The Key to the Indian

by Lynne Reid Banks

  “There we are. She’ll be all right now. Keep her well covered. You need to get those wet clothes off… Oh. No, I quite see that would be, er… difficult. All right. Go away and get me something to wrap her in.”

  Omri stumbled to his chest-of-drawers, got out a pair of woollen socks and some scissors and hacked out a little blanket. He returned to the desk with his eyes averted and handed it to Matron.

  “All right. She’s decent.”

  He looked. Jessica Charlotte’s wet clothes had all been pulled off and were lying in a soggy heap. There seemed to be quite a lot of them. Matron was just finishing rolling her patient in the sock-blanket like a cocoon. Only her head stuck out.

  “Pillow!”

  Pillow! Omri’s brain raced. A much-folded Kleenex was all he could think of. At least it would soak up the water from her hair.

  “There now. She’ll do. She’s half-awake. Something hot to drink, with a drop of Scotch in it. How did this happen? No, don’t tell me. I’ve seen it all before. Very little of that in wartime, y’know. Funny thing.”

  “Very little of what?”

  “Suicides. Too much else to think of. And then, when someone else is trying to kill you, you don’t do it for them. Well! I’m off. Have to pass this little lapse off somehow at St Thomas’s. How long have I been, ten minutes?” She looked at an all but invisible watch, pinned to the front of her uniform. “Less. Well, even matrons have to spend a penny occasionally… Hurry up, young man!”

  “I can’t thank you enough, Matron—”

  “Oh, pish, tush, and likewise pooh!”

  He dispatched her through the cupboard, and hurried back to Jessica Charlotte. As always when involved in this business, he was beginning to feel frantic, to wish he’d never started. He always forgot this feeling in between.

  She was stirring, trying to sit up. He lifted her tenderly back onto the softness of the bed, keeping his hand behind her to support her. “Miss Driscoll?” he said softly. “Are you okay?”

  “Why am I – tied up?” she gasped in a panicky voice.

  “You’re not tied up, you’re wrapped up to keep you warm. You – you’ve been in the river.”

  She stared up at him. With her hair straggling round her white face and her bare shoulders rising from the blanket that she was clutching, she looked like pictures he’d seen of mad people in old asylums, where they used to take their clothes away and just give them blankets.

  “The river!” she cried out suddenly. Then the glassy look left her eyes and she buried her face in the blanket and began to sob.

  Omri found this hard to bear. He crouched beside her till his face was level. “Miss Driscoll,” he said softly. “Please don’t be upset. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault!”

  Her head snapped up. She faced front, clutching the blanket, shivering all over. She spoke sharply between chattering teeth. “I’m dead. That’s what it is. I died in the river and this is my hell. It’s only what I deserve.”

  “No! No! You’re okay, you’re alive, you’re just – just visiting the future like you did before. And you don’t deserve to go to hell or to feel so bad. Please don’t feel so bad. Honestly, you couldn’t help it!”

  “I’m a thief and a murderer. I killed my own sister’s husband.”

  “No you did not!” Omri almost shouted. “It was an accident!”

  “I caused it.”

  “You couldn’t know!”

  Abruptly she turned her ravaged face to him. “But you! You knew! You could have warned me! You could have stopped me!”

  “No, I couldn’t—”

  “Yes! You said you could see my future. You must have known, you must have done!”

  “I couldn’t change what happened,” mumbled Omri. “It’s – not allowed.”

  She gave him that mad look again, out of the corners of her eyes. “Are you God?” she asked in a small, suddenly childish voice.

  “Of course I’m not. I’m Lottie’s grandson.”

  “Lottie’s—” She sat perfectly still. He could almost see her mind working. “Move back.”

  He knew why she said that. She couldn’t see him properly this close. He moved halfway across the room.

  “You’re nothing like Lottie. You look a little like me.”

  “Well, you are my great-great-aunt.”

  “Lottie’s – grandson…” She couldn’t seem to take it in. But then she began to cry again, only not as before. She almost seemed to be crying with joy.

  “She lives! My Lottie lives to grow up, and marry, and have children, and be happy! At least I haven’t destroyed her!”

  “Of course not,” said Omri, creeping close again. His heart felt monstrously heavy with the truth he couldn’t tell her. Lottie lived and grew up and married, sure enough. But when she was barely thirty-one – still in Jessica Charlotte’s lifetime – her life was cruelly cut short by a bomb. The Luftwaffe, Omri thought suddenly. The German Air Force. In Matron’s time, right now, it might be happening. Layers. Layers of time… He shivered all over, just as Jessica Charlotte had.

  She stopped crying abruptly. She picked up the ‘pillow’ and pressed it to her tiny face to stem her tears and wipe them. Then she put it down, and stood up clumsily because of the blanket.

  “Where are my clothes? I hope you didn’t take them off!” she said, with something of her old spirit.

  “No, don’t worry, a nurse did it. They’re here. I’ll put them on the radiator to dry them.”

  “Radiator? Is that some heating device?”

  “Yes. They’re so small, they’ll dry in no time.”

  He lifted the little pile of wet clothes and squeezed some drops of water out between finger and thumb. Then he began to separate them. Some of the underclothes were so small he could hardly handle them and he was afraid of their getting lost. He placed his big comb across the ridged top of the radiator and very carefully laid the clothes on top of it – the dress, a black one; an underskirt; a strange, corset-like thing; some long pantaloons; two black threads that were her stockings. Her shoes were so tiny he had to pick them up by pressing his finger to their wetness. There was also a tiny triangular thing – a shawl perhaps. He unfolded it with infinite care. It was about two centimetres square.

  When he’d finished he went back to her. “Miss Driscoll…”

  “You had better call me Aunt Jessie.”

  He felt a strange glow of happiness when she said that. “Aunt Jessie, then. The nurse said you should have a hot drink with whisky.”

  “Pray don’t trouble yourself. I don’t drink spirits these days.”

  “I – I want to ask you a big favour.”

  “Ask.”

  “You know the – the key you made.”

  “Oh…!” she said on a groan. “Don’t remind me!”

  “I want you to make me another.”

  “What for?”

  “The key you made… Look. Here it is.” He showed it to her.

  She looked at it. “Why is it so big?”

  “That’s hard to explain. The fact is, you’re small.”

  She was watching him carefully.

  “It’s all to do with your gift,” he went on. “The magic you put in the key.”

  “Ah. I knew there was something.”

  “And I need – I really need – another key with the same magic in it.”

  “You want me to pour the lead for a second key?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrank into the blanket, as if she were deep in thought. Then she straightened and looked Omri in the face. “To do a favour for Lottie’s kin,” she said, “that would give me something to live for. Give me the key you wish me to copy.” And she sat down and began to twist up her straggling hair.

  5

  Mission Accepted

  Racing downstairs to fetch the key, Omri stopped dead.

  His parents were out. That must mean, in the car – there was no other way to get anywhere, other than on foot. No doubt they
’d gone shopping in the village.

  His heart was beating at twice its normal speed. He decided he had to calm down. Think. There must be a spare key somewhere, but he had no idea where. No, he’d have to wait – preferably patiently – till his parents returned.

  Meanwhile, he would get Jessica Charlotte a hot drink.

  He went to the kitchen, built out at the back of the longhouse. It was quite a simple kitchen, with a big Aga which was always warm, day and night. There was invariably a big heavy kettle simmering away at the back of it.

  He rummaged in a drawer till he found what he was looking for – a tin of oil; his mum could not abide a squeaking hinge. It had a narrow spout with a little cap on top. He took this off, put it in a sieve and poured the very hot water over it to clean it. He sniffed it – okay, no oily smell. Then he made a mug of tea with a teabag, added milk and sugar, stirred vigorously and was just carrying it towards the stairs when Gillon came strolling through from the TV room.

  “I see you got your cupboard out of the bank,” he remarked.

  Omri spilt some tea. “When did you see it?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Do you have to go snooping in my room?”

  “You have to crash right through my room, about fifty times a day. I don’t get much privacy.”

  “You wanted the outside room.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m beginning to think I messed up there. You’ve got the best room.”

  “Yours is bigger.”

  “This is a crazy old house, no corridors,” said Gillon. “You having hot chocolate? You might’ve made me some.”

  “Tea,” said Omri reluctantly. Gillon knew he hated tea.

  Gillon gave him a comic look of puzzlement. Omri turned, anxious to get away, and started up the stairs. Gillon followed.

  “About the cupboard.”

  “What about it?”

  “Why’d you get it out of the bank?”

  “You told me that it was silly to ask them to take care of it.”

  “You didn’t get it out because of me,” said Gillon shrewdly.

  “I wanted to have it back,” said Omri. They were in Gillon’s room by now. Omri walked straight across to his own door.

  “Can I come and look at it?”

  Omri turned sharply, nearly spilling the tea again. “Gilly, listen. I’m not just being – I mean, I’m busy with something. It’s something I’m – busy with. Of my own. You can see the cupboard later. D’you mind?”

  Gillon looked at him for a moment, then turned away. “Why should I mind,” he said flatly. “I don’t care a toss about your old cupboard.”

  It was obvious his feelings were hurt, even though Omri had tried to be as tactful as possible.

  “Sorry, Gilly,” Omri mumbled, and went into his room. He didn’t want to bolt the door because Gillon would hear, and maybe be more hurt. But the need to be safe was paramount. He put the tea down on the desk, and moved the bolt with infinite slowness. Of course it had to squeak.

  “Don’t worry!” Gillon called through the door. “You couldn’t pay me to come in now.”

  “Sorry,” was all Omri could think of to reply.

  He hurried to the bed. He was going to have to whisper – no, breathe – everything he said to Jessica Charlotte. These walls were thin.

  She was there, as he’d left her, in the blanket. She’d twisted up her hair somehow and was looking a little better. He poured a drop of the hot tea into the oil-tin cap (spilling more on the floor than went in) and handed it to her.

  She took it in both shaking hands and drank and drank. Then she said, “Thank you. Are my clothes dry?”

  Omri rubbed the tiny dress between finger and thumb. It was nearly dry. He smoothed its skirt with his fingers, held it by its top and flapped it a little in the warm air above the radiator. He had to stop at once because the flapping nearly blew her drawers away! He handed the dress to her.

  “What do you think? Is it dry enough?” he whispered.

  “It will do quite well. Please bring my – other garments.”

  He lifted his comb, taking great care to keep it level, and carried it to her. She snatched the drawers and the corset-thing and hid them in the blanket.

  “I’ll go away while you dress, if you like.”

  “I would be obliged.”

  He stood with his back to her at the window. For the first time, he stopped to think that his dad was going to be well disappointed about his bringing Jessica Charlotte without him.

  After a few minutes, she said, “I am ready.”

  He turned. She was standing on the bed fully dressed. Her little weight made a dimple in the quilt. “Now, where is this key you spoke of?”

  “I can’t give it to you until my dad gets here.”

  “Your father!”

  “He knows about the magic. He’s—”

  Suddenly Omri heard the sound he’d been listening for. The car! He heard it coming along the lane, and stop near their gate.

  “Wait! I’ll get it for you!” Omri said, forgetting to whisper, and dashed to the door. He stopped. No, he must go out the other way, through his parents’ and Adiel’s rooms, and down the other stairs. He couldn’t risk leaving the door between his and Gillon’s rooms open, especially as Gillon might have heard him speak. He wouldn’t blame him if he had a peep now.

  He dashed down the other way, out of the house, and met his parents at the gate. They were unloading shopping from the car boot.

  “Hi, Om, you look as if you’ve been running!” said his father cheerfully.

  “Dad – please – can you come? Bring the key.” The last three words were not spoken aloud. He just mouthed them behind his mother’s back, and gestured turning a key in case his dad hadn’t caught on.

  Excitement and secrecy brightened his father’s face. He hefted a big box of shopping and almost ran after Omri up the path and into the kitchen from the back. “What’s up?” he asked eagerly.

  “I brought her! Jessica Charlotte!”

  His dad gasped.

  “Dad, it just happened, and it’s good it did! She was in the river – she was drowning! The magic just got her out in time – I – I sort of saved her life!”

  “Is she here?”

  Omri nodded.

  “She’s upstairs – Jessica Charlotte – she’s upstairs now?” his dad asked dazedly.

  “Yes, Dad! And she’s agreed to do the key for us. Only I didn’t have it. Bring it up. You can meet her! Come on!”

  His father dropped the box on the table with a thump and was halfway up the nearest stairs before Omri could stop him.

  “The other stairs, Dad!” he whispered, and pointed upward to Gillon’s room.

  Down, across through four rooms, and up the far staircase they ran, and in five seconds they were in Omri’s room. Omri pointed silently. His father followed his finger, and turned to face the bed. His face when he saw the tiny figure of Jessica Charlotte was a study in wonder. Omri thought that for him, it was like looking at a famous person, from history or fable, standing alive before him, staring back at him.

  He moved towards her slowly. He crouched down beside the bed and smiled at her like someone dazed by a miracle. “I’m so pleased to meet you,” he breathed.

  “Dad! Shhhh! Let’s go next door!” Omri mouthed.

  He picked Jessica Charlotte up very carefully and they went into his parents’ bedroom. There, his father indicated his mother’s dressing-table. It was her favourite piece of furniture. It had a glass top, under which she had arranged a number of family snapshots. Omri put Jessica Charlotte down on its top.

  She, it seemed, could no more take her eyes off Omri’s dad than he could take his from her. Her tiny but compelling voice piped, “Are you my Lottie’s son?”

  “No,” said Omri’s father. “My wife is Lottie’s daughter.”

  “What is her name – her first name?”

  “Jane.”

  There was a silence. “Well,” she said at
last. “At least the initial is the same. It is a sort of bond, even if… accidental.”

  “But her second name is Charlotte.”

  After a beat, Jessica Charlotte said hoarsely, “After her mother.”

  “No. After you.”

  Jessica Charlotte seemed to sway where she stood. “How – do – you – know – that?” she asked as if she could barely get the words out.

  “Because her grandmother told me so.”

  Omri hardly believed what he was hearing. Was his father making this up? But no. He wouldn’t do that. Why had Omri never thought to ask if his mother had a middle name? Why had it never occurred to him that his dad must have met Maria?

  “Her grandmother!” Jessica Charlotte gasped. “She was my sister.”

  “Yes. And I knew her. Of course I thought the same as you did – that Lottie had named my wife after herself. But one day before we were married, when I was visiting Granny Marie—”

  “Granny Marie!”

  “Yes, that’s what my wife called her. She got annoyed with my wife over some little thing, and said, quite sharply, ‘That’s your namesake coming out in you!’ My wife said, ‘Do you mean, Mummy?’ meaning Lottie, and Maria said, quite tartly, ‘Don’t run away with the idea that your mother christened you after herself! She never thought of herself as a Charlotte, it was always Lottie. She named you after my wic—’” He caught himself, and stopped, and then went on, “‘—after my sister, Jessica Charlotte.’”

  “Is this the truth?”

  “Yes it is. I remembered it very clearly when I was reading—”

  Omri trod heavily on his foot and he stopped.

  “Tell me!” she cried, and Omri saw her clasp her hands at her breast. “Is my Lottie still alive?”

  Omri’s mouth went abruptly dry. He almost pushed in front of his father. “Aunt Jessie, we can’t talk any more. It’s – it’s not allowed. If we give you the key, can you take it back with you and copy it?”

  She switched her gaze on to him. He thought he saw a look of eagerness – a sort of blaze – in her eyes.

  “I will.”

  Omri put out his hand for the key, and when his father gave it to him, laid it on the glass at Jessica Charlotte’s feet. She bent down and looked at it.