Mr Hopkins raised his foot shod in that shabby cracked brogue and placed it on Livy’s hand. The pain was unbearable. Livy felt the bones crack as he pressed down.
‘The sky is mine –’ the man held up his arms – ‘and all of time too.’ He licked his lips. ‘You should have paid closer attention to the work of the alchemists of Temple College, Livy,’ he whispered. ‘Their work was secret, conducted in locked laboratories, but they left so many clues around the school. Tempus fugit. Time flies! Those words! They’re written all over the school and yet no one stopped to think what they really mean! If you had been brave enough to understand those words, you might have been standing where I am, now, the whole of time and space at your command! The whole of time to fly through!’ He shook his head as if he felt genuinely sorry for her. ‘You, Miss Burgess, with the blood of a master alchemist running through your veins, will never be transformed!’
‘Please,’ Livy croaked. ‘Help me.’
Mr Hopkins seemed oblivious to Livy, he was speaking as if he was giving a speech that he had memorized. ‘There was a moment when I saw you stand right on the edge of the roof and I thought you might be brave enough, but you stepped back. You didn’t believe what Peter Burgess knew.’
‘Please, Mr Hopkins . . . I can’t hold on much longer.’
‘What did Peter Burgess discover?’ The man put his head to one side. ‘He was the first man to realize that when an object falls, it is subject to gravity. Years before Isaac Newton!’ He laughed. ‘But you know that, don’t you? You can feel the effects of it dragging your body to the ground right now. And once your arms get too tired to hang on any longer, you will fall to the flagstones. But what you won’t realize, you silly timid girl, is that not only are you falling through space, you are falling through time! It will be perhaps half a second after your hand leaves this parapet that your body hits the floor. You will have moved through time. That is what Peter Burgess understood. Gravity and time are interlocked.’ Mr Hopkins twisted two shining fingers together. ‘So just think. If you gain mastery over one . . .’ Mr Hopkins took a deep breath, closing his eyes, ‘. . . you have the other in your grasp.’
Livy tried to swing her legs up on to the parapet, but Mr Hopkins’ eyes snapped open. He wagged a finger at her. ‘Naughty, naughty, Livy. You will fall when I am ready. I want you to see what you could have had. What you could have been!’ He took his foot off Livy’s hand and bent down until his face was close to Livy’s. His breath smelt of smoke. ‘Imagine –’ Mr Hopkins’ face blazed – ‘having the power to alter your human blood to angelic – and fly . . .’
‘Please, Mr Hopkins,’ Livy pleaded. ‘Just let me back on to the roof. Tom will be frightened.’ She couldn’t see Tom, but she could hear him whispering to himself.
‘Master Burgess was not interested in the wealth and riches of this world!’ Mr Hopkins cried. ‘It was just a simple change, Livy, not painful at all. And the boy that Master Burgess picked for his secret experiment should have been grateful. The powder made him perfect, made him immortal, and it must have been beautiful when he stepped into the sky!’ He laughed. ‘To be perfect, to live forever, that’s what Master Burgess discovered. Do you see my skin?’ Mr Hopkins pulled up the sleeve on his frayed shirt sleeve; Livy squinted as the man’s skin flashed in the sunlight. ‘The powder is altering my blood; it is making me immortal. Today, I will walk with the angels!’
Mr Hopkins jumped up on to the parapet. ‘And so, I step into the air,’ he declared to the sky. ‘Gravity, that mortal force, cannot claim me.’ His lips, no longer grey and thin, but red and full, quivered with excitement. He looked down at Livy, his eyes flashing. ‘Watch as the air embraces me. The infinite sky awaits!’
And Livy saw the brown brogue shoe hang in the air beside her.
There was a draught of air, a gasp of surprise and, in less than a heartbeat, a dull thud. That was all. No cry, no sound of any distress. The space where the man had stood was empty.
Livy could see the ground out of the corner of her eye. But there was no body, just something that looked like a pile of grey ash where Mr Hopkins had fallen.
‘Livy?’ It was Dr Smythe. ‘Has he gone? I can’t see! I can’t lift my head. I daren’t move or I’ll fall. Is Tom safe?’
Livy tried once more to pull herself up, but it was hopeless. Her arms had no strength left in them.
In one more heartbeat, she would fall.
There was a blue star hanging in the violet sky above the Sentinel. That would be the last thing she saw: Mahalia’s star. She closed her eyes. Her fingers slipped on the stone.
But then, she felt cool fingers on her hands! They stroked her fingers and her bones no longer hurt. Her heart leapt with relief. She opened her eyes.
‘It’s you!’ she cried out to the boy with gold-flecked green eyes. ‘Help me!’ But then, as her fingers slipped again and he did nothing to help her, she breathed, ‘You’re not a dream, are you?’
The boy shook his head, slowly. ‘No, Livy,’ he whispered. He smiled, a long, languorous smile that had no sense of urgency in it. ‘I am not a dream.’
Why was he still leaning over her, smiling that way? Why wasn’t he hauling her up over the parapet?
‘Then help me!’ Livy spat the words out. Her arms were trembling with the effort of holding on. The clouds were heavy above her, the air was still silent. It was as if everything around her was hanging, just like her, in the second before the fall.
And still the boy did nothing. His hand was on hers, but he just stared down at her with his beautiful, mesmerizing eyes. The flecks began to dance in the deep emerald of his irises.
‘Please,’ Livy begged. ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘Ralph.’ She watched his smile deepen as he said his name. ‘Ralph Symons.’
Livy heard a loud roar in her ears. ‘But . . . Alex just told me . . . Ralph Symons is the name of the lost boy . . . Hundreds of years ago. He’s dead by now.’
‘Do I look dead?’ The boy frowned.
‘Ralph . . . I can’t hold on.’
At this, the boy nodded and whispered, ‘Of course. You need help.’ He pushed one of his fingers under her clawed forefinger and slowly lifted it away from the stone.
Pain shot through her hand. ‘What are you doing?’ She screamed, again trying to pull herself up. ‘Help me!’
He shook his head, sadly. ‘You don’t need any help, Livy,’ his voice scarcely more than breath. She saw tears spring up in his eyes.
‘But I’m going to fall!’ Livy glanced down. ‘Let go of my hand!’ she cried out to the boy, tears pricking her eyes. ‘Stop doing that! Why aren’t you helping me?’
She could see Tom’s face as he clung to the Sentinel’s wing. His mouth was open, but no sound came out. He held out his hand to her, but didn’t move.
Livy slipped below the parapet.
‘I can’t help you.’ The boy lifted another of her fingers and held it away from the stone. She cried out again, a strangled noise gargling at the back of her throat.
‘No one can help you, Livy,’ Ralph said, his voice was now so quiet that Livy wasn’t sure that he was even speaking. Perhaps he was only moving his lips. ‘You can only help yourself.’
Her hands came free.
She heard herself cry out.
She was falling backwards facing the sky and the Sentinel whose gentle face looked sad.
‘Goodbye Tom,’ Livy breathed. She should have hit the ground by now, but the minute she was in was stretching out, expanding to fill the air around her. ‘I’m sorry that I can’t stay with you. I’m sure someone will come for you, soon. I hope they do. I don’t want you to be frightened.’ She was aware that her thoughts weren’t rushed or hurried and that she was still staring at the heavy sky. Perhaps she had already fallen? She shivered as the thought crossed her mind: perhaps she was already dead.
She felt herself bounce, as if she had hit something.
‘I told you not to be frightened,’
Ralph whispered. He hung in the air next to her.
‘Why aren’t you falling?’ Livy gasped.
‘Why aren’t you?’
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘We have been altered, Livy. By Burgess blood.’
He pulled her back up to the roof; everything was quiet. Tom didn’t move. It was as if he were asleep, although his eyes were open. He had put his thumb in his mouth. Dr Smythe lay on the roof just a few feet away. She must have tried so hard to reach Tom, Livy thought, before she had collapsed.
‘How is this happening?’ Livy and Ralph sat, shoulder to shoulder on the parapet. The stars were the only thing that had any life to them: they twinkled in the dark winter sky.
‘Master Burgess made me,’ the boy explained.
‘But that can’t be,’ Livy whispered. ‘Master Burgess died centuries ago.’
‘And he made me centuries ago. Tempus fugit,’ Ralph whispered. ‘I was made to step into the air like an angel, outside the force that pulls all bodies to the ground, to never know again what it is to walk the earth. I was made to step over time.’
‘But how is such a thing possible?’
‘Master Burgess believed that mortals could be perfect – like angels – if only he could lighten their blood.’ Ralph frowned. ‘He began to experiment.’
‘To find a powder of alteration?’
‘There were other boys too,’ Ralph said, sadly. ‘Better scholars than me, more able with their numbers and keener at their studies. He chose us. He trained us. He brought us up here. I had never been up so high! I thought I could reach up and touch the clouds. But then another boy, one of the young ones, started crying.’
‘I saw you,’ Livy whispered. ‘On the roof. That boy was so small.’
Livy saw again the row of seven boys standing on the roof of the White Tower. A man in a long dark robe stood behind them. He sprinkled some dust on each boy’s head in turn. And then the boys climbed up on to the parapet. Livy couldn’t hear what was being said, but one boy, much younger than the others, with hair like Tom’s, was looking up at Ralph. He tugged on Ralph’s sleeve, but Livy could see that Ralph daren’t look down. The younger boy looked terrified. He tried to step back, but lost his balance and fell.
‘No!’ the boy with black hair cried out.
‘He was called Edmund. He was so frightened,’ Ralph whispered. ‘What could I do but try to help him? He was only nine years old. I reached out to comfort him, but I must have alarmed him because he fell. I didn’t think, but I leapt after him. I had no thought for myself, and I had no fear. And that’s what made the transformation in my blood.’
Ralph’s eyes burnt. ‘I am more than mortal, a creature outside time and space. I am what Master Burgess would call an angel.’
‘You fell,’ Livy whispered. ‘Like me.’
‘We jumped, Livy,’ he said, quietly. ‘To save someone. We didn’t think what we were doing and we couldn’t know what would happen.’
‘It’s just that Tom is so little.’ Livy felt as if she was on the verge of tears. ‘I lost someone before and I couldn’t bear to lose Tom.’
‘But you can’t jump if you’re frightened, however much powder of alteration you use, however light your blood, because fear is a darker and heavier force than anything that can drag you to the ground. It’s like a tiny speck or smut in your heart.’ He shuddered. ‘You saw the man. His heart was so dark, the powder made it even darker. He will never walk with angels.’
‘And you?’ Livy asked. ‘What happens to you?’
‘I’m so tired, Livy,’ he whispered. ‘I just want it to end.’
‘That’s what my friend Mahalia said,’ Livy whispered. ‘The day she gave me her lucky penny.’ She took it out of her pocket.
‘You had a friend that died?’ Ralph said, staring at the dull brown coin. ‘So young.’
Livy nodded. ‘And now she’s on her own. I think she’s very lonely. Like you.’
The boy didn’t stiffen as Livy had imagined he might, or move away from her. He smiled, sadly, his enormous green eyes looked kind now, not angry.
‘I could take it to her,’ he said gently, lifting it from Livy’s palm.
‘But how?’
‘I would need your help. You know that I am no longer mortal so I cannot die. I have no weight so I cannot fall and time has no effect on me. So I am here, always, endlessly here on the roof of the White Tower.’ Livy felt his sadness creep across towards her. ‘All of time is too long to be alone,’ Ralph whispered. ‘If you could make me heavy once more, I could cross the barrier to the other realm. That’s where your friend is waiting.’ He took the coin out of Livy’s hand. ‘We could share this lucky penny if only you would help me.’ The blue star above twinkled and Livy had the clearest sense of Mahalia as she had been when she was alive: her mischievous smile, her golden skin and her thick brown hair.
‘Help him,’ Livy heard that sing-song voice whisper to her again. ‘He’s so lonely.’
‘I need to step back into the mortal world,’ Ralph whispered. ‘I need to become heavy as stone and fall through space.’
‘But that won’t work,’ Livy said. ‘You won’t fall.’
‘There is a way,’ the boy looked up at the Sentinel. ‘My father was the stonemason who carved the Sentinels. After I was changed, Master Burgess was filled with remorse at what he had done to me. He broke the Sentinel’s wing.’ Ralph’s eyes clouded. ‘Will you make him move?’
‘Move?’ Livy gasped. ‘But how?’
‘Do you remember when you first looked out from your window? What did you see?’
‘The sky. The Sentinel.’
‘But you saw something else. Remember, Livy! Remember how you felt.’
Livy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. ‘I saw the Sentinel; he seemed very close. I reached out and touched him, or so it seemed. And then the stone felt warm to my touch. He seemed to feel my hand and turned his head.’
‘See? You have made the Sentinel move before,’ Ralph said. ‘I saw his wing move and his head turn. And now you must do it again before your blood becomes heavy once more.’
‘But I don’t know how!’ Livy protested. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do.’
‘It’s as easy as falling, Livy,’ Ralph said. ‘Just allow yourself to do it.’
The boy stood up and walked quickly towards the Sentinel. Tom, hunched up in the corner, still did not move.
‘We must hurry,’ Ralph said, holding out his hand to Livy. ‘This gap between the moments will not last long.’
He wrapped his arm around the Sentinel’s neck and pressed his dark head to the carved stone breast. Livy reached out and pulled at the thread on Ralph’s coat. ‘I won’t forget you,’ she said.
He put two fingers to his lips and then placed them on Livy’s mouth. He was smiling, although Livy felt sure that she could see tears forming. He turned and put his arm round the neck of the Sentinel. He sighed, as if he were tired, and closed his eyes.
‘Ralph,’ Livy cried out, suddenly panicking. ‘What happens if the Sentinel doesn’t move?’
‘Just remember how you warmed the stone.’
Livy wanted Ralph to open his eyes again, just so that she could see their remarkable colour. ‘But you can’t want this!’ she cried out. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘But if I stay,’ he whispered. ‘I stay forever. And then what will happen when you go? Because you are not like me, Livy. You will not stay as you are. Your blood is not as light and fine as mine, even if you have the power to move the stone and I do not. You will go. You will leave me, as they all do, and I will be even more alone because I will remember what it is like to have someone.’
‘But . . .’
‘Do it now, Livy. In this sliver of nothing between one moment and the next.’
Livy took a breath. The air felt heavier. She saw a gust of wind blow Tom’s fringe. Was the moment slipping away from her already?
‘Quick!’ Ralph urged her. ‘I fee
l the wind stirring. Time is on the move!’
Livy reached out and touched the stone feathers.
Nothing happened.
She saw Ralph frown, although his eyes remained closed.
‘Listen to your blood,’ he whispered. ‘Let it move through the stone.’
Livy touched the wing once more. Then, when nothing happened, she started hammering her fists on the carved feathers. ‘Go on! Move!’ she yelled up into the unmoving face. ‘Move! You’ve got to help me do this for Ralph!’
A tiny pool of rainwater had collected in the corner of the Sentinel’s carved eye, although there had been no rain that Livy could remember. It dropped down on to her hands, as heavy as mercury.
She stopped. She looked at the blue star above the Sentinel’s head. ‘I think you have to help me, Mahalia,’ Livy whispered, on the verge of tears. ‘I can’t do this – I can’t send you a friend – on my own.’
The star trembled. The Sentinel shivered under Livy’s hand and its nostrils flared as if it would breathe. And then it slowly moved its arms to cradle Ralph. The boy tucked his head under the statue’s chin.
‘One breath more,’ he whispered to himself. His eyes were still closed as the Sentinel took its first step.
The stone wings were beautiful. ‘The length of an angel’s wing is that of seven celestial kingdoms,’ Livy whispered, remembering what she had read in the book in the room below. The Sentinel shook them out, and the rush of air was so powerful that it almost threw Livy to the ground. The broken wing quivered and Livy saw how the Sentinel had to try harder to lift it.
‘Wait!’ Livy cried out as the Sentinel took another long step.
‘No,’ Ralph said. ‘You must not ask.’
‘But I want to come with you. I want to see Mahalia again.’
‘It’s not your time, Livy.’
The Sentinel moved forwards. Livy blinked back her tears. She felt panic rising, overwhelming her. ‘Tell Mahalia . . .’ She reached up and tugged on Ralph’s sleeve. ‘Tell her . . .’ It suddenly seemed very important that Ralph tell Mahalia that Livy missed her but that she understood that Mahalia couldn’t be with her any more. ‘I don’t love her any less,’ Livy wanted to say, ‘just because she’s gone.’
The White Tower Page 15
