Next, he hands the bag up to me. Then, using the string I’d tied to its handles, I lower it to the floor on the other side of the wall.
Finally, I slip over the wall, slowly sliding down its side as far as I can before I have to jump the rest of the way.
‘You okay?’ Jase whispers from the other side of the wall.
‘Sure, everything’s going smoothly to plan!’ I say proudly.
‘Remember to take care of the alarm system first,’ he says.
Alarm system?
Damn!
*
Chapter 42
‘Sure, sure,’ I hiss back at Jase from the other side of the wall, trying to hide my panic. ‘My friends told me the code,’ I lie. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Oh, okay; and you’re sure you’ll be all right getting back out?’
‘As I said, I’ll let myself out the front, setting the door latch and closing it behind me. I’ll be fine; you can head on home now – and thanks, Jase, thanks a lot. I owe you.’
I don’t wait for his reply. I’ve wasted enough time chatting at the wall.
An alarm!
Why didn’t I think of that?
Because I’ve been telling myself Freak’s so confident that no one will dare break in he won’t have bothered with any modern anti-burglary devices, that’s why. They don’t exactly fit in with the quaint, ancient look of his shop after all.
But yeah; it could be his shop hasn’t been broken into because he’s got the world’s most sophisticated alarm system!
I get to the window. Thankfully, it’s a sash window, as I’d hoped.
At least he hasn’t had that modernised!
I reach into the bag for the wallpaper scraper. I slip the blade between the gap lying between the lower and upper parts of the window, as instructed on the websites I visited.
Sliding the scraper along the gap, I search for and wait until I feel it coming up against the catch – and then I push the catch open.
Easy!
Slipping the scraper into my back pocket (I’d changed earlier into some of my own jeans and a dark jumper), I jubilantly grab the bottom of the frame to jerk it open.
It doesn’t move.
I peer at the catch just behind the glass, checking that it’s fully open. It is.
Trouble is, there’s a modern window lock right next to it.
Damn!
*
I haven’t really thought all this through as well as I’d thought, have I?
Damn!
I mean, how come Freak thinks he has to rely on all these modern contraptions when he can skin people and transform them into costumes? Isn’t that enough to warn anyone off from breaking into his shop?
Well, come to think of it, it hasn’t warned an idiot like me off, has it?
I slump to the floor, dismayed by my stupidity.
I look at the surrounding wall.
How am I going to get back over that?
Idiot, idiot, idiot!
Mary, you were a much more resilient woman than I could ever hope to be; what would you do?
Wait a minute!
Mary!
That’s the answer!
*
Chapter 43
The courtyard smells terrible. The sour stench of rotting horse droppings and overflowing drains.
Using the scraper again, I slip the catch – and this time, of course, the window opens easily.
There aren’t any window locks in Mary’s time.
No alarms to worry about, either.
I clamber through the opened window, dragging the bag through with me. I’d remembered to hold on to the bag as I’d slipped back in time.
I nearly jump right back out of the window when I see a person waiting for me in the darkened room.
Idiot!
It’s just one of the costumes.
No, no – it’s not just one of the costumes, I realise, my eyes slowly adjusting to the room’s dim light.
It’s Helen; Helen of Troy.
I recognise her from when I saw Princess Elizabeth dressed as her.
Beautiful.
Regal.
Magnificent.
So, although she went missing at some point in the shop’s history (so Freak told me anyway), the experience of being Helen of Troy was still up for sale back in Mary’s time.
And Paris, is he here?
No; he’s out, as it were. There’s just an empty, regular tailor’s dummy standing next to Helen.
Who’s hired him out, I wonder? Some Jekyll and Hyde character, staid by day, but wild and carefree by night? Maybe even some highborn lady, who wants to experience the sensations and privileges available to a man?
Now that I have the chance to study her, I realise Helen’s much younger than I would have expected. I mean, the siege of Troy lasted what, ten years?
So you’d expect her to be around twenty eight at least, wouldn’t you?
But the Helen so imperiously standing before me looks less than twenty, easily. Perhaps that was a part of her allure, her beauty, of course; that she looked much younger than she actually was.
Then again, perhaps the weak light coming in through the window isn’t the best kind of light to study her in.
Come to think of it, why’s a prize like Helen kept next to a window, where she could be so easily stolen? Is that why she was stolen? Why, too, Freak decided he did need protection from burglars?
I suppose the window’s natural light was the best thing there was in a time of oil lamps to present her at her best. Otherwise, too, residues of soot would have to be regularly cleaned off her.
When I slip back into my own time, I’m almost sorry to see that Helen’s no longer in the room with me.
The only thing in here is a bared, modern mannequin.
Obviously, Paris is out again.
*
I need to find the best spot to start the fire.
It has to be sheltered, so it’s protected from the spray of the sprinklers.
(Yes, that’s another modern precaution that Freak’s had installed in his shop.)
It also has to be off the ground, so it’s not doused by water flowing across the floor.
Looking about me at Freak’s ‘creations’, every one of which seems to be glaring at me from out of the room’s dim light, I almost feel guilty of murder. Multiple murder.
On the shelves, in a long rack, I spot a line of umbrellas.
I pick one up, wondering for the first time in my life if it really is bad luck to open one inside.
What are they made of?
Do they do anything for you other than keep the rain off?
Could they be of any use to me?
Would a fire have worked better back in Mary’s time, when they didn’t have any sprinklers?
I doubt it, going by Freak’s description of how time works.
That’s another thing I have to take into account – Freak’s ability to move through time. I don’t want a future Freak coming back to warn everyone that I’m the culprit. So I can’t leave any clues that I was involved.
As it is, it’s bad enough that he’ll know when it happened.
But, if I’ve figured this out correctly, if he comes back to tell his present self that the shop catches fire tonight, it will be too late to stop it. As it’s already happened in the history of Freak’s future self.
That’s right, right?
The worst that can happen is that they hang around to catch the one responsible. Which, yeah, is really really bad for me. But they can only catch the one responsible if that also happened in the history of Freak’s future self.
Right?
This time thing, as Freak told me, can get ridiculously complicated when you start trying to work everything out.
Now, one umbrella might not be enough, but a whole array of umbrellas – what was that?
Did I just make that floorboard creak?
No! There it is again. Another creaking board.
And another.
Someone’s heading this way!
Freak is lying in wait for me after all.
*
As silently as I can, I quickly tiptoe over towards the door. I stand to one side of the doorway, holding my umbrella like a club.
I can still hear Freak heading my way through the front room, trying to walk as quietly as he can. Sneaking around. Intending to take me by surprise and jump out on me.
Then it dawns on me
What if it’s not Freak
What if it’s the freaks?
I nervously look about the room I’m in, expecting the secret doors to open any moment, the freaks pouring out and overrunning me in a matter of seconds. The last and most terrifying seconds of my life.
I mean, it’s not like they’re regular staff, heading on home at night after a hard day working the tills, is it?
They probably live here, don’t they? Where else are a bunch of freaks going to live?
I’m dead! I’m going to end up as pair of gloves.
Or, even worse, an umbrella.
*
Chapter 44
The door opens.
I raise my umbrella, ready to strike.
(Sorry! I say to whoever the umbrella used to be.)
Even in the room’s poor light, I recognise that it’s Jase just before I bring the umbrella down hard on his head.
‘What are you doing here?’ we both say at once in surprise.
*
‘How the heck did you get in?’ I ask Jase.
‘You let me in; at the front,’ he replies, both mystified and innocent at the same time.
‘No I didn’t!’
‘Yes you did,’ Fiona answers, stepping into the room just behind Jase.
*
‘This…this isn’t possible!’ I gasp in complete surprise.
Jase looks even more puzzled than I am. Even so, he grins stupidly, like having two Fiona’s is the most amazing thing he could have ever dreamed of.
‘Twins?’ he chortles in delight. ‘Oh this is great! Like something out of a soap opera.’
‘Sure, sure, that’s right Jase,’ the other Fiona says contemptuously. ‘And you’ve got the soap bit right too,’ she adds with a bitterness now aimed at me. ‘Because she’s what your soaps would call my evil twin. I’m the real Fiona. She’s just been leading you on, planning on getting you into trouble by setting this shop on fire!’
I’ve been too shocked to put up any defence. At one point, I’d almost cried out ‘Jackie, I know it’s you.’ But that’s only going to confuse Jase even more. And I need to persuade him that I’m the real Fiona.
‘I’m the real Fiona!’ I insist, stepping closer towards him, placing my hand against his cheek and bringing his lips to mine.
We kiss. He’s hungry for me.
It’s nice, but, strangely, not as nice as I used to think it was.
We break apart, both grinning. Jase because he can’t believe his luck. Me because I think it was quite a nice little masterstroke to pull.
Jase knows Fiona’s lips. They’re not the kind of lips you can forget.
The other Fiona grins back at me just as triumphantly. She points over towards the umbrella rack, where I’ve left the bag containing the can of petrol.
‘Check out her bag,’ she says to Jase.
Giving each of us a bemused look, Jase begins to walk towards the bag.
‘Jase! Stop! Look!’ I call out to him, making him stop and turn. ‘None of us are Fiona! And I can prove it!’
I prepare to hurriedly shrug out of Fiona’s skin.
‘No no; don’t!’ Jase commands brusquely, stepping back towards me. ‘That’s an expensive garment you’re wearing! I don’t want to risk damaging it just so you can make some silly point!’
‘What? What did you say?’
I stop in mid-action, more confused than ever.
Jase smiles.
‘I mean – what the?’
Before he can finish speaking, the freaks suddenly begin rushing out of their secret cubby holes and rooms.
They all charge towards a horror stricken Jase. Clambering all over him before he has a chance to start knocking any of them off, they immediately start tearing at his skin with their weird tools.
And Jase screams and screams as they begin to skin him alive.
*
Chapter 45
Leaping forward, I begin to pull or knock off any freaks I can. But it’s hopeless, there are too many of them.
Jase’s skin is being steadily pulled off him in one amazing, sickening piece, as if already partially formed into a full costume. He screams pitifully, he writhes agonizingly.
The other Fiona giggles gleefully.
I’m not going to be able to save him. I’m too late. I’m too useless.
More and more of his skin is being peeled away, uncovering the glistening veins and muscles that had lain beneath.
Amazingly, amidst all his agony and his terrified wailing, Jase manages to raise a hand to his head, wiping away the thick sheen of blood from his eyes.
A thin film of muscles and veins also begins to come away in his hand until, amazingly, all of it begins to peel away, revealing a new face.
Freak’s face!
‘Ta-da!’ Freak yells out jubilantly, spreading out his arms to either side as if he’s just performed the most incredible trick. ‘And in one bound, he was free!’
Horrified, I fall back, crumpling to the floor, trying to scuttle farther away like a terrified crab.
‘God, no!’ I shriek in terror. ‘You’d already skinned him!’
*
Freak laughs like it’s the best joke in the world.
Using both hands, he begins to swiftly strip away the thin patina of muscles and veins covering his body. Some of the freaks continue to remove Jase’s skin, others have begun cleaning off the rest of the bloody sheen of fake muscles.
‘No no; we wouldn’t be so cruel!’ Freak assures me. ‘Your precious Jase, he never existed.’
As the freaks finally strip off the very last of Jase’s skin, they slightly stretch it out between them, a macabre, deflated version of the boy I’d once loved.
‘Please allow me to introduce you to Paris,’ Freak declares theatrically, indicating this ghoulish sight with a flamboyant wave. ‘Once one of the most desirable men in history, and therefore someone you could hardly resist falling for, my dear!’
‘It’s…it’s been you all along?’
God, I’m more disgusted than ever! Never, ever, have I felt more like I needed a shower.
‘How sick is that? What are you, some sort of–’
‘Freak?’ he guffaws. ‘But no no; not the type you’re thinking of! Please, please; that really is beyond the pale!’
The other Fiona smiles, like she’s the magician’s assistant, there to reassure you everything’s just fine, there’s no real danger involved.
‘I don’t usually go in for such subterfuge; but you Jill, I knew you were a special prize! Requiring special means!’
Thankfully, the freaks have carried Jase’s – I still find it hard not to t
hink of him as Jase – grisly costume away. A few of them have remained behind, however, and they’re circling me.
‘Hah; thank goodness for that, eh?’ I say light-heartedly, slowly rising to my feet, glancing about me, looking for any possible route of escape. ‘Now that that little mistake’s all cleared up, I’ll just–’
‘Just return to things as they were? I’m afraid the only mistake is mine; despite my best intentions, and all the benefits that I’ve shown could be yours, it seems I can’t even trust you to recruit your friends.’
With a nod and a flick of his hands, he commands the surrounding freaks to begin closing in on me.
‘It’s such a shame that after all my effort, all I’m going to get for it is a pair of gloves!’
*
Chapter 46
With any luck, most of those awful little freaks have banged their heads as they’ve leapt into nothing but empty space.
I’m back in Mary’s time. Back in the Victorian shop.
‘Mary?’
I whirl around.
An assistant is there, with a male customer. Thankfully, the customer is oblivious to everything going on around him. He’s wearing a long, fawn pair of women’s gloves.
I wasn’t expecting anybody to be around at this time of night. Obviously, I’ve no idea who the man is, but he must be an extra-special customer to be receiving such exclusive service.
‘It’s okay – I mean, all right.’ I use the hand signal I remember Freak using to reassure the assistant we’d surprised when we’d travelled back to his Elizabethan shop. ‘Freak’s – Mr King’s – expecting me.’
She frowns doubtfully but returns to assisting her customer, who seems pretty close to crumpling to the floor in ecstasy.
Joshua must have introduced Mary to the shop at some point in their relationship, probably without realising the danger he was placing her in. Freak wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to acquire someone as beautiful as Mary; he probably played some underhand role in ensuring the poor girl would eventually commit suicide.
I rush towards where I know Anne Morrow is stored, planning on moving farther back in time before either Jackie or Freak follows me here.
With any luck Jackie – if it is Jackie clothed as Fiona, of course – hasn’t got the full range of skills enabling her to immediately chase after me. If that’s the case, Freak will have to slip into a Victorian costume; but he can probably do that remarkably quickly.
Then I see the door leading to the room where I saw Helen.
She was on her own in there, as Paris was obviously out for hire. If I travel back to her time, Freak shouldn’t be able to follow. I mean, how many more costumes from over four thousand years ago must they have?