Darkwater

fourteen

It was his bedroom all right, but something had happened to it.

For a start, all the walls had turned to glass. Tom sat up in the bed, swung his feet out, and whispered, “Simon!”

No answer.

Pulling the bedcovers back, he saw his brother’s warm, empty place. Tom got up, crossing the worn carpet. Carefully he reached his hands out and felt for the invisible wall, and it was there, behind the football posters, smooth and cold and curving in slightly as it rose. Like a dome. Or a jar. Even standing on the bed he couldn’t reach the ceiling.

Outside, it was dark. Vast dim shapes moved, spheres and planets, an enormous far-off door opening and closing, and then the sudden nightmare swelling of a great whiskered cat, that made him crumple back with terror against the pillow. The creature’s vast soft mouth and nose were pressed against the glass. It mewed, its rough pink tongue rasping hopelessly, so close he could see the tiny hooks on it. Wide green eyes watched him.

Then it was gone.

After a second, pajamas drenched with sweat, he said, “Simon. Please. I need you.”

Something large and dark swished outside, and he ducked. Sounds came to him, distorted and filtered, of footsteps and a distant roaring that might have been water. And voices, asking some question. Scared, he plugged the lamp in quickly and switched it on, and Simon sat up in the bed, tousled and sleepy. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I think this is a dream.”

Simon stared over his shoulder, eyes widening. “Look!” But Tom could see her. Her face was huge, an enormous pitted surface of skin, vast nostrils, stretched eyes. Her breath misted the glass. With a yell he leaped away, and the room shook; it toppled over and fell and plummeted into darkness, a huge warm darkness and—

A heart was beating.

Loud. Really loud.

It was thumping all around him, and he and Simon were tiny, lying close, curled in its rhythm, in a red landscape of tunnels and caves and hollows, veins and womb, all breathing, rising and falling. Beside him then he felt his brother’s warm, empty place.

And the jar was falling; he was tumbled roughly, buffeted against its sides, great hands clasping him, pulling him out into the terrible light, a light that made him scream, and the huge face said, “One’s alive, Doctor. Just the one.”

He sat up, sweating. “Simon?”

His brother was on the window seat, reading a football magazine. “At last,” he said, without looking up. “You’d better get up. Mam’s been calling you.”

Of all places, it would have to be the post office. Tom chewed his toast and looked down at the package in cold despair. “Now?”

“Well, the post goes at ten. And when you’ve sent it, come up to the Hall and I’ll get the new caretaker to sign you on for a few hours’ work, if you want. I’m desperate for the help, Tom.”

His mother took the tray out to the kitchen, and Tom shoved the package between the cereal box and the sugar bowl, and ran his hands through his hair in terror. “Oh God. Not there,” he whispered.

Simon was lounging on the sofa. “It’s all right. We’ll be quick. And he might not even be there.”

“He’ll be there.”

It was Steve Tate he was afraid of. Steve’s dad kept the post office, and Steve helped there during the holidays. Or rather, he loitered around the cash register drinking beer with his friends. Little Mark Owen, the sneaky one. And Rob Trevisik, big and thick. Tom dreaded them all. He never, ever went near the place.

His mother came back, rolling her apron into a plastic bag. “Don’t forget. Pound of potatoes. Margarine. And the package.”

“Can’t you drop that in?” he asked, too casually.

“Tom, I’m late as it is. You’ll come to the Hall after?”

He shrugged, appalled. “Nothing better to do.”

Paula kissed him on the head, not listening. “Good. Think of the three pounds an hour.”

She went out. They heard her wheel the bicycle out of the shed. Then Simon stirred. “Come on, lazy.”

Tom scowled at him. He cleared the table and dumped the dishes in the sink, seeing his own double reflection in the shiny taps, his face twisted and scared. As the hot water gushed out he thought that his mother never noticed when he was being sarcastic. He had plenty of things to do. Course work for one.

While he washed up Simon vanished, only coming in through the back door as the last plate was dried. “It’s raining. Hard.”

Tom glanced at him. Today his brother wore expensive jeans and a green sweatshirt and had his hair slicked down in the way Tom secretly wanted his. He looked tall and confident. There wasn’t a drop of rain on him. But then, there wouldn’t be.

Tom pulled a coat on and shoved the package in his pocket. “Are you coming?” he asked, into the mirror.

Simon came up behind him, and he turned, facing again the wonder of his own face saying things he wasn’t saying, thinking what he couldn’t think. His brother said awkwardly, “Look, Tom. You know it’s up to you. Keep strong, or I can’t help.”

The rain was heavy. It poured off the cottage porch, soaking him as he went through it, and all the stone walls of the lane gleamed granite-gray. The sea was invisible in squalls and clouds, but the gulls were raucous, screaming and mewling over the far cliffs. Tom pulled his hood up and trudged, jumping puddles, past the caravan park to the stile in Martinmas Lane. A few expensive-looking mobile homes were still there, locked up for the winter. Underneath one, a child’s stroller with a wheel missing lay forlornly. Tom climbed over the stile and saw Darkwater Hall.

In the November rain, shrouded with ivy, it looked like some house out of an old Cornish tale of smugglers, demons and squires, all gothic windows and gargoyles. People said the devil had lived there once, and that under it he had dug a tunnel that led straight down to hell.

“Daft.” Simon sat on a wall. “It’s a natural chasm in the rock.”

“I know that.”

“It’s just you prefer the other yarn.”

They grinned an identical grin, but glancing back, Tom’s face darkened. Darkwater may look like some lord’s house, but it wasn’t. It was a school. A really good school. But he didn’t go to it. His mother was just the cleaner.

“You’ll miss the post,” Simon muttered.

Tom didn’t move. Outside the Hall a taxi had pulled up, a sleek black one. A man was getting out. He was tall, dark-haired, and wore a long black coat. The driver came around and opened the car trunk, dumping two suitcases ungraciously on the steps of the Hall, and the tall man paid him. But he didn’t ring the bell. Instead he stepped back and looked up at the building, a long look, with something of reminiscence about it. Then he turned, looking up at Tom, high on the cliffs, curiously. He wore a neat dark beard.

Tom jumped down.

“New teacher,” he said sourly.

Then he ran. Down the lane, the wet umbels and ferns soaking his boots, past the school cottage and the converted art gallery and the craft shops, racing past the garage and around to the post office with its front stacked with Christmas trees, freshly cut.

He stopped dead, feeling Simon thump into his back.

“Well. They’re here.”

Outside, among the fir branches, two bicycles leaned.