Alice Parker & the Curse of Fate

by Nicola Palmer

  ‘See? They can smell it too! Something’s burning.’

  ‘Oh, great! Never a moment’s peace!’ moaned Thomas. ‘I suppose you want me to go and take a look?’

  Alice nodded anxiously. ‘Yes please. But be careful!’

  ‘Everything all right?’ asked Grandma as he walked across the room tutting in annoyance.

  ‘Alice thinks she can smell something burning. She won’t rest unless I check it out, you know what she’s like.’

  ‘I smell nothing, but I will come with you,’ said Ingrid. ‘Perhaps I forget something in the oven.’

  ‘Take this,’ ordered Brigitte, handing Thomas a torch that she had taken from her handbag.

  ‘Always prepared, my sister!’ chuckled Grandma. ‘Although the lights are working fine at the moment!’

  Thomas opened the living room door and began to follow Ingrid across the huge landing. Alice held on to Maxi and Morritz by the collar. She had a horrible feeling that Thomas would discover something far worse than burnt food downstairs.

  ‘Wait! Thomas, stop! Can you smell it now?’ she called after him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That smoky, burning smell.’

  ‘Obviously! The wood burner’s doing its job!’

  ‘No! It’s much stronger now you’ve opened the door. Just wait!’ Alice guided the dogs towards Grandma. ‘Hold them back! Please!’ She tore out of the room and stopped in her tracks in the middle of the rug on the landing. Having left the warmth of the cosy living room, it should have felt colder out there. But it didn’t. It was warmer. ‘GET BACK IN HERE!’ she yelled, grabbing Thomas and pulling him back. ‘SCHNELL, INGRID!’

  Thoroughly bewildered, Ingrid hurried after them and Alice slammed the living room door behind them.

  ‘What is it? What is wrong?’ croaked Ingrid.

  ‘There’s a fire down there! Something’s on fire!’

  ‘Rubbish. The smoke detectors would have gone off,’ replied Thomas.

  ‘There are no smoke detectors in this house,’ Brigitte pointed out, shaking her head in disapproval. ‘I noticed that yesterday.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re mistaken, Alice,’ said Grandma gently. ‘I can’t smell anything unusual.’

  ‘No, nothing,’ added Ingrid. ‘I think ...’

  Her words were extinguished by a deafening bang that shook the house. The dogs howled in fright then began to bark uncontrollably.

  ‘Don’t let them out!’ yelled Thomas. ‘Something just exploded downstairs. Phone the fire service, Brigitte! I’m going to take a look.’

  ‘You are not!’ screamed Grandma. But she was too late. Thomas was already out on the landing, staring in horror at the flames that had engulfed the stairs and were already licking the edges of the rug. He retreated quickly.

  Alice and Ingrid were trying to open the windows in the living room, hoping for an alternative escape route.

  ‘They won’t open!’ shouted Alice.

  ‘No! I do not understand!’ wailed Ingrid, frantically tugging on a handle. ‘This is not possible!’

  Thomas dashed out to try the windows in the bedrooms and returned with their holdall and an armful of coats. ‘The windows are stuck in every room,’ he announced with an anguished expression. ‘It seemed silly to come back empty-handed.’

  ‘She’s here now, isn’t she? You have to do something! Please!’ Alice begged him.

  Brigitte had finished her call to the emergency services. ‘Who is here? What are you talking about, child?’ She folded up a blanket and hurried to the door. Smoke had begun to creep underneath it and snake through the air. The dogs growled angrily at this mysterious intruder.

  Red-faced, Alice ignored her questions and watched as Thomas attempted to concentrate on a window, his hands flat against the glass. For a couple of minutes nothing happened, apart from Brigitte tutting in annoyance at being ignored. Grandma was trying to console a devastated Ingrid while restraining Maxi and Morritz.

  Everyone jumped when the entire window fell out without warning and landed outside with a crash.

  ‘Got it!’ Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Er, sorry, Ingrid. I had no choice but to push it out.’

  She nodded without even looking, her face buried in her handkerchief.

  Alice leaned out in to the fresh air. ‘How do we get down from here?’

  ‘We?’ said Thomas in a low voice. ‘There’s an obvious answer for you. It’s the rest of us who need to worry.’

  ‘As if I’d leave you! I could try and carry you one at a time.’

  ‘You couldn’t. Anyway, it won’t come to that. Give me a minute.’

  ‘Where have the firemen got to?’ asked Grandma in panic. ‘We can’t jump – it’s too high, and we can’t stay in here much longer.’

  ‘We won’t need to. We can get out without them!’ announced Thomas.

  When Alice looked down she saw that a flat roof had appeared just four feet below the missing window. Adjacent to that was Ingrid’s truck. They could climb down!

  Ingrid stared in bewilderment as Thomas slipped out of the window and showed her their escape route by torchlight.

  ‘Why is ... I mean, how?’ she stuttered, pointing down at the corrugated metal roof beneath them.

  ‘It’s quite stormy out here,’ replied Thomas calmly. ‘Nature lent us a hand and moved one of your sheds.’

  ‘But ... my truck is here too! How? I do not see ...’

  ‘I moved it. You left the keys in the ignition.’

  Grandma realised what Thomas had done and changed the subject immediately.

  ‘Youngsters out first!’ she insisted. ‘I’ll help you.’ She stood a small table beneath the window so that Alice could reach it more easily, and held her arm until she landed on the roof below.

  ‘You next, Ingrid,’ said Brigitte. ‘I have lived longest.’

  ‘No. I stay with my dogs.’

  ‘The dogs are coming too,’ called Thomas from outside. ‘I promise! Alice you need to get down from the shed. I don’t know how many people this roof can hold.’

  Alice climbed down from the shed to the roof of Ingrid’s truck. From there, she slid down to the bonnet and then waved triumphantly from the ground. Reluctantly, Ingrid climbed out of the window assisted by Grandma and Brigitte, then Grandma followed. Finally Thomas climbed back in to the living room to help Brigitte. Then he lifted Maxi in to his arms.

  ‘Take him!’ he ordered Brigitte, cradling the dog and passing him out of the window to her.

  ‘No way!’ she refused, flinching as Maxi tried to lick her.

  ‘Meine Hunde!’ screamed Ingrid. ‘Please!’

  Scowling, Brigitte took Maxi from Thomas and staggered to the edge of the shed roof. Petrified, the dog did not attempt to struggle in her arms. Ingrid reached up from the roof of her truck and grabbed him in relief when Brigitte knelt down.

  ‘Next!’ yelled Thomas, waiting at the window with Morritz.

  ‘Wunderbar!’ whinged Brigitte. ‘This one is bigger!’ She needn’t have worried. Morritz refused to keep still and wriggled until he was free from Thomas’s grasp. He bounded to the edge of the roof and took a flying leap towards Ingrid’s voice. Brigitte screamed.

  ‘Alles in Ordnung!’ called Ingrid. ‘He is OK!’

  Brigitte was still trembling when she joined the others on the ground. Grandma squeezed her hand.

  ‘Ingrid will never forget that you helped her dogs.’

  ‘Neither will I!’ spluttered Brigitte. ‘What is wrong with you people? Disaster follows you! My life was normal and calm before you arrived!’

  ‘A house fire is hardly our fault,’ said Grandma firmly.

  ‘No, fault is mine,’ sniffed Ingrid, watching the flames engulf the living room, tears running down her face. ‘No smoke alarms.’

  ‘And now everything is destroyed,’ said Brigitte harshly.

  ‘Not quite everything,’ said Thomas. He threw the bags and clothing down to Alice and proceeded to drag a large object
across the shed roof. ‘I couldn’t leave this behind, could I, Ingrid? You only bought it today!’

  Ingrid managed a smile at the sight of her new television.

  ‘You fool!’ scolded Grandma. ‘Fancy going back in for that!’

  ‘Actually I lifted it out first. You lot didn’t even notice!’ He patted it proudly but his smile quickly disappeared. ‘What’s that over there?’

  From his vantage point on the shed roof he squinted in to the distance. Bobbing in the darkness were two small lights; torches carried by two figures who were running across the field away from the farmhouse.

  ‘I bet that’s them!’ he growled, jumping down and leaping in to the driver’s seat of Ingrid’s truck. Within seconds he started the engine. Alice scrambled in to the passenger seat beside him and they tore off after the intruders.

  ‘Who?’ asked Ingrid and Brigitte in unison.

  ‘Er, I’ve no idea,’ said Grandma quietly. ‘Can you hear the sirens? Sounds like the fire engines are nearly here.’

  Chapter 9

  Captives in the Cold

  Alice gripped her seat until her knuckles were white as the truck bounced over the frozen furrows in the fields.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she yelled. ‘What happens if we catch them?’

  ‘I don’t know. But we can’t let them get away with this, can we? They’ve destroyed Ingrid’s home, for goodness sake!’

  ‘Hmm. And our accommodation.’

  ‘That’s not important. We couldn’t have stayed tonight, even if Isabella hadn’t destroyed it. She would have done something else, knowing we were there.’

  ‘But HOW did she know?’

  ‘I intend to find out. Ha, there she is! Like a startled rabbit in the headlights!’ Thomas revved the engine and roared towards Isabella and her familiar companion.

  ‘Except I’d try to avoid a rabbit,’ muttered Alice.

  ‘Ooh, this is fun!’ howled Thomas, delighting in Isabella’s fear as she stumbled through the field in her designer boots, running away from their vehicle.

  ‘You won’t say that when she melts this car.’

  ‘She won’t. She can’t stop long enough to focus because I’ll mow her down.’

  ‘You wouldn’t really do that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t I?’

  Alice cast a nervous glance at Thomas at the precise moment the moon appeared from behind a cloud. Judging by the wild, furious glint in his eyes, he might. It seemed he’d been pushed over the edge this time.

  Isabella and her partner in crime were heading towards a public footpath which led to the main road. If they reached it, Thomas couldn’t follow them in the vehicle, since it cut through an area of woodland on Ingrid’s land. Alice looked around in desperation. A huge elm caught her eye, filtering the moonlight through its bare branches.

  ‘Bring that elm down!’ she blurted out. ‘It’ll block their path. But don’t crush them!’

  ‘As if I care.’

  ‘I care. I don’t want to visit you in prison.’

  ‘You won’t. It’s the perfect murder!’

  ‘Get a grip!’ yelled Alice. ‘Can you hear yourself?’

  ‘Loud and clear!’ Thomas sped towards the elm, focussing on the base of it as they approached.

  Alice could hear the tree creaking over the sound of the engine as Thomas attempted to topple it with the power of his mind.

  ‘CAREFUL!’ she screamed. ‘You could kill us too!’

  The fugitives stopped dead, perturbed by the groans emanating from the mighty tree nearby. Pleased with his work, Thomas spun the truck around to drive back to the farmhouse. But instead of tearing away the truck stopped abruptly. He glared at the ignition, pleading with the vehicle to start, but there wasn’t even a splutter. The dashboard remained in darkness.

  ‘I bet he’s done this!’ squealed Alice. ‘That horrible man can control anything electrical!’

  ‘Aaaaargh!’ growled Thomas, thumping the steering wheel.

  The creaking became louder as the elm’s roots began to loosen in the ground.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it falling!’ yelled Alice, leaping out of the truck and running away as fast as she could in the darkness.

  ‘Too late!’

  Thomas was running after her – the tree was on the move. Just seconds later they were both knocked off their feet by the vibration of the poor old elm hitting the ground. Alice picked herself up and grabbed the torch from Thomas’s hand. When she shone it in the direction of their enemies, she could see nothing but branches. The tree seemed much bigger now it was lying on the ground, almost as long as the field. She shivered as she relived the moment when Isabella sent the ash tree crashing through their house a few months earlier. Perhaps this was fitting revenge after all. Where was Isabella? Underneath the tree or safe on the other side of it?

  ‘Give me that!’ barked Thomas, snatching the torch from her hand. ‘There they are, trying to get away! Not on my watch.’ He gripped the torch between his teeth and scrambled over the trunk.

  ‘For pity’s sake, leave it!’ pleaded Alice. ‘Haven’t we done enough damage here?’

  ‘The truck’s fine. It just needs a new battery,’ called Thomas.

  When Alice climbed on to the fallen trunk to get a better view, she saw Thomas standing perfectly still, gazing after his targets.

  ‘LUKAS!’ Isabella screamed her friend’s name in terror. Then they disappeared from view.

  ‘What have you done?’ screeched Alice, racing to join Thomas. He stretched out his arm to hold her back before she ran too far. Teetering on the edge of a twelve foot deep hole, they looked down at Isabella and her vile friend, Lukas.

  Isabella squinted in to the torchlight. ‘You’ll pay for this!’ she squealed. ‘You’ll see!’ She craned her neck trying to peer out of the hole.

  ‘If you’re looking for something else to burn, you’ll only see me and Alice from down there. And it would look very suspicious if we spontaneously combusted in the middle of a field, wouldn’t it?’

  Isabella stamped her foot in frustration.

  ‘How did you know we were here?’ Thomas demanded.

  A sly smirk crept over Isabella’s face. ‘We were watching you.’

  ‘No. I was watching you,’ corrected Lukas in a stern voice. He looked up momentarily from his mobile phone, which he had been cursing in German.

  ‘It seems there’s no mobile signal down there,’ said Alice.

  Thomas took his own phone from his pocket. ‘No signal on this part of the farm,’ he confirmed. ‘What a shame! It looks as if you two will be spending the night here. I’ll drop off the bill in the morning.’

  Isabella let out a whine and stamped on her phone in frustration. ‘I’ll freeze to death out here! I can’t heat myself up! That’s not how my ability works.’

  ‘Well, I’m certainly warming to the irony of someone with your ability freezing to death!’ replied Thomas.

  ‘Stop it! Just shut up, will you?’ hissed Alice. ‘You really scare me, talking like this.’

  ‘Oh, come on! If we don’t get them first, they’ll ... ’

  His reasoning was interrupted by a loud diesel engine. Alice turned to see a digger roaring towards them, its lights piercing the darkness like enraged eyes. It stopped just short of the hole. Ingrid must have spotted the light from the torch and hurried over to see what was going on. She had not even paused to empty the digger’s bucket, which was loaded with earth. The engine still running, she jumped down from the cab and joined Alice and Thomas. In the glare of the headlights she walked around the perimeter of the hole and surveyed the captives with contempt.

  ‘They have done this?’ She turned to look at her burning home. Two fire engines had arrived but so far their jets were having little effect on the flames. Her eyes full of hatred, she scrutinized the furious Lukas and snivelling Isabella.

  Alice elbowed Thomas to delay his reply. What should they say? If they said yes and Ingrid turned them over to the police, wha
t would happen? They would find no fingerprints or proof. She or he had started it with mind control.

  ‘I ... um ... I’m not sure,’ mumbled Thomas, as if thinking the same as Alice.

  ‘OK. You all think about it before morning,’ said Ingrid curtly. She climbed back in to the cab of the digger and without warning, tipped the contents of the bucket in to the hole.

  Alice held her breath at the stench. That wasn’t topsoil – it was half a tonne of steaming manure! Thomas clapped in approval.

  ‘Have a nice evening,’ called Ingrid over the shouts and screams. Then she drove back towards the farmhouse.

  ‘At least you’ve got something to keep you warm!’ sniggered Thomas, ignoring Isabella’s pleas. They turned their backs and he put his arm around Alice as they headed back across the fields.

  ‘This is all our fault,’ said Alice woefully. ‘But it doesn’t make sense. I was certain no one followed us here. I was watching all the time.’

  ‘Since when does anything make sense for us?’ replied Thomas. ‘I thought you’d realised that a long time ago.’

  *

  The fire fighters battled with the blaze for several hours before it was finally brought under control. Ingrid barely moved and simply gazed at the scene as if saying a prolonged goodbye to her home. And yet she was not as upset as Alice had imagined. There were no more tears. As long as her dogs and horses were safe, Ingrid was content. Thomas draped an extra coat around her shoulders as a few flakes of snow began to fall.

  Alice, Thomas, Grandma and Brigitte were driven down to Heinrich’s house, along with Maxi and Morritz. He had returned from taking his family to the cinema to discover the devastating scene, and rushed over to help. Relieved to see that everyone was all right, he led Ingrid’s anxious horses out of the stables and in to a field a safe distance away from the farmhouse. Then he stayed with Ingrid until the fire crew left in the early hours of the morning.

  Sipping hot tea around the table in Heinrich’s kitchen, everyone looked at each other in silence. For once even Brigitte had nothing to say.