by Guy Jones
She thought of the two of them, chatting under the branches of the Old Man and throwing themselves down the slide. Hiding in the Maze. She couldn’t let it happen, of course she couldn’t. She couldn’t be so selfish.
She heard children shouting on their way to the park. Children she’d never get to know. Closed curtains and stories in a book. Telling tales to a boy who might never wake up.
Grief came as if dragged out of her. She cried tears of frost. ‘I can’t,’ she managed to get out, at last. ‘Owen, I can’t let you die.’
‘Jess,’ he said quietly, shaking his head. ‘I won’t let you throw it away. You have to promise me. You have to . . .’ he tailed off, exhausted by the effort of talking, and all at once tumbled to the floor.
‘No!’ she shouted, falling to her hands and knees beside him. His skin was damp and his breath came in ragged gasps. ‘No,’ she moaned. You can’t die. Not because of me. Please, not because of me. It seemed to her that for a moment she heard a high, flat beep, like the one from the machine in Davey’s hospital room, but it might only have been the wind gusting through the tunnels.
‘You have to go, Jess. Go.’
She began to protest, but he raised one trembling finger and to her horror she saw that the walls of the cave were beginning to warp as they melted. She looked around, wide-eyed, unable to fight back a sense of wild and uncontrollable panic.
‘Go,’ he said again, groaning with the effort of speaking.
‘It doesn’t matter, Owen. Even if I promised you. There’s no way back. I’m trapped here just like you!’
‘No, you’re not. Look.’
And then she saw. On the far side of the chamber, where the trail ended, was a smooth white wall slightly different to all the others. Exactly like, in fact, the one all the way back in the garden. She couldn’t believe it. She’d told Owen they needed to keep moving, but only because there had been no other option. But the path had brought them to another way home after all.
‘I can’t leave you,’ she said, but knew that she had no choice. If she was to help her friend, she had to go back to her own world. She had to destroy the shell. I’m going to save you, Owen, she thought. I’m going to save you.
She planted a kiss on his forehead and dashed to the wall. Water was pouring down it now and, when she placed her palm on the ice underneath, it felt as fragile as an eggshell.
She struck it. The surface fractured. Again and again she struck until she’d made a crack large enough to go through. She turned back to Owen, who had pulled himself up on to one arm.
‘You’re not strange, Jess,’ he managed to get out. ‘I know you think you are, but you’re not. You’re different. And that’s good. That’s perfect.’
‘I’ll never see you again.’ Her voice cracked. ‘You’re my only friend.’
‘Don’t forget me,’ he said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she replied.
‘Promise me. Promise me you’ll keep the shell. Promise me you’ll live.’
She stepped backwards through the gap, under the freezing waterfall.
His face disappeared from view.
Jess was warm – a strange feeling after so long. She took a breath, tasting the dusty-sweet air. There was no ice, no cold, no raw wind whipping across her face. Everything was still and everything was peaceful. There was rest. There was warmth.
She was snow-blind, unable to see, and it took a few moments for the colours to form into solid shapes. One blur in front of her became a set of swings, another a climbing frame. All at once, as if a switch had been flicked, sounds rushed in: the shouts of children and the dull burble of adult conversation.
‘Of course the real problem’s with the teachers!’ a scarecrow-like woman said to an extremely large man. ‘You’ll get nowhere telling Jacob what to do, you have to ask him.’ The man wheezed and coughed in agreement.
It couldn’t be possible. It beggared belief. All those miles, all those thousands of steps and yet here she was, curled up on the ground at the entrance to the playground. That’s not the important thing, she thought, dimly. There was something else, something she was missing. Her thoughts were moving too slowly, like honey dripping from a spoon. She had to think. She had to remember. Think.
‘Gosh, are you OK?’ The scarecrow was coming towards her, while the man stood behind, cow-like. ‘I didn’t see you lying there. Is everything all right? How long have you—’ The woman broke off mid-sentence, the rational part of her mind rejecting the suggestion that this girl had somehow appeared from nowhere.
‘Think,’ said Jess.
‘I’m sorry?’ replied the woman.
‘Think,’ she said again. And then it all came rushing back. The chamber at the heart of the mountain. The walls melting. Owen crumpled and in pain. The shell. She had to destroy the shell.
She leapt to her feet but immediately cried out as pain knifed through her injured ankle. The woman took a step back in alarm and Jess understood how strange she must look in her soaked and filthy winter clothes, streaks of blood across her face.
What was she to do? She felt herself spinning on the spot, desperately seeking . . . something. Get yourself home. You need to destroy it. No matter what you said to him. Get yourself home now . . . Home. Her mother. The ball of guilt she’d managed to keep down inside surged up her gullet, and she felt sick to her stomach. She had to go home. But how can I? How can I face her?
She dragged her injured foot behind her and grabbed on to the railings as she made her way up to the road. The sounds and smells were baffling. The cars were too many and too quick. She could see the exhaust trailing from them, vanishing into the soupy summer air. Almost everything was grey and what colour there was – the painted and the plastic – was artificial and gaudy. She turned up the hill towards the centre of town.
It must have been a Saturday, because the streets were packed with shoppers. This was a scene Jess had only ever seen from behind the tinted windows of her mother’s car. She had always yearned to be in the midst of it. But now the people were in her way and she was forced to dodge and weave through gaps as best she could with her damaged leg. She caught her reflection in a shop window – a tiny figure wrapped from head to toe in thick clothing. People stared and whispered to one another. Seconds later, though, a familiar voice rang out and a hand clamped around her shoulder.
‘Jessica?’ the voice said. ‘What are you doing here? My word, what’s happened to you?’
It was Mr Olmos from number thirty-three. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘take me home. I need to get home now!’ And with that she collapsed into his arms.
Mr Olmos carried her through the sliding doors and into the lobby. ‘I need someone!’ he shouted. ‘I need a doctor!’ but to Jess his voice sounded far away. Her head was swimming, the world becoming blurry and faded. Only her pain seemed real, like a burning ball in her mind.
She was lowered into a wheelchair. There were people all around. She could hear her neighbour asking loudly if she’d be OK, and a soft voice murmuring to him in return. She tried to speak, to explain that this wasn’t right, that she needed to get home, but her throat was too dry.
She saw a flash of white coat at her elbow and a tall figure bent down beside her. ‘My God,’ said Doctor Stannard. ‘Jess . . . Look at me, Jess. Where have you been? The police came here. Asked questions. Where have you been? Thank God. Thank God you’re safe.’
Another wash of dizziness came and went. Her head was too heavy, muscles like the embers of a dying fire. Doctor Stannard and his colleagues spun around her wheelchair like figures on a carousel. Their voices became more and more remote. She closed her eyes and fell into the darkness.
There was someone nearby, silhouetted by a light from behind. Owen? No, it couldn’t be. Not a child at all, in fact. Taller. Very tall. The figure moved. He was peering down at a chart, with a familiar half-frown on his face. Doctor Stannard. Jess watched through half-closed eyes, not wanting him to know she was awake. That conver
sation could wait. She sat up only when he’d completed whatever it was he was doing and vanished behind the curtain that was pulled around her bed. Her body was a rhapsody of pain, but that wasn’t her main concern. She had been asleep. Asleep! And with every minute she wasted, Owen was in greater danger.
Fragments of conversation floated down the ward.
She saw her mother’s coat lying crumpled over a chair. Jess could have sobbed at what she had to do, but this time at least it would only be for a few hours. She’d sneak out of the hospital, go home, and destroy the shell. Owen and his world would be safe. And then her mother could shout and scold her all she liked, and Jess would take it without complaining, because what she’d done had been awful. The right thing, but awful all the same.
She slipped her legs out of bed and pulled on her shoes, trying one last time to block out the pain. But before she could get any further, she saw the curtain twitch and a head appeared.
It was her mother.
They stood, frozen, for a moment, each shocked at the condition of the other. Jess braced herself for the oncoming storm but instead found herself wrapped in an embrace she hoped might never end. Her mother’s perfume was in her nose, sweeter than any flowers, richer than baking bread. Their tears were damp on each other’s faces. At last they separated and, instead of shouting, her mother bowed her head and said, simply, ‘I understand.’
Jess didn’t reply. What could she say? How could she explain?
‘When Doctor started talking about all those tests you’d have to go through, going to London, to specialists, I understand – you got scared. Thought you couldn’t face it. And then we argued and that was the final straw so . . . so you went. You just went.’ Her voice was choked to almost nothing. ‘My god, I thought I’d lost you . . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jess said at last. ‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’ She never used that word, not any more, but it came easily now. ‘Can we go home?’
‘We will. Soon. I just need to fetch Doctor.’ Jess shook her head but her mother went on, ‘He’ll want to see you, to look you over.’
‘He was just here.’
‘Now that you’re awake, I mean.’
‘No.’
‘They say your ribs might be broken, and your ankle looks awful, and . . .’
‘I just want to go home.’
‘You have to let Doctor look at you.’
‘I need to go home, Mum.’ What if they kept her there? What would happen to Owen then? ‘I need to go home now.’
‘No, you need to lie back down in that bed until they can be sure there’s no major damage. And then you need to tell me where on earth you’ve been!’
‘Will you just listen to me?’
‘Get back into bed, Jessica.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t argue with me.’
‘Mum, please.’
‘Doctor says you’ll have to stay overnight at least.’
Overnight? She thought of the waterfalls thundering in the ice mountains, the impossible tears welling in Owen’s eyes. Too much time had gone by already. Her mother was still talking but the words made no sense. Eventually Jess could take no more of it and cried out, ‘I know what’s best for me!’
Her mother stopped, a look of shock on her face.
‘I know best, Mum. I know what’s best for me and I know what I have to do. You always listen to Doctor Stannard! Always do what he tells you to, even when I say it’s not something I want.’
‘I know it feels like you’re very grown up, Jess, but you’re not, not really, and sometimes you have to listen to what adults tell you. I’m your mother, he’s your doctor, and you’re only twelve years old.’
‘And I know what’s best for me. Not always, maybe – fine, but some of the time at least, and right now I’m telling you that you have to take me home. Please, Mum. Please. I’ll explain everything, I promise, but for now you just have to trust me.’
The curtain screeched as it was swept open by Doctor Stannard. ‘I thought I heard voices. She’s awake, Mummy, that’s good news.’
Jess didn’t take her eyes off her mother. Her face was criss-crossed with lines and there were dark circles above her cheeks. Please, she thought. Just this once, trust me. Please.
‘I’m sorry,’ her mother said at last. Jess’s heart sank, but then she saw her turn to the doctor. ‘My daughter needs to be at home right now.’
It was strange, stepping through the front door of her house. It turned out she’d been away for two days, but she felt it was a different girl who came home that afternoon.
Doctor Stannard hadn’t been angry so much as baffled. He wasn’t used to being ignored and Jess had taken sly pleasure in his stuttering protests.
‘Well, we’re here,’ said her mother. ‘Will you tell me where you’ve been?’
‘Soon,’ said Jess, as she made her way into the kitchen. She opened the freezer drawer and rummaged around until her fingers closed on the small, foil-wrapped parcel.
Then she hurried out into their postage-stamp back garden. How will I know? she thought. What if it’s already too late? But when she unwrapped the shell and held it in her hand she felt something like a pulse – the beat of life – coming from it and she was certain: Owen was still alive. She could save him. Save it all.
Her mother watched her from the door and Jess wondered what was in her mind at that moment. Was she only thinking of the last few days? Or was she marvelling at the sight of her daughter standing in the full glare of the early afternoon sunshine?
She began to cry. She couldn’t help it. The sun was so soft and so warm; soothing and nourishing all at once. I could have had this, she thought. I could have had this for the rest of my life. But she couldn’t, of course. Not at the price it demanded.
She balanced the shell on the palm of her hand and watched as it slowly turned to liquid, enjoying every last ray of light lapping her skin and fighting the sense of loss that threatened to send her to her knees. She pictured Owen’s face and that gave her the courage she needed. This was the right thing. And she had this moment – one final, brief moment under the sun.
At last there was nothing left but a few droplets of water, which she let run through her fingers and on to the grass. She turned to her mother, barely able to see for the tears. She could feel her skin starting to tingle as the gentle sun became once again what it had always been for her – an enemy.
‘I need to go inside now,’ she said. ‘And we should draw the curtains.’
The idea of the hospital filled Jess with horror, but she knew she had to go back. Her ankle had turned a sickly yellow and her ribs groaned. But none of that mattered to Doctor Stannard as much as the sudden return of her condition. Why had it gone and why had it come back? He faced both questions with the same clueless bafflement. He brought in colleagues and she was tested, poked and prodded until finally her mother pronounced that she’d had just about enough of it all and, if they didn’t mind, she’d be taking her daughter home again.
Through it all Jess barely listened. After all, she knew exactly what had happened to her. And besides, she had something more important to do. She had to visit Davey.
Her mother came with her, holding her hand as she limped through the hallways. As they got closer and closer to his room Jess felt her chest tighten. All she could think of was how he’d been on her last visit. She wanted to turn back. She wanted not to know, feeling she couldn’t face the bad news. She’d saved Owen but had lost him in the process and had lost her own cure too. To lose Davey as well would be almost too much to bear, she felt. And yet there was a nagging voice at the back of her mind. Owen had said he’d heard her reading stories, but how could that be? There was only one person she’d read them to.
Soon they were outside the door and her mother nodded for her to go in. The handle was cool to the touch. She took a final breath.
She pushed.
She stepped inside.
And she grinned.
Davey
was sitting up in bed, leaning back against a couple of pillows. He was thin – in need of a few good meals. But he was awake. Awake and reading from a slim stack of papers in his hand.
‘You’re all right! You’re better!’ she cried, and immediately turned bright red. ‘I mean . . . hello.’ She waved, and felt stupid for doing it. Say something else, she told herself. ‘Nice to see you up,’ she managed, and waved again.
Mousy hair tumbled over the boy’s forehead. His eyes were a deep and brilliant blue. Jess realized she’d never seen them before. ‘Hello,’ he said in an accent she couldn’t place. ‘Are you lost?’
Jess opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it. What could she say? Well, this might seem a bit strange, but while you were asleep I kind of started visiting you, so even though you don’t know me at all, we’re actually friends now, I hope that’s all right with you. ‘No, I’m not lost,’ she mumbled. ‘I just came to see how you were.’
The boy frowned, as if considering something. Then he nodded. ‘You’re Jess, aren’t you?’ He held up the papers in his hand. ‘You’re the one who brought me this story.’
She turned a deeper shade of crimson and her heart tapped out a skittering beat. ‘How did you know it was me?’
‘Your voice. I recognized your voice.’
‘I knew you could hear me! I told my mum you could, and Doctor Stannard too.’
‘Of course I could hear. Well, no, that’s not right. It wasn’t like I’m hearing you now. I don’t mean that. Don’t know how to explain it really. Sounds mad. But I could hear them, your stories. Almost like dreams. Like I was dreaming them. Like I was living in them. And then when I woke up I found this by my bed.’
‘You got better,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You really got better . . . The doctors told your mum you might not.’
‘They don’t know what’s going on, I don’t think. Keep coming in here to look at me and then vanish off to have a little chat. I don’t think they know what they’re talking about.’
