Cold Fire

by James Hartley

  “Each to their own.”

  “Or a sunset.”

  “Now you know what to write in that book if you ever have the power.”

  “Ha,” replied Kizzie

  Zak put a finger to his lip. “You know something weird? I don’t remember when I came here. To the school, I mean.” His face was very open. “I just heard myself saying that I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy and I don’t really know if I’m just saying that, making it up, I mean, or if it’s true. I can’t even remember buying these boots!”

  “Lay off the drugs, maaan.” Kizzie was now nose to nose with him and she crouched slightly so that she was looking up into his eyes. “There are more important things to think about,” Kizzie whispered to him. “Like us.”

  “I seriously can’t remember anything about my childhood.” Zak shook his head. “Don’t you think that’s weird? Maybe I’ve blocked it out but I can’t remember anything. I mean, nothing. Zilch.”

  “I think you’re lucky. You live in the present. That’s a talent not many people have.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m Kizzie.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Kiss me.”

  “Ah ha! So that’s why you brought me here!”

  “Oh, just kiss me, Zak! I can’t wait anymore!”

  So he did

  2

  The Master appeared to each person in the room in a different form. The curtains were drawn and the only light was that flickering from embers in the grate

  To Mr Firmin, the Headmaster, The Master was a swirling, floating wave of dark ocean hovering in the centre of the office

  To Alain Verne, he was a smiling young man with a beatific aspect. Alain, watching, was stony-faced, determined to exact revenge for coming so close to death

  To Sam Cauldhame, the Master was the Headmaster as a skeleton wearing shreds of flesh-like torn clothes. He was a skeleton Sam had seen years before on an archaeological dig with his father: a sight that had given him nightmares for years. It was very like the Master to know this and appear in such a guise

  For Leana, the Master was an old crone, hideously disfigured, one of the many witches she’d seen as a girl and who’d brought her up. She too was unmoved. The seriousness of the Master’s manifestation underlined the seriousness of the problem they were gathered there to try to resolve

  To me, the writer, the Master is an empty cowl which stares out of this white page behind the black swirls of the letters and whispers words in my ear

  To you, the reader, search your imagination for the form he takes. Take a moment to connect with him in your mind’s eye

  The atmosphere in the office was very sombre

  The horrible attempt on Alain’s life was fresh in everyone’s minds. Things had almost taken a deadly turn and there was little doubt that the situation must be rectified at once

  “You’re quite sure he’s still here somewhere?” Mr Firmin asked

  “He cannot escape,” the Master replied

  “Then we catch him and banish him,” Sam answered, “however we can.”

  “Why can’t we find him?” Firmin asked, banging his fist down on the desk. “We’ve managed to save Alain and we’ve controlled worse crises than this before. Why can’t we find the bugger and send him away?”

  “He is protected by the Writer,” the Master replied. “By the Writer’s story. There are consequences. There will be consequences.”

  “That’s what we have to find out,” Sam declared. “Who wrote this story? Who is behind all of this? Who created him?”

  “It has to be a member of the Magistrate,” Leana said. “Someone with a grudge against Alain.”

  “What I can’t understand,” Mr Firmin began, coming around the desk to where they all were, “is that there’s no sign of the story in The Book. No sign of anything. I mean, is it possible there are two Books?”

  “The pages were regenerated,” was The Master’s answer

  “Regenerated,” echoed Leana

  “Someone tore out a page?” Sam realised, stunned

  “This is someone who knows what they’re doing,” Mr Firmin said

  “Or not,” came The Master

  Each stared at their vision

  “The Writer is a living person,” the Master told them. “They are one of your own. They are not cruel, cunning or wise. Quite the opposite. They are opportunistic, lucky and green. They don’t know what they’re doing. They have no idea about the sanctity of human life. They’re playing a game and they’re all the more dangerous for doing so.”

  “But who is it?” asked Leana

  The Master conjured up the guilty figure as a hollow-eyed face in the flames

  “Really?” gasped Leana

  “But how?” Sam asked, gobsmacked

  Leana had one hand on the door handle, ready to leave. “I’ll go now!”

  “No!” The Master’s voice was solid. “First, banish the Infiltrator.”

  “But how?” asked Sam. “You said he can’t be caught!”

  “I think I see where the Master is going with this,” said Mr Firmin, calm suddenly. “One step at a time.”

  “The story is written,” the Master added, before vanishing

  “Sam,” Mr Firmin said, pointing. “Open The Book. No time to lose.”

  “I’m going for the culprit,” Leana announced, leaving

  “The Master told me there was no way for the boy to escape,” Alain Verne said, sitting forwards on his chair. “He told me that when he came to see me. You’re wasting your time.”

  “You also said he told you to beware of water,” Sam replied, checking his pen was working by tapping the nib on the back of his hand. A blue dot formed

  Alain nodded. “I’m part of the story,” he said, simultaneously realising the truth of what he was saying

  “We all are,” Firmin told him, slightly impatiently. “And it’s not our place to know how it ends, you know that, so start concentrating on how we’re going to resolve this.”

  “What do you want me to write, sir?” asked Sam, kneeling over The Book. Until this episode had begun, he’d thought he was the only Writer at the school

  “Let’s see,” Mr Firmin said, stroking his chin before beginning to speak

  Outside, in the corridor, Leana was concentrating so hard on what she had to do that she didn’t notice the girl with bad skin running towards her. They collided and Leana threw up her hands. “Watch it!”

  “Please, miss – er, I mean, Leana.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “No, it’s just …”

  “I’m busy, I said!” She strode off down the lime-green carpet, turning to add, “Honestly, if you knew the importance of the task in hand, you’d wouldn’t even think of interrupting me!”

  “But I keep thinking I see William Shakespeare!” Angela whispered, watching the head girl go

  3

  Gillian looked out at the full moon, which was furry at the edges although the sky was cloudless. “I think the sky is really changing colour this time, you know.”

  “Impossible. Your eyes are getting used to the light.”

  “No, really. I think it’s morning. You should go.”

  Romeo sat up. “I’m not going. They can come and get me here.”

  “Oh, why is this happening to us? That’s what I don’t get. Why can’t it just be easy? The usual way? Why does it have to be like this?”

  “I don’t care if they come and get me. What are they going to do? What could they do to me?”

  Gillian pulled him closer. Behind her, on the faded white wall, now grey, was a years-old cartoon of a child being given an injection. “No one’s going to take you away from me.”

  “I love you, you know.” He was facing her, eye to eye, soul to soul. “No, I really do. I know people say it all the time. I know I’ve said it before and not meant it, but this time I mean it. This is something I’ve never felt before. It’s so simple and clear.”
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br />   “It’s the truth,” said Gillian quietly

  “Exactly. It’s the truth. It’s quiet as the truth. The truth is always quiet, isn’t it?”

  “We’ll always be together.”

  “I love you so much.”

  “I love you!”

  “Why didn’t I just tell you back then, when we met? In the bar at home?”

  “Ha, why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” Romeo was asking himself the same question but suddenly saw he was many people, not one. He was no longer who he had been. He was only this: with her now, in love. To be here he had to have been there. He had to have done nothing. “I was a fool.”

  “My fool,” said Gillian. “And I’m a fool, too, you know. I didn’t do anything, either, did I?”

  “I didn’t trust myself. Maybe I thought you were going to laugh at me. Or, or …”

  “You know I think that even if you’d said something I wouldn’t have believed you.” Gillian stared out at the sky. “Oh, no, it really is changing colour. I’m serious!”

  “Don’t look at it.”

  There was a sudden noise, a bump, from somewhere outside the Sick Bay door. It had come from one of the dorms alongside or upstairs. Both shifted in the narrow bed; the world had changed. It was no longer theirs

  “I have to go,” Romeo said

  “Tell me we’ll see each other again.”

  “I promise.”

  Gillian suddenly drew back and scrunched herself up against the headboard as he stood in front of the window. “Oh, I don’t know if it’s the light or what but you look terrible. You look like a corpse.”

  Romeo wanted to joke but instead, the truth working through him, he shook his head, swallowed and whispered, “You too. You look like a statue on a tomb.”

  Both turned at a knock and they said goodbye with their eyes as the door began to open. In the time it took the Matron to come in, Romeo fled

  “What are you doing with this bally window open?” the Matron asked, clipping it closed and shuffling back to the bed in her slippers. “No wonder the windows are rattling. You’ve created a right good draught.” She put the back of her left palm against Gillian’s head. “You’re cold, lovey. That’s not good. Not good at all. Means your fever’s rising.”

  Gillian lay back on the pillows as Matron shuffled away down the creaking corridor

  She saw his shadow through the curtains, in the dark window and crawled out of bed and hopped over the floor, but if he’d been there, he was gone

  Only the moon, furred at the edges, fading into the day

  And the sad, sad echo of fading happiness in her heart

  Thursday

  1

  Bethsabe sat in front of the empty stone hole of a window and watched the snow falling. All was quiet. The room was deathly cold and Bethsabe had a shawl pulled up over her shoulders. She turned as she heard Will coming in through the open doorway

  “Ah, hello,” he said, obviously surprised, sniffing through his swollen, red nose. He was carrying two great volumes of history which he set down on his wooden table, the only furniture in the low, cold room besides the bed. “You didn’t light the fire.”

  “I don’t know how and it’s too cold,” Bethsabe replied. She turned back to the silent, white storm. “I don’t think I ever want to stop finding snow magical.”

  “There’s been plenty this winter.” Will knelt and started the fire. He rubbed his hands happily over the crackling kindling and slapped his sides as he stood up. “Would you like a tea? Something to eat?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I came to ask you a question and I saw the …” She fluttered a pretty, patterned sleeve at the view and shook her head. “I find it quite hypnotic. Still.”

  As I do you, Will might have said. It had been a shock to find Bethsabe here, he’d hardly spoken to her since their first meeting. If one of them wasn’t in class or working in the underground library, she was usually guarded by Uric, who, Will guessed, was her husband or boyfriend. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  “I like your play about the young lovers,” Bethsabe said. She looked at Will with her dark eyes. Her long lashes flickered slowly open and closed, very much on purpose

  “Ah! Been reading my personal papers, have you?” Will turned his back, blew on his hands and began to arrange the cups and kettle, silently thrilled

  “They were right there on the shelf. I put my hand on them as I came in. A page fell off. I read it. The rest is history.”

  “But why did you come in here?”

  “I was looking for you.” Bethsabe stood. She was tall and had to stoop to avoid touching the cobwebs on the rafters with her hair. When she opened her shawl to adjust her position, Will thought she looked like some magical creature which had been conjured up by the Winter gods. “I wanted to talk to you, Will.”

  “Really,” stuttered the young man in response, settling the black kettle on a tripod over the flames with a clatter. “What about?”

  “I don’t know. Just talk.”

  “Does Uric know you’re here?”

  “No.”

  Bethsabe took a step closer, but Will backed off. He picked up a sheaf of paper from the shelf. “How much did you read? I’ve made revisions. It’s not finished yet.”

  “Enough. It’s very beautiful. Very dramatic!” She sat again near the fire and smiled at him. “How do you come up with such things?”

  “I steal them,” Will replied, tapping the two history books he’d brought in

  Bethsabe laughed. “What’s the matter, Will? Are you scared of me?”

  “A little bit,” Will replied. The kettle was beginning to smoke. He stood with both hands curled behind his back, leaning on the blue stone wall. “I’m a married man, Bethsabe.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “I see.”

  “I have two young children. I’m trying to make my way in the world to make a better life for them.” He turned serious. It hurt him having to say all this. He’d liked it better when they’d admired each other from afar, when it had all been unreal. Now it was real and ugly. “I appreciate your comments on my work, though. I only wish a few playhouse owners agreed with you.”

  “Don’t you believe your plays are good?” There was a slight aloofness about her now. She was wounded, covering up

  “Ha! What does that matter?” The kettle began to whistle and Will went over to it. He spooned in sugar, lifted the kettle off the heat and set it down on a slate tray on the table. He felt ridiculous. One part of him wanted to turn to her, fall to her knees and proclaim his love but he couldn’t. Now he must play the victor, the rejecter, and he hated hurting her

  “If you don’t believe in your own stories, who will?”

  “Fine sentiments,” nodded Will. “Very true. I must remember that.”

  “Where I come from belief is everything, Will. The whole world is magical. Existence is magical.”

  “Well, I come from Stratford,” Will began, “and in Stratford things are rather more …” But his voice trailed off as he saw Bethsabe had vanished. Gone completely

  Will ran across to the window and looked out but he could only see virgin snow and the hard, black edges of some fallen stones

  The whiteness was thick and compact

  He glanced up at the rafters – grey, dusty balls of webbing – and peered under the table before rushing back to the door. Still there was nothing, only snow. Snow in the sky, snow on the ground. On the shelf by the door he saw his much-blotched script piled in order. The seat where she had been sitting a few moments earlier was icy cold to the touch

  My mind is playing tricks on me.

  I am in love with her.

  Bethsabe! My dark lady!

  I am obsessed with you and now I am imagining you in my life.

  In my room!

  He ducked outside into the snow, into the cold, and his half-thawed ears throbbed

  It was his troubled conscience which had been speaking, talking
out loud about his wife, his children, unseen but there, of course, always there

  How can you love her when you don’t even know her?

  Think of Anne. Think of Hamnet. Think of home, of what you have!

  A few minutes later, with a shock, Will looked up and realised he didn’t know where he was. He turned and saw, or thought he saw, buildings or trees or sky, but really he saw nothing, only falling snow; snow falling everywhere, as though the white sky was breaking, flaking apart

  And then he felt someone collide with him, a young maid he recognised – girl from the school perhaps, one of the stable-hands or one of Mrs Sharpe’s helpers in the kitchen

  “I beg your pardon.”

  The maid who had fallen dragged back her hair. “Who are you?”

  “I want the school,” Will said, not knowing what to say. Speaking aloud, he noticed how cold he was. His lips were numb

  “Which school?” the maid asked, circling him as though he were an apparition

  How must I look? Will thought. Like a ghost – see the way she stares at me! “The school. The school I know is hereabouts.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I might ask you the same question, ma’am.”

  “Madam?”

  “If you would be so kind as to show me the way to the school, I would be much obliged.” But the girl backed away into the snow on all fours, stomach up, face screwed up in confusion and fear, and she began to disappear. “Don’t go!” Will cried, following after her, losing her, but trudging on, trusting, somewhere, that he was going in the right direction

  He could hear Bethsabe’s voice in his mind – it’s your voice! You’re making all this up! – saying, “I believe in magic. The whole world is magical” and his eyelashes began to freeze over. And he began to feel sleepy

  And he may have walked for hours or seconds

  Until he saw something, someone, in the snow ahead of him

  A dead body

  A grey body

  A boy sitting in the snow, naked, head bowed

  Despite the cold, Will tore off his jacket and threw it around the boy’s bare shoulders. Looking up, praying for help, he caught sight of the warm, bright glow of the school building and cried, “Yes, God!” with relief