Raggy Maggie (6 page)

I
have almost drowned twice in my life. Once was when I was five. The other was two weeks ago. Christmas Day. I don’t recommend it. It’s a horrible sensation – that feeling of absolute hopelessness and inevitability as your lungs burn like fire and your head goes light and you brace yourself for the end.

This was worse.

The shadows squirmed across my skin and scurried through my hair. They forced through my clenched lips and rushed up my nostrils, flooding my insides with their icy cold touch. They slithered in through my ears and pushed
below my eyelids, filling my head with a pulsating cloud of darkness.

They tightened around my body, forcing my arms to my sides. My legs too were pulled together, throwing my balance. I didn’t realise I was falling until my shoulder crunched solidly against the floor. The darkness that covered me felt thick and oily, but it didn’t do anything to cushion the blow.

As I lay there – trapped, helpless and rapidly running out of air – the electrical sensation tingled across my scalp. It was faint, but it was there. This time I didn’t push it away. If I could concentrate, if I could just focus for a few seconds, then maybe I could get out of this.

Then I remembered the third rule. Caddie had said I wasn’t allowed to use my abilities. Something bad would happen, she had warned. Then again, something bad was happening now. I couldn’t think of anything worse, in fact.

I hesitated. I
could
probably use my power to get us out
of this, but was there another way? Another way that wouldn’t break Caddie’s rules? Maybe.

The black shroud around me made it impossible to know exactly where I had fallen, but I could take a guess. The windows had been at my left when I’d been standing up, and I’d landed on my right shoulder.

I bucked my body against the writhing shadows, trying desperately to shuffle myself down in the direction of my feet. The pressure was building around me. A tightness like the grip of an icy claw was squeezing at my lungs. If this didn’t work then I was dead.

It was going to work. It
had
to work. These things were shadows, and shadows had a weakness.

Through the gloop I felt my heels bump into something solid. Not too solid, I hoped.

Struggling against my bonds I raised both knees to my chest and fired both feet out, aiming as high up as I could manage. The painted windowpane shuddered in its frame.
Again I brought my legs up, and again I powered them towards the glass. Again it failed to break, and the shadows tightened further around me until I felt as if my bones would break under the strain.

Come on, you can do this,
I told myself, pulling my knees right up to my chin. With one final thrust I lashed out, forcing the very last of my strength into the kick.

The effect was instantaneous. As the glass smashed the sunlight flooded in. It was weak and watery – January sunlight – but it was enough to make the shadows screech and squeal and thrash around in pain.

They stung my skin as they tore themselves off, retreating away from the window and back into the dark. I wanted to lie there for a moment and get my breath back, but there was no time. Ameena remained motionless on the floor, still bound by the blackness.

My legs moved slowly, as if they were knee-deep in mud, as I pulled myself up. The shadows were all staying
back from the light, leaving the floor around me clear to do what I needed to do.

A sideways step. A snapping out of my foot. A shattering of glass, as the next window along exploded outwards. The closest of the shadows evaporated with a hiss in the glow of the sunlight. Those covering Ameena began to pulse uneasily.

Another step. Another kick. Another window. The entire corridor seemed to be howling. A thousand different voices all screaming in unison. It was an inhuman, unholy sound.

I loved it.

With another swing of my leg I shattered the window next to Ameena. The shadows that were wrapped around her exploded into dust, as those close to her fled from the stabbing shards of the daylight.

She wasn’t moving; wasn’t breathing; wasn’t
living.
I dropped to my knees next to her and felt clumsily for a pulse. It was somewhere in the neck, I knew, but where?

It didn’t matter. Her normally olive skin looked almost pale blue. Her chest wasn’t moving. I had to act fast.

Her head tilted back easily. Tilting the head opened up the airway. I remembered that bit from a first-aid demonstration I’d once seen. Pity I couldn’t remember the rest of it.

Was I supposed to pinch her nose? There was definitely something about the nose, but was it
make sure you pinch the nose
or was it
for God’s sake, DON’T pinch the nose?
I should have been paying more attention.

‘Shut up!’ I shouted into the screeching darkness. Its agitated chittering was cutting through me now; a buzzsaw in my skull, making it hard to think.

I decided to pinch the nose. I couldn’t see what harm it could do. Her condition couldn’t exactly get much worse than ‘dead’. There was nowhere to go but up from there.

Her nostrils squeezed flat easily between my thumb and
index finger. I took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and leaned in.

Her eyes flicked wide just before our lips met. I pulled backwards in fright, the air escaping my lungs in a strangled cry of shock.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘Were you going to kiss me?’

‘What?’ I spluttered.
‘No!
I was…I mean, not like that! You were dead.’

She propped herself up on to her elbows. ‘No I wasn’t.’

‘Well, you looked dead to me,’ I insisted.

‘So what, it’s OK to kiss someone if they’re dead, is it? That’s fine as far as you’re concerned?’

‘It was the kiss of life,’ I protested.

Her mouth pulled into a wide, toothy grin. ‘Just kidding.’

She sprang to her feet as if nothing had happened to her. I watched her standing there, hands on her hips, studying our surroundings.

The squealing from the shadows had died down to just a few low whines. We were standing in a pool of light, into which the darkness could not seem to spread. It lurked around the edges, though, waiting for its chance to strike.

‘Man,’ she said with a shake of her head, ‘and I thought Mr Mumbles was weird. This is a whole other level.’

I nodded in agreement. ‘You’re telling me.’

She turned back to me, hands still fixed to her hips. ‘So what is it?’

I looked up at the shapes moving on the ceiling. They seemed thinner there, more spaced out. I remembered the first one I’d seen scuttling across the floor and up the wall. Its eight legs had almost looked like long, spindly fingers.

‘I think they’re sort of…shadow puppets.’

A pause. ‘Shadow puppets? You’re kidding.’

I shrugged. ‘I think that’s what they are.’

‘Shadow puppets don’t smother people,’ she retorted. ‘Shadow puppets don’t force themselves down people’s
throats. Say what you like about shadow puppets,
they don’t try to kill you.’

‘These ones do.’

She’d probably have kept arguing had a thought not suddenly struck her.

‘Hey, how did you get out? You do the whole superhero thing again?’

‘I broke a window,’ I explained. ‘And I’m not a superhero.’

‘You broke a window? Why didn’t you just zap them off, or whatever it is you do?’

‘I’m not allowed. It’s one of the rules of the game.’ My eyes fell from the shapes on the ceiling and down to those on the floor. ‘Is it just me or are some of them getting closer?’

I glanced out through the shattered remains of one of the windows. The sun – already faint – was dipping behind a fat grey cloud. The barrier of light that kept the shadows off
us was dimming fast.

‘That’s not good,’ Ameena muttered. ‘Do we have a plan?’

‘Run?’

We looked towards the end of the corridor. It was tantalisingly close, but the wall of shadow still hung over it, blocking the way.

‘Do we have another plan?’

I shook my head. ‘The corridor round the corner is full of windows. Even with the sun blocked out there should be enough light coming in to stop them.’

Ameena scowled and stabbed a finger at the black blockade. ‘And how are we going to get past that?’

‘Like I said.
Run.’

I charged forward as the last of the light faded at our feet. Behind us I heard a sickly, soggy
schlop.
The darkness was moving, no longer held back by the pale glow of the sun.

They were on me almost immediately, wrapping around my legs, tugging at my ankles. The light had weakened them, though, and I was moving too fast for them to get a proper grip.

Ameena moved even faster. She pulled level with me in a heartbeat, and I felt her hand grab on to mine as we approached the shimmering wall of shadow.

The darkness screeched. Angry shapes lashed out as we sprinted by, every step bringing us closer to the looming black barrier.

‘Next time,’ Ameena breathed, ‘I make the plan.’

And then suddenly we were leaping; throwing ourselves into the dark. It embraced us like quicksand, oozing around us, slowing us down. I stumbled on, pushing through the curtain of gunge, unable to see or hear Ameena, but still holding tightly to her hand.

I was running in slow motion. Every movement of every limb was difficult, as if gravity had been given a power-up.
Strands of silky black crawled across me, holding me back and dragging me down. Through it all I could feel Ameena’s hand in mine. She powered ahead of me, dragging me through the inky gloop.

At last we tripped and fell out through the other side, landing in a heap on the floor next to another set of stairs. Pale light seeped in through an array of windows, burning up the few remaining slivers of darkness that clung to us.

The floor felt reassuringly solid beneath me as we sat there, taking a minute to get our breath back. Before us, the shadowy wall quivered and shook.

In a moment it had pulled back up into the ceiling. A second later, the shadowy shapes had begun retreating into the corners of the corridor. Another second after that and no one would have been able to tell they had ever been there in the first place.

‘So,’ Ameena began. ‘You got another imaginary friend you didn’t tell me about?’

I stood up, all too aware that time was running out for Billy. ‘No. This one isn’t mine.’

‘So whose is it?’

‘Billy Gibb’s. The guy you saw me with earlier.’

‘The kid who punched you? Should have guessed he’d have a big shadowy Hell-beast for a friend.’

‘The shadows weren’t his invisible friend,’ I explained. ‘She’s a little girl with a doll.’

Ameena didn’t even try to fight back her grin. ‘That guy has a little girl with a dolly for an imaginary friend? That’s priceless.’

‘She’s going to kill him if I don’t find him.’

Her smile faltered a little, but didn’t disappear. ‘Serves him right.’

‘I have to save him.’

Ameena hesitated for a millisecond. Then she nodded. ‘Course you do, kiddo. That’s what you superhero types always do.’

‘I’m not a superhero.’

‘Whatever you say,’ she smirked. ‘So, how do we find him?’

“There was an…wait. ‘We’?”

‘Yeah, well. Every hero needs a trusty sidekick.’ Her grin spread further across her face. ‘You can be mine.’

Despite the situation I smiled. I felt better having Ameena with me, and I hadn’t asked her for help, so I hadn’t broken any of Caddie’s rules. Technically, at least.

‘So how do we find him?’ Ameena asked again.

‘There were arrows,’ I explained. ‘I followed them here.’

‘Were they absolutely massive and painted in blood?’

‘Yes. Why, did you see them?’

‘Nope.’ She nodded towards the wall at the top of the next stairway. ‘But I’m guessing they looked a lot like that one.’

W
e inched up the stairs, eyes rushing to examine every shadow we passed, in case it should move to attack us.

Ameena was a few steps above me, leading the way. I knew I should probably have been in front, but she’d barged past and – chicken as it was – I was relieved to let her go on ahead.

The third arrow was even bigger than the first two. As we approached it I realised the blood had not simply been smeared on this time. It was much creepier than that.

‘OK. That’s just disturbing,’ Ameena whispered.

I could only nod in agreement, my eyes fixed on the wall. Hundreds of tiny, child-sized red handprints had been pressed against the white paint, forming the arrow’s outline.

‘Watch your feet,’ warned Ameena, as she carried on up the stairs. I looked down and recoiled at the circular puddle of blood I was standing in. ‘Floor’s slippy.’

We carried on upwards, leaving wet crimson footprints on every step. For the first time since seeing the arrows I wondered whose blood had been used to make them. A shudder shook me by the shoulders. It must’ve taken gallons of the stuff to paint both those signs. How much blood did one human body hold?

And why had she painted the arrows anyway? She’d set me the challenge of finding Billy, and now she was leading me right to him? It didn’t make any sense.

Unless, of course, she was leading me towards something else…

The top of the stairs came on us suddenly, and we stepped up into the mouth of a pale green corridor. It felt too open; too exposed. I had an urge to turn and run down the stairs, and I might have done, had Ameena not been with me. She took a faltering step forward and I followed close behind.

There were no arrows here, but we didn’t need any to show us the way this time. One corridor led off in front of us, the other led off to the right. One was empty.

The other was not.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Ameena snorted. ‘We go from evil shadow puppets to this?’

I hesitated, sweeping my gaze slowly across the occupants of the corridor. ‘It might not be what it looks like,’ I whispered.

‘No, I think it’s
exactly
what it looks like,’ she scoffed. ‘And what it looks like is teddy bears with skipping ropes.’

It was hard to argue. Twelve dirty, torn teddy bears had
been attached to the wall and window frames – six on one side, six on the other. Between each one hung a grimy length of rope. Each rope dangled limply, forming a shape like the bottom half of a circle.

‘OK,’ I admitted. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

I studied the closest bear. It looked like road kill: filthy and threadbare, with only a few small patches of damp grey fur on its body. A tear that ran from the top of its head to halfway down its chest had been clumsily sewn together. Stuffing poked out through the stitches like fluffy internal organs. Two little dark holes in the fabric were all that remained of its eyes, the glassy eyes themselves presumably having been pulled out long ago.

Through its stomach, pinning the bear to the wall, was a large rusty nail. The nail also held the skipping rope in place.

The teddy was a freaky-looking soft toy, but a soft toy was all it was.

‘This can’t be it,’ I muttered. ‘There’s got to be more to it than this.’

‘Doesn’t look like it to me,’ Ameena answered. She shoved past me, reaching out for the bear. ‘They’re just a load of old—’

The teddy’s head whipped round without warning. Its tiny jaws opened, briefly flashing two rows of pointed teeth, before the mouth snapped shut again just a few centimetres from Ameena’s fingers.

We both froze, watching the bear writhe and twist as it fought to free itself from the nail in its belly. Its stubby arms were outstretched, flailing wildly at us, razor-sharp claws scratching at the air.

Ameena took a slow step back from the teddy, her eyes never leaving it. It hissed and snarled, struggling like a creature possessed. Strings of saliva hung from its jaws, flicking into the air with every movement of the bear’s head.

The growling of the teddy seemed to waken the others. In a few seconds, all twelve bears were kicking their ragged legs, ripping at their chests with their short, stubby arms.

‘So, this little girl,’ Ameena whispered. ‘Nutcase, is she?’

I nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes.’

The bears thrashed around, growling and roaring. Realising it was trapped, the first teddy hurled back its head and unleashed a howl of torment and rage. The others followed suit, and soon the corridor rang out with their anguish.

I heard Ameena swallow hard. ‘Can’t wait to meet her.’

‘That’s lucky,’ I breathed, looking past the bear now, to the end of the corridor where a white shape was standing, silent and still. ‘You don’t have to.’

Caddie watched us, unblinking. She lurked in the shadows, half concealed. I was just able to make out Raggy Maggie’s porcelain head poking out of a pocket on
the front of her dress. From here it almost looked like the doll was smiling.

The teddies on the wall seemed to sense her presence. They settled down into silence almost at once.

‘That’s her,’ I whispered.

Ameena turned to me, her face impassive. ‘I’d never have guessed.’

‘Where’s Billy?’ I demanded. My voice echoed all the way along the corridor, but Caddie didn’t answer. She simply held up her hands, and I realised she had a length of rope strung between them.

Without a word she arranged herself so the rope hung down at the back of her knees. Then, fixing me with her dead-eyed stare, she flicked the rope over her head and began to skip.

Tacka-tacka-tacka.
The rope slapped off the floor every time she leapt over it. She sang along to the beat of her skipping, her high-pitched voice tuneless and flat.

‘Caddie Caddie Ha-Ha,

Went to see her Papa,

Papa died, Caddie cried.

Caddie had a baby, named him Tiny Tim,

Put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim,

Drank down all the water,

Ate up all the soap,

Died the next morning with a bubble in his throat.’

She stopped skipping at that point, and I thought the rhyme was over. But she continued a moment later, this time in the harsh, scratchy tones of Raggy Maggie.

‘Caddie called the doctor,

The doctor called the nurse,

The nurse called the lady with the alligator purse,

Mumps said the doctor,

Measles said the nurse…’

She took a sudden step towards us. The shadows fell away and I realised her white dress was stained
all over with streaks of blood.

‘Dead
said the lady with the alligator purse.’

The way she spat out the word scared me.

‘Who’s dead?’ I asked her. ‘What do you mean?’ She was retreating into the shadows now. ‘Wait. Who’s dead? It hasn’t been an hour.’

‘I told you no help,’ she said, her voice her own now, lilting along the corridor. ‘I told you all the rules.’

‘Wait,’ I cried, watching her slink back into the darkness until I couldn’t see her any more. ‘You said I couldn’t
shout for help
– I didn’t.’ I hurried forward to stop her, but before I could take more than a few steps something flashed up before me and my hand exploded with pain.

I pulled back instantly. A flap of skin about the size of a pound coin was hanging off the back of my hand, just above the knuckle of my middle finger. Two thin rivers of blood trickled from each side of it, lazily zigzagging towards my wrist.

Along the corridor, six arcs of white were blurring through the air with an ominous
whum-whum-whum.

The skipping ropes had started to move. And they were moving fast.

‘You’re going to want us to go through there, aren’t you?’ asked Ameena with a sigh.

‘We need to get to Billy before it’s too late.’ On the wall, the hands of a clock ticked past the 2.45 mark. I had fourteen minutes left.

‘I hate to say it, kiddo, but you heard her – it might already be too late.’

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. If anything had happened to Billy then I was to blame. I might have wished him dead in the past, but I’d never meant it. Well, not really.

‘There’s another way,’ I announced, remembering the other corridor. I started to backtrack towards it. ‘We can go right round this floor and get past that way.’

‘Now
that
sounds more like a plan,’ Ameena replied. ‘Much better than “run”.’

It
was
a good plan. Or it would have been, at least.

I stopped at the entrance to the other corridor, unable to believe what I was seeing. Two minutes ago it had been clear, but now…

I stepped closer and let my fingers brush against the rough brickwork. It covered the entire opening to the English corridor. It felt solid. Real. But how?

‘She built a wall,’ I mumbled, hoping saying it out loud would somehow make it easier to accept. It didn’t. I thumped my fist against the red stone in frustration. ‘How could she build a wall?’

A low whistle escaped through Ameena’s teeth. ‘So…I guess we’re skipping after all.’

I turned away from the barricade. The clock tocked over to 2.47. Another minute wasted. I was running out of time.

And so was Billy.

‘Can you skip?’ Ameena asked.

I watched the row of ropes whipping around and around through the air, too fast for my eyes to follow. ‘Don’t think so. You?’

‘No idea. Never tried.’

‘What? You’ve never tried skipping?’ I frowned. ‘But you’re a girl.’

‘I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.’

We took a few steps closer, until we could feel the wind from the first rope on our faces. The teddy bears were motionless, the ropes swinging freely from the nails in their guts.

Whum-whum-whum.

‘Ready then?’ Ameena sounded confident enough, but her eyes betrayed her.

‘If we get hit…’ I began, but I didn’t need to finish. We’d both seen the cut on my hand. We both knew what would happen if we didn’t manage to dodge the ropes.

Ameena bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Her breath hissed rapidly in and out, as she psyched herself up.

‘See you on the other side.’

She moved forward twice, hesitated both times, and then went on the third. I watched her duck her head and leap sideways into the blur. Her feet danced furiously on the lino for a moment, before she arched her back and jumped free of the first rope.

There was a thin film of sweat on her face, but she was smiling.
Smiling.

‘That was cool,’ she grinned.

‘Yeah, well, five more to go,’ I reminded her, a little annoyed she’d made it look
quite
so easy.

‘Hurry up then,’ she urged.

‘I’m coming,’ I said. ‘Give me a second.’

My eyes rolled like the reels of a fruit machine, trying to follow the blur of speed, looking for a gap; a way in.

‘Tick, tock, tick, tock.’

‘Shut up,’ I hissed. ‘I’m trying.’

‘Well, try harder. Come on, it’s easy.’

I ignored her, stepping back and focusing on the whirring of the rope.
Whum-whum-whum
it went, faster and faster and faster.

And then I saw it – the space I needed. I lurched forward in a heartbeat, making my move.

‘Wait!’
Ameena’s voice was shrill and panicked. My legs heard it before the rest of me. They tried to stop, but my top half carried on regardless. I stumbled forward a few more steps, before finally managing to pull myself up just a centimetre from the rope.

‘What? ‘ I gasped. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You were going to get your head cut off, that’s what was wrong. You were miles off.’

‘I wasn’t,’ I protested. ‘I would have made it.’

‘Want a tip?’ she asked. ‘Blink.’

‘Blink?’ I echoed. ‘What are you on about?’

She fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Blink,’ she repeated. ‘Quickly. Makes the rope easier to see.’

I didn’t see how it could help, but I did as she suggested, opening and closing my eyes rapidly for a few seconds. Sure enough, the whirring rope slowed into a series of freeze-frames with every blink. It definitely made it easier to see the gap. Not easy, but
easier.

‘OK,’ I muttered, rocking back and forth on the spot, ‘here goes.’

I gulped down my nerves.

I blinked a little faster.

And then I jumped.