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“Stupid boy!” Cati hissed furiously. “Where do you think you’re going?”
It was several minutes before Owen could get enough air to enable him to talk. Cati crouched beside him, staring intently into the dark.
“We have to get away from here,” she whispered urgently.
“I’m not going back,” he said. “I’m going home.”
“It’s not there any more! You’ll be caught or killed looking for something that’s gone. Listen to me.”
“That’s the problem,” said Owen. “I’ve been listening to everyone about time turning back and people sleeping for years and great engines and people disappearing. But I have to see. I have to see that my house is gone. I have to see that… that…” He gulped and turned his head away, hoping that she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes. Stumbling to his feet, he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket.
“I have to see,” he repeated.
Cati gave him a long, level look, then seemed to come to a decision. “All right, but I better come with you.”
“You can’t,” he said. “I’m going on my own.”
“Don’t be silly. You made enough noise going through the trees to wake the whole Starry, and you left a trail a blind man could see. If I come with you, at least we have a chance of getting back. Not much of a chance, mind you.” Cati seemed almost cheerful about the prospect.
“Come on then,” she said. “Might as well get it over with.” And set off at a crouch, moving fast and silent. Owen had no choice but to follow her along the riverbank.
A few minutes later he thought he had lost her, then almost tripped over her. Cati was squatting on the ground.
“Careful,” she hissed. “Get down here.” She had a twig in her hand. “Look.”
Owen squinted in the darkness. He could just about see the two parallel lines she had drawn in the earth.
“This line is the river,” she said, “and this one is the Harsh. We’re in between, here. And the place where your house used to be is here, just in front of their lines. We can get to it, if we’re really quiet and really lucky. But you have to do what I tell you, all right?”
Owen nodded dumbly. He hadn’t really thought through what he had set out to do, and now he was feeling foolish and headstrong. Cati had called him a stupid boy and he was starting to feel like one.
“Let’s go!” Cati said. He followed her, moving slowly now. They turned left and started to climb the hill towards the Harsh lines. There was more cover than he had expected. Where once there had been open fields there were now deep thickets of spruce and copses of oak and ash trees. Progress was slow. Cati whispered that there might be patrols about, and more than once she glared at him as he stood on a dry twig or tripped over a low branch. He did not recognise anything in the place where he had once known every tree and ditch, although sometimes he stumbled over something that might have been the crumbling foundation of an old field wall.
After what seemed like hours, Cati turned to him and held her finger to her lips. They stepped into a clearing – a patch of low scrub. With a start, Owen looked around him. There was no real way of telling, but his heart said there could be no doubt; he was standing in the place where his house had been.
Was that flat piece of ground with saplings growing in it the place where the road had been? And was that young sycamore the same gnarled tree that had stood outside his bedroom window? Owen moved forward carefully until his foot struck something. Pushing back the vegetation he found the remains of a wall. He moved along the wall until he reached a corner and then another corner. It was the right size and shape as his own house. In fact, he was standing underneath the window to his own room, if it had been there. The room with the model hanging from the ceiling, and the guitar, and the battered trunk he had stood on to climb out of the window.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “If time is going backwards, how come the sycamore tree is getting younger, but the house is getting older? Surely the house would turn back into bricks and stuff.”
“Living things get younger as time goes backwards,” Cati said, “but things built by man just decay. It has always been like that.”
Owen began to notice that the grass and weeds were criss-crossed with scorch marks, and that the leaves of low-hanging trees were blackened and dead. Cati reached up and broke off a leaf which crumbled in her hand.
“The Harsh have been here,” she whispered fearfully, “searching for something by the look of it. We have to go.”
But Owen wasn’t ready. He moved his foot and something clanked against it. He put his hand down into the undergrowth and groped around until his hand closed on an object. He held it up. It was the hand mirror that his mother used when she brushed her hair. The brass back was tarnished and the glass was spotted and milky in places, but it was the same mirror, and as he looked at it, he could picture his mother brushing her hair, her lips pursed, whistling tunelessly to herself. The glass was becoming yet more faded, until he realised that his eyes had misted over.
Cati said something, but he didn’t hear her. And he was only barely aware of the cold that started to steal over him. It wasn’t until he heard a faint crackling that Owen glanced up at a small twig which hung in front of him. As he looked, it seemed that hoar frost crept up the leaf from the tip, then to another leaf and then another, until the stem itself froze and cracked with a gentle snapping sound as the sap expanded.
Owen looked around. The crackling sound was caused by dozens of leaves and twigs snapping in the same way. He turned to Cati, but she was staring off into the trees and her face was a mask of fear. He followed her terrified gaze. Far off, but moving inexorably closer, were two figures, both white, both faceless, and seeming to glide without effort between the trees. Cati’s voice when it came was no more than a whimper.
“The Harsh,” she said. “They’re here.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_9128c20b-16d3-5086-b74b-2ac6f9442f5c)
The cold seared Owens lungs. Somehow he knew that the Harsh were talking to each other in mournful voices full of desolate words that were just out of earshot. The pitch of the voices rose to make a noise like the howling of wolves being carried away on an icy wind and Owen wondered if they had been spotted.
“Come on,” he said to Cati in an urgent whisper. “Run!” But it was no good. She seemed to be paralysed with terror. “Please, Cati,” he said. “I think they’ve seen us.”
“No,” she moaned, “they don’t see well. They can smell us though. They can smell the warmth.”
Owen grabbed Cati by the arm and hauled her to her feet. She stumbled after him. The Harsh were moving sideways, slipping through the trees. They were going to cut Owen and Cati off from the river. Cati wasn’t resisting him, but she wasn’t helping either. Owen thought he could hear the voices again and he felt a chilly dread steal over him, a sense that things were lost and that there was no point in running. He realised that this must come from the Harsh and was why Cati was paralysed with terror.
“Come on, Cati,” he urged. “You’ve got to fight it.” Owen started to run, dragging her behind him. He could no longer see the two Harsh, but when he stopped for a moment he could hear the gentle crackle of frost attacking twigs and leaves to his right. It was only minutes to the river, but the trees and undergrowth made progress slow. Several times Cati fell and would have lain there if Owen hadn’t forced her to her feet again, and all the time he felt the cold dread stealing over him, weighing down his limbs so that it was an effort to lift his feet.
Suddenly, Owen and Cati broke free into a clearing which seemed to lead down to the river. Owen turned. Less than fifty metres away he saw the two Harsh and stopped. The force of their presence dragged at him. Cati sank to her knees as Owen turned towards them. The Harsh made no effort to move nearer. Icy vapour from the frozen ground at their feet curled round them so that they seemed to float in the air. Owen’s gaze was drawn to the places where their faces should have been; the blank, white spaces. But there seemed to be a mouth to whisper cruel and seductive words, and eyes which bored into him and demanded surrender.
In the distance, Owen heard a shout and knew that the defenders on the other side of the river had seen them. There was a crash and a burst of blue flame close to the river and then another one, but the Harsh did not stir. With one last desperate effort, Owen tore his gaze away. He reached down and caught Cati under the arms. Half dragging, half carrying her, he stumbled down the slope towards the river. Though he dared not look around, he knew that the Harsh had not moved. There was another burst of blue flame and Owen heard men’s voices shouting encouragement to them. Even Cati seemed to hear and forced herself to run towards the river. They were just short of the water now and Owen realised they had to cover more ground upstream to reach the log crossing. He risked a glance backwards – the Harsh had still not moved. They were almost clear.
Suddenly, he felt Cati slow and stop and sink to the ground once again with a moan. Two more Harsh stood less than a hundred metres ahead, blocking off all access to the bridge and approaching slowly.
Owen looked round wildly. They couldn’t go back, they couldn’t go forward, and they couldn’t stay where they were. There was only one way out. He went towards the low, ruined river wall and peered over it. The water below was black and deep, but at least it would carry them away from the Harsh. He dragged Cati towards the wall.
The Harsh seemed to realise what he was doing and started to move faster. Owen lifted Cati on to the wall and looked down again. He felt sick. He knew that if he dropped Cati into the water, she would not be able to look after herself. She was too lost in fear. He heard a shout from the trees across the way. The bearded man from the Convoke was sitting astride the branch of a tree, shouting, and Owen knew he was telling them to jump into the water. But even summoning up all his strength, even feeling the frost stealing through his jacket and into his flesh, even with his new friend whimpering in his arms, Owen could not do it. And somehow from the knowledge that he could not do it, he drew some strength. He reached to the ground and found a large branch. Turning his back on the river, and pushing Cati behind him, he stood to face the Harsh.
Owen could feel the cold attention of the Harsh on him. And he heard a cold voice inside his head say a single word. Mortmain. Then, as he turned, one of the creatures opened the white maw where its mouth should have been and Owen was hit by a frozen blast of what felt like the coldest sleet he had ever experienced; sleet like frozen knives, cutting through his clothes with a noise like the howling of a terrible wind. Cati cried out. He flung the branch towards the Harsh and saw it turn in the air, freeze and splinter into a thousand pieces, and then he was driven away from the river.
Somehow, Owen managed to turn his back to the blast and wrap his arms around Cati’s cold shoulders as the blast grew fiercer. He gasped for air, but it seemed too cold to breathe. He knew then that all was lost. And he felt deep calm settle over him. Then the blast stopped.
Owen lay on the ground panting for breath. It was seconds before he could turn his head to see what had happened. The Harsh were still in the same place, but standing in front of them was Pieta. She was about fifteen metres away and she carried the whip of light casually at her side. The Harsh towered over her, so that she looked small and frail, but Owen could see that she was smiling a bleak, dangerous smile. The hand at her side moved quickly. Faster than the eye could follow, the whip of light swung back behind her. Owen gasped as it uncoiled, loop after loop, making a sizzling, whistling noise as it opened out, a living thing of deadly power.
He saw Pieta adjust her stance and with unbelievable power and speed the whip flew forwards. She laughed as fifty metres of writhing energy whistled towards the Harsh, hissing as it cleaved the frozen air. The end of the whip stopped just short of the two creatures and, as the whip cracked, Owen had to cover his ears to protect them from the deafening sound which was followed by a flash of brilliant blue light that illuminated the whole riverbank. There was a smell like iron filings which stung his tongue and the back of his throat.
When Owen looked again he saw that the Harsh were floating slowly backwards, their intense white forms somehow dimmed. He scrambled to his feet. Cati’s eyes were closed. She was breathing, but there was a coat of hoar frost in her hair and round her mouth. The whip cracked again. This time the Harsh dimmed and retreated. Owen saw that the way to the tree trunk across the river was clear. He lifted Cati and half ran, half staggered towards the riverbank. He had to run between Pieta and the Harsh, and for a moment he thought he heard their cold whispering, then the whip cracked once more, going over his head this time, the force of its uncoiling making him stagger.
He reached the bank. The bearded man was now astride the log and he reached out for Cati. Owen dropped the unconscious girl into the outstretched arms and, with an agility which belied his size, the man scrambled back across the tree trunk. Owen looked down at the water, shivering uncontrollably. He knew that he could not balance on the log.
Suddenly he was hit hard in the back. It was Pieta.
“Get across now,” she hissed angrily. Looking back, he saw that the two groups of Harsh now stood together. This was too much even for Pieta. Owen felt the cold begin to stream towards them again and he scrambled on to the trunk, Pieta pushing him from behind. Owen threw himself forward and fell. He got up again, but this time he slipped. First his foot and then his hand and then his whole body was plunging towards the dark water. He screamed as his foot hit the water then felt Pieta grab one outflung hand. Effortlessly, she swung him back on to the log and pushed him forwards. Gasping and half blind from cold and terror, he fell off the end of the tree trunk and landed heavily on the ground.
Owen kept his eyes closed, allowing the fear to subside. His heart was beating wildly. When he finally opened his eyes he saw the Sub-Commandant, Chancellor and Contessa. There were others standing behind, but it was the still form of Cati that brought him to his feet.
“She will recover,” Contessa said. “They attempted to freeze her, but they did not succeed.”
“No thanks to him!” the long-haired man said angrily, stepping forward. “He took Cati across the river to deliver her into the hands of the Harsh.”
“He tried to shield her from them, Samual,” Pieta said, her voice ringing across the space between them. “She would now be frozen for ever if it was not for him.”
“It’s a trick,” Samual said. “He’s trying to fool you!”
“That is enough, Samual,” Contessa said, and a dangerous light burned in her eyes. “The young man has just escaped with his life. Now is not the time.”
“I saw what happened,” Samual said slowly and deliberately. “I saw what happened when his foot touched the water! He couldn’t hide the agony on his face.”
No one said anything. None of them would look at Owen except the Sub-Commandant, who fixed him with a level, grey-eyed stare which revealed nothing.
Cati stirred. Her eyes seemed dulled and milky, and when she spoke her voice was weak and her breath hung in the air in frozen clouds, the way warm breath does in cold air.
“I… I… could not move. I was so scared. I followed him… I followed him to his mother’s house. He carried me. He saved me.”
Her head slumped back again. Contessa looked grimly satisfied, as if any question about Owen had been decisively answered. The Sub-Commandant swept Cati up into his arms and walked away swiftly. He did not look back.
“I must make up my mind about this,” Chancellor said heavily. “I will sleep on it.”
Samual looked as if he would say something more, but instead turned on his heel and stalked off into the darkness.
“Owen needs rest,” Contessa said. “This has been the longest day of his young existence, Chancellor. He has been bereft and thrown into another world. His life has hung by a thread this past hour.”
“All I did was look for my mother,” Owen said, trying to keep his voice steady. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“No, Owen,” Chancellor said, “but do you understand that we are all in great danger? None of us can do what we want, even if your mission is as important as looking for your mother. Do you understand?”
Owen nodded slowly. The cold breath of the Harsh was still fresh in his head. He knew that this wasn’t a dream. He shivered. No one had ever wanted to kill him before.
“He will want to go back to his Den,” Contessa said, “but I don’t think he should be on his own. He has enemies that he does not yet know about.”
“I’ll go with him,” the bearded man said. “On my way back I can deal with the sentries that allowed the boy and the girl to walk right through the lines.” He grasped Owen’s hand. “My name is Rutgar, I am the Sergeant here, head of the military, such as it is. Come with me.”
Owen felt Chancellor’s eyes on him as Rutgar steered him towards the path away from the river. The journey back to the Den seemed endless, but each time he stumbled Rutgar caught his elbow. He was too tired to talk, but Rutgar seemed to understand this, although he muttered to himself under his breath as he walked, about the sentries who had allowed Owen and Cati to slip through their lines.
Rutgar knew exactly where the Den was. “There’s not one stone of this riverbank I don’t know,” he said. “Do you think that this is the first time I’ve had to defend it? Go on and sleep. You’ll be looked after tonight.”
“I don’t want to be watched,” Owen said faintly. Rutgar studied him for a minute.
“All right then,” he said. “My men will watch the paths around your Den – and they’d better watch them properly this time, to make sure nothing gets in and you don’t get out again.” He sounded angry, but as he spoke he clapped Owen on the back.
“Go in and get to sleep. You’ll need your energy.” Owen nodded quickly and ducked into the Den. Rutgar looked after him thoughtfully for a minute, then turned away.
In the Den, Owen collapsed on the old sofa. He pulled the sleeping bag over him and kept his clothes on. There was a cold feeling lurking in his bones, but before he could think about the Harsh and their icy terror, tiredness overcame him and he slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Down at the river all was quiet. A sentry called out and another answered in the dark. They did not want to be caught out again. One of the sentries appeared at the end of the fallen log, examined it and walked on. All was still. Then a shape detached itself from the shadows underneath the trees on the Workhouse side of the river. Keeping low to the ground, the shape moved towards the trunk, looking at first like an animal and then like a human figure hunched under a cloak. It clambered on to the end of the log and then, moving in a fluid and seamless way, it crossed the river, slipped off the end of the log and disappeared into the field beyond. As it did so, a fine lace of ice formed along the edge of the river where the water met the bank. And as the figure disappeared with no more than a rustle into the darkness, there was a whispering noise as the ice melted and dissolved back into the black water.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_4e8a9f3b-789c-5073-8b93-0780bcc7dc0e)
Owen woke early the next morning and ran straight to the Workhouse without even a drink of water. He ran up the stairs and into the main hallway. Even though people were busy, moving with purpose, he saw more than one curious glance cast in his direction. He found the stairway that led to the kitchen and plunged downwards. When the stair opened out into the kitchen he found it calmer than the previous day. The great ovens were glowing and many huge pots were simmering on them. He saw Contessa and he half walked, half ran over to her. She turned to him. Her face was grave, but she spoke before he did.
“Cati will recover, Owen. I think you saved her. But only just. I had to put her back to sleep in the Starry. She was frozen to the very core of her being. I am suprised that you were not. Perhaps you have a special resistance.”
“I was cold,” he said. “Freezing.”
“The cold they emit is not just physical, Owen. It freezes the very quick of you. Your soul. You’re very strong.”
“Strong,” said a voice. “You’d be good and strong maybe. But maybe they had fair cause not to freeze you. Them ones could have had cause to spare you.”
Owen turned to see a tall, thin youth with a solemn face. His trousers were torn and on top he wore something that might have been a shirt at some time, but now was so ripped and dirty that it could have been anything, and was certainly no protection against the cold morning air. When Owen looked down he saw that the boy’s feet were bare.
“Wesley,” Contessa said sharply, “I won’t have malicious gossip repeated in my kitchen.”
“It’s what people do say,” Wesley said, but he grinned in a mischievous way and stuck out his hand. Owen took it and Wesley shook his hand vigorously.
“Wesley,” he said. “I do be one of the Raggies. I brung fish for the lady Contessa.”
Owen looked down for the first time. There were perhaps twenty boxes of fish on the ground around them, bringing with them a smell of the sea.
“I have an idea,” Contessa said. “There are those who wish to ask you about last night, and their thoughts are not kindly for the moment. You would be better out of the way. Would you take him to the Hollow with you, Wesley?”
“I will, lady.”
“I want to see Cati,” Owen said.
“She is asleep,” Contessa said, suddenly seeming taller, her eyes glittering with a dangerous light. “Are you not listening?”
“Come on,” Wesley said cheerfully, pulling at Owen’s sleeve, “before the lady do devour the two of us.” Contessa didn’t say anything and her eyes were like stone, but as they walked away with a chirpy “Cheerio, lady!” from Wesley, Owen thought he saw the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
Wesley walked quickly, even in his bare feet, and Owen had trouble keeping up. They left the Workhouse and Wesley started on a path which followed the river down to the sea, curving towards the town and the harbour. At first, Owen fired questions at Wesley, but the boy only turned and grinned at him and pressed on even harder. They came to the place where a new concrete bridge had crossed the road between the town and his house, but there was no bridge and no road. Owen climbed up the riverbank. Despite everything he had been told, he still expected to see the familiar streets of the town.
The town was there, but with a sinking feeling Owen realised that it looked as if it had been abandoned for a hundred years. The houses and shops were roofless and windows gaped blank and sightless. The main street was a strip of matted grass and small trees, and ivy and other creepers wrapped themselves round broken telegraph poles. Where new buildings had once stood there was bare ground or the protruding foundations of older buildings. The rusty skeleton of what had once been a bus sat at right angles in the middle of the street. A gust of wind stirred the heads of the grasses and the trees, and blew through the bare roofs of the houses with a melancholy whistling sound.
Owen slipped back down the side of the bridge. The town was starting to crumble back into time, taking with it the memory of the people who had once walked its streets. He remembered what Cati had said about living things growing young, but the things made by man decaying as time reeled backwards.
“Never pay no mind,” Wesley said gently. “That’s just the way it is now. All them things can be put right, if we put old Ma Time back the way she should be, running like a big clock going forward. You just stick with us. We’ll put all yon people back in their minutes and hours, and Ma Time, she’ll put us boys back to sleep again. Come on,” he said, lifting Owen to his feet, “let’s get on down to the harbour.”
This time Wesley walked alongside Owen. The water in the river got deeper as they approached the harbour and Owen found himself veering away from it, which Wesley noticed.
“That’s what I heard,” he said, with something like satisfaction, “that you can’t abide the water.”
“Who told you that?” demanded Owen.
“They was all talking about it,” Wesley said, “that the new boy, Time’s recruit, did fear the water.”
“I don’t like it too much,” Owen said.
Wesley rounded on him sharply, his face close to Owen’s, his voice suddenly low and urgent.
“Do not be saying that to anyone. No one. Do you not know? I reckon not. The Harsh can neither touch nor cross any water – not fresh nor salt – and the touch of it revolts them unless they can first make ice of it. If any see you afeared of water, they will think you Harsh or a creature of the Harsh.”
Owen remembered how the long-haired man, Samual, had reacted when he had seen Owen’s foot touch the water. “I think they know already,” he said slowly.
