‘Let her go!’ Mike tried to help her but the second Night Guard stood between him and Lydia. Without saying another word, the first Guard marched Lydia out of the room. Turning left he strode down the corridor, past closed wooden doors on either side, towards the huge double doors at the far end of the corridor. He opened one door and thrust Lydia into the room. Lydia stumbled and fell. The door shut behind her with a resounding thud.
Lydia filled her mouth with saliva and told herself over and over again, ‘Your left arm doesn’t hurt! It doesn’t hurt!’ Her mum had told her once that this was a good way to stop aches and pains. You had to fill your mouth with saliva and tell yourself that a specific pain in a specific place wasn’t there and didn’t hurt. Her mum had called it ‘mind over matter’. Strangely enough, after a few deep breaths, the pain in her arm did lessen slightly. Lydia stood up, still telling herself that her arm didn’t hurt. She swallowed hard and looked around. The room was dark but not frightening. The only light came from a huge fire at the other end of the room. To her left was a window, partially covered with thick, heavy curtains which hung down to the wooden, parquet floor. Books and more books filled the shelves which reached from floor to ceiling on every wall.
‘Come over here.’
The command made Lydia jump. She’d thought she was alone. She turned but couldn’t see anyone. A high-backed chair was positioned in front of the fire. Slowly the chair swivelled around.
‘Come over here.’ An oldish man with greying hair and a white-speckled moustache beckoned her over.
Slowly, Lydia did as she was told. The man turned his chair back to the fire as Lydia approached so that she had to walk around him. The moment Lydia was close enough, the man placed his hand under her chin and tilted her head towards the firelight. He tilted it upwards, then leaned it away from him.
‘Lydia . . .’ he whispered softly.
Lydia pulled her head away and stared at the man. His voice was deep and, even sitting down, he was taller than Lydia. He was wearing a dark jumper and what looked like corduroy jeans. This man was solid with a broad chest and a hard face.
But there was no doubt about it. Lydia recognized his eyes at once. The same eyes that had stared at her from the viewscreen in Fran’s house. The same eyes as hers. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him. He was someone she recognized. He was her
brother
. But the words of every person she’d met since her accident on the moors kept darting around her mind.
The Tyrant . . . He despises us . . . He controls the Night Guards . . . Murderer . . . Tyrant . . .
Lydia didn’t know what to do or say, so she said and did nothing.
Long moments of intense silence passed, broken only by the crackling and spitting of the log fire.
‘Pull up a chair while I check on your friend,’ the man said at last. He held up a remote control and pointed it at the wall above the fireplace. A small viewscreen suddenly flickered into life.
Lydia saw Mike pulling at the window-bars of the room she’d just been in.
‘I’ve got to . . . get out . . . of here,’ Mike puffed as he pulled and pulled.
Lydia turned to the man. He smiled with amusement and pressed another button on his remote control. Mike’s image vanished.
Lydia walked over to the nearest chair by the fireplace and pushed it back towards Daniel. She sat down, never taking her eyes off this man who had to be her brother. What could she say? Where to begin?
‘Are you Daniel Henson?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ the man replied. ‘And what’s your name?’
‘Lydia. Lydia Henson,’ Lydia replied.
‘Ahhh!’ said Daniel.
Why did Lydia get the feeling that he had been expecting that answer?
‘How old are you?’ Daniel asked.
‘Twelve. How old are you?’
‘Forty-seven.’
The memory of Daniel at ten years old popped into Lydia’s head. She could see him sitting at the dinner table, grinning fiendishly as he ate with his mouth wide open. The image faded to be replaced by the man in front of her.
It was impossible to believe and yet here she was, sitting next to her grown-up brother.
‘Daniel . . .’ Lydia said slowly. ‘You’re my brother, Daniel.’
‘Who sent you? The Resistance?’ Daniel’s smile was encouraging.
Lydia frowned at him. ‘No one sent me.’
Daniel studied her face closely.
‘Who operated on your face to make you look like my sister?’
Lydia was shocked. ‘No one.’
‘They did a very good job, whoever it was,’ said Daniel. ‘That’s why I had you brought in here. You look exactly like my sister when she was your age.’
‘I am your sister, Danny. And I need your help to get back to my own time.’ Lydia pulled her chair closer to her brother.
‘I’m still trying to figure out exactly what they thought they’d achieve by changing your face to look like Lydia’s,’ Daniel mused. ‘Did they really think I’d believe that you were my sister? The Resistance must be getting desperate.’
‘Danny, I
am
your sister. I promise. I went to the moors. It was raining and I was hit by a pony and the storm caught me and whirled me around.’ Even to Lydia’s ears, it sounded like she was rambling. ‘Then I woke up to all this. You’ve got to believe me. It’s the truth.’
‘Prove it.’ Daniel smiled.
Lydia didn’t like his smile. Not one little bit. It was the smile of someone who was saying one thing and thinking something very different.
‘How?’ Lydia asked nervously.
‘What was my nickname for you when we were kids?’ Daniel asked.
‘You didn’t have a nickname for me.’ Lydia frowned.
Daniel raised his eyebrows.
‘Unless you mean that you used to call me Lyddy, but that’s not really a nickname.’
Very slowly, Daniel started to clap.
‘I see you’ve done your homework.’ He smiled.
‘What happened to you? Why are you like this? You’re my brother, but not the one I remember.’ Lydia shook her head.
‘And what brother do you remember?’ Daniel scorned.
‘The Danny I knew was the only one to stand up for me when the school sports cup was found in my locker and everyone thought I was a thief,’ Lydia replied. ‘He was special. He wouldn’t have grown up to be you!’
Daniel’s oily smile had vanished now. Instead a deep frown turned down the corners of his mouth and his eyes were narrowed as he studied Lydia. Lydia couldn’t stand it any longer. She leapt out of her chair.
‘Why are you like this?’ Lydia shouted at him. ‘Why are you so horrible?’
‘If you really were my sister you’d know why – and you’d thank me,’ Daniel said coldly.
‘I don’t understand,’ Lydia said. ‘I don’t understand anything in this place. I want to go home. Tell me how to get home. You’re my brother, you should know.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you grew up with me,’ Lydia said bewildered. ‘I don’t think I live here in Tarwich, I mean Hensonville, with you any more because no one knows about me. Fran’s dad said that no one knows what happened to me. So tell me. Where am I? What happened to me? And how did I get home to my own time? You must know.’
‘I’ve had enough of this act. Who are you?’ Daniel’s expression gave Lydia frostbite. She took a hasty step back, banging into her chair.
‘I
am
your sister. Why won’t you believe me? What happened to me?’
‘You really want to know what happened to you?’ Daniel asked, his voice so quiet that Lydia had to strain to hear him.
Her blood ran icy-cold in her body. Something was wrong, very wrong. She could see that from the look on Daniel’s face.
‘Follow me – Lydia Henson!’ Daniel stood up, abruptly.
Without another word he strode across the room and keyed in a password on the console beside the patio windows. The windows slid apart silently. Daniel strode out into the moonlit night. Lydia had to trot to keep up with him, he was walking so fast. She looked up at him. He was so much taller than her. He was her brother – something deep within her told her that – but he’d changed so much.
Daniel opened a gate and walked into a secluded part of the garden surrounded by a tall hedge. A large, light-coloured marble tower dominated the view ahead of them. It sat on a plinth, surrounded by lights which shone up at it. Lydia’s steps faltered. There was something about that tower. Something which made her want to stay put and not get any closer to it. Even with the lights around its base, it still looked overpowering and forbidding – like a malevolent giant just waiting to snatch her up.
Lydia looked up at Daniel, her heart sledge-hammering in her chest.
‘It’s a monument. A memorial. Go and look at it,’ Daniel said silkily.
‘I . . . I don’t want to . . .’
‘Go and read it,’ Daniel ordered. ‘You’re not my sister and this monument proves you’re a liar. Go on! Look!’
Trembling, Lydia turned and moved slowly towards the structure. She bent down close to read the words engraved deeply into the light-coloured marble, illuminated by the surrounding flood-lights.
‘Lydia Angela Henson. Beloved daughter of Ben and Roxanne Henson. Beloved sister of Daniel. Lest we forget . . .’ Lydia’s voice trailed off into a shocked silence.
In that moment, the whole world froze.
‘My sister is dead. She was killed by the people in this town,’ Daniel said quietly. ‘So why don’t you tell me again how you’re my sister?’
Chapter Sixteen
It’s A Lie
Lydia stared up at Daniel. Even her arms wrapped tightly around her couldn’t keep out the winter iciness that crept slowly down her entire body. Every part of her went numb.
She was dead.
She had died . . .
Here she was, watching, listening as her brother told her that she was dead. Lydia couldn’t breathe, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was as if every part of her, even the need for breath had been frozen.
She was dead.
‘NO!’ Lydia’s scream was ripped from deep inside her. ‘I’m here. I’m not dead. I don’t believe it. I
won’t
believe it.’
And all at once, every part of her burst into painful life. She gasped for breath to fill her air-starved lungs, her arm throbbed, her head was pounding – she was alive!
‘I’m sorry to spoil your little game but congratulations on a fine performance.’ Daniel smiled. ‘It’s not your fault that the people who put you up to this didn’t do all their homework properly.’
‘It’s a lie. I can’t be dead,’ Lydia said, appalled. ‘I
am
your sister. My name is Lydia Angela Henson and I’m twelve and this is . . . this is just a nightmare.’
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. ‘The art of playing a good game,’ he said softly, ‘is knowing when the game is over.’
‘My name is Lyd . . .’
‘Enough!’ Daniel shouted at her. ‘My sister was killed in a car crash five days before her thirteenth birthday. My parents were driving us to my aunt’s house in London when it happened. I was there. So why keep on with this farce?’
Five days before her thirteenth birthday. Lydia’s birthday was the eighteenth of December. Lydia swallowed hard. Back in her own time it was only mid-November. Back in her own time she had just over three weeks before she was going to die . . .
Daniel folded his arms across his chest.
‘What’s your real name?’ he asked.
Lydia didn’t answer. She couldn’t. All she could think about was how she only had three weeks in her own time before she was going to die in a car crash . . . That thought burnt through her, hurting more than the bullet that had sliced into her arm. Then she remembered something strange that Daniel had said.
‘If I’m supposed to . . . d-die in a car crash, how come you said I was killed by the people of this town?’ Lydia whispered.
‘The people in this town forced us out. If it hadn’t been for the way they treated all of us and especially Lydia, my mum and dad would never have wanted to escape to London for the Christmas holidays. The people in this town killed my sister just as surely as the lorry that ploughed into us on the motorway did,’ Daniel said, stonily.
Lydia shook her head. ‘But that’s not fair . . .’
‘Fair! Don’t talk to me about fair. I swore after my sister died that I’d make them all pay and I’m keeping my promise. What happened in the past is nothing compared to what I intend to do to the people in this town in the future,’ Daniel said bitterly. ‘All I need to know is who the leaders of the Resistance are. I’ll get that information from you and your friend, Mike. Then I’ll crush them and their rebellion. And I’ll enjoy doing it.’
Lydia stared at him, stricken. All this hatred, all this chaos, was because of
her
. The people in Tarwich had made her so miserable and she had thought she hated them so much, but looking at Daniel made all of Lydia’s remaining hatred flicker and die for ever.