Sea Change (21 page)

"Are we done?"
she had said.

"It's done,"
John replied, and sank wearily down on to the bench. Simon wrapped
a blanket around him, and then another, and by the time they got
back into the harbour John had stopped shivering.

Chapter
Eighteen

The village was
quiet, the mist gone.

The three of
them stood by the harbour wall.

"We'll walk you
home," Sal said.

John looked
down into the water. "Davey's not going to be happy about the state
of the boat," he said. "What are you going to say?"

"Are you
mad
?" Simon said. "We aren't going to say anything. Right
Sal?"

"I—"

"No, no
discussion sis, we can't tell him—what are we going to tell him?
What really happened? You know how Uncle Davey would react to
that."

"Same as you
did to me," John said, grinning.

"I suppose,"
said Sal. "He's never going to think that it was us. Doesn’t feel
right, though. But I suppose we have no choice. Anyway, come on
John, let's get you home."

John shook his
head. "It's all right. You better get back home. If your mum
realises that you've been out, maybe Davey will put two and two
together. Better you get back home. I'll see you in the morning. We
could meet up, go for a walk or something. It's only a couple of
days until I go back now, you know. It's flown past."

"Dragged for
me," Simon said. "Can't wait until you're out of here."

Sal didn't join
in with the joke. "You didn't say where you're going," she said.
"You're not going back to Laura's house yet, are you?"

"No," John
said, and did not say any more.

Simon looked
puzzled. "Where are you going then? It's the middle of the night,
we're done, this madness is all over, I dunno about you but I'm as
tired as anything, you're soaked to the skin—what are you not going
home for? There's nothing else to do."

"There is,"
John said. "One last thing."

"But it's
over," Simon said, "we threw the stone in—what have we just done?
We threw the stone in, that's what we had to do, you said. And
we've done it."

"Him," Sal
said, and John nodded.

"Who?" Simon
said, and then he realised who they meant. "But—I thought he was
gone. When you threw the stone in..."

"No," John
said. "He's lost much of his power in the chase. But he is still
here. Just as he was before."

"We're coming
with you," Simon said.

John smiled.
"Thanks. I know you would, and thanks. But no, not this time. "

"He nearly got
you last time. You can't, it's too dangerous, it's too—Sal, tell
him, he can't, he mustn't."

But Sal didn't.
She just looked at John for a very long time, and then took Simon
by the arm. "Come on Si," she said. "Let's get home. He'll be fine.
Trust him. I think things are different now, and I'll tell you why
on the way home."

"No way, we
can't just—are you sure?"

"I'm going to
be okay,” John said. "It's all going to be okay. But he started
this business with me. And now I'm going to finish it with
him."

Simon stared at
John as if he was meeting him for the first time. Then he shook his
head, turned to walk away but then turned back and stuck his hand
out.

"Good luck," he
said. "Sort the bastard out."

"I will," John
said.

As he walked
away Sal called out, "Will you know where to find him?"

John turned on
the corner of the street and looked back at the two of them
standing there. God, we're just kids, he thought. But we did it. We
did it.

"I don't think
I'll need to. I think he will find me." And then he walked away,
into the darkness of the sleeping village.

The mist had
disappeared, but every now and then John noticed a dampness on the
wall of a house, a puddle that seemed to shift and move in a crack
in the pavement, and although a cool wind was now blowing down off
the land and out to sea, everywhere he could smell a faint tang
that smelt like rotting seaweed.

He walked the
narrow alleys, slipping down passages as the fancy took him,
aimless wandering, never walking down the same street twice, but
otherwise just keeping walking. His mind told him that it was cold,
and that he was tired, but he felt neither, just a strange sense of
detachment and the feeling that something was inside him, under his
skin, slip-sliding about as he walked so that if he ever tried to
direct his attention to it, it skittered away somewhere else. In
the end he stopped trying.

He was
somewhere in the top end of the village, up near the cliff top,
when he was found. He had just walked from a front street of a row
of old fishing cottages, and into the narrow alley behind them. It
was cluttered with dustbins and old plant pots, and led to a dead
end of a whitewashed wall. John turned to walk back, and standing
at the end of the alley was a dark shape.

"Hello," John
said. "You took your time."

There was
silence for a moment, and then a hissing sound that reminded John
of when one of the valves on the radiator at home had started
leaking, spraying a fine mist of hot water all over the wallpaper
that had only been put up a week before. His mother had been
furious and his father, who had 'tightened' all the valves after
the decoration had been done, had been sheepish. I miss them, John
thought suddenly, thinking of the way that the house smelt when he
came home from school, smells of cooking and life. Mum's fussing,
dad's rumpled incompetence around the house. I miss them more than
I ever realised.

Elias hissed
again, and took a step forward into the alleyway. Then he stopped,
and did not move for a second.

John stayed
where he was, and folded his arms, waiting calmly. Eventually Elias
spoke, sounding as if every word caused him great pain.

“A terrible
mistake, boy. Your last. And then after you, the other two. And
their family. And your sister. All of them."

"You don't have
it," John said. "You don't have the power. You've used yourself up,
Elias, trying to stop me. And you failed. You're all used up, dead
man. Face it."

“You
under-estimate me, boy. I still have enough in me to end you, to
end them. Although I might not kill your sister. Just cripple her
perhaps, enough so that she never walks again. Or that girl-child,
maybe just an accident, burns, her face marked ugly for life. That
will satisfy me more than their deaths. But you, you, I will not
let see the sun rise."

"You don't have
the power," John repeated. "You've used too much of it up chasing
us. You're too slow, too late, too weak."

"Much is gone.
But there are still bargains that I have made,” Elias said, and
shook, as if the memory of those bargains was almost too much to
bear. "You cost me dearly, but it will be worth it."

"Sold your soul
for a chance of revenge on me?" John asked.

Again Elias
hissed, but this time it was not anger, it was laughter. "That was
one trade I did not have left to make."

"What sort of
existence can you have? What sort of life...death...whatever? How
can it be worth it?"

"There speaks
one who is young. Who does not know. If you are asked on your death
bed what you might trade for another week, another year, what then
would you answer? And for another century, two, three, what
then?"

“How old
are
you, Elias?”

“Older than
these walls.”

"I wouldn't
choose what you have chosen. Not for all those years.”

"You have not
yet been on your deathbed, staring at death coming for you. Yet.
Although you will shortly have the chance to test your
principles."

"You're
nothing, now, Elias. You're just going to fade away, a shadow, mist
that will be blown away by the wind. Your time is coming to an
end."

"Soon, maybe.
But not as soon as it is for you. I have enough left for that." The
old man raised his arms, and curls of mist rose up from the floor
of the alley way. The curls twisted together and began to slide
towards John. He was trapped, Elias at one end of the alleyway, a
blank wall at the other. There were people sleeping in the houses
around them, but John knew that no matter how loud he shouted, they
would not hear him. He was not part of their world anymore, had not
been since Elias had appeared at the end of the alleyway. He did
not panic though, just stood and watched the mist roil and seethe
as it grew in size, grew darker, grew toward him. As it became
denser he could see shapes begin to form inside it. Then suddenly,
the shapes collapsed into one vague cloud, and that cloud took form
and the mist was gone.

In front of
John stood a boy of around his own age. He was dressed in the
uniform of John's school, but his face was terrible and pale, and
his eyes were black. His uniform dripped with water.

"Hello John,"
he said, and his voice came from an impossibly long way away. "Why
did you leave me? Why didn't you help me? We're the same, you and
me. I’ve been so lost, and so cold, and so lonely. But now I’ve
come to take you with me.”

"No," John
said, in a conversational voice. "You are not Alex."

"I am, John,”
the Alex-thing said. "He's brought me back. Brought me back from
the other side to fetch. It's so cold over there, John, so cold and
so lonely and you left me to go there on my own. I've come to take
you with me, John."

"No. You're not
Alex. You look like Alex, you sound like Alex, but you aren't him.
I'm not frightened any more, Elias. I'm not frightened by your
conjuror's tricks. They bore me. You're an evil man whose time has
passed. Finish with these games."

"John," the
Alex-thing implored. "Please don't leave me again. Don't make the
same mistake twice. You can help me. You can bring me out of that
cold, dark place where I am so, so lonely. Take my hand. Just take
my hand, John.”

The thing that
looked like Alex walked another step down the alley, and held out
its hand. John stood on the spot. He was filled with a fierce joy
at his own courage, a joy coupled with amazement.

"Whatever you
are, go back to where you came from," he said. The dead boy kept on
coming towards him. From the distance, as if it from the end of a
very long tunnel, came Elias's voice, soft, persuasive.

"Take his hand,
John. Go with him. Put your mistake right."

Enough, thought
John, with a flash of annoyance. "Yes," he said. "It
is
time
to put it right." He raised his arms in front of him, held his
hands out, fingers spread wide. I have no idea what I'm doing, he
thought, but somehow I know what to do.

"Stop," he
said, and this time his boy's voice was filled with something more,
something like a terrible wind tearing in from the sea. The word
caught the thing that looked like Alex as it walked, froze it in
mid-stride, and then the boy turned to an insubstantial cloud that
was torn away in shreds, a thousand fading tatters of something
that in seconds became nothing. Then there was just the alley, John
in the middle, Elias at the end, nothing between them except the
knowledge of what had just happened.

John took a
step forward.

"No," Elias
said. "No, I will not have this. You are just a boy, you know
nothing."

"That's true,"
said John, "but I
held
it, Elias. I held the stone. The
Hob's stone. I held it for an hour, more.” He took another step
forward.

"That means
nothing," Elias said, but his voice wavered. "You cannot use its
power. You are just a boy."

John smiled. “I
am. But if I didn't have the gift, you would never have chosen me,
Elias." He stepped again. "You have brought me upon yourself."

"No," Elias
said, but for the first time he took a step backwards.

"Yes," John
said.

"John, John I
can teach you so much. Together we could—" Now Elias's voice was
wheedling, pleading, trying to fill his words with honey but
nothing could hide the fear.

"Elias, you
have already taught me so much. Thank you." Then John raised his
arms again, and simply said, “Let it end now," in a quiet voice.
This time there was no fury in his words, but as soon as he spoke
them the air around them felt like the worst storm in a lifetime
was just about to break.

"No," Elias
said again, but his voice was overtaken by a sound that started as
a whisper, out at sea, and then came howling in across the land, a
sound that built and built until John had to cover his ears. It
increased in pitch and volume until John could feel it through
every bone in his body. Elias stumbled backwards, arms flailing out
around him.

The sound took
shape, vague blurs dancing around Elias, making him throw his hands
around his head as if he were trying to fight off a swarm of bees.
Then the sound dropped in pitch to a deep roar, but increased in
volume. As it did, the blurs circling around Elias dropped back,
fell together, became one, a spinning, twisting thing. Then it
slowed, formed and grew into a shimmer of light that took shape and
became a shape, shifting, like nothing John had ever seen before.
The air smelt of storms, of heather, of the moors, of salt and the
sea.

The Hob took a
step towards Elias.

Elias shrieked,
and the Hob reached out a slow hand, and gently touched it to the
man.

Then it seemed
as if the world blinked, and the figure and the light and the sound
and Elias were all gone, and there was just John, a boy standing on
his own in an alleyway.

I'm tired, he
thought. I'm so, so tired. And he trudged out of the alley, back to
Laura's cottage, through the alleys and streets that were nothing
more than those of a sleeping village at night. Magic was gone from
the world, and it was filled instead with a beautiful and solid
ordinariness that made John grin with joy. The bricks of the houses
were rough, the night air was cold, the stars were sharp and hard,
the paving stones were uneven under his feet and he felt more alive
than he ever had done. The sea change had come, and he had changed
with it.