The Hidden World (21 page)

‘Jessica!' cried a voice. It was Mrs Crawford. ‘Jessica, can you hear us? You have to hurry!'

‘The Stain's almost here!' shouted Renko. ‘Please, Jessica! Faster!'

Jessica scrubbed at the wallpaper, holding the brush in both hands, but the stain was so old that she couldn't make any impression on it. As she scrubbed, however, a small ribbon of damp wallpaper was rucked up and torn away, then another. She dropped the brush and began to tear the paper away from the wall, until the stain was completely ripped away. She crumpled up the stained wallpaper, opened the bedroom window and threw it out into the snow.

‘I've done it!' she shouted. ‘I've got rid of it!'

She listened, but there was no answer.

‘It's gone!' she called. ‘I tore it off and threw it out of the window!'

Still no reply.

She didn't know if she ought to go back through the wallpaper. She was frightened of what she might see, and what might happen to her if the Stain had taken over everything. But she couldn't leave Renko and Elica and Epiphany behind, nor Mrs Crawford, nor the Pennington children.

She hesitated for a moment, and as she hesitated she heard the phone ringing in the hallway downstairs. The lines must have been repaired, which meant that she could phone for an ambulance for Piff. That decided her. She jumped up onto her bed and threw herself through the wallpaper.

At once, Jessica was almost blinded by lightning, and deafened by the most hideous roaring and screaming she had ever heard. Rain was lashing onto the overgrown garden, beating down the rose-bushes and flattening the grass. In an instant she was soaked, and her hair was plastered to her face.

Lightning struck again and again, walking across the clouds like fiery stilts, so that it was hard to see what was happening. But as she struggled across the overgrown garden, one hand lifted to protect her face from the rain, she saw that the Stain looked as if it were boiling. Great gouts of oily black liquid were jumping into the air, and bits and pieces of bones and bodies were jumping up with them.

Jessica saw a headless skeleton spring up and perform a jerky, broken dance before scattering back into the Stain in disassembled pieces. Something that looked like a rotting dolphin was thrown up too, in a ghastly parody of a live dolphin leaping through the sea.

But, for all its screaming and grinding and furious boiling, the Stain was crawling away. It had already drawn back from the hedges around the cemetery, and as Jessica made her way back across the grass she saw that it was ebbing faster and faster. It had left the ground covered in greasy, stinking slime, but she knew that she had washed it away.

She reached the cemetery. The Pennington children were clustered close together, holding each other's hands, and although they looked so pale they were clearly relieved. Mrs Crawford was stroking Epiphany's forehead and Renko was kneeling beside her too, feeling her pulse.

Elica said, ‘You are the bravest. You have said to the Stain, out!' And she came up and put her arms around Jessica and held her tight.

Jessica said, ‘The phones are working again … we can take Piff back. And we can call Dr Leeming, too, to bring five doses of doxycycline.'

Renko stood up. ‘You did it, Jessica. You beat it. We're all real proud of you. I mean it.'

There was a last grumble of thunder and the skies began to clear. It was morning again, and the sun was shining. High above them they saw a V-shaped formation of nutcrackers, flying who could only guess where.

‘Come on,' said Mrs Crawford, ‘let's be as quick as we can.' She picked up one corner of her raincoat, while Renko, Martin and David took hold of the others. Led by Phoebe and Joel, they left the cemetery and began to walk toward the overgrown garden.

Jessica turned and looked at the stone angel, its wings still wet with rain.

‘Go along,' said the angel. ‘Your future's waiting for you.'

‘I'll come back,' Jessica promised.

‘I don't think you'll ever need to. What you have done here – the things that you have seen and experienced – they will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life.'

‘Goodbye,' said Jessica, and followed the others toward the wallpaper pattern. Mrs Crawford had already carried Epiphany through, and only Margaret was left.

She never knew if it was a freak accident, or if the Stain were capable of wreaking its revenge, but as she came up to Margaret there was a devastating crack of lightning, and she was flung, stunned, toward the wallpaper.

S
he opened her eyes. The sun was shining in bars across the ceiling, and it was so bright that she could hardly look at it. Her head was throbbing and her mouth felt as if somebody had spooned sand into it.

Dr Leeming leaned over her bed, the sunlight gleaming on his bald head. ‘Good, you're awake. How are you feeling?'

‘I don't know.' She tried to lift her head from the pillow and look around. There was a jug of water next to her bed with bubbles in it, and a vase of red chrysanthemums. ‘Where am I?'

‘You're in hospital. You had a very nasty fall at school. Banged your head.'

‘School? How long have I been here?'

‘Since yesterday afternoon.'

‘Where's Epiphany? Did you manage to save Epiphany?'

Dr Leeming blinked at her. ‘Epiphany Russell? Grace Russell's girl?'

‘That's right. Did you manage to get her to hospital?'

‘Why would Epiphany need to go to hospital?'

‘She was knocked over by a car … she was dying.'

Dr Leeming smiled and shook his head. ‘I think I would have heard about it if she had been.'

‘What about Renko and Elica and the Pennington children?'

‘I think your brain must have been making up stories. That often happens when you suffer a severe concussion.'

‘No, I couldn't have made it up. I couldn't.'

Dr Leeming said, ‘What sometimes happens is, little subconscious anxieties get blown up into quite believable dramas. It's the same mechanism as dreaming, except that the patient is totally convinced that these dramas really happened.'

Jessica lay back; she couldn't think what to say. She had gone through the wallpaper, she knew she had. Telling her that it was nothing but ‘quite believable dramas' was ridiculous, like telling her that her whole life had been nothing but a ‘quite believable drama'.

‘Listen,' said Dr Leeming. ‘You get yourself some sleep and I'll go call your grandparents and tell them you've come round. They've been very worried about you. Would you like anything to drink? Coke, maybe?'

Jessica whispered, ‘No … no, thank you.'

After Dr Leeming had left she lay and stared at the ceiling and quite unexpectedly she began to cry.

She left hospital the following afternoon at three o'clock. It was much gloomier outside, and it was snowing again.

‘You're quiet,' remarked Grandpa Willy as he walked along the corridor with her.

‘It's going to take Jessica a few days to readjust,' Dr Leeming explained. ‘Bring her in to see me again on Monday, so that I can make sure she's OK.'

Halfway along the corridor, a door opened and a nurse came out, smiling at Dr Leeming as she did so. Jessica glanced into the room, where a very pale young girl was lying in bed watching television. With a jolt, she saw that it was Phoebe.

She stopped, and Grandpa Willy said, ‘What is it, Jessica? Are you OK?'

‘That little girl – who is she?'

‘We don't know her name,' said Dr Leeming. ‘That's one of the kids who were found wandering around near Allen's Corners yesterday afternoon.'

‘I heard about that,' said Grandpa Willy. ‘They were all sick, weren't they? And they all had amnesia. Didn't even know what their own names were.'

‘That's right. They were all suffering from RMSF … that's Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It can be pretty nasty if you don't treat it in time.'

‘But you had some doxycycline,' said Jessica.

‘Yes,' said Dr Leeming, in surprise. ‘How do you know about doxycycline?'

Jessica didn't answer him, but went to the open door. She stared at Phoebe for a long time and then, when Phoebe eventually looked across at her, she said, ‘Hello.'

Phoebe frowned. She didn't say anything and it was obvious to Jessica that she didn't know who she was.

‘Are you better now?' Jessica asked her.

Phoebe nodded.

Jessica turned to Dr Leeming. ‘How many others were there, apart from her?'

‘Four – five altogether. We think they're all brothers and sisters. The police are trying to find their parents.'

‘It's time for me to go now,' Jessica told Phoebe.

‘Tickity-tock,' said Phoebe, and went back to watching television.

They drove back to the house through the softly falling snow. Grandpa Willy was chattering away as usual, but Jessica stayed silent. They passed the cemetery where the stone angel stood over the Pennington children's memorial. They passed Mrs Crawford's house, half buried in snow, and Jessica saw Mrs Crawford standing at her window, illuminated by orange firelight, just about to draw the curtains.

Mrs Crawford saw her and waved, but she didn't wave back.

In the kitchen, Grace was washing dishes and Epiphany was sitting at the kitchen table, braiding colored wool.

‘Hi, Jessica, how you feeling?'

‘I'm OK. Still got a headache.'

‘That was a terrible thing that happened to you,' said Grace. ‘Why, you could have been killed. I hope your grandpa takes that school for all the money they got.'

‘I'm OK,' Jessica repeated. Then, to Epiphany, ‘What are you making?'

‘Tassels, to put in my hair. Beninese women believe that they keep away evil thoughts.'

‘Piff—' said Jessica.

Epiphany stopped braiding and looked up at her.

‘Nothing,' said Jessica. ‘Just be careful crossing the road.'

As Jessica left the kitchen, Epiphany turned to Grace and pulled a bewildered face. ‘Now what was that all about?'

In the back garden, cloven-footed in the snow, the statue of Pan looked slyly up at her bedroom window.

She tugged out her bed a little way. She had to see if there really was a stain on the wallpaper in the shape of a pig's head. But a large triangular piece of wallpaper had been torn away, so it was impossible to say.

She went up to the wall and pressed her hands against it. It was solid, and impenetrable. She tapped on it, and it sounded just like a wall, nothing else. She sat on her bed. She felt as if she were going mad. The girl in the dressing-table mirror looked back at her, white-faced, more like a ghost than a real girl.

On Monday, after Grandpa Willy had taken her to see Dr Leeming for a check-up, she went back to school. She arrived in the middle of morning recess. Sue-Anne was sitting on her usual perch in the schoolyard, and there too were Renko and Elica and all her other cronies.

‘Return of the gimp!' called Sue-Anne. ‘Now showing in a schoolyard near you!'

Jessica stopped, holding her schoolbag close to her chest. Renko caught her looking at him and said, ‘What's your problem, Gimpy?'

Jessica said, ‘Nothing. I just wanted to thank you, that's all.'

‘Thank me?' he snorted. ‘What do you want to thank me for?'

‘I want you to know that whatever part of you it was that came with me, and said that you liked me, and risked your life for me, I won't ever forget it, and I'll always be grateful.'

‘The gimp finally flipped,' said Micky. ‘That crack on the head must've been a real doozy.'

But for a flicker of a second Renko focused his gray eyes on her as if he could actually remember fighting with the wooden wolf, and crossing the painted lake, and helping her to run across the fields and deserts of Patternworld. Then he gave her a dismissive flap of his hand and turned away.

‘You see how irresistible I am? Even the gimp's in love with me.'

Elica burst out laughing. ‘She has scramble-egg brain.'

That evening she went up to her bedroom as soon as supper was over and drew pictures of the overgrown garden, the forest of hat-stands and the seashore where Phoebe had sat swinging her bare toes in the incoming tide. She could remember it all, every detail. She could remember the teaspoons flying like ducks in the sunset, and the trees made of black lace, and the stained-glass house with its cozy light inside.

She adjusted the lamp on her desk so that she could see better, and as she did so something glinted in the corner of the bedroom and caught her eye. She went over and picked it up, and it was the sapphire ring that Mrs Fellowes had given to Mrs Crawford when she was a girl, to prove that she was still inside the wallpaper.

Jessica stared at it for a long time, and then she slipped it onto her finger.