Chaos Clock

by Gill Arbuthnott

  From the hall, the clock ticked into the silence.

  “I didn’t really let you explain what you thought was happening last time we spoke. I’m ready to hear it through this time.”

  As though this was a signal, Kate and David rose. “We’ve heard all this already,” Kate explained. “We’ll come back through in a while.”

  Before Gordon arrived they had been in the kitchen, baking cakes for the school fair – the reason for the visit as far as their parents were concerned. David checked the latest batch in the oven and took two out. They blew on them to cool them, then pulled off the tops and ate them.

  “Perfect,” said Kate. “Crisp top, raw middle. We should sell them this way.”

  “Doesn’t work if they’re cold though.”

  “No,” she said regretfully. “Especially two days after they’re made. Yuk!”

  They laughed, everything normal for a brief moment.

  “D’you reckon he’ll agree to help us?” asked David, spreading icing.

  “He turned up, didn’t he? I can’t see why he’d be here if he wasn’t already convinced.”

  “That’s not the same as agreeing to help though.”

  Kate sighed as she licked icing off a finger. “I know.”

  ***

  In the sitting room Gordon Syme sat, chin in hand, considering the unbelievable story he’d just been told. Any sane person would have walked out before now. Gordon decided that he was no longer sane, so he stayed … and believed.

  “Do the children really have to be part of this?” This was the part that troubled him most.

  “It is essential. They each have a part to play that no one else can take, however much I wish that someone could. If we succeed they will come to no harm and if we fail they would be lost even if they had never been involved.”

  Gordon nodded slowly. If he believed the story, then it made sense. “And my part is to help you steal the Duddingston Hoard?”

  “And to help me return it to its rightful place and time.”

  Gordon let out a short laugh and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t quite believe that I’m sitting here having this conversation. I’m seriously talking to you about helping steal an important exhibit so you can throw it in a loch?

  “Oh well, when I’m brought to trial I’ll have no trouble convincing them about diminished responsibility.”

  The door opened and the children came in with a plate of lopsided cakes. “Rejects,” announced Kate. “Good enough to eat but not to sell.”

  Gordon watched them as they all sat eating, seeing them in a new light, though they still looked like two ordinary kids. They seemed to accept all this stuff as perfectly normal, though the boy looked a bit strained at times, when he thought no one’s eyes were on him.

  After two cakes, the girl said, “Have you decided?”

  “Decided?”

  “Will you help us?”

  He took a breath. “Yes.”

  They all turned to Mr Flowerdew.

  “Goodness,” he said. “You look as if you expect me to make a speech or something. Let’s finish our cakes in peace while we have the chance.”

  Gordon couldn’t quite manage that. “When do we do whatever we’re going to do?”

  “That’s a question I can’t answer right away. I need to consult the other Guardians. We must attack the Lords of Chaos through many channels at once if this is to succeed. We have no chance if they can use anything like their full power against us here. I should think it will be four weeks or so before we can make our move.

  “The Lords are bound to realise that a move against them is coming. They will hurry to push open the door they have found here. More time slippages will happen, and more people will start to notice.

  “We each have work to do in the meantime; you and I particularly, Gordon. We need to find out how to get the Hoard out of its case with as little fuss as possible.

  “You know of course that the police will realise that someone on the museum staff must have been involved once they start investigating?”

  Mr Flowerdew gave a smile that could only be described as gleeful. “If we are successful, the past will heal over with the Duddingston Hoard at the bottom of its loch and it will never have been discovered, so there will be no theft to investigate. The Hoard will never have been in the museum at all.”

  Gordon squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to make sense of that one.

  “Neat,” said Kate, who seemed to have no problem with it at all.

  Maybe, thought Gordon, it wasn’t the kids he should be worrying about after all …

  MUM

  As had become usual, David went to his room as early as he reasonably could that evening, telling his dad that he was going to revise in bed for his test tomorrow until he fell asleep.

  “Don’t tell me that’s what they recommend nowadays?” said Alastair, raising an eyebrow.

  “No, not exactly, but I thought maybe it’ll stick better if it’s the last thing I’m thinking about before I go to sleep.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s worth a try. Don’t work too late though.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. Goodnight.”

  “Sleep well.”

  So that he wouldn’t have lied too blatantly, David did read over his work a couple of times before he switched off the light and readied himself to fall towards his dream …

  ***

  The Lightning King was already sitting on the shore. He’d made a little tower of pebbles in front of him, balanced in defiance of gravity. As usual, he seemed quite unconscious of the fronded lightning that flowed from his hands as he reached to place another one.

  Instead of putting it on top of the pile, he lifted the whole tower on one finger, and slipped the new pebble in at the base, settling the others easily back down on it.

  “How do you do that?” asked David, intrigued.

  “You can see how I do it. You are watching me. It is simply a matter of finding the point of balance.”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  “True. But I have always been here. I have learned the balance point of every stone on this shore.” It should have sounded ridiculous, but David believed him without hesitation. “This time with your mother means a great deal to you, does it not?”

  “Of course it does. She died when I was five. I’ve …” He stopped himself from saying more, but found he didn’t need to.

  “You’ve missed her for so long, every day, every night, and now you have her back. Of course it means a great deal … How long do you think these dreams will go on?”

  David felt as though he’d been slapped in the face. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you cannot go on having the same dream every night for the rest of your life, can you? They must come to an end, but when will it be? Tonight? Next week? Next year?”

  “I … I don’t know,” he stammered. He had never thought of the possibility, had never let himself think of it. He couldn’t lose his mother again, he just couldn’t. “But you’re making me have this dream. You can keep making me have it.”

  The Lightning King raised an elegant eyebrow. “You are mistaken. This dream is in your head, not mine. I have become a part of it, but I have no control over it.”

  “David!”

  He turned to see his mother walking down the beach towards him and went to meet her, troubled and confused.

  “Where do you come from?”

  “What?”

  “Before I see you here … Where are you?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t remember being anywhere but here. Does it really matter?”

  “Yes! What if you don’t come one night. How will I find you?”

  She put a finger to his lips to quieten him. “Hush. I’ll come to you.”

  “But what if I stop having this dream?” he persisted, his voice turning panicky.

  “Then you’ll wait for it to come back and I’ll be here, waiting for you.”
>
  “But what if it never comes back? I don’t want to lose you again, Mum. I can’t.”

  She took his hand and pulled him down beside her and wrapped her arms around him until he stopped shaking, then she turned him to face her.

  He looked at her, so solid and real, with her brown hair swinging to the shoulders of her red fleece, and her hazel eyes, with the little flecks of gold in them that he had always loved, looking steadily at him now.

  “David, I am your mum forever; nothing can change that. I am here” – she touched his chest just over his heart – “and here,” She held his head between her palms. “Always. Always. I couldn’t be with you now if that wasn’t true. Even if I’m not in your dreams, all you have to do is close your eyes and imagine me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper, then drew a deep breath and, from somewhere produced a smile.

  “Now, tell me about your day.”

  This was how they usually began, before they branched off into whatever came to mind.

  He didn’t tell her everything.

  He really didn’t understand why himself, but he hadn’t spoken to her at all about the Guardians and the Lords of Chaos and the clock. He had mentioned Mr Flowerdew once or twice, but only as the old man who had been a friend of Kate’s grandma.

  She accepted the truncated versions of his days without question, although to him it was terribly obvious he was leaving things out. Far stranger though was that she paid the Lightning King no heed at all, although they sometimes sat quite close to him on the shore.

  It wasn’t that she couldn’t see him, for David had watched her eyes flicker onto him and then away again, and she wasn’t exactly ignoring him – you could tell when one person was ignoring another on purpose – more that after that first glance he meant no more to her than any one of the pebbles on the shore.

  David couldn’t bring himself to ask her about it, afraid of anything that might disturb the dreams.

  “My day? Kate and I made some cakes for the school fair on Saturday and …”

  ***

  The Lightning King was out on the water the next night, idly casting ropes of lightning towards the violet horizon. “I have thought about what you said about the dreams ending,” he said.

  David felt as though someone was squeezing his chest in a giant fist. “Yes?”

  The King turned and walked to the edge of the lake. “I could help.”

  David’s heart leapt. “But how? You said you don’t control the dreams.”

  “I don’t. I am not talking about the dreams. You could have your mother back all the time; not just when you’re asleep.”

  “I can’t. Don’t you understand? She’s dead.”

  “I know that. And she will stay dead if you do what John Flowerdew and his allies wish. Dead forever.” He stopped, head cocked to one side, watching David’s face, waiting for him to realise the importance of what he had not said.

  After an age, David spoke. “What happens if I don’t do it?”

  “Then time will be freed from its constraints, and the past – all the past – will be here in the present, and your mother will be here, alive, all the time.”

  David felt as though he had forgotten how to breathe as he worked to force air in and out of his lungs. He found that he was on his knees on the pebbles, but he couldn’t remember kneeling. The King watched him with detached interest, as though he was a struggling insect.

  His breathing grew easier. “If you win, my mum’s alive?” he asked, fearful of the answer.

  The King nodded silently and walked off out across the water again. David struggled to his feet and stared after him. He heard the crunch of pebbles under a hiking boot and turned to greet his mother.

  ***

  Kate tried to wake up, but it was no good; the dream had her, and whichever way she turned Tethys stood before her, barely an arm’s length away, smiling her hungry smile, her wolves beside her. In her wet hands she held a necklace of gold and shimmering stones, whose colours shifted and rippled like the surface of the sea. “Is it not beautiful?”

  “Go away! I won’t give you my necklace.”

  “But Kate, it is such a small thing to ask for all that I could give in return. We could be like sisters, you and I. Join me in my power … just this one, small thing.”

  “No!”

  Tethys’ face hardened. “Then I shall give you a demonstration of the power you would cast aside. I will call up a piece of the past … something you will heed.”

  She closed her eyes, and a wind roared out of the desert, roared out of nowhere, swirling around them. Her eyes flew open and held Kate’s own.

  “Wake!”

  ***

  Kate sat up with a gasp in bed, alone, of course. She had taken to sleeping with the necklace in its box under her pillow, and felt for it now, to check it was safe. As she did so, there was a soft knock on the door, and her mother’s voice.

  “Kate love, are you all right?” The door opened and she saw her mother as an indistinct silhouette in the doorway. “I heard you yelling. Did you have a bad dream?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t realise I’d made a noise. I’m fine.”

  Her mother came a little further into the room. “Well, if you’re sure …” Without warning she was interrupted by a sound from the street: the sound of howling. Kate froze in horror, eyes wide as her mother crossed to the window and lifted a curtain to look out, apparently unconcerned. “Goodness, what a noise those dogs are making. I wonder who they belong to? I don’t recognise them. You’d almost think they were wolves – they even sound like them. Anyway, they’ve run off up the hill now.’ She twitched the curtain back into place and turned to leave. “Ugh, what’s that? The floor’s all wet.” She turned on the light, and squinting half-blinded, Kate saw a great dark patch on the carpet near the foot of the bed and felt cold with fear.

  “Where did this come from?” Her mother looked up at the ceiling. “Kate?”

  As she opened her mouth to say something, there was a low growling noise from somewhere outside. It grew steadily louder, until the room seemed to shake and her window rattled in its frame. In the next bedroom she heard Ben yell in fright and start to cry.

  TREMORS

  Next morning, as they set up their stall at the school fair, much of the talk was of the disturbance that had woken them all during the night. The local news had been full of it this morning – Earth Tremor Shakes City – but actual facts were in short supply. Everyone had their own theory.

  “I bet it was a gas explosion,” said Karin Griffiths.

  “No, that’s too boring,” George Marshall said decisively. “I think Arthur’s Seat’s about to erupt. This is only the beginning.”

  “I bet they’ve been testing a secret weapon underground and it’s gone wrong.” George’s brother Sam had stopped on his way past to join in.

  “What are you all talking about?” asked David, coming in late.

  “The earth tremor, of course.”

  “What earth tremor?”

  “In Holyrood Park, last night. You must have felt it,” said Kate. “I did, and you live nearer to it than I do.”

  “I never noticed a thing.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “Dunno. He was still asleep when I left.”

  “Honestly, David, you’re unbelievable sometimes. You don’t even look interested.”

  “I am, I am; I’m not properly awake yet, that’s all. When did you say it happened?”

  “About three o’clock this morning.”

  “Have buildings collapsed and everything?”

  The others looked a bit crestfallen.

  “No. Just some cracked walls and broken windows.”

  As they spoke they had been unrolling paper tablecloths over a couple of classroom tables to make them look hygienic.

  “Right. Let’s arrange the cakes,” said Karin, ever practical.

  ***

  By ten o�
��clock they’d discussed every possible cause of the tremor, and rearranged the cakes for the third time. They had to admit there was nothing more they could do until the fair opened at eleven, so they went back to Kate’s house for a quick snack.

  In the kitchen, they fiddled with the radio until it picked up a local station, then waited for a news bulletin.

  “… Scientists are urgently seeking an explanation for the series of earth tremors that shook Edinburgh during the night. The tremors were felt over a wide area of the city, but were strongest in and around Holyrood Park. Some nearby houses suffered minor structural damage and have been evacuated as a precaution.

  “The Edinburgh Seismic Survey recorded the event, which measured 5.1 on the Richter Scale, making it the strongest tremor ever recorded anywhere in the United Kingdom. Although geologists have known for years that the Central Belt used to be a hot spot for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, there has been virtually no seismic activity in the region for millions of years, and experts have admitted that this was completely unexpected …”

  Kate went cold all over. Millions of years … I will call up a piece of the past. What if the past was leaking through, called up by Tethys?

  She kicked David under the table, motioned for him to follow her out of the room, and once they were safely in the hall, she told him about the previous night’s dream. “What do you think?” she asked. “It can’t just be a coincidence, can it? I wonder if Mr Flowerdew knows?”

  “Of course he will; it sounds as though I’m the only person in Edinburgh who didn’t feel it.”

  “Mmmn … I still can’t understand how it could wake us down here, but not you.”

  David shrugged. “I suppose I must just have been in a deep sleep.”

  “Are you still having your dream? You haven’t mentioned it for a while.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t worry me like it used to. It was just like he said – I faced up to it and it stopped being frightening.”

  “Hey, you two, stop whispering,” yelled George, coming out of the kitchen.

  “We’d better go back now.”