Sapphire’s voice rang out again. ‘So I’m going to make them appear, Rob.’
‘Oh,’ replied Rob, swallowing hard once more, but feeling slightly relieved.
‘Now when you see them,’ Sapphire’s voice continued with its instructions, ‘Just tell us. Call out quickly and give us their locations from where you are. Understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Rob, weakly.
The cool sound of Steel’s voice penetrated the thin, high sound of the wind. ‘Any moment now, Rob.’
Rob waited, feeling like someone who was fixed to a spot. Fixed there forever. His mind was filled with a jumble of thoughts. Perhaps this was the time-corridor thing. This place. A nowhere place. Perhaps he was to be left here now. Perhaps it would never be morning, and never be night again. Perhaps it would always stay like this, the very same time. So therefore he would never feel hungry, never feel tired, never feel anything but this strange sense of isolation, of not belonging. Perhaps it would be like that for him forever.
Then Sapphire’s clear eyes, like a bright, but cool, summer sky, seemed to appear before him, as if the look from those eyes was capable of spanning time and distance.
And he felt suddenly better, those eyes were relaying a kind of message, like a signal, like a flag of recognition.
Then he saw the first patch of light appear.
Rob turned his head quickly. The patch of light was glowing faintly, as if trying not to be seen. It was situated in the spot where he had last seen the false image of his father.
‘It’s here,’ shouted Rob.
Steel saw the patch of light glowing in the darkness at the end of the cellar.
With eyes opened, Sapphire stood, trance-like, facing the end section.
‘Yes, I see it,’ called Steel, ‘Stay still.’
As he spoke, another patch of light flickered and glowed in the far corner where the dark figure had once stood.
‘And another one,’ Rob’s voice cried out, ‘Just behind me. Can you see it?’
‘Yes. I can see it. Now do you remember the patch of light that trapped Sapphire?’
‘Of course I do.’ Rob’s voice replied.
‘Fine.’ Steel’s face was tense. ‘Now that patch of light got into a picture.’ Then before Rob could answer, ‘Now look quickly, Rob. Tell me what those two patches of light have chosen. Tell me now!’
Steel waited.
‘Nothing, Steel,’ was Rob’s eventual reply.
‘Nothing?’
‘No. Well, nothing that means much.’
‘Tell me!’ Steel almost shouted the words.
Hounded by Steel’s questions, Rob seemed to have forgotten most of his fear. ‘Well one’s — one’s on some earth. And the other one — well, that’s on a piece of stone, an ordinary piece of stone.’
There was an angry, disappointed look on Steel’s face. He relaxed slightly and was about to turn to Sapphire.
‘Wait!’ Sapphire’s eyes were still open wide, still concentrating.
Steel looked at her and waited.
‘There’s another one,’ said Sapphire, ‘A third one.’
Steel turned to look.
The third patch of light glowed and pulsated as it struggled in its effort not to be seen. It was at the bottom corner of the cellar’s end wall, flush with the floor, the flickering light shifting under the old, decayed plaster of the wall.
Out in the open air, in the small piece of time that Rob was trapped in, the third patch of light glowed in the corner of the foundations. It shone inside one of the few stones that had been laid. It was the very end stone. The corner stone. He called out, to tell Steel, then he stared at the pale luminosity of the stone. Figures and letters had been etched into its rough surface.
Leaning forward, with his feet still fixed firmly in place, Rob tried to read what had been carved into the stone.
‘No, Rob.’ Sapphire’s voice spoke to him. ‘Leave it to me.’
Steel waited as Sapphire closed her eyes and concentrated on the stone.
‘It’s a — it’s a name,’ she said as Steel watched her. ‘Someone’s name. Jed — Jed Mace. Second — the second of Feb — February. Seventeen — seventeen hundred and thirty- six.’
‘Jed Mace?’ Steel stared towards the third patch of light.
‘The man who built the house.’ Sapphire said, her eyes still closed. ‘The stone was the first one to be laid. The writing on it, it’s a kind of grace-note.’
Steel watched the three patches of light that trembled and glowed in the dark section ofthe cellar. Like small animals that had been cornered, they seemed to be nervously waiting, but gave the impression of being much more dangerous because of that.
‘How much time?’ asked Steel.
‘Time?’
‘Where Rob is now. How much time was used up until that stone was laid?’
Eyes still closed, Sapphire centred her mind on the stone.
‘Half — half a day,’ she murmured, as if echoing the voice of someone from long ago. ‘Hard work — we worked hard, all of us. But half a day. Yes, a good half a day.’
Then Sapphire opened her eyes and the patches of light faded.
‘It’s made two mistakes,’ said Steel, quietly.
‘What are they?’
‘No-one builds houses backwards.’ Steel looked around him, and at the ceiling above him. ‘And it came in at the top, didn’t it? The gable?’
‘Yes.’ Sapphire nodded. ‘The last piece of the house to be built.’
‘And its second mistake was in letting its offspring hide in there. In that stone.’
Sapphire looked towards the dilapidated plaster of the end wall. ‘The first piece of the house to be built.’
‘Yes.’ Steel studied the cellar wall for a moment or two more, then turned to walk back along the passageway. ‘Think you can take time back half a day?’ he asked, without turning.
Glancing first towards the end section, Sapphire moved quickly after Steel.
‘Of course I can take it back half a day.’
‘Good,’ said Steel as he walked, ‘Because we’re going to bring it down.’
Sapphire stared at him.
‘Bring it down into the time it’s chosen.’
‘So how do we get it down here?’ Sapphire asked.
Steel halted in the cellar passageway. Turning to look at Sapphire, he said, ‘We’ll give it the next nursery-rhyme, shall we?’ Then, before Sapphire could reply, he added, ‘All we need is someone to act as bait.’
Sapphire stared at him yet again. But Steel was walking again, making his way towards the cellar steps. ‘I’ll leave you to choose an appropriate rhyme for her,’ he called back.
Helen stood on the second landing like somebody who was being rehearsed. She faced the stairs, her back to the cupboard-stair door. Then, as if on cue, Helen began to recite.
‘This is the house that Jack built,’ she said, in a child’s steady monotone, as she walked towards the head of the opposite stairs.
‘This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.’
Helen began to descend the stairs. ‘This is the rat that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built,’
The cupboard-stair door flickered into life as the small figure of Helen disappeared below the ridge of the stair.
‘This is the cat that killed the rat, that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built,’
Like a flutter and a rustle, like blankets shaken busily from a window, the fabric sound began to grow in volume as the cupboard-stair door began to glow.
Helen’s frail voice drifted back from the stairs. ‘This is the dog, that worried the cat, that killed the rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built,’
The jumbled sounds and the shapes began to jostle and spill through the very structure of the cupboard-stair door.
As Helen stepped slowly down the flight of stairs, the reflected light poured on to the walls of the landing above her.
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br /> ‘This is the cow with the crumpled horn, that tossed the dog, that — that...’
Helen forgot the words. She stopped on the middle step of the stairs and tried to remember them. It was difficult, and so she sat down on the step, to make remembering easier.
Steel waited at a halfway point in the cellar. His face was ashen once more, and his eyes seemed fixed as he stared ahead and waited.
Peering closely at Steel’s pale face, Lead seemed satisfied. The freezing air that surrounded Steel did not seem to trouble the big man as he took his place beside Steel and waited.
Helen remembered the words. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said to herself, but remained sitting on the step so that she could get the words in the right order inside her mind.
The light had filled the landing above. It now began to trickle and spread down the stairs above and behind Helen.
‘Helen!’ It was a whispered shout from Sapphire on the landing below. ‘Come on, Helen!’
Smiling, as if it was a kind of party game, Helen stood up. ‘That tossed the dog, that worried the cat...’ she said, as she began to descend the stairs once more.
‘That’s it. That’s fine,’ said Sapphire, encouragingly.
And Helen smiled yet again as the light spread itself out upon the staircase wall and the shapes and figures loomed up and then down on to the steps of the stairs.
‘That killed the rat, that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built,’
Pleased with her effort, Helen reached the landing and began to move across it as Sapphire eased herself back towards the next flight of stairs, waving Helen on as she did so.
‘This is the man all tattered and torn, that kissed the maiden all forlorn...’
‘Helen!’
Sapphire looked up. There was a dark figure on the stairs above. A shape that stood with its head lowered and its face turned away, long hair hanging down.
‘Come back up the stairs, Helen.’
‘Don’t listen!’ urged Sapphire.
‘Time for bed.’
But Helen stopped reciting the rhyme. She halted on the landing and looked directly at Sapphire.
‘Do you hear me, Helen?’ the voice insisted, ‘You won’t have a kiss goodnight.’
Sapphire looked up at the dark figure. ‘Don’t look back, Helen,’ she whispered, urgently. ‘Please don’t look back.’
‘Hel-en!’
But Helen was still looking at Sapphire. ‘It’s not Mama, is it?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Sapphire with relief.
‘This is the priest all shaven and shorn,’ Helen seemed to have forgotten the incident already, ‘that married the man all tattered and torn,’ she chanted happily as she began to descend the last flight of stairs.
‘It’s coming, Steel. It’s coming down.’ Sapphire’s words entered silently into Steel’s mind. He moved his head stiffly and looked along the cellar towards the distant steps.
Lead also turned to look.
They heard the footsteps of both Helen and Sapphire descending the stone steps.
‘This is the cock that crowed in the morn,’ Helen’s voice echoed thinly through the cellar. ‘That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,’
Lead watched as Sapphire appeared at the entrance end of the cellar. Beyond her, the tiny figure of Helen struggled on with the rhyme and the sudden darkness of the cellar.
Then that darkness seemed to be eased slightly as the glow spilled in from the hallway and down the cellar steps.
The fabric sound, too, increased in volume now, so that Helen’s voice could no longer be heard. Lead watched her as she approached, behind Sapphire, her child’s mouth still uttering the words of the rhyme that no-one could hear any more.
‘We’re giving it the whole house?’ shouted Lead over the sound.
Sapphire hurried towards him, holding on to Helen’s hand now. The bright glow made silhouettes of their shapes.
‘Yes, the whole house.’ Sapphire shouted back.
Steel turned to face the beams and the dark end section of the cellar.
‘Well, there’s no way out from this cellar.’ Lead complained.
‘Not for us — no,’ said Steel as he walked towards the beams.
Rob would never be quite sure of exactly what did happen. But he heard, as he waited in the darkness, the fabric sound. And had thought, for one frightening moment, that the thing from the attic room was travelling across the surrounding fields towards him.
Then there was a blast of icy cold air and Steel appeared beside him on the foundations of the house. Steel was followed, in turn, by Lead, then Sapphire who was holding Helen by the hand.
‘It’s alright, Rob.’ Sapphire had smiled warmly as she reached out for Rob and pulled him to her. And Rob felt himself holding on to her with the passion and the need of a small child.
‘It’s alright,’ she said again, ‘It’ll be gone.’
‘Gone?’ Rob exclaimed, still holding her tightly, his head pressed hard against her.
‘Yes. Through that stone,’ he heard her say, ‘Before this house was ever built.’
Then Rob heard the sound as it rumbled and shrieked towards them, but it did not seem to matter any more. Even when the sound roared and tore at his mind and his nerves, and the light poured out on to the foundation slabs and seemed to engulf them in a kind of glowing sea, it still did not seem to matter. Not now.
And he peered through narrowed eyes as he heard Sapphire say, and he could swear to this day that it was inside his head, ‘Because there will be no stone.’
Then he heard the shrill shriek as Steel drove the other patches of light into the stone. And then there was a high, fierce roar, like the mother-cry of an animal. And he saw Steel touch the stone with both hands, and, as the stone frosted and turned to ice, the shrill cries rose in pitch.
Then the whole mass of light spun and twisted into the stone. As it did so, Rob saw Lead reach down and tear the large stone from its base.
Lead squeezed the stone as if it were a block of salt. And the last thing that Rob heard, as Lead crushed the stone to fine powder, was the high, terrifying screams of the mother light and its offspring. And the light also faded as the beams and walls of the cellar seemed to spin and twist into view.
Rob ran to the top of the cupboard-stair door and on to the landing. Moving quickly, he pushed open the attic bedroom door.
The rocking-chair was rocking, but there was no-one sitting in it. There was only Helen in the room, and she was sitting on the bed, an expression of shock on her young face.
‘No!’ said Rob to himself. ‘Please, no!’
He walked quickly back to the door and looked out.
Steel and Sapphire were standing on the landing. Lead sat on the stairs behind them.
Rob stared, open-mouthed.
Steel was holding the teddy-bear. With no expression on his face whatsoever, Steel handed the teddy-bear to Sapphire, who smiled and held it out to Rob.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘We forgot something.’
Still staring, Rob took the teddy-bear from her. He looked at them, unsure, then walked back into the bedroom.
Rob handed the doll to Helen, who reached out and took it. As she did so, the doll changed position in her hands, as if her very movement itself had slipped, like a gear.
And then there were sounds in the room. Helen was laughing. Rob’s mother was sitting in the rocking-chair, his father was sat in his usual place.
Rob stared at them. So penetrating was the look that the laughter and the story-telling stopped for a moment.
‘What’s wrong, Rob?’ asked his mother.
‘Nothing,’ said Rob. But his mind was full of the thoughts of a blueness and of a smile that was like a cool summer sky.
The thought was like a kind of pain, he realised as he walked back to the door and looked out on to the landing.
Helen and her father were laughing again, as Rob’s mother read the next rhyme, making it a kind of joke.
There was no-one on the landing.
Rob stood there, looking out. He felt the strange pain again. And he wondered what it was, and whether or not it would be with him for always.
THE END
Sapphire and Steel Page 13
