Phoenix Page 13

  “Where the hell are we?” Ally asked.

  “The bunker where they took the statue,” I said, groaning. “One of the earrings slipped down the side as I was trying to put it in place.”

  “Ready?”

  I cringed as she struggled to rock the head. At first it seemed to help, then it rolled back and crunch! The pain was blinding. Puke erupted from my mouth.

  “I’m so sorry!” Ally said, gagging as she tried to haul it off again.

  She leaned closer, her lips parting as she tried to breathe through her mouth rather than inhale the stink. Skin scraped from my palm and the back of my hand as she grasped the head from the top and I tried to yank myself free.

  “Wait up!” Ally said, retching.

  Blood trickled from my lip as I bit it to ignore my pain.

  “On three,” Ally said.

  “One, two…”

  Her words were strained as the weight of statue pulled against her body. I braced myself.

  “Three!”

  I fell back against the shelter wall, eyes closed, blood finally surging to my fingers. I cradled my wrist, too scared to touch my hand.

  “Thanks, Ally!” I gasped.

  But Ally had gone.

  Although I didn’t think it possible, my hand hurt worse than before, as if the nerve endings had multiplied. My heart must have split in two and beat not in my chest but my hand and ear. My skin, scarlet and white, was swollen, but at least there was no blood. I tentatively bent each finger. Stupid idea. The pain from my middle knuckle shot up my arm.

  Outside seemed quieter but I couldn’t be certain the air raid was over. There’d been no all clear siren, although I might have missed it in my haze. Ally knew where I was now, and that I’d replaced the jewels. And she knew I was free. She’d be expecting me back. But what about Jack?

  But what could Ally do? I had the sapphire.

  I scrambled to my feet, clambered up the steps and threw open the trap door.

  The alleyway was quiet. No footsteps, no explosions, no engines. I took a deep breath and stepped into the night.

  – chapter ten –

  Screams, shouts, fire bells all bombarded me as I darted down the high street. Smoke clung to me, forcing me to be part of the tragedy. I hurried towards the church but the path was blocked by rubble, its hidden secrets spilled into the night.

  I veered across the potato patch and back to the road to take the long way around to Weald Mills. The building was still intact and the flurry of activity still centred on the fire beyond the cattle market.

  Unable to maintain footing on the riverbank I slithered down on my backside. Keeping my balance on the wet river stones was even harder than before with only one hand to use for balance, and it was completely dark beneath the bridge this time. My progress, already painfully slow, came to a complete halt when the roar of falling water became too loud for my pounding ear to stand.

  The part of the mill wall below the bridge was inky black, but above it, remnants of light caught on rugged bricks. At one point, rather than the light breaking on the edges, it remained a solid pale line spanning the length of the wall. But it was too high up to make out what it could be.

  My focus darted back to my side of the waterfall. A ladder led from the wall right to the river and I hurried towards it. But my shoes slipped. The jewel in my right hand chinked against the rocks just milliseconds before my other hand hit the ground in panicked reflex to break my fall. Waves of nausea washed over me but the icy cold water soothed the incredible pain.

  Intense burning replaced the numbness when I lifted my hand. It would have been so easy to just disappear into my other life, but with every visit to the past I felt more and more as though I was becoming Kathy, and I wanted answers, not just for Freddie, but for myself. I had to find Jack.

  I struggled to my feet, tottered to the ladder and grasped it with my good hand. My elbow jabbed between the rung and wall and I pushed myself, one heavy step after the other, up the ladder. At the top, a narrow ledge ran along the entire length of the wall, the fading light just catching its edge. I took a deep breath and one tiny sideways step on the uneven shelf, pressing my hand tentatively against the stonework.

  Ten feet below, the river bubbled and swirled, waiting to claim me.

  Crumbling mortar slipped under my feet, sending my heart into a beating frenzy. Was this where Kathy’s last breath was taken, where she relinquished her grasp on life to fall from 1944? The jewel suddenly felt red hot in my clammy hand and I knew my link to my parallel life was almost over. But what if I died when Kathy died!

  I rested heavily against the wall as waves of fear engulfed me. Kathy had to die or else I couldn’t be born as Katie. But would I feel her pain? I swallowed hard and drew a deep breath, trying to think rationally.

  I slowly exhaled and felt my heart calm a little. If all that I was experiencing had been triggered by the sapphires, then surely all I had to do when the time came was drop the jewel and I’d go straight to the future?

  I shuffled sideways on the seemingly never-ending ledge until I eventually made it to the other side. A sign above the next ladder carried a warning sign – Access to Trained Personnel Only. I slithered down the ladder and collapsed at the bottom.

  To my right, the bridge wall was a sheer muddy embankment; to the left was a wilderness of wasteland. Water continued to drop to a lower level in front.

  My body ached as I stumbled blindly through the wilderness. Veiled by cloud, the moonlight was virtually worthless. Tall grass whispered, its secrets hidden in darkness.

  Thump!

  I stiffened at the sound ahead.

  “Ugh!”

  “You’ll pay for this, Smith!”

  Jack?

  I ran faster, tripping, stumbling, my focus only on the voices.

  “You won’t say anything, Stewart, not unless you want to get your cousin in trouble,” Dougie answered.

  My steps faltered. I was so close to seeing Jack, reuniting with my cousin, yet Dougie’s words confused me.

  “You leave Kathy out of this,” Jack hissed.

  “Oh, but I can’t.” Dougie’s acidic tone cut through the air and engulfed me in burning heat. “Kathy has one of the sapphires.”

  I dropped to my knees, my head spinning. How could Dougie know that?

  “That’s a lie!” Jack yelled.

  The grass ahead swished as Jack moved towards Dougie to defend my honour, but Dougie’s casual words cut him off and seemed to stop my heart.

  “She’ll be here any minute.”

  A strangled squeal escaped my tight throat as the complete memory finally came rushing back.

  “That you, Kathy?” Dougie called.

  “Kathy?” Jack’s voice was filled with a peculiar mix of relief, doubt and hurt.

  “Y-yeah,” I mumbled, struggling to my feet.

  They watched me approach. I couldn’t take my eyes from Jack, the guy in grey, my cousin, missing for so many years, yet not really, not in this time. I knew him, his complete honesty and compassion, his longing to be old enough to fight in the war, to bring his dad home, and mine. Yet his unfounded belief in me was wavering. I could almost see the lines of truth and reality blurring in his mind as he struggled to comprehend, hoping I had some logical explanation as to why I had a jewel and was meeting Dougie.

  “You got it then?” Dougie asked.

  I wanted to let the jewel go, get away from the truth I’d tried to block from my mind for so long. In my flashbacks I’d only seen snippets of reality, too ashamed to look at the whole picture. But not any more. Truth had finally broken free.

  Dougie’s emotionless stare, his confident posture, shoulders back, expecting me to do as he said, stirred feelings of loathing deep inside me. But the hatred wasn’t for him; it was for me. No wonder Jack had been nice to Dougie at the church – he was doing it for me. Dougie and I were friends.

  Jack’s mouth gaped a little and he stepped back when I revealed the jewel.
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  “I-I can explain.” I snapped my hand shut as Dougie reached forward to take it.

  But how could I? He’d never believe me, I wondered if I even believed it myself. I didn’t want to. Not the real truth.

  “It had better be good.” Jack crossed his arms defiantly, but his expression was masked by the failing light.

  I gazed at him miserably. He was tarnished with my guilt just by being my cousin. I’d never meant for that. Never meant for any of it, for my dad to get called up, for our house to be flattened, to be left with nothing, not even a teapot, nothing we could sell to get away from Auntie Carol’s. I’d saved a little bit, hidden under my mattress, but it wasn’t enough. The war was going on forever and I couldn’t stay with Auntie Carol any longer.

  “Well?” Jack said.

  “I did it for us, Jack. I was going to buy me and Mum and Freddie a house where we…”

  My words trailed as Jack’s head lowered with the weight of the disgrace I’d brought upon the family name. But he didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. I had to explain. “A house where we could go and live, away from the war and the bombs and where my dad could come home to.” Tears slithered down my face. “And then you wouldn’t be in any more trouble, Jack, and Auntie Carol would stop hating me…”

  “She doesn’t hate you!” Jack grasped my shoulders and his touch sent a jolt through my body. “She’s worried about you. She knows how much losing your house and everything has affected you.”

  “But she’s always yelling at me!” I pressed the top of my head against his chest so he couldn’t see my shame.

  “Don’t take any notice of that!” Jack forced a laugh. “You gotta understand how worried she is about everything as well. I mean, both our dads are at war. That’s her husband and brother out there.”

  He released his grasp on my shoulders and I stood back, feeling even more ashamed. I hadn’t considered her feelings at all.

  “You can still make it right, Kathy,” Jack said. “Just take the jewels back. I’m sure they’ll be able to fix them in place somehow.”

  I stared at the dark shape in my palm.

  “Look, I get that you’re embarrassed by what you’ve done…”

  “You don’t understand, Jack,” I mumbled.

  “You’re right,” Jack said sourly. “I don’t understand. We’re all doing it tough, Kathy, yet you seem to think it’s alright to take what isn’t yours.”

  The sapphire seemed to burn my skin. Jack was right, every word he spoke.

  “I’m sorry, Jack, really, really sorry and I’ll make it right, I will.”

  Jack looked at me sternly. “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Oh no, you won’t!”

  I turned at Dougie’s voice and Jack tottered backwards as Dougie’s fist connected with his face.

  “Jack! Are you okay! Dougie, what are you doing!” I stretched out my arms to separate them as Jack readied himself to punch back.

  “You should have butted out of it, Jack.” Dougie walloped Jack in the head.

  “You shouldn’t have led my cousin into your thieving ways!” Jack punched Dougie’s gut.

  Dougie bent over double.

  “Stop it!” I sobbed. “Both of you!”

  Jack pushed Dougie to the ground.

  “Please!” I cried. “There’s enough fighting in this war without you two adding to it!”

  “You should never have got mixed up with him, Kathy,” Jack said.

  “She was the one who chiselled ’em out of the statue,” Dougie wheezed. “While you were skiving off home for her birthday tea.”

  I closed my eyes to end the memory but the picture of us at the back of the church was burned in the back of my mind and I had to revisit the moment.

  “Any luck?” Dougie whispered as I nudged the nail with the hammer.

  I glanced guiltily towards the men anxiously dismantling, packing and loading the statue and nodded at Dougie.

  “I chipped the statue underneath a bit,” I whispered back. “But it’s getting really loose now.”

  “Don’t matter ’bout the dumb head.” Dougie grinned. “No one ain’t gonna see that ’til the war’s over and they unpack it anyway!”

  “Yeah and we’ll all be well away from here by then,” I said quietly. “Can’t wait to get away from my Auntie Carol, she’s your worst nightmare that one, I tell you!”

  “You ain’t kidding there!” Dougie said. “There weren’t no way I was gunna go to her house for your birthday tea!”

  The jewel shifted beneath my fingers and I wiggled it to loosen it more. “What d’ya mean? She invited you?”

  “Don’t be daft. Jack did.”

  My belly flipped as the jewel loosened. “He never did!”

  Dougie nodded and grinned.

  “You know what? Maybe I’ll let Jack move in with me and my folks when I buy a house. He’s alright, my cousin.” I held the sapphire up triumphantly.

  “Gis a look!”

  I handed it proudly to Dougie and he slipped it in his pocket.

  “Give it back!” I hissed.

  “I’m the one who’s gunna have to get rid of ’em so what’s the big deal if I take ’em now?”

  But something in my gut told me I should be cautious.

  “Alright then, you keep that one,” I walloped the nail under the second eye and knocked it out in one go. My fingers hurt from the pressure of pinching the nail so tightly. “And I’ll keep this one.”

  “Don’t you trust me or something?” Dougie asked.

  “It’s not like that.”

  He snatched the hammer off me and started hammering the planks on the crate. The statue’s head partially disappeared from view then Dougie laid the hammer across the top and lifted my chin. I flinched back as he plonked a wet kiss on my lips, but he grinned at me.

  “You gotta trust your boyfriend, right?”

  I wiped his disgusting germs away with my arm but my lips twitched with the effort of hiding a smile. A boyfriend? Me and Dougie?

  “What’s the matter,” Dougie said, frowning darkly. “Ain’t I good enough?”

  “What, yeah, course.” I forced myself to look into his eyes and smiled. “Tell you what, how ’bout we meet tomorrow and talk about when you’re gonna sell the sapphires?”

  “How about tonight?” Dougie’s touch on my shoulder sent a chill through me. “Meet me at the marsh at twilight.”

  “What? No, I can’t, it’ll be too dark!” I gasped. “What’s wrong with tomorrow?”

  “Ready, Dad!”

  Dougie stood up and yelled to his dad and my heart jumped all over the place. I crouched ran to hide back behind the headstones as Stan and Mr Brown hoisted the crate onto the truck.

  “What kind of carpenter do you call yourself, Dougie?” Mr Smith said. “These planks aren’t exactly secure!”

  “Trying to save nails,” Dougie said.

  Raised voices followed me as I ran home, but they weren’t aimed at me and I pitied Dougie getting a walloping from his dad for his shonky nailing.

  “Where on earth have you been, Kathy?” Mum gasped as I burst through the front door. Her apron was stained with mud from peeling potatoes. “Auntie Carol cooked your egg, I made some mash especially for you and you went and disappeared on us!”

  Fast footsteps clomped from the kitchen and Auntie Carol’s shrill voice rang out. “Jack’s gone out looking for you!” Worry and anger were etched into her face when she came into view. “It’s nearly blackout, he shouldn’t be out. It’s your fault, Kathy!”

  Mum flinched and forced a smile.

  “I’m sure he’ll be back soon, Carol,” she said, resting her hand on Auntie Carol’s arm. “In the meantime, how about I get Mr Bettis to fetch him back?”

  “Mr Bettis is already out,” I mumbled. “He’s up by the church where the men are working.”

  Auntie Carol’s hand flicked to her mouth and I could have kicked Jack for always doing the right thing. W
hy on earth had he gone to look for me? Now I felt guilty.

  “Got you a present, Kathy!” Freddie appeared in the passageway in his short trousers, his hand formed into a fist.

  “Not another slug!”

  “No, a proper present,” he said earnestly.

  “Later, Freddie,” I assured him. “Let me find Jack, then I’ll have my gift.”

  Mum made a grab for my shoulders as I lurched to the front door, but I shook her off and hobbled down the street, the jewel wedged under my foot. Twilight had settled in over the town and left just a thin sliver of pink light in the sky.

  “Get back here!” Mum yelled.

  But I knew she wouldn’t follow. She had Freddie to take care of.

  And Auntie Carol wouldn’t follow. She didn’t like me. She knew the thieving rascal I really was, the one who let her boy take the blame for what I’d done. She didn’t want me in her house, but she couldn’t kick us out – we had nowhere to go. She was only nice to me for Mum’s sake and I bet she’d have no problem giving my birthday egg to Jack.

  I’d find Jack and tell him to go home then I’d meet up with Dougie at the marsh. We had to work out when he was going to sell the jewels. He had a market going for all kinds of stuff. He’d have sold that dictionary I’d stolen if Mr Jenkins hadn’t noticed it missing quite so quickly. I’d hidden it in Jack’s drawstring plimsoll bag because he’d already had outside games that day and wouldn’t open it again until after we’d got home. In the meantime, I’d meant to sneak it out and give it to Dougie to sell. We had a good deal. I stole, he sold, and we split the proceeds down the middle. No one ever suspected me. Except Auntie Carol.