by S. C. Ransom
I ran up the stairs to head her off.
“Sorry, Mum,” I whispered. “I was getting Grace a glass of water when I tripped over the shoes and dropped it.”
Mum was always complaining about the shoes left in the hall, so she was bound to believe that.
“Do be more careful, Alex. And make sure you collect all the broken glass.”
“OK. Sorry I woke you up.”
“Well, at least I know you are home safely,” she smiled. “Did you have a good evening?”
“It was OK,” I conceded. I didn’t want to start her off on one of her lengthy interrogations just now. Thankfully she got the hint.
“Tell me all about it tomorrow. See you in the …”
“… morning,” I finished for her, leaning in for a kiss.
She disappeared back to her room, and I ran back downstairs to turn my attention to the floor. I finally switched on the light and surveyed the damage. There wasn’t much mess, the glass had broken cleanly in two and I hadn’t overfilled it, so there was just a small puddle on the floorboards.
I searched through my memory as I wiped the floor. I couldn’t imagine where I had seen that face before. It must have been somewhere – probably on the TV, I decided: he was far too handsome to be just my imagination. And such a blinding image too, as if he had been projected directly into my head. That was the really strange thing: somehow he didn’t just feel like the recollection of someone I had seen before; it was almost as if he was really there. I couldn’t make any sense of it at all, and in the end I gave up. It was late and I was tired – perhaps I would have a better idea in the morning.
I fetched another glass from the kitchen and went back upstairs, where I was expecting an interrogation from Grace. But it was late, and she had fallen asleep. It seemed like a detailed discussion about my weird experience would have to wait until tomorrow.
In the morning I realised that I was still wearing the bracelet. It was so comfortable I hadn’t noticed. I went downstairs to get a coffee for Grace and smoothed a minuscule mark off the stone while I waited for the kettle to boil. For the briefest of moments I thought that I could see a moving shadow flitting across its surface again, but as I did a double take there was nothing there. “I’m going mad,” I muttered to myself, thinking of the night before. “Bracelets can’t blink and pictures of strange guys can’t be projected into your head.” I had been hoping that it would all somehow become clear in the morning, but I was no further forward in trying to work out who or what had caused it.
As ever there was a last-minute scramble to be ready and Grace and I each grabbed a biscuit in place of breakfast and dashed to the bus stop.
The advantages of going to an all girls’ school that was right next to an all boys’ school were immense. It was possible to avoid the boys if you were feeling grumpy or had a bad hair day, but easy to meet up at the dividing fence during break. We also had a joint coach service, so students from either school could get a bus in from their local area. The coach had been the hub of my social life since I was eleven, from the first week, when I’d learned every possible swear word in the language from the boys, to now, when it was where the girls discussed tactics for attracting the same boys.
Things had changed a little since we had moved up to the sixth form. Now we were officially seniors and no longer required to wear uniforms, we were able to watch the younger kids on the coach with an indulgent eye, occasionally wincing when we realised that we used to behave in exactly the same way.
My elder brother, Josh, at eighteen, was in his final year of school and had managed to spend most of the last six years ignoring me completely on the coach. But that too had changed in the last few months as he and some of his friends had got more interested in my friends, and very occasionally they acknowledged our existence.
The coach arrived, and there was time for some uninterrupted chat with Grace. I was about to tell her all about the whole thing when one of our friends dropped into the seat in front and started quizzing Grace about Jack: the grapevine had clearly been working overtime. It would wait, I decided. We had all day to talk on our day trip to London.
The school trip had been organised for those of us in the Art Club, an optional lunchtime activity. Most of us in the group were OK at art but didn’t have the talent or the dedication needed to sit the exams, and membership of the club allowed us to have a bit of fun. The project for the term was to look at art in public buildings, and that day we were off to St Paul’s Cathedral. My special interest was in the carvings of people and faces, and having done lots of research on the Internet I was planning to draw the figures adorning the tomb of the Duke of Wellington, the famous soldier. Unfortunately I hadn’t done quite enough research before I submitted my plans, and found that all the angels were perched on the very top of the enormous monument. I was going to get a very hard lesson in foreshortening.
We were driven up into London in the school minibus by one of our art teachers. It was a subdued group as we had all been out celebrating the night before, and a few of the girls had been up really late. Unfortunately, Mrs Bell was a surprisingly aggressive driver, and some of us didn’t look good as the minibus tore around the one-way system south of the river. At one point I was sure that Melissa was going to heave. She went very pale and someone quietly handed her an empty carrier bag and opened a window. No one dared to ask Mrs Bell to slow down.
We finally made it to the city, where the great dome of the cathedral still managed to dominate the much larger corporate buildings nearby. The huge white stone edifice, recently cleaned of hundreds of years of London grime, seemed to glow gently in the sunshine. The two large towers that flanked the western entrance were dwarfed by the pale grey dome which sat at the centre of the building. As we drove up Ludgate Hill, I could see the sunlight glinting off the gilding on the tops of each of the towers, and catching the railings on the Golden Gallery at the top of the dome.
I loved coming to St Paul’s. As a kid I had come here regularly: Mum and Dad raved about the view out across London and every foreign visitor we had was made to come and admire it. From the top, looking to the east, you could see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge nestling between the tall smooth buildings of the city. The hills of Hampstead and Highgate reared up to the north, and if the weather was good enough, you could see Richmond Park in the far south-west. It was a long walk up to the Golden Gallery, the highest point you could get to: hundreds of steps, but worth it. I had always been fascinated by the construction of the dome, with the latticework of the internal wooden structure through which the stairs climbed to the top. I just had to be careful not to look down too often, as some of the drops were dizzyingly precipitous. Worst of all was the glass peephole at the top that let you look down at the tiny people hundreds of metres directly below your feet. It always made me feel queasy thinking about that drop, wondering if they could see me hundreds of feet above them, looking down at what they were doing.
But today I wasn’t going to have the chance to go up to the top, there was too much to do on the project.
The cool and gloom inside St Paul’s was a marked contrast from the dazzling sunshine and frenetic activity outside. As we walked through the entrance it was as if someone had pulled a shutter down over the brightness, noise and twenty-first century living going on outside. We shuffled through the turnstiles with the rest of the class as our eyes adjusted slowly to the muted light. Something about the atmosphere was strangely intimidating, and all the chattering in relief that the drive was over petered out as we all gazed up into the height of the roof. Every visitor was the same, I noticed: no one was able to come in and not be awed by the huge space. At this end, the cathedral was empty, with no pews or monuments, just a vast expanse of chequerboard floor and towering columns reaching up to the vaulted ceiling. No matter how many times I had been here before it always took my breath away.
Grace and I got out our notebooks and maps and began to look for the monuments we needed to s
ketch. As we walked up the centre of the nave Grace started to giggle.
“Imagine Lady Di walking all the way along here in that dress,” she snorted. I shuddered: I couldn’t imagine anything worse, talking that long walk with the world watching, to marry a man who didn’t really love her.
“If I ever get married I’m going to run off to a beach,” I agreed, “not get dolled up in a huge frilly dress and cost my parents thousands.” Dad might disagree though, I thought wryly. He was the only reason I might consider the whole white meringue routine. Rob’s face flickered into my mind, but as I glanced down at the bracelet on my wrist, he was instantly replaced by a memory of the stunning face I had seen last night. I shook my head to clear it – I really should concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing.
Grace and I had reached the central part of the cathedral, under the spectacular dome.
“Wow,” she breathed and we both stared up. The dome was magnificent, curving majestically high above us. There was a quiet buzz of conversation, and we saw people up in the Whispering Gallery, trying out the famous acoustics. You were supposed to be able to sit around the edge of the huge circular balcony that ran around the inside of the dome, and whisper against the wall. Then someone on the far side, the whole width of the building away, should be able to hear the whisper. I had never been able to make it work, but the tourists seemed to love it.
“I need to check out Nelson,” Grace muttered, biting her lip as she consulted her map.
“Nelson’s in the crypt. The entrance is over there, I think,” I said. “I’ll be there in a second; I just want to look at something in the middle.” Grace started rummaging in her bag for a pencil as she went to find the tomb.
I walked slowly forward until I was below the exact centre of the dome, which was marked on the floor by a large mosaic star. High above me I could see the glass panel of the peephole, but before I could work out if anyone up there was looking down at me, I felt dizzy from leaning backwards. I straightened up and froze with shock.
Directly in front of me was the boy whose face I had imagined last night. He was even more gorgeous in the flesh, with spectacular bone structure and tousled dark blond hair. I could barely breathe and was struggling to regain my composure when I realised that he was looking at me with an equally stunned expression. He quickly looked over his shoulder, as if to check that I was looking at him and not at something behind him. It seemed a strange thing to do given that his looks could stop traffic. His eyes were a vibrant, stunning blue, and now I could see him properly there was a very slight kink in his nose, as if it might have been broken years before. As I stared I realised that I had seen the colour of his eyes before – they were exactly the same blue as the stone in my bracelet. Not really believing what I was seeing, I touched the bracelet and stole a quick glance towards it.
His eyes flicked down towards my wrist and I saw them widen in surprise. His hand flew to his own wrist, and I saw he was wearing an identical band. Another expression transformed his face. Was it alarm? He looked back at me and took a couple of steps closer.
“Keep cool,” I muttered to myself under my breath, as I tried to look a little less startled and more composed and interesting. I went for a tentative half smile. He really was stunningly handsome, and I couldn’t imagine what he wanted with me, but it was worthwhile trying to keep his attention for a minute longer.
He seemed to be struggling with something which made him frown, but then he too smiled, with a strange look of wonderment. He was even more beautiful when he smiled, with a deep crease in one cheek and a flash of perfect white teeth.
“Hello,” I whispered, surprising myself for speaking out. He continued to stand there, smiling more confidently now, but saying nothing. This was going to be harder than I imagined. Maybe he didn’t speak English.
“Alex!” called a voice behind me. Grace was looking at me strangely. “Are you coming…?”
“I’ll be right there,” I replied over my shoulder, trying not to lose too much eye contact with my silent companion. “I’m supposed to be working on an art project…” I started to explain to him, then tailed off. How lame was that? Not exactly the sort of thrilling conversation that was going to hold the interest of someone like him. He was still standing there, and I noticed that he was wearing a strange, full-length cloak that was pushed back behind his shoulders, secured by a thick cord by his neck. Weird. It would be just my luck if someone this lovely was a monk.
He looked as if he was about to say something, but before he could speak a group of German tourists suddenly appeared, with a guide who was telling them about the peephole in the dome’s roof. The guide was right behind him, pointing up while walking backwards and talking to his group. I could see that the guide was about to walk into him, so I instinctively reached out to pull him out of the way. As I touched his arm I felt a slight tingling sensation and my hand went right through him. I pulled back as if I had been electrified. This wasn’t possible. I looked at him again in puzzlement. His face was struggling with several emotions. One was clearly joy – he was still smiling – but he also looked really frustrated.
After a few seconds the German tourists moved on, so he wasn’t about to be trampled any more. I must have made a mistake, I decided; perhaps his clothes were made of some strange slippery fabric, or perhaps I was just distracted by his astonishing beauty. There was no way my hand had actually gone through him – people were solid, so there had to be a rational explanation. I tried again, spotting a good conversation opener.
“I, um, I see you have the same bracelet as I do.” I gestured towards my band and to his. He looked down at his arm, then directly into my eyes.
He couldn’t have been much older than me but those beautiful eyes hinted at pain and sorrow. He raised his arm to show me his wrist. The band there seemed identical to mine. Thinking it would be better to compare them side by side, I smiled and took a couple of steps towards him. As I moved, the air around him seemed to swirl, and he was gone. I looked around wildly, but he had completely disappeared. Grace was right behind me though, arms folded, with a quizzical look on her face.
“Where did he go?” I demanded, continuing to scan the crowds of tourists flowing past us.
“Who?” asked Grace in surprise.
“That guy! The one in the cloak. Where has he gone?”
“I didn’t see anyone in a cloak.”
“You must have done. He was right here; I was talking to him…”
“Alex,” Grace put a gentle hand on my arm, “you were standing here on your own, and you looked like you were talking to yourself. That’s why I came back over.”
“But he was standing just there, the best looking guy I have ever seen…” I faltered. She must have noticed him.
“I think maybe you need to have a sit-down,” Grace said soothingly, pulling me by the arm over to the front row of the pews.
“There is nothing wrong with me,” I protested, still straining up on to the tips of my toes to catch a glimpse of him in the crowd.
“Sweetie, you have been standing on your own in the middle of the church looking slightly demented,” Grace murmured. “One of the others was going to notice pretty soon, and I didn’t think you’d want that sort of abuse.”
I sank into the pew, defeated.
“Perhaps you need some water,” she continued. “Or maybe some fresh air.”
“I’ll be fine,” I sighed. “Just give me a minute.” She wasn’t going to let me off so easily.
“Soooo, you were talking to a man in a cloak who I couldn’t see. Does that sum it up?”
“When you put it like that it does seem unlikely,” I admitted. She hadn’t seen him then, that much was clear. What could I say? She already had a slightly disbelieving tone, and what I could tell her would only convince her that I was completely nuts. An invisible guy who I couldn’t touch? That was going to be hard to swallow.
Suddenly I was relieved that I hadn’t mentioned the strange incide
nt last night – she was my best friend but I didn’t want to have to push her too far. I needed to try and make some sense of this myself before sharing it with anyone, including Grace.
I sat back and closed my eyes, running through the scene again. The guy whose image I had seen last night had been standing right in front of me. He no longer looked as fierce; he had looked positively stunning. I couldn’t help grinning when I thought of his smile and of how much better he looked when he was happy. In fact, he was so gorgeous I could feel myself starting to blush.
“Alex?” Grace touched my arm. “Are you OK? Do you need me to get Mrs Bell?”
I shook my head. The last thing I needed was more questions. “I’m fine. I think maybe I should have had something for breakfast. I went a bit wobbly there for a minute.”
Grace heaved a great sigh of relief. “You had me worried,” she admitted. “You were acting pretty weird.”
“You have no idea,” I murmured to myself, slightly surprised that she accepted the excuse. “Shall we get on with Nelson and Wellington?” I said, standing up. I was going to have to think about this later, once I was on my own. Was I going mad? An involuntary shiver ran down my spine at that thought. I looked around again furtively but there was no sign of him anywhere.
After that the St Paul’s project felt pretty irrelevant. I couldn’t stop searching around me to see if I could see his face in the crowd. But there was no sign of him, only a slightly unsettling feeling of being watched. I peered at the bracelet a few times, and a couple of times I thought I saw the suggestion of movement in it, but nothing like the blinking I thought I had seen yesterday. The whole thing was bizarre.
Grace kept checking up on me as if I was some sort of invalid, and I was really relieved when it was time to get back on the minibus and go back to school. It was parked just round the corner and I jumped on and grabbed a seat at the back.
