Small Blue Thing (15 page)

“Good call,” he agreed. “There are some very dodgy characters over here.” He was clearly happy to let the conversation take a more jovial path.

“Tell me about some of them,” I encouraged.

“Well,” he started enthusiastically, “there’s Arthur. He loiters in churches and takes memories of weddings. And there’s Margaret. She has a particular fondness for late-night parties, and is responsible for huge amounts of amnesia wrongly attributed to drink. Lucas, he is the most miserable person I’ve ever come across,
I won’t be introducing you to him. Then before I got here there was Veronica, who used to stalk the university union bars. Until she left she was the worst. Rupert’s speciality is…”

“Hang on,” I interrupted. “What did you just say? About Veronica? Where did she go?”

His face was a picture of horror. His mouth opened but he said nothing.

“I thought you said that you were stuck, that there was no escape. What happened to Veronica?”

Introduction

I waited for him to respond. With an effort, he seemed to pull himself together.

“She was able to travel further away,” he said eventually, looking out over the garden. “Very occasionally it seems that someone is able to break free of the compulsion to return each night, and that gives them the opportunity to go wandering further afield. I guess she may come back some day.”

Something didn’t add up. If it was this straightforward, why was he so horrified at having to tell me? And why couldn’t he look me in the eye when he was explaining it?

“Do you think you could do that, break the compulsion and stay later with me?”

When he looked back his eyes were still troubled, and it sounded as if he was choosing his words carefully. “I’m afraid not, I can’t resist it. I have tried a few times, but it becomes almost physically uncomfortable. I always have to return.”

He could clearly see the question in my eyes.

“It’s not that I don’t want to stay with you, really it isn’t. I’d love to be with you, but I have to go back to St Paul’s.”

Whatever it was he wasn’t telling me, I couldn’t doubt that he cared about me. My heart flipped again as I watched him, and I smiled. “Well, we’ll just have to make the most of the time,” I teased, reaching up beside me to touch his shoulder. His fiery blue
eyes relaxed, and he leaned in closer.

We spent hours out in the garden, just talking about normal things, like films and music. With a free backstage pass to every gig and premiere in London he had the most amazing gossip.

He explained how he would go to the rehearsals of his favourite bands and then enjoy the concerts from the best seats in the house, sampling a quick thought or memory every now and then. His observation skills were brilliant and he had me rocking with laughter over his impressions of some of the more overrated celebrities.

I asked him about my favourite band and was delighted to hear that he liked their music too. We had both been to their latest gig at Wembley Arena, and Callum was able to fill me in on their dressing room demands – I was never going to be able to look at the lead singer in future without smirking.

“So who is next on your concert list then?” I asked, curious to know if we had any other favourites in common.

He frowned slightly for a moment while consulting his internal diary. “I think I’m planning to go to that big charity concert at the Albert Hall next week,” he finally decided, nodding to himself. “Those things are usually good.”

“No way!” I exclaimed. “I have tickets for that – Grace and I are going.”

“Excellent – I can come with you then. I’d enjoy sitting with someone I know in the audience for a change.” He gave me one of his most devastating grins. “It can be our first date.”

“It’ll be slightly odd to have Grace there as well on a first date, but I see what you mean,” I laughed. “You’ll just have to be content with teasing me when I can’t respond.”

“I can deal with that. Maybe I’ll finally get to hear you sing
too.”

“It’s so unfair – you’ll get to see all the celebrities backstage as well.”

His smile was gone and he looked at me seriously. “Don’t ever forget, Alex, I get to see all this stuff, but I never really participate. No one notices me, no one asks my opinion, no one tells me I’m off-key or tries to throw me out. I’m just a … voyeur. I would love to just go into a coffee shop and order a cappuccino, then sit and chat with some friends.”

I was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad – you’ve just been selling your lifestyle very well.”

It was another wrong thing to say. He stiffened and pulled away from me. “I am
not
trying to sell you this ‘lifestyle’. No one should have to suffer as we do every day. When I have fun it is a very brief interlude in an otherwise miserable existence.”

This was going from bad to worse. “I don’t mean that I will be signing up any time soon,” I reassured him. “I just like the way you make an advantage of what you have.”

He looked slightly mollified, but the space between us was tense. A look of comprehension suddenly washed over his face.

“I need to go,” he announced firmly. “I’m getting miserable and that makes me want to pick a fight. I’ve spent too long with you without gathering some memories.”

I thought back; Callum had been with me almost constantly since lunchtime and it was now early evening. I smiled, relieved that something other than me had caused the tension. “You know, there is a cinema just up the road. You could be there in a minute or two.”

“Nice idea, but really I need to head back into central London. I know that Matthew is going to want to talk to me again.”

I pouted. “Does that mean that you won’t be able to come back later?”

“It depends on how successful my gathering is, and Matthew’s too. I’ll have to wait for him to come back and it sometimes takes him a while. I’ll come back if I can, but it’s much more likely to be tomorrow. Is that OK?”

“I’d love to see you later if you can manage it, but I do understand. I don’t have a really busy day at school tomorrow so just feel free to join me at any time. You’ll have to behave yourself though,” I teased, “I’ve got a long chemistry lab to do, and that would be a difficult place to be distracted.”

He laughed. “Chemistry sounds even more boring than the maths. It could be fun to sneak up on you during that.” I reached up and stroked his thick mane of dark golden hair. He groaned quietly, then pulled himself away.

“I really have to go now. I love you. Keep yourself safe for me until tomorrow.”

“Happy gathering. I hope the conversation with Matthew goes well. See you tomorrow.” I felt the briefest of touches on my lips and he was nowhere to be seen.

It was one of the longest times we had spent together. Without him I felt suddenly incomplete. The idea of not spending my future with him was becoming as inconceivable as it was impossible. I lay back in the swinging chair and watched a robin, sitting on a branch a few feet away from me and considering me with its head cocked to one side.

“What should I do then, robin? Can I live like this? Is there any way at all that we can make this work?”

The robin chirped loudly. “It’s as likely as me having a relationship with you really, isn’t it?” I sighed. It regarded me with
the other eye, gave another trill and was gone in a flash of red.

Sadness rolled over me like a wave. However hard I tried, I couldn’t think of a way around the problem. None of it fitted any of the rules of the only world I knew and understood. But the amulet gave us a gateway, I remembered. Maybe it had other, hidden properties that we could use. I looked at it in the light from the sunset, the stone flashing as the sun probed its depths. A shadow flitted across its surface. Suddenly excited, I grabbed the mirror and looked around.

“Callum? Are you there?”

There was no response, and all I could see in the mirror was my parents’ vegetable garden. I must have been mistaken. Sighing inwardly, I gathered my things together and made my way into the house.

Josh was revising for his last few exams in a couple of days, and Mum and Dad were keen to watch a documentary. I made an excuse about homework and headed up to my room.

I was frustrated all over again by my inability to look up a solution to my problem on the Internet. It made me realise how much I now relied on it for answers. Perhaps, I thought, I should go back to basics.

I opened a new document on my laptop and started writing down everything I knew about the amulet, the Dirges and Callum. I felt better as I started to get it all in some sort of order. I shuddered as I wrote down what he had told me about Catherine’s suicide and his failed rescue attempt. As I wrote, a thought nudged its way to the front of my brain. Of course! There was bound to be a report of a double drowning on the Internet. I quickly saved the notes and opened Google, typing in Callum, Catherine, Blackfriars Bridge and drowning. The response was
instant and disappointing. Nothing useful came up at all, but I realised that this was an interesting avenue to explore further. I looked up suicides from the bridge, and then tried double deaths in the Thames, but nothing seemed to fit.

After hours of searching I came across a Coroner’s Court document listing all the drownings in London since the 1970s. It was depressing reading, but numbers of fatalities had plummeted in the last decade, mainly due to the new lifeboat station nearby which was able to get out to people almost as soon as they hit the water.

But there was no double drowning listed. Perhaps he was wrong about the details. I shook my head, sat up and stretched. I hadn’t realised how stiff I had got, hunched over my computer. I could hear Mum and Dad coming up the stairs, and looked at my watch. It was getting late. I yawned, saved the websites and turned off. I could work on this tomorrow.

I dropped into bed with a sigh of relief, switched out the light and nestled down under my duvet. My mind was racing but there was a warm glow in my heart where Callum now lived, and I couldn’t help smiling to myself as I thought about him. The problems we faced melted away, and I felt myself start to drift off to sleep.

I was on the very edge of consciousness when I felt a tingle in my arm, one that was familiar yet strangely different. I tried to process why that would be as I shook myself awake and reached for the mirror, mumbling a sleepy greeting. “Hi. I didn’t expect you. What are you doing out so late?”

As my eyes focused in the dark I felt a sudden shiver of shock. I quickly reached for my bedside light and snapped it on. Sitting behind me in the mirror was a complete stranger.

Wide awake now, I sat bolt upright. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?” I hissed as loudly as I dared. But as I said it, I knew: her face was strangely familiar. The features were rounder, but the nose had a similar line and the long thick hair was identical in colour to Callum’s. This was Catherine.

“So you’re Alex.” There was no greeting and no question, just a statement. Her voice was controlled, without emotion.

I sat up straight and tried not to sound defensive. “Yes. And I know who you are too.” I looked her up and down, as much as I could in the tiny mirror. She was petite and, like Callum, dressed in an old-fashioned cloak. Her neck was slender and she held her head at a proud angle. The gene for good looks obviously ran deep in the family because she was stunning. Her light-brown hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her dark eyes contained the familiar flecks of gold. But her eyes were not blue, they were a vibrant green, bright in the lamplight.

Although she was exquisite there was an overwhelming feeling of sadness that seemed to seep out of her. The turn of her mouth, the way she held her shoulders, the look in her eyes all combined to form a picture of beautiful misery.

“We need to talk. I’m afraid you are getting yourself into something you don’t understand.” Her voice sounded strained, as if it were difficult to get the words out.

I was wary. Callum clearly wasn’t fond of his sister, so I didn’t want to do anything which would upset him, but I could hardly ignore her either.

I pushed the hair back out of my face and pulled my pyjamas together, trying to look as if I was in control. I smiled at her as warmly as I could manage.

“Well, it’s good to meet you. Callum talks about you a lot.”

“Really.” Again it wasn’t a question, just a flat statement. Even if Callum hadn’t told me about her, I was beginning to dislike Catherine.

“Yes. He’s told me a great deal about all of you and why you are … the way you are.” I managed to keep my voice steady and friendly. “Does he know you’re here?”

She gave a short and sudden laugh. “Hardly. He’s been extremely protective of you, not telling anyone where you are.”

“So how did you find me?”

“He’s not as clever as he thinks he is,” she said, not quite smiling, but looking a little more animated. “He wasn’t difficult to follow, and then of course, when I got close I caught the pull of the amulet and you were the only one without an aura. Quite easy to spot really.”

I realised that she must have been wandering about my house with my unprotected family. I tried to keep the horror out of my voice. “I hope that you didn’t need to do too much gathering around here tonight.”

She snorted. “There’s not much joy here, so it wouldn’t have been very … satisfying.” That surprised me. I never thought of the house as unhappy. Then I remembered what everyone had been doing tonight: Josh was revising one of his least favourite subjects, and my parents’ documentary was about the Second World War. I heaved an inward sigh of relief, as I really didn’t want Catherine to be encouraged to spend time around my family.

“Yes, well, perhaps you won’t find what you want here. You may have more luck at the pub up the road.”

“It’s not important tonight,” she muttered, then sat silently. This conversation was clearly going to be a struggle.

“Well, Catherine, it’s great to meet you at last.” I smiled
warmly at her. “You said that you needed to talk to me? I’m afraid that I can only whisper or I’ll end up waking up the rest of the house. Do you want to meet tomorrow so we can speak more comfortably?”