George was right, of course. For the next few days everything went on as sort of normal. George left for the bakery as soon as the sun was rising and I headed for the orchard. We had breakfast together but we never talked very much as we were too tired and the room was too cold. Winter wasn’t that far away and the general feeling was that it was going to be a bad one. Meanwhile, Jamie stayed indoors, not doing very much as far as I could tell, mainly resting and regaining his strength.
I really wanted to talk to him, to find out more about him. I even went back to the church and walked through the door a couple of times to see what that had been all about. But it was impossible to have a proper conversation. The two of us were hardly ever on our own and Jamie was still sticking to his amnesia story, even though I was certain it wasn’t true.
And then came the village Assembly. Practically everyone was there. Attendance was compulsory unless you were sick or on duty at the perimeter, but nobody would want to miss an Assembly. We were alone in a world that was dangerous and difficult to understand. Everyone was afraid more or less all the time. At the end of the day, we needed each other. We needed to be reassured.
The meeting began with the usual stuff. All the crops – from the wheat to the apples and even the wild blackberries on the hedgerows – were down and once again there would have to be cutbacks, although we’d still be able to survive. Old Mrs Brooke had finally died and nobody was going to miss her. She’d been suffering from dementia for some time, wandering in and out of The Queen and swearing at the top of her voice. Applications were now open for those wanting to move into her house. More volunteers were needed for the collection of winter firewood. It looked as if the snow was going to be worse than ever this year and stocks were low.
At last Reverend Johnstone climbed into the pulpit.
“My friends,” he began. That was what he always called us, although at the end of one of his dreary sermons there were plenty of us who were anything but. “I do have one remarkable piece of news for you. Many of you will remember that it has been seven years since the Traveller arrived in the village and was welcomed by us. Well, another visitor has turned up out of the blue and presented himself to us, this time a young man of about fifteen. His name is Jamie Tyler and he came here through the wood after being badly injured. He has no memory and cannot tell us where he came from, but having taken account of his age and the fact that he is unarmed and alone, the Council has decided to let him stay.”
That was the cue for Jamie to step out and present himself – which he did, quite nervously. I’d have been nervous myself. There was one of him and three hundred of us, staring at him with a mixture of fear, curiosity and disbelief. The one thing about life in the village was nothing new ever happened, nobody new ever came. Jamie’s sudden appearance was totally unexpected, as if the clouds had turned green or the pigs had begun to talk. It was completely shocking. And it didn’t matter that he was just a scrawny kid with long hair and a scar on the side of his head. He was a threat to everything the village stood for.
But the Council had agreed and although there was a lot of muttering, nobody was outright hostile. Jamie made a short speech. He thanked everyone for accepting him (although they hadn’t, really) and promised to work hard in the village. I was looking at him as he spoke. Then I glanced sideways and noticed George, who was watching me while I was staring at Jamie. He didn’t look pleased and when I heard that Jamie was going to work at the bakery, helping fuel and clean the ovens, I had a feeling it wasn’t a good idea.
That wasn’t quite the end of it. We all milled out of the church, people still talking to each other in low voices and more or less ignoring Jamie, who was now on his own, near the door. I was about to go over to him when suddenly I found the Traveller at my side. I don’t think he’d spoken to me more than a few times in all the years he’d been here, but he spoke to me now.
“The boy is staying with you.”
“That’s right.”
“Of course. You were the one who found him.” The Traveller glanced in Jamie’s direction. “Did he come through the door?” he asked.
I hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“You heard me.”
“He was near the door – but I don’t think he came through it.” Why was I lying to the man? Why was I even having this conversation?
The Traveller looked at me curiously. I’d never been quite so close to him before and now saw that he was younger than I had thought – about thirty, and that if he had shaved properly and took a bit more care of himself, he might even have been handsome.
“Are you his friend?” he asked me.
The question took me aback. “Yes. I suppose so,” I said.
“Then look after him, Holly. Watch out for him. He’s important.”
And then he turned and went, leaving me more confused than ever.
I tried to get to know Jamie a little better in the next couple of weeks but that wasn’t easy. He was allowed to leave the house now. He could mingle with the other villagers. But that meant I saw less of him than I had before and somehow he was never on his own. We were both working so we were apart for most of the day, and he always seemed to come home earlier or later than me so we never got the chance to walk together. If I hadn’t been so stupid, I’d have realized that he was doing it on purpose, that he didn’t want to be alone with me. I was the only person who knew that he was lying … about the amnesia anyway. Jamie was avoiding me because he didn’t want me asking him questions. He didn’t want to tell me the truth.
And that made me think of the Traveller and the weird conversation we’d had outside the church. The Traveller knew about the door, which meant he must know something about Jamie too. I was half-tempted to run down to the Lady Jane after work and confront him. But I had never been on that old canal boat. I don’t think anyone had. It wasn’t really part of the village … it was outside. And if I did show up, I doubted that the Traveller would make me welcome.
I saw Jamie every night at supper and I tried to let him know that I was on his side, sitting next to him, being nice to him, whatever. To be honest, supper was never very easy. Once there had been television and newspapers and things you could talk about. Now there was just the village. I still had a PlayStation in my room and how I wished I could plug it in, turn it on and plug myself into it, but with no electricity it was just a useless piece of junk and I don’t even know why I kept it. There was an electrical generator in the storeroom next to the town hall but it was only used in emergencies – like when Dr Robinson got sick and had to be nursed day and night … although Miss Keyland had also been allowed to show it to us in class. The fact was that in my whole life I had only seen an electric light half a dozen times.
I was nice to Jamie. That’s all. And then one evening as I was coming back from the orchard I saw Mr Christopher – who was the baker – and Mike Dolan leaving the house and I knew, with a sick feeling in my stomach, that something bad had happened. I hurried in and there was George, sitting in a chair with a black eye and a bloody nose, the blood dry now but standing out red-brown against the coating of flour on his skin. Jamie was sitting opposite with a cut on his lip and a torn shirt. Rita was standing over them, her arms crossed and her face filled with rage. John was hovering in a corner, dismayed.
Jamie and George had been in a fight.
Fighting was illegal in the village.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He started it,” George said. He shot a glance at Jamie.
“That’s not true,” Jamie said, looking at me.
“It doesn’t matter which one of you started it,” Rita snapped. “Haven’t you got that into your thick heads? Look at you! You’re both covered in blood. You’ll both be punished.”
“I didn’t start the fight,” Jamie said. “George’s been looking for an excuse – ever since I arrived.”
“I wish you hadn’t arrived,” George muttered. “Nobody asked you to come here. And where did yo
u come from anyway? We don’t know anything about you.”
“That’s enough…” Rita began.
But Jamie was already on his feet. “You think I want to be here?” he demanded and suddenly there were tears in his eyes. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. I’ve lost my brother. I’ve lost my friends. I’d sooner be anywhere else but here.” And before anyone could stop him, he stormed out of the room. We heard the front door slam.
More trouble. It would be dark in about half an hour. Nobody was allowed out after dark.
John and Rita were looking at me and somehow I knew what they expected me to say. “I’ll go after him,” I said.
“Holly…” George pleaded.
By then I was on my way. I went out of the front door and into the street. There was enough light left in the sky to see the village but already the colours were fading. There would be no moon tonight and we hardly ever saw any stars … there was too much stuff in the atmosphere. I looked left and right. There was no sign of Jamie and no one around to ask if they’d seen him. That didn’t matter. I had a good idea where he’d gone.
I hurried down to the graveyard, passing through the gate and following the path round the side of the church. And that was where I found him, standing by that wretched door of his, one hand resting on the handle. As I approached, I saw him close the door behind him and knew that he must have just walked through it again – but it hadn’t taken him anywhere. He saw me coming and looked up.
“You have to come back to the house,” I said. “No one’s allowed out after dark and you’re only going to get yourself into more trouble.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry I hit your friend.”
“You’re my friend too.” I didn’t know what to say. “Did he really start it?”
“I suppose so. He’s been needling me all week. But that’s no excuse. He was upset because … I don’t know. He thinks I’m some kind of threat to him.”
“Are you?”
“No. I just want to go.”
“Go where? Jamie – why don’t you tell me the truth about yourself? Where did you come from? What is this thing with the door?”
He thought for a moment. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“You hardly know me. How can you say that?”
“Nobody would believe me. I’m not even sure I understand it myself.”
“Tell me!”
He didn’t want to tell me. I could see that. But at the same time, it was going to help him – putting it into words. And if he didn’t share what had happened to him, he was always going to be on his own.
“There were five of us,” he said. “Me. My brother, Scott. A boy called Matt. Pedro. And a girl. Her name is Scarlett. We didn’t know each other. We lived thousands of miles apart. Matt was in England. Pedro was in Peru. Scarlett wound up in Hong Kong. That’s where I was before I came here.
“How can I explain it to you, Holly? Where do I even begin? Scott and I were on our own in a place called Reno, which is in Nevada, America. We’re twins and from the time we were very small we knew we were special. You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to but I’m telling you the truth. We had this ability to read each other’s minds. Telepathy, I’d guess you’d call it. And we had this sort of uncle who was making money out of us, putting us on the stage. That’s what we were doing night after night. Cheap magic tricks that people thought were just tricks but that really were, in a way, magic. We weren’t having a good life but at least we had each other. We dreamed that one day we’d turn eighteen and then we could run away and set up on our own. We used to talk about it all the time.
“All that changed when these people came after us. The Nightrise Corporation. That’s what they called themselves. They were just business executives … at least, that’s what they looked like. Men in suits. But they represented something totally different, which is to say they were working for these … creatures. They were monsters. They were totally evil. They weren’t from this world.”
“You mean … they were aliens?”
“No. Not aliens. I suppose you’d say they were more like … demons.”
He must have seen my face fall because he stopped and turned away. “I said you wouldn’t believe me.”
“No. Go on,” I said. “I might as well hear all of it.”
He nodded. “The creatures were called the Old Ones,” he said. “All they wanted to do was destroy everything. In a way they were like cancer. When cancer invades a body it kills it, even though in the long run it will end up killing itself. There is no reason. It’s just what it does. The Old Ones invaded the planet and they set out to kill everyone and everything on it. They wouldn’t be happy until there was nothing left.”
“What do they look like, the Old Ones?” I asked.
“They’re all different. There are shape-changers who are human one minute and then change into freaks. There are fly-soldiers and horsemen. But they don’t like to be seen. They like to hide behind human beings who do their work for them. And this whole process, this destruction, it has to be as slow as possible because that’s what gives them pleasure. They feed on pain. They create it. They inspire it.
“A very long time ago, maybe ten thousand years, they came very close to wiping out the human race. There were just a few survivors but the ones that were left came together and formed an army. And the strange thing is, the leaders of the army weren’t adults. They were kids. Four boys and a girl.”
“You!” I exclaimed.
“Not us. Not exactly. There were five of us then at the very beginning and there were five of us again, ten thousand years later. It was as if we had been born again, on the other side of time, sent back into the world to finish the job that we’d begun.
“You see, Holly, there was this great battle and the Old Ones were defeated and thrown out of the world. I know it’s a lot to take on board but this is how it was. Two gates were constructed to stop them coming back. The first one, Raven’s Gate, was in a place called Yorkshire, here in England. The second one was in Nazca, in Peru. The gates stood there for thousands and thousands of years and the Old Ones kept on trying to find a way back, and in the end, of course, they succeeded. Matt tried to stop them but he wasn’t strong enough on his own and they smashed through the second gate. Since then they’ve started all over again, destroying everything they can.”
The darkness was almost total. The church loomed over us but although I could feel it, I could barely see its edges, its outline blurring into the night sky. If Jamie hadn’t been so pale, he would have been invisible.
“Five had defeated them at the dawn of time and five would defeat them again,” Jamie went on. “But first we had to find each other. You see, we all had powers. Scott and I were telepathic. Pedro was a healer. Scarlett could control the weather. And Matt … well, he could do all sorts of stuff. But on our own, we were too weak. Matt found that out in Nazca and he was almost killed. It’s only when we come together that we’ll be strong enough to do what we have to, somehow build a new gate and get rid of the Old Ones once and for all.
“Do you still believe me? Are you glad you asked me about all this?”
“I’m still here,” I said. “Tell me the rest of it.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be inside? I don’t want your friends hanging us upside down by our feet or whatever it is they do.”
“That’s not fair, Jamie. They’re just scared, that’s all.”
“OK. There’s not much more to say. I could talk all night. I could tell you about the dreamworld. I could tell you about Flint and Sapling and the war that happened all those years ago. But I’m tired, Holly. And I’m scared too. I don’t know what’s going on any more. I’m not sure how I got here…”
He drew a breath.
“I was on the run from the Nightrise Corporation but I was helped by a secret organization called the Nexus. They were these rich people who knew about the Old Ones because of a diary written by an old monk. They knew the Old
Ones were coming but they also knew about the Five. The whole point of the Nexus was that they were there to help us fight them.
“And there was something else. A long, long time ago, somebody built a series of doors all over the world and they were designed specially for us to get from place to place without taking planes or ships. There was a door beside Lake Tahoe in Nevada that took us all the way to Peru. There was another door in Hong Kong that brought me here.” He pointed at the dark shadow just behind him. “This is one of the doors. I’d just come through it when you found me. It should be able to take me back. I don’t understand why it’s not working.”
“A magic door,” I said and the strange thing is that although I’d meant to sound scornful, it all sort of made sense. After all, I’d seen Jamie arrive. He’d stepped out of nowhere, just like he’d said. And right now I couldn’t think of any other explanation as to how he’d got here.
“I suppose you could say the doors are kind of magic,” Jamie agreed. “That’s why they’re always found in churches or sacred places. Over the ages, people vaguely half-knew about them so they built sacred buildings around them. But they forgot about the Old Ones. And they didn’t know anything about us.”
I stumbled over to the door and opened it, then shut it again. “Why isn’t it working?” I asked.
“I already told you. I don’t know. We were in the Tai Shan Temple in Hong Kong … all five of us. It was amazing … just finding each other for the first time. And that should have been the end of it. That’s what I thought anyway. But then everything went wrong. There was a typhoon blowing and the whole building would have been knocked down if it hadn’t been for Scarlett. She was holding the weather back. But then Scarlett got shot. She was standing right beside me and I think the bullet was meant for me. Anyway, after that, everything happened very quickly. It was like being in the middle of a nuclear explosion. We had to get out fast and the only thing to do was to tumble through the door. I guess I must have got hurt by some of the debris and that explains why I was so bloody when you found me.”