were immortal. The Fair Folk had power beyond anything today’s humans could imagine.’

‘Fair Folk?’ said Seth. ‘Tell me you’re not talking about fairies, here. Because, you know, that would just about finish me off!’

‘Well, where did you think the legends of the fey, fairies, sprites and leprechauns come from?’ Ambrose said impatiently. ‘All legends have some basis in fact.’

‘Oh!’ Valen exclaimed, pointing.

On the left of the tapestry a flotilla of square sailed ships had appeared. The Hidden melted, liquid as shadows, back in to the trees. The Celts fled in terror. Ambrose waved a hand at the scene and they all stared open-mouthed as time seemed to speed up. The boats raced inland and armoured figures leapt jerkily from their decks on to the sandy shore.

‘Fast forward. Excellent,’ said Seth.

Ralf was transfixed. The boatmen were clad in mail and leather and carried heavy broad swords.

‘Vikings didn’t have horns on their helmets,’ he said to no one in particular.

‘Ah, but you see, Wolf, these aren’t Vikings. They didn’t arrive for another thousand years. These are the Formor. Watch.’

The scene darkened. Shadows flitted across the tapestry’s surface and Ralf and the others craned their necks forward to see.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Dire things,’ said Ambrose. ‘A terrible time.’ His face was grave and he pulled at his ear lobe sadly. ‘Most of the Fair Folk had no objection to the newcomers, but a prince of
the Hidden decided that his island should not be shared. The argument raged. The Hidden split into two groups. Fathers and sons, sisters and brothers found themselves on different sides. ‘

In the deepest patch of darkness at the centre of the picture something moved. Black shapes boiled and undulated outwards, then several things happened all at once. Leo gave an awful, shuddering moan. Valen leapt to her feet, the remains of her cup fell to the floor and the clinking sound of it shattering echoed loudly in the too quiet tent. A pair of huge, impossibly bright eyes snapped open in the centre of the tapestry. Alfie whimpered. Even Seth lurched back a step.

Ralf was frozen. The eyes were a rich, mad gold and seemed to stare right through him. They’re looking for
me
, he thought suddenly. He didn’t know why but he felt sure he was right. They were staring at him and, though only the eyes were visible, he knew that the face behind them was sneering.

‘That’s enough of that, I think,’ said Ambrose softly. He waved his hand and the eyes melted back into the dark.

‘What happened?’ Valen asked shakily.

‘War,’ said Ambrose. The word hung in the air. ‘And then came the darkest time of all.’ He pointed at the tapestry once more. A light flickered at the centre of the picture, like a candle flame. Slowly it grew until the flame became fire, red-orange and alive with malice. The flames crawled outwards, clawing the stitching. Threads of smoke wafted from the picture in to the enclosed space of the tent.

‘What’s going on?’ Seth cried and, for the first time, his voice had a nervous ring to it.

‘The Prince used his power over the elements to send forth a wall of fire to destroy his enemies once and for all. They watched as the flames on the tapestry spread. Tiny, panicked figures ran for cover but there was nowhere to hide. The fire raced onwards.

‘The fire destroyed everything in its path. It obliterated the Formorians and killed many thousands of Celts and Hidden who stood in its way.’

Ralf was on his feet now, heart hammering. The smell! The burning! His eyes stung and he pressed his hands to his temples.

‘Enough!’ Seeing his reaction, Ambrose flicked his hand again and when Ralf looked the flames had disappeared. The tapestry was just as it had been when they first walked in, a pretty coastal scene, frozen in time in a thousand tiny stitches.

‘Well?’ said Ralf, trying to ignore the pounding in his head.

‘The Prince had done the unthinkable,’ said Ambrose gravely. ‘For a race unused to death, for those who hold the preservation of life as central to everything, The Prince’s act was unforgivable. He had committed genocide.’

‘So the fairies weren’t the good guys after all,’ said Alfie. ‘My Nan’ll be well vexed.’

Ambrose ignored the interruption. ‘And this is where I came in. It’s difficult to explain but events were so terrible and so contrary to the laws of nature that they affected the flow of Time.

‘Time wasn’t doing what it should and the little leaks I sometimes had to patch up suddenly became great waterfalls. In the middle of all the destruction, people from different ages were stepping through Time onto the battlefield not knowing where they were or how to get back. It was a disaster.

‘But that’s when something amazing happened. Surprising as it may seem, it was a group of children who put a stop to it. An extraordinary young man came up with a plan to fight the Prince. He and his friends sacrificed everything to stop him. The plan worked. The Prince was defeated.

‘When it was over and Time was back on track, the children looked around them. They saw devastation. Their homes
were destroyed. Their families slain. And they realized that in that final battle, as the Prince was losing, they had been cursed with death. All would die before they reached twenty.’

‘That’s terrible!’ cried Valen.

Ambrose smiled. ‘The remaining Hidden thought so too. They couldn’t undo the curse but –’

‘Oh, I know!’ Alfie squealed. ‘They done some magic to make it not as bad. Musta done. They got tooled up with magic powers, like singing and talking to animals and stuff?’

‘Singing?’ Now it was Ambrose’s turn to look confused.

‘Like Sleeping Beauty, innit?’ Alfie pressed.

‘Well, not quite,’ said Ambrose wearily. ‘But the Hidden tried to make amends by giving the children the gift of reincarnation. They’d still die young but they’d be reborn and they would have skills –’

‘Yes!’ said Leon, suddenly. ‘And they made a promise. When they saw what had happened they vowed that it could never be allowed to happen again.’

‘That’s right!’ cried Ambrose triumphantly. ‘If they were ever needed again they would return and they would fight. And they sealed their pact with blood.’

‘Sick!’ crowed Alfie, punching the air.

Ambrose ignored him. ‘That promise was so pure, so true and selfless that it has survived for nearly three thousand years.’ He looked at Ralf expectantly. ‘Well?’

Ralf felt some kind of comment was now definitely required. Everyone was looking at him.  ‘Er – it’s a good story.’

‘Yes, it’s a corker, isn’t it?’ said Ambrose, sarcastically. ‘Ring any bells?’

‘No – who’s it by?’

‘Dear boy,’ said Ambrose, sounding quite exasperated. ‘It isn’t by anyone. It’s true!’

CHAPTER FIVE

The Forgotten Promise

Leo was standing up now, looking less green but still a bit shaky.

‘It’s all true,’ he said.

‘Come off it!’ Seth cried. ‘Fair Folk? Where’s the evidence? If there had been another, entirely different race of people living here all those years ago there’d be archaeological proof! Bones, burial mounds, artefacts, all kinds of things.’

‘Of what kind?’ Ambrose asked. ‘The Hidden are immortal. They have no dead to bury. They use no metal. They seldom throw things away…’

‘Hang on,’ Valen said softly. ‘A minute ago you were talking like this was all in the past but just now you said ‘are’. ‘The Hidden are immortal’, you said. You sound like you’re saying they’re still alive.’

‘Well, that is the definition of immortal isn’t it, Valen?’ said Ambrose.

‘They still exist?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Where are they then?’ Seth asked.

‘Here. In Britain. They prefer remote, out of the way places, forests and moorland, mountains, you know. They have ways of remaining hidden – hence the name.’

‘Ok, fine. Fine!’ Seth was almost shouting now. ‘The Fair Folk exist and are living in Britain right now. And I’m the Easter Bunny!’

‘No, Seth,’ said Ambrose gently. ‘You’re a Turnarounder.’

Now it was Ralf’s turn to laugh. ‘
Turnarounders! And what are they?’

‘You’re the children from the story. The Athraigh –
the Turnarounders. You won the battle. ‘You’re special, you know you are!’ Ambrose grasped Ralf by the shoulders and fixed him with those formidable eyes. The shake he gave him was just a little one but Ralf could feel the force in it, like water churning behind a vast dam. ‘You are the Turnarounders. You promised to come back if things went wrong. I’ve been watching you for centuries – that’s how I know so much about you. Happy Birthday, by the way.’

Ralf was scared now.  ‘How… how did you know it was my birthday?’ he spluttered.

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Wolf. I know all about you. I know you better than anyone because I not only know you in this life, I’ve known you in all the other lives you’ve lived before.’

‘Other lives?’ Ralf’s face was bloodless. ‘Who was I when I was alive before then? Tell me that!’

‘You were Ralf Osborne again last time. Before that you had different names but you were always The Wolf – always you.’

Ralf just stared.

‘You know I’m telling the truth. Think. Use your logic,’ Ambrose glanced anxiously towards the stationary sand in the hourglass. ‘You know what I’m talking about. You recognise people! Strangers you think you know but you’ve never met before. You’ve never seen them in this life, but you knew them in the past!

‘Then why don’t they recognise me? If what you say is true they ought to know me too!’

‘No, Wolf, because they’re not Turnarounders. They’re Echoes. People who have lived before but don’t remember it. Only Turnarounders have the ability to recall their other lives, and even you needed a prompt to get your cogs whirring. Everyone else thinks this is their first time.’

‘No. The knowing thing happens to other people too. There’s even a name for it – ‘Deja vu’ – already seen. It’s a trick of the mind.’

‘Is it a trick of the mind or is it a memory?’ Ambrose asked with a smile. ‘Things get through for all Echoes but not in the same kind of detail as they now will for you.

A case in point: How do you explain the fact that we’ve been having this entire conversation in a language that’s been extinct for nine hundred years?’

‘Don’t be –’ Even as the denial sprang to his lips Ralf knew that it was true. They’d been speaking another language – one he had no idea he knew. He wanted to laugh. That day at school he’d asked for ‘Taten ha wy’ – Potatoes and egg!’

Valen’s eyes shone. ‘It’s true!’ She stared at Ambrose in delight. ‘What are we speaking – what language?’

‘A much older version of what you would call Welsh. If it’s bothering you we could speak Gaelic? Cornish perhaps?’ he suggested, flitting from language to language as easily as you would change stations on a radio. ‘Or Breton we could talk, if you’d prefer? You understand me.’

‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Seth murmured, struggling with the logic.

Ambrose pushed on relentlessly. ‘Or Latin? Wouldst thou find this tongue more comfortable?’

Ralf was reeling.

‘You’ve known things you couldn’t possibly know, unless everything I’ve told you were true. You are Turnarounders. Over the past year your subconscious minds have been waking up to that fact, even though you’ve tried to fight it. Those were real Saxons you saw earlier. A real dinosaur. Only you five could see them because only you are Turnarounders. And only you would have been able to save Georgia Hayward, Wolf. Only a Turnarounder would have known what was going to happen.’ Ambrose leaned forward. ‘And what of the Prince, Wolf?’ he asked. ‘What of Scathferox!’

Ralf gasped. The name hit him like a punch in the chest. His guts twisted, his breathing quickened and a wave of nausea left him feeling ragged and weak. He couldn’t deny that he knew the name, or that the feelings attached to it were bad, bad, bad. But then another, more recent memory buffeted him.

‘It was you! In the kitchen, with Gloria that time! She said the name Scathferox!’ he cried. ‘It must have been you! You were talking to her, but I – I couldn’t see you.’

‘I was still invisible to you then, like I am to everyone else. Your abilities are only fully mature when you come of age.’

‘Come of age?’ Valen cried. ‘I’m twelve years old!’ she snapped. ‘In what universe does that make me ‘of age’?’

‘The ancient Britons would have considered you an adult from the day of your twelfth birthday.’

‘Ha!’ said Seth. ‘What about Alfie, then? He’s just a little kid. He won’t be twelve for years!’

‘I am in the room you know,’ said Alfie. ‘And I’ll be twelve in eighteen months, as it goes.’

Ambrose’s eyes twinkled. ‘Alfie is different, yes. The Brigantes tribe considered people adults from the age of ten.’

Alfie smirked at Seth. ‘You alright with that, mate?’

‘Forget all that!’ said Leon. He took a couple of shaky steps forward and grasped Ralf by the arm. ‘You remember Scathferox, now! Do you remember our promise?’

Ralf froze. There
was
something, voices echoing in his head, speaking as if over a long distance
‘I vow by the blood of my Father, my Mother, my sisters and brothers and all their generations…’

Yes. He did remember that. The wall inside his head began to crumble. The feeling of embarrassment he’d had about The Knowing abruptly left him. He met Ambrose’s eyes and realised suddenly they were the eyes of an old friend. His final acceptance of all this was such a relief he felt weak. But if Ambrose had come to find them that could only mean one thing – Britain was under threat.

Ralf’s heart was still racing but he felt a cool rush of blood through his veins, a sudden energy that needed to be used. ‘Right,’ he said, rubbing the sweat from his palms. ‘What’s happening? Why now?’

Ambrose clapped his hands then sprang into action, ‘Come and look at this!’ He reached for a huge, calfskin bound book, took a moment to search for a page and thumped it down on the table triumphantly. ‘There!’

Leo, Valen and Alfie clustered round to gawk at the pages in front of them. There were mass of minute black letters and symbols in an impossible number of lines threading across the vellum’s surface. ‘I don’t get it,’ Alfie mumbled.

Seth, who’d been pacing the wall of the tent, stopped to listen.

‘I don’t expect you to be able to read it,’ said Ambrose. ‘This is The Book. The Book where all the possibilities are written.’

‘O–kay…,’ said Alfie, not understanding at all.

‘Initially events and possibilities are seen as a faint moving thread, but as each decision is made it is recorded indelibly in this book and the past becomes fixed. All fine and dandy, except that three weeks ago, on the twenty-first of June, to be precise, I opened the book and found this.’

Ambrose turned more pages and then stopped, somewhere in the middle of the book and tapped at the open page. ‘This is the page for May 1940,’ he said grimly.

‘I still don’t...’ Alfie began.

On this page the writing was alive, writhing, moving of its own accord, constantly changing and developing in front of their eyes. For a second Ralf felt like he was back in Science class, peering down a microscope at minute sea worms undulating across a slide. His brow furrowed and he beckoned Seth over.

Seth didn’t have to be asked twice. He nudged Alfie to one side and stared down at the book. ‘It’s alive!’ he breathed. ‘How is it doing that?’

‘That’s not all. Look,’ said Ambrose. The next few pages were worse. The letters were still moving but, more than that, they were faded, as though the pen they’d been written with was running out of ink. A couple of pages further on, the writing disappeared altogether. The page marked ‘1945’ was as crisp and white as snow.

‘What’s happened to it?’ Leon asked. He reached forward to touch the page with his finger. ‘Why is it blank?’

‘History is being re-written,’ said Ambrose gravely. ‘Three weeks ago something happened which had a profound effect on the past. The past is no longer unchangeable and that’s dangerous.’

‘Is it?’ said Alfie.

‘Absolutely. We haven’t started to feel the effects yet because things in 1940 haven’t gone sufficiently off course. But if they do – if someone dies who shouldn’t or someone doesn’t go somewhere they’re supposed to – the effects could be catastrophic. And this is all happening just as the Second World War kicks off. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘But how can you change the past?’ Ralf asked.

‘Well, that’s just the point, you see,’ said Ambrose. ‘By rights, the only person who has enough power to do this kind of thing is me. But three weeks ago someone, I don’t know who, did something so terrible, and I don’t know what, that Time itself is now under threat.’

‘And you’re asking us for help?’ Ralf said, real fear now clutching at his belly.

‘Not yet,’ said Ambrose. ‘But I had to warn you. Time is in flux. You all saw what happened on the way here. The effect was magnified because you were with me. Things are changing. The general population is in no immediate danger. But you’re all Turnarounders. You’ve lived before and you have a natural affinity with Time. When things are disturbed the way they are at the moment, leaks happen.’

Seth looked up from his examination of the pages, first at Ralf, then Ambrose. ‘Leaks?’

‘Time, as I said, is like a constantly moving body of water, travelling through different channels that diverge and split then merge and split again. I can safely navigate between the streams because of who I am. The tools I have can cut openings between these different timelines, like...like locks in a canal. But sometimes, during times of war and fear the banks of the rivers become weakened. Very occasionally, a timeline will leak and join another, like one tributary bursting its banks to cascade into another.

‘That’s what is happening now and you five have to be on your guard. Be careful. Shimmers in the air, patches of light or darkness, objects that look out of place. Anything like that at all. Stay well away.’

‘Like we’d jump in for jokes!’ snorted Alfie. He yanked off his hat, wiped his forehead with it and threw it on a cushion. His hair was sweaty and ruffled and he looked oddly incomplete.

‘No,’ Ambrose said. ‘I don’t suppose any of you would be stupid enough to go jumping around in history willingly, but the danger is there.’

A horn sounded in the distance. Three notes – short, long, short – from far away. ‘I really must get that,’ Ambrose said, with an anxious look in his eye. He glanced at the hourglass on the table. Ralf blinked as the first few grains from the top started to trickle through to the bottom.

‘Woah!’ cried Alfie, pointing.

The hourglass wasn’t broken after all.

Ambrose’s attention snapped back to the shell-shocked faces in front of him.

‘Wish I could talk longer,’ he said striding to an alcove at the rear of the tent, ‘but the time stop only lasts an hour. Any longer than that and someone always notices. People are much less stupid than you think, you know.’ There was a dull thud of a chest being opened followed by rustling and clanking
noises as he searched for something. He emerged from the shadows in leather armour, strapping on a decorated breastplate. He swirled a blue cloak around his shoulders and grinned at their astonished faces.

‘It’s best to try and fit in as much as possible.’ A long, rather bushy looking beard sprouted from his face suddenly and he stroked it with poorly concealed pride.

‘Going
somewhen
?’ Valen smiled.

‘Oh, very good, Valen!’ chortled Ambrose. ‘No
time
to explain! And if that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is! Ha!’

He thrust the hot kettle, teapot and one of the cups into a rough cloth bag. ‘Don’t mind, do you?’ he asked, grabbing the rest of the fruitcake and waving it in Ralf’s direction. Ralf could only shake his head dumbly. He watched as Ambrose flicked a hand in the direction of the hourglass and shimmering sand immediately trickled down into the bottom more rapidly than before. ‘Two minutes.’