The White Tower

by Cathryn Constable

  Ralph smiled, his eyes still closed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her everything. I’ll tell her about you and Tom and that boy who knew I was lost and the girl with the kind eyes. I’ll tell her . . .’

  And then the Sentinel took another step, and another. It was on the parapet.

  ‘Just one thing more!’ Livy cried out, her chest tight. The Sentinel shuddered.

  ‘Before you go on a journey,’ Livy had to get the words out quickly before she began to cry, ‘you have to say goodbye.’ She had never been able to say that word to Mahalia. Her throat was very tight, now. ‘So . . . so I won’t miss you and wonder where you’ve gone.’

  The Sentinel turned its head to left and right, seeing the wonder of the vast sky for the first time. Its full lips, carved to look stern and noble, slowly spread into a smile at what its stone eyes could see.

  ‘Goodbye, Livy.’ Ralph’s voice sounded slow and content, as if he was on the edge of sleep.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Livy said.

  The Sentinel folded its heavy carved wings around Ralph and fell forwards into the empty, unforgiving air.

  There was a rush of wind, a roar of sound. The tower jolted as if something had slammed into its side.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ Livy whispered.

  But, needing to say goodbye one more time and – foolishly, she knew – hoping that Ralph had somehow slipped from beneath the stone wings and was still hanging in the air just below her, she leant over the parapet. Immediately her head started spinning. She had to clutch at the stone to stop the tumbling sensation in her stomach.

  The Sentinel’s head had broken off and had rolled to one side and it stared up at her, a faint look of surprise on its carved features. Its body lay smashed into several large pieces; the wing so large and heavy that the paving stones were cracked around where it had landed. But had it been heavy enough to take Ralph with it? To drag him back into the stream of time and drown him? To make time heavy once more?

  And then she saw a single thin plume of smoke rise into the sky and caught that strange metallic scent on the air.

  Livy felt a jolt and, as if a film which had been paused had started again, she saw the trees tremble and wave in the wind. The traffic roared.

  ‘Livy?’

  She turned and ran towards Tom and he clung to her tightly. ‘Count Zacha did not come.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom,’ Livy said.

  ‘Will he ever come?’

  Livy shook her head. ‘I think he’s gone very far away.’

  ‘Like Mahalia?’

  ‘Like Mahalia.’

  ‘To the same place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Tom said. ‘They can be friends.’ He hugged Livy tighter and whispered, ‘I am glad Count Zacha didn’t come. I don’t want to go with him. It is so cold on the roof. The sky is cold.’ He started to shiver. ‘He might have taken me a long way away and I might have got lost.’

  Livy stroked his hair.

  ‘I want to stay with you, Livy.’

  She kissed the top of his head. ‘And I want to stay with you.’

  ‘Livy? Livy?’ They heard Dr Smythe’s feeble voice. ‘Where are you? Where’s Tom? I can’t see you. I can’t open my eyes.’

  ‘Can you come with me, Tom?’ Livy asked as she lifted Tom up. ‘Or do you want to wait here?’

  ‘I can come,’ Tom said, standing up.

  ‘You must be very careful,’ Livy said as she climbed over the parapet and on to the roof of the Court of Sentinels. ‘Don’t look down. Then you won’t feel dizzy.’

  ‘I don’t get dizzy.’ Tom said, swinging his legs over and letting Livy lift him down.

  Dr Smythe raised her head. ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she cried. ‘You’re alive! I thought . . .’ She closed her eyes again. ‘There’s a trapdoor just behind us. It’s how I got up on to the roof. But I can’t move.’

  ‘Just sit up,’ Tom commanded. ‘Then hold my hand. I am strong, Dr Smile. And you will not fall!’

  Her eyes closed, Dr Smythe sat up. She clutched her head and then, groaning softly, fell towards the open trapdoor. She disappeared into the square of darkness. Tom scuttled after her. ‘Be careful!’ Livy cried out to him.

  Tom turned, his eyes flashing. ‘I told you! I can fly! I will not fall!’

  Tom sat on a large leather sofa in Dr Smythe’s study. He was drawing, lost in concentration. The woman looked out at the dark night. The Sentinel no longer filled the window.

  ‘I felt the ground shake,’ she whispered. ‘What happened?’

  ‘It fell,’ Livy said.

  ‘And Mr Hopkins?’

  ‘Gone.’ Livy thought of the pile of dust beneath the Sentinel. ‘He ran away,’ she whispered.

  ‘He was not altered?’

  ‘You knew?’ Livy gasped.

  ‘All I knew was that he was attempting a dangerous experiment. It’s why I fired him. Even though what he was working on would never have actually worked.’

  ‘Tom! Livy!’ The door burst open and her father stood there, his hair on end. ‘I’ve just seen the Sentinel! What happened? Did you see anything?’

  Dr Smythe shook her head.

  ‘Tom! What did I say about not running off in the library? You could have been lost for days!’

  Dr Smythe smiled weakly. ‘I had my eye on him, James.’

  Tom looked up from his picture. ‘Count Zacha didn’t come,’ he said, forlornly. ‘I waited on the roof with the man. But Count Zacha was busy.’

  ‘Well that’s what happens with these superheroes.’ Livy’s father ruffled his son’s hair. ‘They have quite a lot to do. Oh! Livy! You’re here! I thought you would have gone home already.’

  Dr Smythe spoke again. ‘When I saw Livy leaving school, I asked her to come and help me look after Tom. I was just about to call you, James, to tell you not to worry. I found him when I was looking for a book in the library.’

  ‘I think I found something interesting,’ Livy’s father said as he picked Tom up from the sofa. ‘A little book on gravity. Mr Hopkins didn’t manage to hide that one from me! I can show you tomorrow.’

  Dr Smythe smiled and put her fingers to her temple as if she had a headache. ‘Just shelve it somewhere,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’m sorry to have put you to so much trouble, James, but my research has gone in a new direction and I realize that I’ve no need for that now.’

  ‘Livy caught me.’ Tom sniffed. ‘When I fell.’

  ‘Such an imagination.’ Dr Smythe smiled tightly and looked at Livy. ‘All the while he’s been sitting here in my study.’

  Livy said nothing to contradict her. How could she explain what had happened?

  ‘Perhaps you should take your children home, James.

  I have work to do. That Sentinel must have been unsafe for a long time: I need to get the maintenance department to make it secure before tomorrow and look into removing the others from the roof.’ She picked up her phone. ‘We can’t risk an accident.’

  Livy stepped into the Court of Sentinels; the school was dark and quiet. The only light came from Dr Smythe’s study above, which bathed the fallen statue in a soft golden hue. Tom slipped his hand out of his father’s and ran towards the heap of stones.

  ‘Tom!’ her father roared. ‘Stay away from there!’

  Tom didn’t come back. They ran to catch him and her father snatched him up in his arms.

  ‘His wing didn’t work,’ Tom said sadly, ‘and so he fell.’

  Livy’s father looked up at the roof, frowning. ‘It’s called gravity, old chap,’ he muttered, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

  As they turned into Leaden Lane, Livy saw Alex and Celia waiting on the steps of their house.

  ‘We were worried about you,’ Celia said, her breath coming out in clouds. Livy felt herself blush. What did they know? What could they have seen? ‘Your headache,’ Celia explained.

  ‘Yes!’ Livy said. ‘My headache. All gone now.’

  ‘A
nd you said you’d seen Tom on the roof,’ Celia whispered.

  Tom, still in his father’s arms, was trying to wink at Alex.

  ‘It must have been a visual aura,’ Alex said, pleased with himself. ‘If you have migraines, you often see things that aren’t there: flashing lights, zig-zags, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And brothers?’ Celia looked unsure. ‘You see brothers?’

  ‘I didn’t see him,’ Livy said, looking down. ‘I was mistaken.’

  Inside, Livy’s mother took Tom from her husband’s arms. ‘You’ve tired him out, James. All that work!’ She smiled at Livy. ‘You’ve brought some friends home, Livy. How nice. You haven’t done that in a while. Why don’t I make some tea and we can crack open the biscuit tin!’

  ‘Well you’d better save some for me!’ Livy’s father grumbled as he took off his coat. ‘Mine keep disappearing and I don’t even eat them!’

  ‘That happens to me too!’ Livy’s mother laughed.

  ‘Did you get my message?’ Alex said as they sat round the kitchen table. Livy watched as her father spoke to her mother in hushed tones; she heard the word ‘Sentinel’.

  ‘What?’ Livy turned back to look at her friends.

  ‘About the lost boy.’ Alex was speaking quietly. He glanced over his shoulder at Livy’s father. ‘Don’t tell your dad I was in the library. Those records are kept under lock and key. I had to be a little, er, creative to get hold of them.’

  ‘Are you two still going on about your lost boy?’ Celia hissed.

  ‘But he existed, Celia!’ Alex wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘What are you three whispering about?’ Livy’s mother laughed. ‘I do hope it’s a secret! Young people should have plenty of those!’

  ‘Ros!’ Livy’s father said.

  ‘But it’s what friends are for!’ Livy’s mother sipped her tea. ‘Keeping secrets.’

  ‘Where’s my drawing?’ Tom said.

  Livy’s father handed his wife a folded square of paper. Livy’s mother smoothed it out and put it on the fridge, securing it with a magnet.

  It showed a boy standing on the top of a high tower – Tom, by the look of his messy curls – stepping off into the sky.

  There was a group of workmen standing outside the entrance to Temple College the next morning. ‘How did that thing come down?’ Livy heard one of them say. ‘No storm, nothing.’

  She walked into the Court of Sentinels. Just six Sentinels on the roof. There were large plastic barriers around the fallen Sentinel and a group of curious pupils were looking at it. Celia waved and called her over. ‘Mr Bowen said it will be removed by lunchtime,’ she chattered excitedly. ‘They’re going to bring a crane. But no one can work out how it got here. And how it didn’t kill someone!’

  They looked down at the Sentinel’s face.

  ‘He looks a bit sad,’ Celia said, serious.

  ‘But peaceful,’ Alex added.

  ‘Livy?’ They turned to see Miss Lockwood, Dr Smythe’s secretary. ‘Dr Smythe would like to see you in her study.’

  ‘Will you be OK?’ Celia asked, suddenly concerned. ‘I can wait for you outside.’

  The window of Dr Smythe’s study looked even emptier in the daylight: no stone wings filled the sky. Dr Smythe stood up immediately and walked towards Livy.

  ‘How’s Tom?’ she asked. ‘After yesterday. Has he said anything?’

  ‘No one really believes him,’ Livy said. ‘Whatever he comes out with, my parents just think he’s being imaginative.’

  ‘He called me Dr Smile,’ Dr Smythe’s mouth flickered at the memory. ‘He’s a sweet boy.’ She bit her lip. ‘Perhaps it’s better if we put down what happened yesterday to our fevered imaginations.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, I put you and Tom in terrible danger, but I had no idea that Mr Hopkins would attempt such an evil thing. I should have acted sooner. But how could I know that he actually believed what he had ranted to me about?’

  She put her hand to her temple. The gold bracelet slipped down her narrow wrist.

  ‘I knew about Master Burgess’s work. I knew that he had studied alchemy for many years. But alchemy is not science, Livy. He could not have made gold, as he said he did. He could not have made a child who could fly! Oh, I can see the Sentinels on the roof and the stainedglass window, but I also saw the name of the boy who died. He is mentioned in the school archives. Ralph Symons.’ She looked away. ‘What a way to die,’ she said, her voice no more than breath. ‘To be pushed from the roof by a man you trusted.’

  Livy said nothing.

  ‘I think the grief at what he had done to that child unhinged Master Burgess’s mind,’ Dr Smythe went on. ‘So he pretended to himself that the boy could fly, and told himself that he had created an angel.’ She sighed. ‘And that’s where it should have ended. But then Alan Hopkins actually believed the lies that he read in Master Burgess’s books. I thought that Mr Hopkins was weak and vain. I never thought he would be evil enough to try and repeat an ill-fated experiment which had caused the death of that boy so many years ago.’ She shook her head. ‘I realized that he was getting into Temple College somehow to carry on with his experiment. I tried to catch him coming in, but he was so sly. But then, when I saw the experiment laid out in the White Tower, I knew that Mr Hopkins was really mad. It couldn’t possibly work. He was heating metal filings in a flask! It was the work of a madman . . . So I did nothing to stop it. But he could have caused such harm. Will you forgive me?’

  The woman looked anxious still as she looked towards the window ‘Tempus fugit. It did mean something after all, at least to Alan Hopkins. He thought he could live forever, outside time and space. That his mastery over time meant that he could fly. What a fool!’

  What could Livy say? The woman was a scientist, she only believed in what she could see and test through rigorous experimentation. The truth of the matter was in front of her, but she would not, could not, see. ‘But I am still puzzled – the Sentinel. How did that fall?’ She sighed and turned back to face Livy.

  ‘I will be leaving Temple College,’ Dr Smythe continued. ‘I think this is not the right place for me. I will return to Prague and continue my research work into gravity there. But perhaps we can agree to keep this matter between ourselves? No one has been harmed and I have destroyed Peter Burgess’s books. I put them in the fire in that room of the White Tower last night. Let’s hope that I’ve put an end to the matter.’

  Dr Smythe bent down to pick up Tom’s lunchbox. ‘Your brother left this here. Could you return it to him?’

  Livy walked slowly down the stairs. ‘An end to the matter.’ Was it over?

  She noticed how her blood felt cool and heavy and everything around her seemed as if it was the right weight.

  She saw Celia waiting for her at the bottom, her face worried. Livy smiled and waved. ‘It’s all OK,’ she called down. ‘Nothing to worry about. Tom left his lunchbox in Dr Smythe’s study!’

  Celia smiled. Celia. Her friend, Celia. And that was good. It was OK. At last. Mahalia was gone, of course. Ralph too. And she was sorry. It would always be sad and she wished they could still be here. But they weren’t alone any more. They had each other and Livy felt that Ralph would be a good friend to her. And that Mahalia might bring a smile to Ralph’s scowling face after so many centuries of sadness.

  Celia put her arm through Livy’s. ‘There’s all sorts of stuff going on outside. They’re taking the Sentinel away.’

  Outside, a small crane was positioned next to the broken statue. Workmen were securing ropes around the battered and cracked stone. She watched as the heavy head, carved for Ralph by his father, was lifted slowly into the air.

  Her heels stayed on the ground. She didn’t want to be on the roof. She could look up at the sky and feel only happiness that she was far below.

  She was changed.

  ‘Hey, Joe?’

  Livy had run up to the boy in the Court of Sentinels. There were just a few minutes before the start of sch
ool. Joe turned in surprise. ‘That’s my name. You’re Livy, right?’ Livy nodded. She would have to get this over with quickly if she wasn’t going to dissolve on the spot. ‘Could you do me a favour?’

  ‘It depends . . .’

  ‘I’ve got a friend – you may have seen me with her.’

  ‘She’s not one of the deadly duo, is she? The ones that stare and stare and stare . . . Ugh.’ He shuddered.

  ‘No! She’s called Celia and . . .’ Livy stopped for a second. Joe frowned as he waited for her to speak. ‘She really likes you.’ Livy blurted out. ‘But she’s not very brave, and so she couldn’t tell you herself. But I told her that sometimes you just have to find a way to say these things. So I’m saying it for her. Because she’s so shy. I hope you don’t mind.’

  He nodded. He clearly wasn’t surprised. ‘I thought for a moment you were going to say that I owed her money. I borrowed money from a girl last week for some crisps and I can’t remember who she is so I can’t pay her back.’ He shook his head. ‘I really hate it when that happens.’

  ‘Well! About Celia. You don’t have to like her . . . but . . .’ Joe was smiling now, as if he found Livy amusing. ‘I had a friend – Mahalia – and she never got to tell this boy that she liked him. I mean, I don’t know why she liked him, he looked like a weasel, and had really really weird hair, but . . .’

  ‘You can’t pick and choose these things,’ Joe said, reasonably.

  ‘Well, that’s how Celia feels. My friend. The one I’m telling you about. She’s called Celia.’

  ‘You told me that.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Well. Could you say hi to her, sometime?’

  Joe looked surprised. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it. Just say hi. Just acknowledge that she’s on the earth. And that she’s alive. And don’t laugh if she can’t actually find the courage to say anything back.’ Livy wanted to kick herself for saying that. It sounded so stupid.

  ‘Sure!’ Joe smiled. ‘I’ll say hi. It’s not a hard thing to do.’