Elephants and Castles

by John Patrick

It was two am and Elvis was sleeping. He awoke suddenly. His eyes flashed around the room. Something had disturbed him. It was dark and quiet. He sniffed; the smell was back, not as strong as before but it unmistakeably the same ripe cheese odour that he'd smelt in the attic. Did that mean he was about to have a fit? He climbed out of bed, turned on the reading lamp and inspected himself in the mirror. He looked normal enough. Was this a dream? He left the reading light on and lay back on his bed. There was something hard under his shoulder. Elvis reached underneath and pulled out his mobile phone. Had it been there all along? Surely he would have felt it. He looked at it closely; there was a small crack across the screen and, he lifted it to his nose and sniffed; it reeked of cheese. Elvis lay awake, wide-eyed and heart racing. Was this all in his head? Would he wake up tomorrow and there would be no phone and no smell? He lay for what felt like hours, watching the door and the curtains and wondering. Finally he fell asleep again.

  It was a warm, sticky night and Elvis tossed and turned. He kicked off his covers and rolled over. It wouldn't be long before Morris came in and woke him before leaving for work. Elvis snoozed again until he felt something touch his shoulder. Surely it wasn't time already. He groaned and opened one eye. The toddler from the attic stood before him. Still half asleep, Elvis paid no heed. He rolled over and pulled the sheet back over himself. Just a few more minutes of sleep, please.

  'Alice! Alice! Come out of there!' the voice was whispered from the landing.

  Elvis sat bolt upright, now fully alert. He turned to look but the child was gone. His door that he'd been watching with suspicion for hours was now wide open. Elvis slid out of bed and spied nervously onto the landing. The white cat was disappearing through the attic door but otherwise it was deserted. Had he been disturbed by the cat? Had he dreamt the little girl? Elvis crept out onto the landing clutching his damaged torch. He tip-toed to the attic door. He hesitated before pushing it open and craning a head inside. He flicked on his torch. It picked out the white cat looking back down at him through the open hatch before it disappeared into the attic. Elvis crept up the stairs until his head and shoulders poked through the opening. Outside dawn was struggling to penetrate heavy clouds and just a feeble grey light managed to struggle in through skylight. Elvis shone his torch into the shadows again. There was no sign of the toddler, but the attic looked different. There were blankets lying in the middle of the floor, boxes seemed to have been moved. Who would have done that? Morris was always talking about sorting out the attic, thought Elvis, perhaps he'd been up here. Then he noticed marks on the floor, white lines. He crept up another step to investigate. They were chalk lines drawn on the old dark oak boards. In amongst zigzag scribble was a roughly drawn oval figure with offset eyes and mouth and wiggly lines for arms and legs. It was unmistakably a child's clumsy drawing. Broken chalks lay alongside. Elvis felt himself go weak again. His head began to spin. He eased back down a step. He wished he'd stayed in bed. There was a rustling noise from the side of the attic. Elvis nervously pointed his torch. His hand was trembling. The rustling came again, then a tower of old paint cans toppled and crashed across the floorboards. A rat darted out; the cat hurtled after it, scraping at the boards for grip as he flew past. The cans rumbled across the floor. Elvis had seen enough. He scrambled back down the stairs. A can rolled over the edge and clattered down the stairs behind him. Elvis hurried back onto the landing, slammed the attic door shut. He stopped to catch his breath and listen for noise from Monica or Morris. The house was silent. Elvis headed back into his bedroom. He carefully closed his door and pushed the stiff brass bolt tightly into the locked position. He shook the door handle to make sure it was definitely locked. Maybe Henry was right and this was all in his head, but he still felt better with his door locked. He took a deep breath then turned to put his torch back on his desk. But there, huddled together in front of his curtains stood the bedraggled figures of Mary, Samuel and Alice.

  Elvis opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. He turned and pulled at the door handle, forgetting he’d just locked it. He scrambled at the small brass bolt.

  'Please Sir, don't go.' pleaded Mary 'We aint gonna 'urt you.'

  'We brought you back that... thing.' added Samuel pointing towards the mobile phone. 'Sorry it got a bit... busted.'

  Elvis finally managed to slide open the bolt but Mary stepped in front of him.

  'We need 'elp sir, please.' said Mary.

  Elvis backed away. 'They're just in my head. They're just in my head. ‘He mumbled to himself. He screwed his eyes tight shut and said it again. He reopened them but the three children were still in his bedroom. They looked so real, so alive.

  'Please listen to us Sir. We don't mean no 'arm. We don't know what's 'appenin'.'

  'You're not... you're not real. You're not real.' stammered Elvis, backing away towards the corner of his bedroom.

  'We lived 'ere too, this is our 'ome.'

  'No, I'm dreaming this, you're not real! You're not real!'

  Samuel stepped forward and booted Elvis on the shin. 'What 'bout that? Is that real?'

  'Ow!' The pain certainly felt real enough.

  'Samuel!' snapped Mary 'Stop it! I'm sorry sir, we don't mean no 'arm.' reassured Mary, scowling at her brother. 'We just wanted some 'elp.'

  'But... but why would you need help from me?' asked Elvis, rubbing his shin and wondering if he should really be conversing with these figments of his imagination.

  'Why d'you think?' said Samuel showing Elvis the sores on his arms. 'Idiot.'

  Elvis recoiled. He had never seen such ugly boils before.

  'Samuel!' Mary barked again. 'I'm sorry Sir. 'E don't mean it.'

  'How did you... get here?' asked Elvis.

  'We dunno. One minute we was sick, lying on a bed in 'ere, in this very room and next minute we saw you in the attic. How did you get 'ere?'

  'This ain't heaven, is it?' asked Samuel.

  Elvis snorted. 'Well, if it is, there's sure going to be a lot of disappointed people.'

  'Good, 'cause I still feel like shit.'

  'What's wrong with you? Why've you got all those... sores?' asked Elvis

  Mary and Samuel looked at each other, surprised. 'Well, plague of course. You must 'ave seen it!'

  'Plague! There's no plague! Not been for hundreds of years!'

  'What?' said Mary.

  'Plague, no one gets plague in England any more. That's just in history books; there hasn't been plague for yonks. How can it be plague?'

  'But it's everywhere. Half of London's got it.'

  'No.' said Elvis. 'Half of London had it, but that was a long long time ago.'

  'No, it's everywhere, in every street. Go 'ave a look. I saw it... just days ago. '

  'Days ago? What are you talking about? What are... when are you... from?'

  'What?' Samuel asked with contorted face.

  'When were you born? What year?'

  They looked blankly back at him.

  'Don't you know?' Elvis paused to think. 'Hang on!' He grabbed a large history book from his shelf. 'Who's the king?'

  'Oh, that's easy.' replied Samuel 'That's Charlie, the second one. 'E's back!'

  'Charles the second...' Elvis ran his finger down the timeline of English history. 'Charles II. Bloody hell! It says here 1660-1685. That's like, nearly... four hundred years ago!'

  'What?' exclaimed Mary 'Four hundred years! You’re kiddin' me. That can't be right.'

  Elvis looked again in the book. The next entry was 'The Great Plague of London. 1665.' He looked back at the children. They looked so normal, except for the sores, the old clothes and the bad smell, but not like he'd imagined ghosts. They weren't translucent, no white sheets. Was this some sort of practical joke? Was this still just in his head?

  'So you're telling me that you died of plague, here, in this house?'

  'Well' replied Mary 'all we know is we laid down feelin' sick, and now this.'

  'Are there more of you? How many had plague here?'<
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  'Well, yeh there was us, an' Mum an'...Oh crumbs, Samuel, the carriage house! There was all of them in the carriage house! Mister Shipton an' Brock and all them others. We need to go look an' see what's happened!'

  Mary sprung to her feet, pushed past Elvis and marched onto the stairs.

  'Wait' hissed Elvis 'where are you going? You can't go down there!'

  But she was already halfway down the stairs. Elvis and Samuel hurried after her, Alice shuffled downstairs behind them on her bottom. They finally caught up with Mary in the basement kitchen. Everything had changed so much from how Mary and Samuel had remembered, including the back door, now covered with a bewildering array of deadlocks and chains. Mary rattled the door.

  'Where are you going?' asked Elvis, unsure if it was better to let her escape or try keep her locked in the house.

  'The carriage 'ouse, there was loads o' people in it. I got to see.' explained Mary, tugging on the safety chain.

  'What carriage house?' Asked Elvis, as he helped Mary undo the latches, locks and bolts and then threw open the back door.

  Outside, the sky had lightened a little and a fine drizzle was drifting in the air. Mary and Samuel gasped. Where the wooden carriage house had once been, there was now a small ugly concrete-slab garage. The rear garden that had been filled with fruit trees and vegetable plots was now a small square lawn bordered by overgrown shrubs with a washing line through the centre. A wood panelled fence stood at the far side of a bitumen drive. Sitting on the ground against the fence was a woman with babe in arms, feeding her child. She had a blanket pulled across her body to protect the baby from the damp and was wearing a grimy grey head scarf.

  'Oh shit!' said Elvis 'Who the hell is that?'

  Mary and Samuel dashed across the drive and helped the woman to her feet. They recognised her from the crowd that had once fought for the potion. She too had boils and sores.

  Elvis checked through the garage door windows for more. There was the old blue Austin Allegro and the usual clutter but nothing else. 'Are you expecting any more?'

  But Mary and Samuel had already taken the woman and her baby back inside the kitchen.

  'Hey just a minute!' Elvis dashed after them.

  Inside the kitchen the woman was slipping off the wet blanket and tucking her emptied breast back inside her clothes. Alice was just making it to the bottom of the stairs.

  'What are you doing?’ asked Elvis 'She can't come in here!'

  'She's got a baby, it's rainin'.' said Mary, 'What else we gonna' do?'

  From above came the ringing of Morris's wind-up alarm clock.

  'Oh crap!' groaned Elvis. 'You can't stay here!'

  'What d'you mean can't stay here?' protested Samuel 'It's rainin' out there! Anyway, this is our 'ouse and we was here before you was!'

  A loud clatter sounded from upstairs as the alarm clock danced off the bedside table.

  'Oh no, he'll be down here in a minute. Oh crap, crap, crap!' Elvis ran his hand through his hair. 'Quick then, you'll have to go back and hide in the attic.'

  He led them all quietly back up through the house. As they passed the bathroom they could here Morris singing western songs in the shower. Elvis opened the attic door and gestured for them all to head up to the top of the house. Elvis followed them up the stairs. What was he going to do with them all?

  In the shadows at the far end of the attic stood a dazed looking woman. She was dressed in the same old-fashioned pinafore dress as the others with an apron over the top. Samuel squinted into the gloom before recognition dawned.

  'Mum! Mum!' He charged at her and almost knocked her off her feet with his embrace.

  'Samuel! My darling! It really is you!' she squeezed him tightly. 'Where's Mary? And Alice?'

  Alice ran to her mother and wrapped her short arms around her leg. Mary hesitated. Her last real conversation with her mother was not a happy one. Elizabeth reached out an arm towards her older daughter and dragged her in tightly. Tears flowed down Elizabeth's cheeks. 'My darlings, I thought we'd never... But... how di we get here? What's going on?'

  They sat together on the floor of the attic and tried to make sense of the situation. Mary and Elizabeth explained to Elvis about the rise of plague through London and how it had finally arrived at their door. Samuel told Elvis the story of the stone, and how so many people had desperately come in search of its healing powers only to get sick. Elvis would like to have given them a quick update on everything that had happened since 1665 but history wasn't a strong point. He settled instead for explaining the date and some of the things that he had learnt from watching the Discovery Channel. He told them that if they'd had modern medicines back in 1665 then everyone could have been cured. Elizabeth's attention jumped between the conversation and the world outside of the attic window. The familiar houses were gone and had been replaced by large ugly blocks; there were strange horseless carriages speeding along the street, and scariest of all were the huge great things hurtling across the sky. She cowered from the window as one roared overhead.

  'So if we got some of this new medicine you're talking 'bout, we could all get well again?' asked Samuel.

  'Well, yeh, I guess so.' said Elvis.

  'Good, so go get us some.' replied Samuel.

  'It's not that easy' warned Elvis 'you've got to get medicine from doctors.'

  'Do that then.'

  'No, it's not that simple. You've got to be sick first.'

  'I am sick.'

  'Yes, I know you are. But I can hardly book you an appointment with my doctor, can I? What am I gonna say: here's Samuel, he's three hundred and something years old and he's got plague?'

  'Well then you fake it, or tell 'em your family's all got plague an' you need some potion. It can't be that hard.'

  'You don't understand. Nobody gets plague any more. And I'd need enough for six of you. That's loads'

  'And for Dad.' suggested Mary. 'Maybe he might come.'

  'Yeh, and all the rest of 'em too.' added Samuel.

  'Rest? What do you mean rest? How many are there? Are more coming?' asked Elvis getting increasingly anxious. 'There's no room for any more.'

  'There's lots of room up 'ere.' reassured Samuel.

  'No! This isn't a big attic. I'd never explain this to Morris.' Elvis went on. 'How many people were actually here back then? How many more might turn up?'

  'I dunno. Maybe another five or six...' started Mary

  'That's a lot.' replied Elvis 'We'll have to keep everyone quiet for now and I'll try and work out what to do. Another five or six people is going to make this attic very full.'

  'No' interrupted Mary 'Not five or six people, I was going to say another five or six dozen.'

  'What! I can't...'

  'Elvis! Elvis! Time to get up!' It was Morris. 'Come on, your mother's taking you to the doctor.'

  Elvis stood up and made his way to the hatch. 'Please, just keep quiet. I'll see if I can find out about medicine and then... well I guess we'll see. Just keep quiet.'

  Elvis slipped back into his bedroom to change out of his pyjamas. This couldn't be a dream now. He was wide awake, he hadn't blacked out and, he checked his pants, they were bone dry. This had to be real even if nobody else would believe him. He went down to the kitchen for breakfast. Morris was just about to leave for work.

  'Early start this morning, Elvis.' commented Morris.

  Elvis continued pouring his Coco Pops.

  'Funny smell on the landing this morning, Elvis.' Morris went on. 'Did you notice?'

  'No, I didn't smell anything.' replied Elvis.

  'Might be rats in the attic. I'd better get up there tonight and give it a good going over.' He grabbed his blue canvas jacket and left.

  Chapter 7