by Sharon Sant
‘They’re not coming back, are they?’ Jacob asked, staring miserably into the distance.
Ellen put a gentle hand on his arm. ‘Jacob, I don’t know what to say.’
He turned to her, his eyes pleading. ‘Help me. I can’t do this. Help me now and I promise you’ll never have to see me again.’
‘Jacob, think about what you’re saying. It won’t be so bad; you’re clever, you’re good looking, it’ll be easy for you to get a nice foster home.’ The look Ellen gave him was imploring, loaded with a special understanding. ‘Stay with us and it will all work out, I promise. Think about it, you can get through a year or so until you leave school and we can still see you, all the time.’
‘She’s right,’ Luca agreed unusually sombre. ‘Like my dad always says, you can’t undo what’s done; you may as well look forwards.’
Jacob stared at his friend. Then his expression lightened all at once, his face split into a huge slow smile, his eyes shining a bright and clear blue, elated by the idea which had exploded in a glorious instant. It was crazy, but at the same time a fantastic and miraculous possibility.
‘I can undo it, I can put everything right!’ He leapt up from the sofa and bounded across the room, yanking open the panelled door.
‘Where are you going?’ Luca shouted as he started up and tried to catch hold of Jacob’s arm.
Jacob dodged his grasp and tore out into the hall. Within seconds he was racing down the gravelled drive and away into the night.
Five: The Warning
Jacob followed the route he knew so well, until he found himself standing in the garden, holding a stitch in his side and gazing up at the home where Jacob Lightfoot had lived. It was hard to imagine, looking at it now, that there had ever been life or happiness within. The house was in abandoned darkness; its cold welcome sent a stab of misery into his very soul. Shaking the sadness that threatened to overwhelm him, his thoughts turned to Luca, who would catch up with him at any moment. Luca was stronger, but Jacob was a much faster runner. Even so, he had only minutes until his friend arrived. He would have to do it right away. He didn’t even know if he could do it. Everything is clay in your hands. Something inside made him feel sure that he could.
Scanning the silver-lit garden, Jacob’s eyes settled on the ideal place: a huge, sprawling rhododendron shrub in which he could stay hidden from Luca, but also be perfectly placed to watch himself leave the house for school. Scrambling in amongst the scented branches, he settled himself on the damp earth and sat still and quiet until he had caught his breath and calmed himself. He felt, rather than heard, the muffled footsteps over the lawn that told him Luca had arrived.
‘Jacob,’ Luca hissed. ‘Jacob, come on, I know you’re here.’
Luca started to prowl around the outside of the house. Jacob watched for a short while through the branches of the shrub as Luca peered in at windows and knocked softly at the front door, calling his name every so often in increasingly exasperated tones.
Satisfied that Luca hadn’t guessed his hiding place, Jacob closed his eyes and began to focus on what he wanted to do.
Determination drove out all fear from Jacob as he groped around in the black abyss of his mind. The way was easier than before, but this time access seemed to be barred by some unknown, outside force. It took him by surprise for a second and his concentration broke, frustrating him. Coming back to reality he could still hear Luca pacing around outside the house, now rattling at windows and doors more forcefully than before.
‘Are you in there? Come on, mate, you’re getting me in right lumber with this lot.’
Jacob did his best to put Luca out of his mind and prepared to try again. Impatience and a growing sense of doubt interfered with his concentration. What if he was wrong? What if it couldn’t be done?
Closing his eyes, he focused again. Once again he found the place easily but met with the same mysterious resistance blocking his way. There were messages, warnings. He chose not to listen, even though he knew what they meant. He knew what he was doing was wrong, against the order of things, something for himself - all the things he was told he couldn’t do - yet he desperately continued, wanting it so badly that all reason flew from him. The Watcher would bar his way, would still fight to keep equilibrium even until his last hours. Then the realisation came to Jacob in a fleeting, powerful instant. The Watcher is dying, he is weak! The knowledge filled him with new strength and he pushed, harder than ever, held firm, found himself tumbling into the blackness and knew, with a leap of ecstasy, that he had broken through.
The garden of this night dissolved. Jacob became a memory of himself, as insubstantial as mist, pushing through the current of Time in the wrong direction. He could feel its resistance, heavy but at the same time light, like trudging the wrong way against a tumbling river. He cleaved a path through the torrent as he drove back into his own past. The warnings in his head had stopped. Jacob only felt the exhilarating dizziness of his success and his greedy mastery over all things. He wanted to laugh out loud. It seemed like hours, but must have been the smallest instant, and then all was still.
Jacob felt the gentle warmth of the sun dappled over his skin as he sat hidden in a mass of perfumed flowers. He opened his eyes and saw daylight glinting over the dewed lawn. Then, he heard his own voice, as if recorded: ‘On my deathbed!’ and the sound of the front door slamming shut. Ruefully, he reflected for a moment on what a stupid last thing it was to have said to his mum. He waited for the sound of his footsteps to die away and then tried to get up.
The sickness came without warning. He felt as though he had been hit by a car; the wave of incredible nausea and weakness almost knocked him out as soon as he moved. Clammy sweat erupted from his brow and his legs gave way, unable to support him. Jacob clutched at his head in a desperate bid to stop the spinning. He fell out of the bush and landed on the grass, the sound of his own pulse wild and erratic in his ears. He lumbered to his feet, unsteadily making for the front door. His hands brushed against the fragile outer branches of the rhododendron and he fell back, sharp twigs clawing at his face. Jacob wanted to lie still and wait for the feeling to pass, but he knew he couldn’t. The memory of his last conversation with Dae resurfaced, and the warning that came with it: If you attempt to throw the natural order, chaos will take its place. I cannot say what the consequences for you would be, only that the form they take would be severe. Was this what Dae had meant?
Trying to shake the fear that he was somehow set on a course of irrevocable destruction, he attempted to move towards the house again. This time he half-crawled until he was slumped against the wall of the porch, croaking for his mother in a tiny voice.
Maggie opened the door, and almost supposed Jacob to be joking at first. Then her mouth fell open when she saw his irises, almost transparent in their whiteness against his pale skin, the lattice of faint scratches on his hands and face and the sheen of sweat on his brow.
‘Jacob, what’s happened to you?’
Jacob tried to speak; he needed to deliver the warning that he had come for. His mouth moved but nothing came out.
Maggie attempted to pull him to his feet, but his legs buckled. Her petite frame couldn’t sustain his weight; she resorted to dragging him over the front step and into the house where she propped him against the sofa.
‘What’s the matter? You were alright a second ago…’ Possibilities flashed through Maggie’s mind as she examined him for stings, bites, rashes. Jacob gazed at her greedily as she pawed at him, turning him this way and that. Despite everything, he felt unutterable joy at seeing his mother’s face again. Then the words found their way out.
‘Mum,’ he rasped, ‘please… please don’t go anywhere today… stay at home.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Maggie stroked his hair gently. ‘I won’t leave you like this.’
‘No… you don’t understand.’
‘Stay here while I get my phone. I won’t be a second, I’m just going to call your dad.’
&
nbsp; Jacob reached out in desperation to grab her but missed and clutched at air. The room was now hurtling round him. Don’t call Dad, call for an ambulance. Calling Dad is how it all began. But Maggie couldn’t hear his thoughts. Jacob closed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa. Control yourself, you have to tell her. He hauled himself up and stumbled into the kitchen where his mum was on the phone. Gripping the worktop he called out in a tremulous voice. ‘Mum… please don’t get Dad home. Look, I’m fine.’
Maggie watched, hand clamped over her mouth, as Jacob’s eyes rolled back, his legs crumpled and he collapsed.
There were no connections, no dreams, no messages, only oblivion. Then Jacob came to with the low murmur of concerned voices around him. He was aware of trembling and the dryness of his mouth making it feel like it was coated with glue. His whole body ached, bones hollow with cold despite the warmth of the day. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious when his eyes flickered open and found the anxious faces of his mum and dad close by. For an instant, Jacob forgot everything that had gone before. He gave a weak smile as he took in the quick, lively features of his dad, the little goatee beard that Jacob had always laughed at, the receding hair, the thin face. A little more strength in his body might have seen him cry.
‘I got here as quick as I could. Your mum would have called the ambulance, only I knew I would beat it here.’ His dad gave a strained grin. ‘I probably picked up a ticket on Ringwood Road, but there’s no help for it.’
‘Dad,’ Jacob’s voice was cracked and small. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’
‘I’ll get my keys and we’ll get you to the hospital, we can’t have you at home like this.’
Jacob’s thoughts were sluggish but he groped around for an argument that would keep his parents in the house, away from the car, away from danger. At least if he could sit up, make the pretence of feeling well, he might persuade them there was no need for the hospital. He pushed an elbow into the sofa, where he was now lying, but his arm refused to support his weight. Miserably, he fell back again and closed his eyes. To speak took supreme strength, Jacob would rather be quiet and still, but he forced himself. ‘I just want to sleep here.’
Jacob felt a blanket thrown over him and he was swept up into his father’s arms as if there were no weight in him. Powerless, he couldn’t call up any strength from his body or his mind; there was nothing left. All Jacob could do was weep bitterly, bundled up like a baby, knowing that his parents were about to die all over again. His dad placed him on the back seat of the car and locked the belt in place. The roar of the engine filled Jacob’s head, vibrating through his chest, and the doomed journey began.
He slipped in and out of consciousness. The vague awareness of motion, anxious murmurings and the hum of the engine, changes in light - these were the only sensations to reach him through the fog of his closed mind. The messages, voices, the connection with the rest of creation that he had been so desperate to shake only a short time ago had deserted him now when he really needed them. There was no help, he was alone.
Jacob’s eyes finally opened and he remembered hazily what he had come to do. ‘Dad, please…’
Maggie turned to look over her shoulder, her features strained. ‘Your dad’s going as quickly as he can. We’ll be there soon.’
‘No… you don’t understand… stop the car,’ Jacob croaked, the effort of speech already draining him.
His dad’s face was fixed forward, watching the road in grim determination.
Jacob could see the speedometer over his dad’s shoulder; he tried to focus on it as the needle crept up the dial. His attempt to slow the car sent a shockwave of vertigo through him almost harsh enough to knock him out again. The fluctuation in speed only caused his dad to slam his foot down on the accelerator and the car shot off with more force than before. Sixty, sixty-five, sixty-six miles per hour, the speed increased with his dad’s agitation.
‘The police - great,’ Jacob’s dad grunted as he caught sight of a marked car in the rear-view mirror, but he didn’t slow down.
‘Please stop the car,’ Jacob begged.
‘Don’t worry, son, be at the hospital any minute now.’ His dad added in a low voice to Jacob’s mum: ‘we’ll sort the police out when we get there, love.’
The wail of the siren began and the bridge stretched out ahead, and Jacob could see the end in sight.
‘DAD, STOP……’
Phil Lightfoot turned his head for an instant. His wife grabbed the steering wheel as it slipped from his grasp, but only succeeded in making the car veer wildly. Jacob saw the warning stripes of the barrier at the roadside loom into view, the only thing between them and the rushing river below. His dad struggled to regain control but the car was going too fast, already on an irrevocable course for disaster. With his last ounce of strength, Jacob closed his eyes and uttered the plea that he knew would kill him as surely as the river below: Ioh… help me save them. The car slammed into the barrier with an almighty crack, then suddenly all friction was gone and it seemed to float for an instant, then it dived, Jacob pinned against his seat still calling for help in his mind: save them, please help me. The force of the car hitting the water rocked it like an explosion.
Jacob opened his eyes and found he was alone. His confused awareness struggled to make sense of where his parents had gone as his numb fingers fumbled with the catch of the seatbelt. Roaring bubbles enveloped the car, and then the foaming of the water subsided and the silence filled his head more profoundly than any other terrifying sound that had preceded it. The seatbelt was stuck fast. With a weary acceptance of his fate, Jacob gave up trying to escape. All around him the green twilight of the river crept in. Jacob closed his eyes and retreated back into the black depths of unconsciousness.
Six: Educating Ioh
He was lying on his back. Above him glowed a sky of lapis lazuli - brighter, a more intense blue than any sky he had ever seen before. All around him, far into the distance, stretched fields of vibrant dizzying green, unnaturally vivid shades that seemed to shimmer. The gentle warmth of a sun, perfectly round and yellow like an egg yolk, diffused over his body filling him with incredible serenity. Arms outstretched, Jacob caressed the soft grass lazily, breathing in the sweetness, and gazed up at the brilliant heavens. He seemed to lie there for a long time, savouring the sensations of calm and peace, his mind unconcerned with anything that had gone before. When he felt he was no longer alone, Jacob pushed himself up to sit.
Dae took a place on the grass in front of him and smiled. Jacob waited for him to speak. He wasn’t sure how long the silence hung in the air as he seemed to have no measure of the time, but it felt like a while.
‘Am I dead?’ Jacob asked finally, though he felt oddly unconcerned about the possibility.
Dae shook his head ruefully. ‘I would have rather that lesson had not been quite so practical. Now, I think, you understand that you must treat your gift with respect. You left a great deal of work for me; created a huge temporal anomaly and almost destroyed yourself in the process, but no… fortunately, you are not dead.’
‘So, where am I?’
‘Home.’
Jacob surveyed the landscape with curiosity. Without asking, he knew what home meant. ‘It’s nice,’ he said simply, and then added, ‘how did I get here?’
‘On Earth you call it astrotravel.’
Jacob nodded. ‘I’ve heard of that. My mind is here but my body is somewhere else. I do feel as if I’m really here, though.’ Jacob swished the grass with his hands to reassure himself of the solidity of it. ‘Why does it look so much like Earth?’
‘Does it look like Earth?’ Dae asked with a wry smile.
‘Maybe not,’ said Jacob thoughtfully. ‘Not so much when you really look; sort of the same, but sort of different. You can’t really put your finger on it; it’s… incredibly clean and bright… as if it’s a brand new world, if that makes sense.’ He regarded Dae almost clinically as the next question formed in his mind; he fel
t no embarrassment at voicing it. ‘Why do we look like humans?’
‘Again, do you think we really do?’
Jacob gazed at Dae’s features, the mesmerising eyes, now brilliant green but every time he saw them a different colour, just like his own. There were other differences, so subtle that on Earth they would go unnoticed, but Jacob saw them clearly now: something more than flawless in the tone of skin, an expression that belied intelligence greater than anything human, a delicate, long-fingered touch.
Jacob rubbed his nose. ‘I suppose not. The same but different. I thought aliens looked completely mad, nothing like humans.’
Dae shrugged. ‘Good design. It works well, that’s why it was chosen… with a few modifications and one or two peculiarities which were beyond our control.’
‘Beyond your control? Chosen?’
‘With the first Watcher, we chose our form.’
‘When was that?’
‘In the beginning.’
Jacob waited for the rest of the answer but it didn’t come. He was getting used to Dae’s cryptic replies. Another question occurred to him and he asked that instead. ‘Astrae… it means Sky Song, right?’
Dae raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘You learn quickly. It does indeed, in the old language.’
‘Why is it called that?’
‘Astrae has an ancient name, much older than that, one that only the Watcher keeps. It is said that at the end of all days, the last Watcher will utter the secret name and our world will fold in on itself, ceasing to be. So the people invented a new name, one they could use without fear. The name they chose comes from the voices that are carried on the air between our minds, the whispers that fill the skies above us.’
