“Hmm.” Jan thought for a moment, then turned on the spot and marched over to the north wall. She stopped just short of it, stretched out her arms and tipped forward until her body formed the hypotenuse of a triangle with the ground and … thin air. She moved her feet backward to make the angle more acute.
“Is it making me defy the laws of gravity as well?” she shouted back over her shoulder.
Hal walked slowly toward his cousin, carefully taking in every detail of the phenomenon in front of him. He walked up to her, around her, ducked under her and came up on the other side.
“You’ve got to admit,” he said, in a terribly serious voice, “it’s one hell of a virus.”
His deadpan face then broke into the broadest possible grin. Jan collapsed to the ground in a fit of giggles.
“This is just so weird,” they said as one, then burst out laughing again. Hal sat down on the remains of the monastery wall.
“Forgive me if I don’t sit next to you,” Jan quipped. She got to her feet and looked down the full length of the ruined church. “I wonder if I can touch everything that I saw in my dream?”
“I wonder if you can touch the bits you didn’t,” said Hal as he got up and stood beside her. “There are bits of the monastery missing on my computer. Only the north and west walls have been recreated – the sides of the building you saw in your dream. If you could touch the other parts we might be able to get enough detail to simulate the whole building.”
“Let’s see – or, rather, feel,” Jan said, and then walked briskly over to within a metre of the south wall. She held out her arms and moved slowly forward. She continued to do so until she dropped both arms in disappointment and turned and sat down on the stones.
“No joy then?”
“No.”
Hal sat down next to his cousin.
“Perhaps tomorrow,” he suggested.
“Eh?”
“Perhaps there’ll be more to touch tomorrow – assuming that you have another one of your dreams, that is.”
“Thank you! The last thing I want is another dream like that. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so frightened in my life. In any case, it’s over.”
“How do you mean, ‘over’?”
“I mean, the haunting’s over. I’ve fulfilled its purpose I’ve passed a message back through time and alerted Margaret to the impending storm. She can warn the townsfolk so they can prepare for it and take precautions.
“I’ve averted a disaster,” she concluded. “That’s an end to it. No more simulated cities. No more dreams.”
Jan was standing outside the monastery.
She was certain of that, even though her eyes had not yet grown accustomed to the spectral moonlight. What little she could see was far more detailed than she remembered from her dream. For a start there was stained glass in the windows, its shapes and lines and colours slowly coming into focus as they shimmered in the candlelight that shone from within.
Jan turned away. The road was dark and featureless in contrast to the detail and the light. But she knew what lay ahead. She moved along the road soundlessly and inexorably toward the city gates. She crossed the bridge that spanned the dyke and, as she did so, the nothingness in front of her appeared to crystallise into hard-edged shapes and structures.
The gatehouse towered above her. The city walls stretched out left and right. They were not made of stone, as she felt she was expecting, but of wood – split tree trunks – a fact she was somehow aware that she’d always known. How had she known? Who had known?
She continued. The city gates stood open. She passed between them, and entered Wickwich. Her first impression was of emptiness. There was nothing to be seen. She looked again. This time there were cottages, rising up along the roadside – first their wooden skeletons and then their plaster skins. She passed them by.
More houses manifested themselves. They crowded in on either side. Then a church appeared, so suddenly it was as though its walls and buttresses were the spontaneous fabrication of the stuff this dream was made of.
Yes! Something, somewhere deep inside, knew that she was dreaming – but something even deeper made her need to carry on.
She carried on. Narrow lanes and passages drifted up and sloped away in all directions. She ignored them. Even if she’d wanted to investigate their alleyways she somehow knew her journey was in one direction only – forward. Only forward. Forward toward the sea. She could smell it; taste it in the air; feel the salt east wind upon her face.
She had stepped into the market square. There was open space before her and a wide sky overhead, and both were filled with sounds and shapes and movement. What had been a wall of silence was now spattered with the raucous scrawl of seagulls, like graffiti in the sky, and what had once been still now burst with teeming life. There was running, shoving, screaming, shouting, rushing everywhere.
And there was anger.
Although she could not see the crowd she could feel its hatred and its loathing. It was palpable. It was a living thing. It was a frenzied, many-headed beast intent upon its prey.
This was no dream. This was a nightmare. She had never felt this frightened in her life – no, not in her life. The crowd that swarmed invisibly around her had a focus for its anger. The beast’s malevolent eye was fixed on her.
“Wake up, wake up – I must wake up,” her thoughts screamed, but no words came from her lips. “Oh, let me wake up, please! Oh, please!” But no one heard, not even her. All she could hear was the baying of the crowd. And although it called out “Margaret”, she knew that all its venom was directed straight at her.
“Why me?” she thought, “why me? I tried to warn them.”
The crowd reared up and knocked her forward. Then it dragged her through the square.
“I tried to save you,” she beseeched it, but it did not seem to hear. It just cursed and spat and pulled and pushed and hauled her down a winding street that lead toward the sea.
And then, at last, the dream began to falter. The crowd went quiet. The buildings fell away. A yawning void engulfed her field of vision. There was nothing there in front of her, except … What was that, stark and hateful, rising from the sea?
“Oh, no!” she screamed. “Not me, not me.”
“It isn’t me,” the thought broke through, but was snatched away immediately and swallowed whole by an all-consuming horror that had sunk its teeth into her soul. Terror tore at her emotions. It ripped her reason into shreds. She could not think. There was no thought, only panic, pain and dread.
Somebody grabbed her. She tried to struggle free, but her arms refused to move. The grip tightened. She tried to twist to get away, but she was paralysed with fear. She was being pushed. She was being pulled. She was being shaken wildly.
Someone bellowed.
“Jan!”
Who’s Jan?
“Jan! Wake up Jan.”
Jan – she knew the name.
“Oh, come on, Jan – wake up. Wake up!”
Jan woke up. She gave a small scream of surprise, then threw her arms around Hal’s neck.
“Oh, God! I’ve had the most horrendous dream.”
“Nightmare,” Hal corrected. “I heard you scream. Are you OK?”
“Yes, I am now. Thanks,” Jan laughed and wiped her cheeks. “Look,” she held out her tear-wet fingers, “I’ve been crying in my sleep.”
“I’m not surprised,” Hal sympathised. “I knew you were dreaming, but when you shouted out I…”
“How did you know I was dreaming?”
“I was watching, on my computer. I guessed we hadn’t seen the last of it. If we had – if you had fulfilled your ‘task’ when you warned Margaret – then the haunting would have ended and you wouldn’t have been still able to touch the monastery.
“So I reckoned you were in for another dream and turned my computer on after you’d gone to bed. And, just as I thought, I saw the street plan of Old Wickwich pop up as you…”
“Do you mean to say you knew I was goin
g to have another nightmare?” Jan stared at her cousin in utter amazement, unable to believe that even he could be that indifferent to her feelings.
“I didn’t say I knew,” Hal attempted to explain. “I only thought…”
“You only thought,” Jan mimicked scornfully. “The only thought you had was for your computer. You could have warned me that I might have another nightmare. But no, you wanted me to have the dream so you could find out what would happen with your program.”
Jan glared at Hal. He looked straight back.
“But it was worth it,” he said wryly, and broke into a smile.
“Why, you…” Jan pulled a pillow out from behind her and swung it at Hal’s head.
“What’s going on?”
The cousins turned at once to see Hal’s father standing at the bedroom door.
“I thought I heard Jan screaming,” continued Bill. “Have you two been having a pillow fight?”
“Er, no, I had a nightmare,” Jan replied, trying not to laugh, aware that she did not look like someone who had been frightened.
“Yes, and I came and woke her out of it,” Hal explained.
“With a pillow?” Hal’s father smiled in mock confusion. “Probably all this talk about ghosts. Now, back to your room, Hal, and let Jan try to get a good night’s sleep.”
Hal got up.
“I’ll show you Wickwich in the morning,” he whispered to his cousin before leaving.
His father followed him out and closed the door.
“There you are, Old Wickwich,” Hal proclaimed. As he slid his mouse around on the mat on his desk the street map on the screen scrolled up and down. “At least, part of it,” he added, “from the west gate to the sea front, through the market square. I presume that’s the path you followed in your dream?”
“Yes – that’s it precisely.” Jan stood staring at the screen in silence for a considerable time, then fetched a chair and sat down next to her cousin. She leant forward and ran her finger up the screen.
“There’s the city wall – it’s made of wood, you know – and there’s the church I passed, and that’s…”
“Hello, you two. Why aren’t you outside enjoying the sunshine while it lasts?”
Hal turned and saw his mother come into the room.
“Hi, Mum. We’re busy looking at something on the computer.”
His mother gave a long sigh of despair.
“I don’t know – you children.” She shook her head. “All you ever want to do nowadays is play computer games. I’m especially disappointed with you, Jan.”
Jan tore her eyes away from the screen and looked round at her aunt.
“I was really pleased when you first arrived and persuaded Hal to get out into the fresh air,” her aunt continued. “I should have known it wouldn’t last, and that he’d end up persuading you to stay indoors.”
“But it’s dangerous out there, Mum,” Hal turned toward his mother, trying hard to keep a straight face. “If we had stayed indoors and not gone out like you suggested then Jan wouldn’t have cut her forehead or blackened her eye.”
“Well,” his mother responded curtly, not realising that she was being teased, “I thought you were both old enough and sensible enough not to go clambering over ruined walls. If you had both acted your age Jan’s accident would never have happened.
“And,” she continued, “I still say that getting out into the fresh air is better for you than sitting in a stuffy room playing computer games.”
“But we’re not playing games, Mum. We’re doing research. Look, we’ve managed to create a street plan of part of medieval Wickwich.”
“Yes, very interesting. I still think it would be a lot better for you if you both went outside and enjoyed the sunshine while you’ve got the chance.”
“Got the chance?” Jan queried.
“Yes, according to the forecast we’re due to have a storm before the day’s out.”
“That would be appropriate,” Jan commented. Her aunt and her cousin looked at her, as though expecting an explanation. “Today’s St Lazarus’ Day,” she said in answer to their stares. Hal broke into a smile, in recognition of the significance of what Jan had said, but his mother still looked confused.
“I thought it was St Swithun’s Day that had something to do with the weather?”
“No, it’s not a superstition like that, Mum,” Hal explained. “It was on St Lazarus’ Day that a terrific storm blew up in 1280-something and swept half of Old Wickwich under the sea.”
“My, you have been doing your research.”
“Yes,” Jan enthused, “and according to a legend, it’s on St Lazarus’ Day, every year, that the ghost of the old city rises from the sea – we reckon that’s because it was St Lazarus who Christ raised from the dead.”
“Really,” Hal’s Mum said bemusedly. “I didn’t realise he was a Saint.”
“Well, we assume it was him,” Jan reasoned. “After all, there can’t be that many people called Lazarus.”
“There were two in the New Testament,” Hal’s mother pointed out. “One was the brother of Mary and Martha, who, as you correctly say, Jesus restored to life. The other was a beggar who Christ cured of leprosy.”
“Your mother will be pleased.”
“Why’s that?” Hal enquired as he loaded his computer printer with a fresh supply of paper.
“She’ll think that it was her little chat that’s encouraged us to go back ‘out into the fresh air’,” Jan smiled.
“As long as she doesn’t think we’ll be going out to clamber over walls again,” replied Hal as he turned his attention to the map on his computer screen. “We must remember to act our age this time,” he added with a grin.
The image on the screen scrolled up and down, from the ground plan of the chapel to the medieval coastline and back again.
“This is going to take a lot of paper,” Hal was speaking to himself, “unless …”
He turned and looked at Jan.
“Could I borrow your phone for a second?”
“Why?” responded Jan, although she found herself reaching instinctively for her back pocket.
“I want to see if I can download the map on to it.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“To be honest,” Hal replied as he unravelled a length of slender cable and plugged one end into a socket at the back of his computer, “I don’t know, but…” He held out his hand.
“But what?” Jan held on to her phone.
“I was wondering whether your phone can catch the ‘Margaret’ virus from my PC.”
“How would that help?”
“I’ve no idea,” Hal frowned, “especially as your phone doesn’t have any CAD or virtual reality software.”
Jan watched her cousin bring his hands together – palm to palm, fingertip to fingertip – and raise them so that his forefingers pressed into his lips. He stared beyond his computer screen for a moment then held out his hand again.
“But it does have maps. Perhaps the plans of old Wickwich will get superimposed on them somehow. Or,” Hal suggested excitedly, “we may even download a ‘Margaret’ app.”
His enthusiasm got the better of Jan as she pulled the phone from her back pocket and handed it to him.
He plugged it in. The computer beeped and the phone vibrated in confirmation that communication had been established. Hal stared at the screen and then at the phone.
“I’m not quite sure what I’m expecting to happen,” Hal confessed. He scrutinised his computer for several seconds and then turned his full attention toward the smartphone, stabbing at the screen with his forefinger.
“No, nothing.” He held up the phone for Jan to see. “Nothing’s changed. It’s just the bog standard Google map.”
“What’s that?” Jan pointed at a white annulus in the region of St James’ church. “That’s Margaret’s icon. Scroll down, is mine there too?”
Hal slid his thumb down the smartphone’s screen.
Jan laughed.
“I guess you were hoping for something a bit more exciting than that from Margaret’s virus,” she said as Hal handed the phone back to her. “It’s still really amazing though.”
“Yep, it’s a bit like having a spectral satnav,” Hal agreed, then turned his attention back to his computer.
“It does prove one thing, though,” Jan stated after zooming in on her icon with thumb and forefinger and looking closely at the detail.
“What’s that?”
“It proves that the haunting definitely isn’t over yet.”
“You can have a go, but I doubt whether you’ll be able to feel anything.” Hal struggled to find the appropriate page amongst a ream of paper he had printed off from his computer. “The map’s still showing only the northern half of the monastery.”
Jan walked over to the south side anyway, and, just as Hal had predicted, she was able to wave her arm about in the air above the ruined wall. She sat down on the rubble. Hal joined her.
“It’s the same all the way through.” He turned the sheets of paper over so that Jan could see. “We only get the details of the buildings on the sides of the roads you walk down in your dreams. I wonder how many dreams you would have to have before we could map out the whole city?”
“They weren’t dreams. They were nightmares. How many times do I have to tell you?” Jan shouted. She stood up and walked away.
“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Hal called out after her. “What happened, then, exactly?”
Jan stopped and turned and looked along the ruins of the monastery toward the slight rise on the horizon that marked the site of the medieval town.
“I can’t remember exactly. All I know is that there was something awful at the end of it – something in the sea.”
She came back and sat down next to Hal and took the sheaf of printed maps gently from his hands. “I think this route, from St James’ chapel to the sea, is significant. It’s something to do with Margaret, something important in her life. I don’t think it would make any difference how many more nightmares I experienced, we wouldn’t find out any more about Old Wickwich than we know already.
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