The Day Before Tomorrow

by Nicola Rhodes

  Jamie did not wait for an answer. ‘You can see me.’ It was not a question. ‘I thought it was a nightmare,’ he gabbled desperately. ‘Even when I heard you talking, I thought … Oh God, what’s happened to me?’

  ‘Jamie…’ Tamar began.

  ‘And I was …’ he trailed off miserably.

  ‘Get Hecaté,’ suggested Denny, in a tone of voice that made it clear that this was anything but a suggestion.

  Tamar vanished.

  Cindy, who had been watching from the doorway, moved tentatively toward him. Jamie backed away, shrieking hysterically. ‘No, No, don’t. Don’t come near me. I don’t want … mustn’t …’

  Cindy stopped awkwardly, her face a mask of pity.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Stiles had appeared from upstairs. ‘Oh!’

  Jamie turned. ‘You!’ he rasped. ‘Is it true? Is it? Is it?’

  Stiles looked at Denny, completely bewildered. Wha…?

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ said Denny. He indicated Stiles. He doesn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘About what?’ said Stiles.

  Denny ignored him. ‘So you heard everything?’ he said to Jamie. ‘I’m sorry. We should have been more careful. I should have been more careful. You shouldn’t have had to find out like that.’

  ‘Find out what?’ said Stiles.

  ‘Dear,’ came the soft voice of Hecaté from behind him. ‘I think I should deal with this.’

  Tamar took Cindy gently by the elbow and led her from the room. Denny followed them. ‘We should leave them alone,’ said Tamar. ‘They have a lot to talk about.’

  ‘Without us?’ asked Cindy.

  ‘Yes,’ Denny told her firmly. ‘This is … family business?’ he glanced at Tamar for confirmation. She gave a small nod.

  * * *

  Stiles was having difficulty understanding what Hecaté was telling him. ‘He’s our son?’ he asked incredulously. ‘But we don’t have a son … do we?’

  ‘Evidently we will have,’ said Hecaté calmly.

  Stiles was an intelligent man; he would get there eventually. She just had to be patient.

  ‘But he’s a grown man.’

  ‘Yes,’

  ‘How…? I don’t…’

  ‘Jack!’ said Hecaté sharply. ‘Now is perhaps not the time for this.’ She glanced at Jamie meaningfully. ‘Believe me, this is our son, and he needs our help.’

  Stiles looked at Jamie who was looking bewilderedly from one to the other of them. He was jerked back to, for want of a better word, reality. ‘Right, yes, you’re right.’

  ‘He’s right, though, isn’t he?’ said Jamie suddenly. ‘It’s not possible, is it? I heard them talking before. They said you must’ve sent me back in time to grow up in the past.’ His brow wrinkled. ‘Or you will, anyway, when I’m born. Why would you do that though?’

  ‘Only because, I now know, though meeting you here, that I did do it, or rather, that I will. Perhaps the reason for it will become clear, in time.’ Hecaté told him despairingly.

  ‘You didn’t want me,’ said Jamie sullenly.

  Hecaté suppressed a sob. ‘No!’ she said vehemently.

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ he persisted. ‘If you hadn’t, this wouldn’t have happened to me.’ He glared at Stiles. ‘Was it you, was it your idea?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Stiles. ‘I always wanted a son.’

  ‘You could not have escaped your destiny in any case,’ Hecaté told him. ‘None of us can. But we will help you as much as we can now.’

  Jamie subsided. ‘It’s too late to change it now, I suppose,’ he said.

  Stiles and Hecaté looked at each other. Both of them were aware of the elastic nature of time, and the fact that, it was not too late. Technically, it had not happened yet. If they decided right now to keep their son whenever he was born, it would change the present immediately.

  Hecaté shook her head. ‘No. We do not yet know all the reasons why this has happened,’ she told Stiles silently. ‘How do we know that we might not make things worse?’

  Stiles found it hard to imagine what could be worse than being presented with a grown up son, whose existence he had not even known about and who clearly hated him, and with good reason, he had to admit. And who was, to top it all off, a vampire. What could be worse than that? To have missed out on his son’s whole life, and then to have let him down so badly at the last. It was unbearable. He could see that Hecaté felt the same way and yet she could think this way. What else could he do, but back her up?’

  ‘I can see things,’ said Jamie, ‘in my head. Thoughts and memories that aren’t mine. Other … things like me … horrors … atrocities … murders…’ he stared blankly at his newfound mother. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Make this not have happened.’

  * * *

  ‘… Make this not have happened,’ said Tamar. She, Denny and Cindy had retreated to the library. ‘If we could somehow get to the box before Askphrit …’

  ‘I know,’ said Denny. ‘But you still haven’t said how.’

  ‘That’s because I don’t know yet. But the answer’s there. In what I just said, I know it is. If we …’

  ‘Look,’ said Denny kindly. ‘We’re going about this all wrong, as usual. What we need to do is what we always do in the end. Face the situation in front of us.’ He sighed. ‘The Apocalypse is coming, right?’

  ‘Right,’

  ‘So, what does that mean in practical terms, what can we do about it?’

  ‘Kidnap the American President’s daughter and hold her to ransom until he agrees not to bomb us,’ said Cindy. ‘What? It could work.’

  ‘No, it couldn’t,’ said Tamar. ‘The reason being, that without hope, he’s not going to care about his daughter. Or anything else for that matter … what’s that?’

  Denny looked out of the window. ‘Dragon,’ he said idly. Then his brain caught up with his ears. ‘Um … that’s weird,’ he added.

  ‘It’s in revelations,’ said Cindy, ‘I guess this means it’s started.’

  ‘Revelations!’ snorted Denny. ‘Like the four Horsemen and all that …’ he trailed off, well verbally at least, his thought continued in Tamar’s head.

  She nodded. ‘It’s got to be worth a try,’ she said.

  ‘What has?’ asked Cindy.

  ‘We’re going to see if we can stall the Horsemen,’ Tamar told her. ‘At least until we can think of something better.’

  * * *

  Jamie was staring fixedly and despairingly into the mirror in an upstairs bedroom, where he had locked himself in, away from the others. As if, if he looked hard enough, he could force his image to appear, through sheer willpower. Make this not have happened.

  He had tried to kill himself, a stake through the heart, self-immolation, but it did not work, he had the blood of a God, he had been told. It was why he had retained his soul. It was why he was trapped in this torment. And the hunger … Make this not have happened.

  His head was full of ghastly images that he could not get rid of, thousands of years of terror. Horrors perpetrated, massacres attended, even just sheer petty cruelties, performed for the sake of it. His head rang with them. Make this not have happened.

  His mother had said that he had acquired a sort of genetic memory from the blood. Blood memory? All the memories of all the other monsters like him. Because he too was now a monster like them. No, no, not like them. Never, never, never … Make this not have happened.

  And he could see it all, all the way back to the beginning. And he thought… ‘Make this not have happened’. And he saw the way.

  * * *

  ‘Stall them how?’ demanded Cindy.

  ‘We’ll just … play it by ear,’ said Denny. ‘See what happens.’

  ‘Got to find them first,’ muttered Tamar.

  ‘I could scry,’ offered Cindy, with just a soupçon of sarcasm, which was not like her.

  ‘You’ve given up hope,’ accused Tamar.

  ‘It’s not her fault
,’ said Denny.

  ‘No?’ Come on Cindy; are you a witch or a woman? Use your magic, try!’

  ‘What for?’ said Cindy hopelessly. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘It’s not over until I say it’s over,’ said Tamar grimly. A thought struck her. ‘Oh my God – Jack! If she’s like this, with a magical buffer, what kind of a state will he be in by now?’

  Outside the sky grew darker and the sounds of a heated argument met their ears.

  ‘Naw, this can’t be the place! We’ve come the wrong bloody way again! Give me that map, yer stupid scunner.’

  ‘Scunner is it, yeh great Pillock. Wot do you know about anything anyhow? She won’t be in a wee cottage with roses round the door, yeh know. Not her.’

  ‘How do you know? Pah, Snow White!’ Somebody spat on the ground.

  Another voice piped up. ‘Wot do we want with her anyway?’ This was greeted with a loud chorus of agreement. Myriad voices cried things like. ‘Yeah, wot do we want her for?’ And ‘he’s right, look you.’ And ‘bloody Snow White, my arse.’

  ‘SHUT UP THE LOT OF YOU!’

  ‘I know that voice,’ said Tamar, leaning out of the window. ‘Hello Florid, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Ah, it’s yourself all right,’ said Florid, looking a little flustered.

  ‘Tole you, it was the right place,’ muttered Stroppy sulkily.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ repeated Tamar. ‘I thought you were all going to Valhalla.’

  ‘Ah, well, we did all right, but …’

  ‘They didn’t throw you out did they?’

  ‘Naw, well, that is to say… Look, can we come in?’

  ‘Of course, if you want to, but …’

  The dwarfs piled through the window, clambering over each other to reach the sill. When they were all inside the library, they stood about, quite at their ease, stamping their feet and making a mess of the carpets. Clive would have been horrified.

  ‘Has you got any food?’

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Beer!’

  ‘BEER!’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no to a small nip of whisky.’

  ‘Ahem!’ Florid cleared his throat meaningfully. ‘Sorry about the lads,’ he said. ‘But – well, the fact is we’ve had a bit of a disappointment see.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it?’

  ‘Do we have time for this? Denny cut in.

  Tamar looked at the assembled dwarfs. They were all covered in mud and blood, and their beards seemed even more tangled than they had before, if that were possible. ‘Hmm, we may have,’ she said.

  At this Florid addressed Denny. ‘Ah, good day sir,’ he intoned pompously, and far more politely than Tamar would have believed of him. ‘May I apologise for this sudden intrusion. My name is Florid Underdrawers.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Denny, clearly impressed. ‘I wish mine was.’ This last piece of sarcasm, said in tones of absolute sincerity, as was Denny’s custom, went, as it were, right over Florid’s head. He bowed.

  At this point, Cindy gave an impressive snort and left the room.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Florid

  ‘Wicked witch?’ came a voice from deep within the crowd of dwarfs. There was some muffled laughter.

  ‘Who said that?’ snapped Florid, straining to see.

  ‘Me sir,’ came the voice again, and a tiny dwarf struggled out of the huddle. ‘Lofty, sir.’

  ‘Oh my,’ said Denny.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Tamar. ‘That was just Cindy. She is a witch actually, but not wicked, just not all that bright. You can ignore her for now – she’s just in a bad mood. So, you were going to tell us what happened to you. You can start by telling us how you found us.’

  ‘The map of course,’ said Florid. He held it out to Tamar. It was the most peculiar thing she had ever seen. A mere piece of shabby parchment marked with a large cross labelled “SNOW WHITE COTTAGE”, and a large arrow pointing to it bearing the legend “YOU ARE HERE”. There was nothing else on it.

  ‘It’s a magical map,’ said Stroppy helpfully. ‘We stole it from a witch, Oh – years ago. It shows you where you are, and how to get to where you want to go. You just have to ask it, see.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tamar thoughtfully.

  ‘Snow White Cottage?’ snorted Denny looking over her shoulder.

  ‘Ah, well, we didn’t know where you lived see, but the map understands what you mean and well …’

  ‘And why did you want to find me?’ said Tamar giving Denny an annoyed dig with her foot. ‘What happened in Valhalla?’

  ‘Well, see, we got there all right …’ began Florid.

  ‘Eventually,’ put in Stroppy. ‘If you’s’d just listened to me in the first place. I am the official map reader you know.’

  ‘Ah, shut up you,’ snapped Florid. ‘I’m telling the story, look you. And if you interrupts me again, you’ll be looking for thy head in the gutter, see?’ He turned to Stroppy and pointed his axe at him scoldingly. ‘Official map reader, huh! You couldn’t find your own arse with both hands you couldn’t.’

  He turned to Tamar. ‘Terrible sense of direction for a dwarf,’ he confided.

  ‘Then why is he the map reader?’ asked Denny.

  Florid hesitated. ‘Ah, well …’

  ‘Because I’m the only one who can read,’ retorted Stroppy, then he retreated quickly behind Stinky. Or was it Minky?

  ‘We’re not big readers us dwarfs,’ agreed Florid unperturbed, now that the secret was out.

  ‘Go on with your story,’ said Denny, seeing that Tamar’s patience was running out – it never had far to run in any case.

  ‘You arrived in Valhalla … and?’

  ‘Ah, well, turns out it was closing up or something, everyone was leaving. Off to Ragnoroc, the final battle, or some such thing they said. Well, we heard something about it being the end of the world anyway, so we decided to come here ’cos we … that is Mufti here says he heard you saying something about that. So we thought you might know what it was all about, see?’

  ‘You could say that,’ murmured Denny. The dwarfs were looking at them expectantly.

  ‘Well,’ began Tamar eventually. ‘It’s like this …’

  ~ Chapter Twenty Seven ~

  ‘Help me to find the way back,’ Jamie asked his mother. ‘I know you know how, you must do, you sent me back once before, didn’t you?’

  ‘But I do not know how, I have not yet done it.’

  ‘But you will.’

  ‘It may be that I will learn it from you.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know how to do it.’

  ‘But you can see into the past. I cannot.’

  ‘You can’t? But it’s easy, I’ve always been able to … you really can’t? Then where did I get it from?’

  ‘You are not speaking of memory, are you?’

  ‘No … not exactly. I mean, I can remember things obviously, things that have happened to me. And now I can remember a lot of things that never happened to me. But sometimes, like if I was reading a book about William the Conqueror or something, I could see what had happened, like a movie running through my head, only real. I never understood how it happened, and I thought maybe, now I mean, I thought it must have come from you.’

  Hecaté raised an eyebrow. ‘Like a movie?’

  ‘Well, sort of, but well, more real, like being there, with it all around me, and the smells and the air and all that stuff.’

  ‘You were there.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘As to that, that is more than I can tell. But what I can tell you is that the gods do not have this facility. It belongs to the imagination, to the ability to put yourself aside and say. “What if…” To go to a place in your head and make it “thus” instead of “thus” which is uniquely human. I think this gift of yours owes more to your father than to me.’

  ‘Humans can’t time travel,’ objected Jamie, but uncertainly – he was really not sure of a
nything anymore.

  ‘Neither can you. This is something different.’

  ‘Then I can’t go back?’

  ‘Hmm, I wonder if I can explain. As a human, you can go to a place in your head that you can imagine, and as a god, you seem to have the ability to take your body with you. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think so,’

  ‘I can take my body to any place that I know of in any realm or dimension, but I cannot go to a place of my imagining, because I cannot make my mind understand this concept. Your father can take his mind to any place that he can imagine, but his body will not follow, because he has not this power.’

  ‘But you can remember the past?’

  ‘Of course, but I cannot see it clearly in my head as you do. For that, you need a human mind.’

  ‘Like mine?’

  ‘Exactly. My son, you can go to any place that you can see clearly in your head. You know this to be so, because you have already done it. Can you see the place you wish to go to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you are already half way there. Your mind is there. Let your body follow. Close your eyes and see it. Now, feel your way there. See the way through. Do not think about it, you are already there.’

  Jamie closed his eyes and vanished.

  * * *

  The dwarfs were arguing again. There were three factions. One wanted to go back to dwarf heaven and to hell with it. Another group wanted to stay and fight. And the last group wanted to have another drink and decide tomorrow. What had sparked the argument was Tamar’s request to borrow the map in order to find the Horsemen and stall the Apocalypse. Many of the dwarfs had been shocked at the suggestion of lending her the precious map, and some had said that it would be all right if they could go with her. But others said that that was all very well, but would they have to do any fighting? To which the second group had retorted, were they dwarfs or not? Dwarfs like fighting, at least real dwarfs do. To which the reply had come back, that dwarfs did indeed like fighting, but only if they weren’t drinking. This was indisputable, but led to a long harangue from Florid about duty and honour and so on, which met with a lot of jeering ‘Honour be blowed,’ ‘pass the ale,’ etc, etc.