The Bone Clocks

But she doesn’t react. I sort of brush the ants off her, but I smear a couple by mistake. What’s wrong with them? “Heidi!” I shake her arm harder, and she slides over onto the side arm of the lounger, like a comedy drunk, but this isn’t funny. Her head slumps over and her sunglasses slide off and then I see her eyes—they’re all iris and no black bit in the middle. I sort of leap back with a scared gaaa!noise and almost fall over. Ian hasn’t stirred so, frantic now, I call his name—and see a furry fly crawling along his plump lips. My hand’s unsteady as I lift the baseball cap off his face. The fly buzzes off. His eyes are the same as Heidi’s—like he’s just died of some new plague—and I drop the hat and that same shaky gasp judders out of me. A bird in the pink roses threads sharp and shiny notes together, and my mind’s throbbing and woozy and only half here, but it serves up one explanation regardless: Heidi and Ian have food poisoning from breakfast. Food poisoning from breakfast. But after only twenty minutes? Possibly, but I don’t have the same symptoms. We all ate the same stuff. Next I think, Heart attack, but that’s not much of a theory. Drug overdose?Then I think, Stop thinking, Sykes—call for an ambulancenow …

… the phone’s on a stand thing in the lounge, through the kitchen. Dash through, dial 999, and wait for the operator. Answer, hurry hurry hurry, now now now!The line’s silent. Then I notice a man in the mirror, watching from the armchair in the corner. The gears of what’s real slip. I turn round and there he is, in the archway between the kitchen and lounge. I know him. The piranha eyes, the curly black locks, the busted nose—the man from my daymare in the underpass, in the kite-shaped room. His chest’s heaving like he’s run uphill. He barks at me, “Which one are you?”

“I—I—I—I’m—I’m a friend of Ian and Heidi, I—I—”

“Esther Little or Yu Leon Marinus?” His voice is all hate and ice.

There’s a small sort of flickering on his brow, like, well, nothing like I’ve ever seen. Did he say, “Marinus”? Who cares? He’s a man from a nightmare, ’cept when you’re this afraid you usually wake up. I step back and fall onto the sofa. “My friends need an ambulance.”

“Tell me your name, and I’ll give you a clean death.”

This isn’t an empty threat. Whoever he is, he killed Heidi and Ian and he’ll kill you too, like snapping a matchstick. “I—I—I—don’t understand, sir,” I curl up into a terrified ball, “I—”

He takes another step my way. “Name yourself!”

“I’m Holly Sykes, and I just want to go—please, can I just—”

“Holly Sykes …” He re-angles his head. “Yes, I know the name. One of those who got away. Using the brother as bait was clever, but look what you’re reduced to now, Horologist. Trying to hide in this slut-gashed bone clock. Xi Lo would shudder! Holokai would puke! If, of course, they were alive, which,” he sneers, “they are not, after your midnight raid went horribly, horribly awry. Did you think the Shaded Way has never heard of burglar alarms? Did you not know the Chapel is the Cathar and the Cathar is the Chapel? Holokai’s soul is ash. Xi Lo’s soul is nothing. And you, whichever you are, you fled. As per your sacred Script, no doubt. We loveyour Script. Thanks to your Script, Horology is finished. This is a great day for Carnivores everywhere. Without Xi Lo and Holokai, what are you? A troupe of conjurers, mind readers, and spoon benders. So tell me before you die: Are you Marinus or Esther Little?”

I’m shaking: “Swear to God, I—I’m not who you think I am.”

He reads me, suspiciously. “Tell you what. Those two sunbathers outside, they’re not quite dead yet. Use your Deep Stream voodoo now, you might save one. Go on. It’s what Horologists do.”

Far, far away, a dog’s barking, a tractor’s grundling …

… the man’s so close now I can smell him. Burnt ovens. My voice has gone all anorexic. “So can I call a doctor, then?”

“You can’t heal them yourself?”

I manage to shake my head.

“Then they’ll need a coffin, not an ambulance. But I need proof you’re not Horology. Marinus is a coward, but he’s a devious coward. Run away. Go on. Run. Let’s see how far you can get.”

I don’t trust him or my ears. “What?”

“There’s the door—go. Run, little mouse.” He steps aside to open up an escape route. I’m expecting a trick, or a knife, I don’t know what, but he leans in so close, I see grazes and tiny cuts on his face, and his big black eyes, with a halo of gray, and he shouts at the top of his lungs: “RUN BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND!”