“Fantastic!” said Gordon. The situation cried out for sarcasm.
“What do you mean, ‘more than they let on’?” Edith asked again.
“Here it is!” Victor exclaimed. He steered the car on to a pockmarked track only a little wider than their vehicle. It ran on for several hundred yards, well past the backs of the houses on the main street, getting grassier and decreasingly disturbed while becoming more pot-holed and bumpy. It was impossible to avoid the ruts. There was no room for manoeuvre.
“We’re here,” Edith said suddenly.
Victor stopped the car. He would have had to in any case: they had come to the end of the track. It dwindled into a footpath ahead of them, and stumbled on for a few more yards before winding its way into a murky wood.
Somehow, Edith had spotted the tiny gate, almost entirely hidden within a vast thicket of thorny briar and tangled hawthorn. Sleeping Beauty might still have been in there, somewhere on the other side of that hundred-year hedge. Gordon fought a hysterical urge to giggle.
“This cannot be it!” Victor declared.
“Trust me,” said Edith.
They got out of the car. The gate gave a monstrous creak of protest but yielded to some determined pushing. Victor never travelled far without his toolkit. There was a small can of WD40 in it. He made a mental note.
They walked slowly through the overgrown garden. Someone had thoughtfully mown a pathway through the dandelions and daisies and the overgrown grass. It had been done recently; the smell still lingered. There were discarded little heaps of cuttings drying out on either side. Victor tutted. It was a shoddy job, done by someone in a hurry. Gordon noticed again the drifting reek of smoke. It stung his nostrils. His dad sighed. “I think I see what they meant now.”
“What who meant?” Edith demanded. She was still waiting for an answer to her previous question.
“At the pub. Looked at me a bit sharply when I asked where ‘Oak Tree Cottage’ was. Landlord said he’d never heard of it. When I told him what directions I’d been given he said: ‘Oh, so that’s what they’re calling it now, is it? That won’t make no difference.’”
Victor grinned. “He told me how to find it. As I was going out I heard one of the locals say: ‘There ought to be a law!’”
“Against what?” Edith asked.
“I didn’t like to ask.”
The little cottage was certainly picturesque. It looked harmless enough. The key was where the instructions had said it would be, under the urn of purple pansies to the left of the front door. Gordon hung back, suddenly hesitant.
“What?” Zack asked him.
“I don’t know,” Gordon said. Then, suddenly he did know. “Can I have a look round the back?” he asked.
His dad snorted. “You’ll be lucky!” he declared. “If the path to the front door is anything to go by, you’ll need a chainsaw and a strimmer round the back. Don’t you want to see what it’s like inside first?”
No, he didn’t. He definitely didn’t.
“I’ll come with you,” his mum offered.
“Oh, right. I’ll just be getting all the luggage in by myself then, will I?” said his dad. Victor was a dab hand at sarcasm himself when the occasion demanded.
Gordon knew his dad was right. The obvious things to do next were to go inside and to bring in the luggage. He had no idea what was tugging away inside him, pulling him into the garden at the back of the cottage.
“Do you want me to nip round and have a look for you?” Zack asked. That was how they normally got around difficulties of this sort.
“No; but I want you to come with me,” Gordon told him.
“Don’t you worry,” Zack assured him. “I’m wherever you are on this holiday.”
“I just have a feeling that the garden at the back might be … inviting,” Gordon said. “Why don’t I have a little look while you two get the luggage?”
“Because,” said his dad, “I want to be sure you make it to your eleventh birthday in one piece. There might be something dangerous hidden in all that undergrowth, just waiting for you to tread on it or fall into it.”
“Let him go, Victor.” Gordon’s mum said suddenly. “He won’t do anything silly. I’ll help you with the luggage.”
Chapter 34
Through The Looking-Glass
The ground at the back of the cottage was indeed more overgrown than the scrubby patch in front. The grass and weeds came up to Gordon’s waist. Brambly bushes tangled in heaps higher than his head.
“I think we might come across Dr Livingstone in here,” Zack said. “How are you feeling?”
“Ok,” Gordon assured him. “In fact, better than ok. I feel amazing!”
“It’s a roller coaster,” Zack reminded him. “We’re on full alert.”
Gordon pushed his way through the bushes and the long grass while Zack drifted in an arc in front of him on the lookout for hazards. You couldn’t call it a garden. It was a neglected patch of ground. They were soon near the bottom of it. A tall hedge stretched between two oak trees. There was more of that murky wood at the back. It sloped steeply upwards.
Gordon’s foot met the edge of something hard and smooth. He raised himself a fraction off the ground for fear of breaking whatever it was.
“Nice use of The Force, Luke,” Zack called over to him. “You’re really getting the hang of that.”
“Thanks,” Gordon beamed back. He put himself into reverse, glided backwards a foot or two, and set himself down again. “You got a second?”
Zack was back in a flash. “What is it?”
“Don’t know,” Gordon admitted, but he knew somehow that it was ‘it’. He made a parting-of-the-waves motion with his hands, and the grass in front of him obediently bent away to either side. They got a glimpse of what it was he’d trodden on. It was a large mirror in an ornate gilt frame, very old and worn. Even so, it was far too grand for a humble cottage like this. It was more like the kind of mirror you saw in a stately home.
The frame was still intact, as was the glass. It was caked in debris, which suggested it had been out in the open for a very long time. “Curiouser and curiouser,” Zack muttered. “Forget Dr Livingstone. Watch out for a white rabbit with a pocket-watch.”
“Forget Alice,” Gordon advised him. “We need something to clean the looking-glass with.”
“Your wish is my command, Oh Master,” Zack intoned, switching rôles. He was back in seconds with a dripping cloth. Gordon raised his eyebrows as he took it from him. “Nearest washing line and a rain butt,” Zack confessed. “I’m sure they won’t miss it. All in a good cause.”
“You can put it back again afterwards,” Gordon said.
Zack grinned. “So I can. Shall we get to work?”
“Let’s,” Gordon agreed. They watched the cloth do a very good job. First it cleaned the grot off the glass, then it wiped down the frame.
“GORDON! His mum was calling him, a little anxiously, from the side of the house.”
“COMING MUM!” he yelled back.
“Don’t be long. It’s lovely inside.”
“OK, just a minute.”
“I’ll go and rinse the cloth,” Zack decided. It was looking the worse for wear.
“Be quick,” Gordon said. Two seconds later Zack was back, holding out the freshly rinsed cloth. “That quick enough for you?” he asked.
They directed the clean cloth over the mirror, squeezing it gently into the swirling scrolls. The cloth was excellent at getting into the crevices. Fingers would have stopped it getting its tongue into the grooves.
“OK,” Gordon said. He was in a hurry, knowing that one of his parents might come looking for him before he had had a chance to dry the mirror. “You get that cloth safely back on its line.” He whipped warm air over the mirror like a Dyson Airblade, and the frame began to glow in the sun. The glass shone. He floated it up into his hands ...
The silvering on the back must still have been intact. He could see his own reflect
ion quite clearly. He had his back to the cottage so he could see that as well. There was a face at the attic window. More than a face, he could see the whole head and shoulders of a man.
Gordon switched to his bionic lens and zoomed in on the reflection. The man was wearing a green velvet jacket with the collar turned up. An elegant white cravat was knotted at his neck. He looked as though he had just stepped from an oil painting hanging on the wall of a stately home. He stared back at Gordon, and brought a handkerchief up to his eyes. He was crying.
Gordon pulled back to everyday, wide-angle mode and turned to look at the cottage. His eyes widened in astonishment, not simply because he could no longer see the weeping man but because there wasn’t even a window in the cottage roof.
“GOR-DON!”
This time his mum was calling from an open back door. He and Zack made their way back up the garden. Edith’s eyes lit up when she saw the mirror. “Oh, that’s lucky. I was just saying to your father there doesn’t seem to be a mirror in the whole house. Where did you find it? Down there?”
Gordon nodded.
“It can’t have been there long. Look how clean it still is!” She took it from him and admired it. “Oh, my goodness, it looks like a really valuable antique! Come and look at this, Victor!” she called out. “See what Gordon’s just found in the garden.”
Gordon’s dad was tapping walls and nodding knowingly. The restricted living-room space was crammed with furniture. A small but serviceable kitchen was clearly a modern addition, as was the tiny toilet and basin in a misshapen cubicle on the ground floor.
An ancient, black grate took up almost all of an end wall. The windows were very old too - small, slightly misshapen and lead-lined. The outer walls of the cottage were impressively thick.
The late afternoon sun still shone quite brightly, but inside, the light had begun to droop and drowse. Victor put the kettle on while Gordon and his mum went upstairs to decide who would sleep where.
A narrow corridor had been squeezed between the old roof timbers. There were two low-ceilinged bedrooms off it. Each had a dormer window looking out over the front garden. “Can I have this room?” Gordon asked his mother. It was the one furthest from the stairs.
“If you like,” his mother agreed. There didn’t seem to be anything to choose between the two.
“Why this room?” Zack asked him.
“It’s our room,” Gordon told him.
“TEA!” his dad called up the stairs. Gordon badly needed time to think. He did his best thinking with Zack, but after tea his mum would be helping him to unpack.
Their thinking would have to wait.
NOTES
DR LIVINGSTONE; “NICE USE OF THE FORCE, LUKE”; ROLLERCOASTERS AND TONGUES IN GROOVES (METAPHORS AGAIN); “THE LIGHT HAD BEGUN ...TO DROOP AND DROWSE”; DORMER WINDOWS.
Chapter 35
Let Me In!
Gordon was sleeping badly. He was too hot. Images and voices were coming and going. He felt himself turning. Where was Zack?
“Whur’s she cum fraam I’d like to know?”
“Wouldn’t we all, my dear?”
“I know oo she thinks she is. Queen of England, thaat’s oo she thinks she is, with ‘er airs and graces. Lookin’ down ‘er nose at the rest of us, never taalkin’ to nobaady.”
“And just whaat is a fine lady like thaat doin’ in Old Joseph’s caattage? Bin stood empty for yeers it ‘as, since ‘e paassed on. Squire never found no further use far it. It be on ’is laand, when all’s said an’ done.”
Gordon woke with a start. It was pitch black in the room. He was soaked in sweat. “Zack!” he beamed urgently, and got no reply. Something was tapping at the window. He felt the skin tighten on his scalp and the sweat cold on his forehead.
Tap … tap … tap … Could it be the branch of a tree? There wasn’t a tree near his bedroom window. His fingers found his bedside lamp and switched it on. The room was curiously empty. Zack wasn’t there. Gordon was aware that he was still in their bedroom in the cottage, but Zack wasn’t there. ‘It’, on the other hand, was - outside the window. Tap ... Tap ... Tap ...
Slowly, trying not to make any noise, he got out of bed and tiptoed to the window. Holding his breath, he drew the curtain. There was absolute blackness beyond the window. He could see nothing out of it. It had become a mirror, into which he could see quite clearly. There was his bed, and the light by it, but instead of his own reflection he saw the figure of a woman facing him in the glass. It was the figure he had seen in the windscreen. There was the same joy on the woman’s face.
“My child” she said softly, holding out her arms. “You have come at last. I have waited so long.” Gordon stared into the window, unable to move a muscle. It was as if he was staring at his own mother. “You will bring us together at last.” The woman’s smile lit up her face, but sadness was etched in her eyes. “I must find peace. Let me in.”
Gordon thought he could see tiny reflections of himself in those haunted eyes. He couldn’t tear his gaze from them. They seemed to be drawing him into the glass. “How can I let you in?” he whispered. Tell me how!”
The face glowed in the warmth of a great love, long remembered. “He came at last, when it was too late. In life, he could not keep his promise; but death lasts longer. He kept it in death; he is here still. Let me in, child, quickly. Let me IN!”
“How? Tell me HOW!” Gordon called out to her. He grasped the window catch and tugged hard, but it wouldn’t budge. He had no strength. The warm glow round the woman’s face grew brighter and redder. Her expression turned to one of horrible pain and anguish. She was surrounded by flames! She was burning alive! His mother was burning alive.
“Too late! Too late!! He promised! Why has he not come?! TOO LA-A-A-TE!!!” She threw back her head and screamed, a terrible, sobbing scream that hung and echoed in Gordon’s skull. It went on and on ...
The skin on her arms and shoulders was shrivelling and melting. Her hair was on fire now, her flesh roasting on the bones. Beads of blood sprang out of her forehead. And there was that smell, the revolting reek of scorching meat.
Gordon stared helplessly at this image of suffering beyond anything he could have imagined. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Somehow, his brain directed his hand to the curtain and he pulled it shut, cutting himself off from the torment in the glass.
The power that had held him upright was cut off too, and he crumpled to the floor, his eyes shut tight, trying to deny the terrible reality of that ghastly spectacle. From somewhere outside himself he heard a voice calling out: “No! Oh NO!! OH PLEASE! NO!!”
He realized it was his own voice about the same time that he heard Zack calling to him urgently from somewhere in the distance. “GORDON! GORDON!! COME BACK, COME BACK TO ME!” He heard a door open and felt a comforting arm around his shoulder.
“DARLING, sshh! What is it? Whatever’s the matter?!” His mother knelt down beside him. She gathered him into her arms, rocking him as if he were a baby again. He had never had a nightmare before.
Gordon clutched at her, eyes still shut tight. His breath came in shuddering gasps. Suddenly Zack was there too. He could feel him, hear him. “I’m here, I’m here! I couldn’t find you. I looked everywhere!”
“Oh, my poor darling,” his mum whispered, stroking his hair. “It was a nightmare! All right now. All right now. It’s over.”
In Gordon’s head, it was far from over. “Don’t leave me!” he sobbed. The plea was addressed to them both. “It was so real! Too real!! I can still see it! It’s too horrible!!”
“Sshh! Sshh!”
“It was that woman, the one who looks just like you! She was outside the window, wanting to come in. I tried to open it, but I couldn’t. And then she started … burning!” The horror still gripped him, wrenching at his guts. He heard himself retching. He was going to be sick.
“Open your eyes!” his mother demanded. “Look at me, Gordon! Do it now!”
“Come back, mate,” Zack whis
pered, “you can do this. We’re with you. Open your eyes!”
Gordon forced his eyes to open. There was his mum, all safe and sound, putting a cordon of sanity around him. And there was Zack, his best friend in the world, care written all over him. Edith took her son’s face in her hands, and replaced the image that had been haunting him.
“It was a nightmare. It wasn’t real. It will go away. You’re awake now. I’m here. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you, now am I? Am I, Gordon?”
“I’d kill anyone before I’d let them harm you,” Zack promised him. Gordon had never seen that look in Zack’s eyes before. It was convincing, reassuring. A large part of him knew he was safe now, but even so …
He shook his head and felt the shudders dying down. He was light-headed, but the terror was receding. It was such a relief to let it go. Somewhat unsteadily, he got to his feet and fell back into bed. His mum climbed in with him. “I’ll stay with you, “she murmured. “Your dad could snore for England; did you know that?”
Gordon smiled. He loved his mum so much. She’d always been there when he’d needed her. But so had Zack. He had never had the smallest doubt that he was safe with Zack around. “Oh no, Gordon,” Zack had said to him softly, on Christmas day. “I will never leave you.”
He was glad his mum had left the light on. She went on talking, keeping his mind off that awful dream. That hadn’t been one of his dreams, or one of Zack’s. Someone else had been dreaming him, in a place where Zack had not been able to find him.
“Your father said there was a big notice outside the pub, advertising a Summer Fair on the Village Green tomorrow afternoon. That should be fun. There’ll be fairground stalls, I expect, and arts and crafts …”
His mother’s comforting voice talked on about ordinary, pleasant things. It untangled Gordon’s nerve-ends and soothed his senses. In a little while, without realizing it, he drifted again to sleep.
And this time, Zack was ready. Only hours ago, he had made Gordon a promise, and something had had the power to stop him keeping it. Gordon had been spirited away from under his nose. That would not be happening again. Gordon would not be going anywhere else on this holiday without him. Not if Zack could help it.
Especially not back to wherever he’d just been.