The Bone Clocks

THROUGH THE THORNY roses, between swaying bushes, down the dusty lawn, I run. I run like I’ve never run. The sun’s in my face and the wall’s not far. Halfway there, when I get to the trellis thing, I look back; he’s not running after me, like I dreaded, just standing there, a few steps from Ian and Heidi, who’re still lying dead so he’s letting me go—why who cares why he’s a mental psycho so runrun runrun runrun, but, run, but, but, run, but … But I’m slowing, slowing, how, why, what, my heart’s straining like crazy, but it’s like the brake and accelerator are being pressed at the same time but whatever’s slowing down isn’t inside me, it’s not poison, it’s outside me, it’s time slowing up or gravity pulling harder, or air changing to water, or sand, or treacle … I have dreams like this—but I’m awake, it’s daytime, I knowI’m awake … But, impossibly, I’ve stopped, like a statue of a runner, one foot raised for the next stride that’ll never come. This is mad. In feckingsane. It occurs to me I ought to try to scream for help, it’s what people do, but all that comes out is this grunty spasm noise …

… and the world starts shrinking back towards the bungalow, hauling me along with it, helplessly. There’s ivy on the arch thing, I grab it, and my feet lift off the ground, like I’m a cartoon character in a hurricane hanging on for dear life, but the pain in my wrists makes me let go, and I fall to earth with a bruising whack and I’m dragged along the ground, scraping my elbows and bumping my tailbone, and I swivel onto my back and try to dig my heels in but the lawn’s too hard, I can’t get a grip, I sort of trip myself upright, onto my feet, and a pair of butterflies flutter by, up-current, like this unfightable force only works on me. Now I’m back at the rose beds, and the pale man’s still framed in the patio doorway, his hands and fingers threading away, like sign language for aliens, with a sort of hooked smile on his lips, and he’s doing this, he’s fishing me in, over the patio, past Heidi and Ian, who’re still as corpses, corpses this man killed somehow, this man stepping back into the kitchen to make room, and once I’m in this bungalow I’ll never ever leave it, so I desperately clutch at the door frame and the handle, but then it’s like twenty thousand volts shoot through me and I’m tossed like a doll across the living room and bounce off the sofa, onto the carpet, and flashbulbs go kapow kapow kapowin my eye sockets …

… the daymare ends with the scratchy carpet digging into my cheek. It’s over. It was like epilepsy or something. A photo of Heidi as a schoolgirl and a white-haired gran draws into focus, an inch away, must’ve fallen—maybe I knocked it off the dresser when I fell. I should go home and go to hospital. I need a brain scan. Heidi’ll give me a lift to Gravesend. I’ll call Mam from the hospital. Everything’ll be forgotten, all the Vinny stuff. It felt so real. One moment I was about to repair Bob Dylan with scissors and sticky-tape, the next … ants up Heidi’s arm, that daymare man with the busted nose, and the elasticky shoving air. What nutso part of my mind dreams up shit as weird as that, f’Chrissakes? I heave myself up, ’cause if Heidi or Ian finds me lying here they’ll think I’ve died in their living room.

“I believe you, dear heart.” He’s sitting on the leather armchair, one foot resting on one knee. “You’re an artless, vapid nothing in our War. But why would two dying, fleeing incorporeals blunder their way to you, Holly Sykes? That’s the question. What are you for?”

I’ve frozen. What’s he talking about? “Nothing, I swear, I just want to—to—to go away and—”

“Shut up. I’m thinking.” He takes a Granny Smith apple from a bowl on the sideboard, bites and chews. In the dull quiet, the sound of his munching is the loudest thing. “When did you last see Marinus?”

“My old doctor? At—at—at Gravesend General Hospital. Years ago, I—”

He holds up his hand for silence, like my voice hurts his ears. “And Xi Lo never told you that Jacko wasn’t Jacko?”

Till now the horror’s been high-pitched; with Jacko’s name, there’s a bass of dread. “What’s Jacko got to do with anything?”

He peers at his Granny Smith with disgust. “The sourest, blandest apples. People buy them for ornamental value.” He tosses it away. “There’s no Deep Stream field here, so we aren’t in a safe house. Where are we?”

I daren’t repeat my Jacko question, in case it brings this evil, ’cause evil’s the right word, to my brother. “Heidi’s gran’s bungalow. She’s in France, but she lets Heidi and …” They’re dead, I remember.

“The location, girl! County, town, village. Actlike you have a brain. If you’re the same Holly Sykes whom Marinus fouled, we must be in England, presumably.”

I don’t think he’s joking. “Kent. Near the Isle of Sheppey. I—I don’t think where we are actually has a … has a name.”

He drums the leather armchair. His fingernails are too long. “Esther Little. You know her?”