Relatively Strange

by Marilyn Messik

  Now we had absolutely no problem seeing where we were going, nor that there were people in hot pursuit. Ed demonstrated a sudden and admirable turn of speed, holding a wriggling Sam with one arm and hauling me, not the world’s greatest sprinter, along with the other. Miss Peacock was on the case, swifter than Sherlock. I felt her rap out a command to the two dogs. They immediately stopped having a whale of a time with new friends and recalled they were there to do a job. If, due to the machinations of Miss P, this also meant a swift switch in allegiance, that was fine by them. Back to full-throated barking and snarling, Alsatian and Doberman turned as one and raced like things possessed, back the way we’d come. We could hear shouts of pursuit change to chorus of consternation, as it began to be appreciated, that for reasons unknown, the dogs had turned rogue.

  The winding path, biliously bathed in yellowish illumination from the spotlights, was a sea of moving shadow from wind-hassled hedges.

  “The lights, put out the lights.” Glory, urgently bossy. I wasn’t sure who she was instructing but as I was preoccupied enough keeping up with Ed and breathing at the same time, I assumed it wasn’t me. I felt them searching, Glory frantic because she couldn’t find anyone to see through; Ruth and Rachael calm but just as worried. Adept as they were with people and indeed animals, they didn’t have anywhere near the same ability with anything else, it was Ed who shone at the mechanical stuff.

  “Ed, the lights, we can’t do them.” Miss Peacock was as anxious as I’d heard her. Ed panting heavily, slowed as we rounded a curve in the path and the wall suddenly loomed ahead of us, impossibly tall, barbed wire trimmed. I felt his concentration as he visualised the light source, the bulbs within their glass and metal casing, their construction, contour, composition. I understood that only completely accurate assessment would allow him to find the weakest spot, and felt his surprisingly delicate manipulation of the awareness he’d accumulated. There was a small crack and a pop in our heads – we were too far away to hear the real thing – and I never thought darkness would be so welcome. Ed gave a small grunt and relaxed a little, but we really weren’t out of the woods yet.

  We could hear people spreading out to cover different areas of the grounds and the barking of the dogs, presumably now brought to heel. Sam’s numbness at finding himself on the shoulder of a six and a half foot giant he’d never met before, was wearing off, and I could feel his mind casting around frantically, trying to identify all the different personalities, inside his head and out. He was very powerful and exercising no restraint whatsoever, I felt the others flinch too as his fear and volume rose apace. He almost completely drowned out everything else and made me want to cradle my head in my hands. It was like having two transistor radios turned to full volume and jammed against each ear. I was vaguely aware of Glory, Ruth and Rachael striving to get through to him. Ed had lowered him to the ground but still had, what I hoped, was a firm grip on the arm of the now violently struggling child. I could see the flashes of powerful torches getting nearer.

  I looked around swiftly for Hamlet, he was just behind me. Dropping to my knees, I reached out and grabbed his collar and at the same time grabbed Sam from Ed’s diminishing hold. The child’s eyes were wide, straining desperately to see in the dark and he was wriggling, struggling and kicking to get free. I pulled him in close to me, pinning him tight against my body with one arm. With the other I hauled Hamlet in too, so the three of us were nose to nose but by then, Sam had launched himself so irretrievably onto a rising tide of hysteria, he’d lost sight of any way back. As reaction and shock set in, he was no longer capable of thinking coherently and if the power of what was building in his head was making me light-headed and nauseous, it was doing far worse to him. He was a ticking bomb that could kill us all.

  I wrapped a handful of his suit material round my hand, yanked him back hard and snatched him in again, the force nearly knocking me off my knees. His head jerked back then forward, his forehead cracking against mine. His eyes were frighteningly unfocussed, deep black pools and for a further moment the lights were on but no-one was home, then slowly he began to focus on my sweaty, filthy, desperate face so close to his,

  “Let it go, Sam, let it go, you have to let it go,” I don’t know whether I spoke or thought or both but I reached him. Hamlet’s instincts, brilliant beast, didn’t fail us either. He moved his head a fraction forward so he could gently lick the boy’s cheek and the spiralling, lethal crescendo in Sam’s head started to lose a fraction of its terrible destructive force. He stopped trying to tear away from my restraining arm and leaned heavily into me, eyes unwavering on mine. His mouth was slightly open and I could feel with the warmth of each small breath panted out against my face, the danger diminishing. As his whole body began to shake, I tightened my arms bone-crackingly round boy and dog. And if some of the shakes were mine and our faces were slippery with sweat and none of us smelt too good – well, who the hell cared?

  “When you’re ready?” If there was just a hint of a tremor beneath the normal acid Peacock tone, this was no time to comment, shouts were getting closer, we had to move fast. I was still on my knees, so we were on a level, Sam and I.

  “We have to get over the wall. Sam, can you fly with me?” His eyes widened and I understood instantly he could, he’d done it before but the pain of the resulting punishment from a hysterical social worker, who’d had to get him down from the roof, had remained an effective grounding agent ever since.

  “It’s OK Sam my man, it’s all right to do it now, it’ll be fine. I promise.” I heaved myself to my feet, using his shoulder as a convenient crutch. He was still trembling, but far less violently and had an arm wound tightly round Hamlet’s neck and if Hamlet’s head was thus at an acutely uncomfortable angle he was patiently forbearing. I understood though, that one was going nowhere without the other.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  I could feel the strength of the three women on the other side of the wall pouring into me, filling me up, temporarily flooding my tired, aching, energy depleted muscles. Sam, Hamlet and I gently let go of the ground and rose. And if I was a bit rusty and couldn’t do, quite as easily, what I’d been able to, not that many years ago, Sam was well able to compensate. Hand tight in hand, both of us hanging for dear life on to Hamlet we shot up and up and over the barbed wire, coming down, none too gracefully, at the foot of the large tree from whence I’d started.

  “Ed, what about Ed?”

  “He’s heavier.” Miss Peacock, didn’t waste time, she reached an imperative hand for Sam’s and he unhesitatingly gave it to her. Obviously he was giving up on an old set of rules that no longer seemed relevant, in light of recent experience and was simply going with the flow, putting trust where instinct told him. He was still holding tight to my left hand with his right and Glory moved quickly closer, reaching out for me, her borrowed vision working poorly in the dark.

  I grabbed her elbow, pulling her nearer and Ruth crowded in on her other side. As we closed ranks, I felt the familiar jolt and then an unfamiliar one that was Sam’s reaction as the impact of the joining hit him. He didn’t even try to pull away and then he was right there with us, equal and unafraid, his unmistakeable chocolate, buttery strength blending with those others I now knew so well. The power surged and swelled in and from us, perhaps we all swayed with it. If we did, there was only Hamlet to see, trapped patiently, in the urgency of the moment, in the midst of our swift circle.

  Ed was no piece of thistle-down and exhausted as he was, couldn’t offer anything much in the way of assistance. For what seemed like ages it didn’t seem as if we’d be able to shift him so much as an inch, let alone up and over the wall. In fact I’m not sure we’d have managed it at all without Sam – rescued turned rescuer. Clasped and concentrating, we felt with relief the lightening of Ed, as the ground finally released him. Sadly our landing skills weren’t as refined as they might have been and I think, in the general rush of things, we probably sent him a bit too high and misjudged slightly whe
re we brought him down. He descended through the outer branches of the tree, bouncing from one branch to another with a high degree of drama and a series of muffled yelps. He hit the ground hard and awkwardly, feet first. As we ran over, he was holding his left leg squirming in agony.

  “His leg.” Ruth, stating the obvious, was crouched next to him, trying to ascertain the damage.

  “There’s two bones, coming down from his knee, it’s the inside one’s broke.” The hoarse little voice made us start, it was indeed only the second time I’d heard it and I’d been with him for quite a while now. It was hoarser than earlier – but it had, after all, been a screamy sort of a night – it was totally authoritative nevertheless.

  “Sure?” Ruth tentatively pressed her fingers along the lower leg, Ed groaned.

  “It’s broke and sticking out where it shouldn’t. You won’t be able to feel though, because his leg’s …” Sam paused thoughtfully, not wanting to offend any new friends, “… sort of big. It’s got sharp bits now where it’s broke. That’s why it hurts so much.” he added helpfully.

  “Well we haven’t time to stand discussing it,” Miss Peacock recalled our slightly stunned attention. “He needs a hospital doesn’t he?”

  It was a willing, if slightly motley crew that participated in the tricky undertaking of heaving Ed onto his feet. Ruth and Rachael positioned themselves as crutches either side of him with his arms over their shoulders for balance, whilst Glory and I took his weight, so he was floating along just above the ground like a poorly designed hovercraft. As we headed the short distance back to the van, every movement jogged the injured leg and when Ruth stumbled slightly over a tree root and jerked him, he lost consciousness completely for a moment.

  “Is he hurt anywhere else?” Ruth worried. We all looked at Sam, who shook his head decisively.

  I wondered if we might be considered certifiable, listening solemnly, as we were, to the diagnosis of a six year old but was reassured, as much by what he said, as by what we’d all glimpsed briefly in his head whilst he considered the question. Revolving gently in there was a kind of three dimensional, transparent image of Ed and his innards which, in its depth and complexity could not have been simply a product of the imagination. Sam was turning out to be all kinds of Strange. A thought occurred to me,

  “Sam, can you fix it?” in the dark I could just make out the paler shade of his face as he shook his head, he didn’t speak but we all caught the absolute certainty of the thought,

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet? What does that mean – not yet?” Glory was pragmatic,

  “I think he means one day he’ll be able to, when he’s older, just not yet.”

  “Well what about the rest of us, can’t we do it somehow?”

  “If we could, don’t you imagine we would?” Miss Peacock’s tone was mild but only because she was out of breath, although she still managed to get in a final word, “To harm is so easy, to heal, a different thing altogether.”

  Sounds of pursuit could still be heard behind us, as could the furious barking of the dogs, although there was about that a certain apologetic element of making up for earlier shortcomings. It sounded like they were covering every inch of the grounds but it wouldn’t take them long to widen the search. It might perhaps have been better, Miss Peacock remarked dryly as, with the hand that wasn’t securing Ed’s arm around her neck, she began to pat the various pockets of his dark leather bomber jacket,

  “Ed, keys?” for me to have stuck to the original plan which was pop in, pick up Sam and disappear, as opposed to turning the whole place on its head.

  “Things snowballed,” I complained, “And then there were those ear pieces?”

  “Some sort of high frequency transmitter, very effective. You kept them?”

  “One.”

  “Both would have been sensible.”

  “Rachael,” hissed Ruth, “Discuss later please and what do you plan to do with the car keys, you can’t drive.”

  “Neither can you.”

  “I know that.”

  “Boris gave me lessons.”

  “Gott in Himmel, Rachael, fifteen years ago and you were so abysmal, he refused to do it again.” “I was not that bad.”

  “I beg to differ, on top of which it’s illegal. No license.”

  “Ruth,” Miss Peacock wasn’t to be outdone in the hissing stakes, “Have you a screw loose – after what we’ve done here tonight, don’t you think that might be the least of the charges?”

  *

  Sam, with a child’s resilience, didn’t seem unduly perturbed by our temporary driver’s novice status for which I was more than grateful. Sam, perturbed was not an easy option. We’d eased Ed, as carefully as we could, onto the seats behind the driver but there was sweat standing out on his forehead and although he only moaned out loud once or twice, his lower lip was caught hard by his teeth and we could all feel his pain. Glory and I slipped into the seats behind to hold him steady, although you didn’t have to be a physics professor to calculate that the mass of Ed, thrown forward at any velocity, wasn’t going to be impeded by any opposing force exerted by us. The injured leg was stretched carefully along the seat next to him, with Sam, perched at the end by his foot, craning round to make sure Hamlet wasn’t left behind. Ruth insisted on sitting in the front next to her sister, although what she thought she could contribute I had no idea.

  “Right.” said Miss Peacock, “Ed, just remind me, where does this key go?”

  Ed was not a natural talker. I don’t think I ever heard him string more than a few sentences together and short ones at that. So, whereas another person might have talked Miss P through – after all, he had as much of a stake in getting there in one piece as the rest of us – he simply rested his head on the back of the seat and waited for direct questions. For her part, she obviously felt too many might indicate she’d forgotten more than she wanted us to know. Our initial somewhat jerky progress – Miss Peacock and the clutch were not a natural combination – was a little tense. By the time though that we emerged from the shadows of hedgerows lining the unlit narrow lanes leading from the back of Newcombe and turned on to the main road, some of the fifteen year old instruction seemed to be trickling back. The route back was mercifully straight and, it being around 2.00 a.m. pretty quiet, which meant she didn’t have to bother too much with the brakes which, she obviously felt were a bit of an unnecessary distraction.

  Nobody seemed inclined to talk, or indeed communicate much in any other way. Rachael and Ruth discussed briefly and quietly whether we should drive straight to the nearest A&E, but decided in view of the range of our unorthodox activities, the safest plan was to head back to the cottage and call an ambulance from there. Glory had retreated deep within herself and Sam had fallen fast asleep, his dirt be-streaked little face tucked awkwardly into one shoulder. I was more tired and shocked, emotionally and physically than I’d have thought possible and yearned desperately to be able to draw a veil over and a line beneath tonight’s activities. I could feel small involuntary spasms tensing the muscles of my arms and legs and however much I tried, couldn’t seem to get my jaw unclenched. Despite that, my eyelids kept drooping, but there were images I really didn’t want to see again and I kept jerking awake. It had started to rain in earnest now, water tattooing on the roof and swishing under the tyres. I was drifting off again when Ruth spoke softly in the front seat.

  “Rachael.”

  “I am not going too fast.”

  “You are dear and there’s a car. Behind.” Miss Peacock clicked her tongue irritably.

  “It’s a road, it happens.”

  “Following us.”

  “I don’t feel anything.”

  “I’m not usually wrong.”

  “No, you’re not.” Miss Peacock glanced briefly at her sister, “How do they know the van’s us?”

  “They don’t. Yet. But we’re coming from the right direction. I wonder …” Miss Peacock put her foot down and the van bucked, jerk
ed and shot forward, gear box growling in protest. Ruth continued mildly,

  “… if slowing down might have allayed suspicion.”

  If the heightened tension sharpened fear, it also honed senses. In a car which, after an initial dropping back because of our turn of speed, was now having no trouble keeping up with us, were three men. I probed, didn’t recognise any of them but Ruth was right, it was us they were after and with some precise and unfriendly intentions. Miss Merry’s descriptions of both Sam and me were unsettlingly accurate, as were her instructions on how we were to be handled when they caught us – she’d obviously woken from her nap in a very snippy mood.

  Of the three men in the car, two were employed by the private firm in charge of security at the Foundation. Before setting out, they’d endured a tersely swift but bitterly severe tongue lashing on the effectiveness of their service, the reliability of their guard dogs and the unlikelihood of their contract being renewed at Newcombe, or indeed anywhere else in the foreseeable future.