A Walk Through a Window (13 page)
Read A Walk Through a Window Online
Authors: KC Dyer
“Hmm. So my Nan told me. She used to read poetry here when she was a girl.”
Gabe stepped away from the stone. “Truly? It seems an odd place for reading.”
Darby looked around. “I thought so too, but now I’m not so sure. I mean, there is nothing remotely scary about this place. It really is sort of peaceful.” She looked at him. “Kinda like the garden at the back of your house.”
He grinned. “When it is not in the middle of a storm,
perhaps.” He trudged toward Darby through the knee-high grass. “There are a lot of peaceful places around here,” he added. “The Island is very pastoral.”
“Pastoral,” Darby snorted. “Whatever that means. If it means quiet, it sure didn’t feel very pastoral last week.”
“Truly?” Gabe said, his face all innocence. “I did not notice.”
“And where have you been since then, I’d like to know?” Darby demanded. “That was the freakiest experience of my life and you just disappeared. Some friend.”
“I was there when you needed me,” he said in a low voice, and turned on his heel toward the park.
Darby hurried along after him. “I needed you when I came back out through the window,” she said. “I had the worst headache of my life. I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“Ah.” He raised his eyebrows. “I have heard that can happen.”
Darby picked up her skateboard and put her other hand on his arm. “Just what
did
happen back there?”
He shrugged. “You tell me.”
This was infuriating. She opened her mouth to yell at him when she realized she had trailed along behind him all the way to the end of the street. They were standing outside his rusty front gate.
“When you arrived here, you seemed very unhappy. I remember you said this place was awful, not like your home. The people were all old and not interesting. All you wanted was to get away. This is true?”
“Okay, yes, maybe I did say that,” Darby admitted. “But that still doesn’t explain what happened in your backyard.”
“What happened is that perhaps you learned something about the
dull
people who live here. And maybe you even got away for a little while, hmm?”
Darby laughed. “The people in that hallucination, or whatever it was, didn’t live here, you idiot. They lived in the North. There was a
polar bear
, if you recall. Not exactly what I’d call dull.” She suddenly realized that if it was a hallucination or the product of a bumped head, then there was no possible way Gabe could know about the polar bear. And yet he didn’t seem confused by her lunatic ranting in the least.
“Whatever you say.” He paused for a moment. “My question to you is do you have enough interest to learn more?”
Enough interest?
Enough interest?
Gabe had been around for less than fifteen minutes and he was already making Darby nuts. Why wouldn’t he tell her what she needed to know?
“There is no way I am going through that window again,” she said. “You have
got
to be crazy.”
“Perhaps,” he said, smiling like a loon. “Or perhaps I just want to help open your mind a little.”
“Opening your mind a little
is learning how to knit on Friday afternoons,” Darby snapped at him. “Or taking a philosophy class in summer school. I think this qualifies as just a little more serious than that.”
He turned and walked toward the back of the house.
She ran after him. “Where are you going? I just said I wouldn’t go through the window again.”
“I heard you,” he said. “I am just going to inspect it
to see if the storm left any further damage.” He turned to look over his shoulder at her while he was walking. “I wouldn’t want any loose stones to fall onto your head.”
“There was no storm,” Darby yelled, following him in spite of herself. “There was no storm and there was no polar bear and I just had a very bad migraine headache!”
By this time she was yelling so loudly her throat actually hurt, but Gabe just stood by the big oak tree, acting as if everything was normal.
Everything wasn’t normal.
There was no cloud or sign of a storm in the sky, but the air still felt charged somehow. The hair on Darby’s arms stood straight up.
Just as she was about to turn on her heel and run home, Maurice came slinking from beneath the big hedge that separated the yard from the back lane. He was stalking something. A bug, maybe? But somehow, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He looked like a small tiger with his black, orange and white patches, creeping along, totally focused on whatever it was he was chasing. And he was getting closer to the old chapel.
All of a sudden, he launched himself forward like a coiled spring and with a loud yowl he snatched something out of the grass.
It was a rat. A huge grey rat that was half as big as Maurice. It was not dead, but still struggling, whipping its head back and forth, trying to bite Maurice with its giant yellow rat teeth.
Maurice sprang to the stone windowsill, and with a single shake as he jumped, he broke the rat’s neck. Then
he turned his head in that weird way cats have to proudly display his prize to Gabe, and launched himself off the stone windowsill into the old building.
“That was totally disgusting,” Darby said, turning to look at Gabe. “Are there more rats like that around? Because if there are, I am so out of here …”
But Gabe was no longer standing by the tree. Instead, he’d stepped up onto the windowsill himself, as if checking out where the cat had gone with his dead rat prize.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Even though she knew.
He reached up and ran his fingers along the stones of the windowsill. “No loose rocks here,” he said, and held out his hand.
She stared at his hand and felt the air hum.
“I will stay by your side,” he said softly.
She couldn’t help herself. Her stomach clenched—with excitement or fear or … she didn’t know what.
“I have to be back to help Nan with supper,” she said, stepping up beside him. Her mouth had gone totally dry.
“You’ll be back,” he said, and she felt his warm hand around her cold fingers as they stepped through the window together.
T
here may not have been a sign of any storm, but the crazy fog was back. It rolled up over their feet before Darby and Gabriel had even stepped across the windowsill and jumped to the floor below.
By some miracle, Darby made a perfect landing on both feet, into what turned out to be a big puddle of fog-shrouded water. Gabe splashed down beside her and she had one glimpse of his water-spattered grin before the fog swallowed him up.
“Remember,” he began, his voice still right beside her ear, but then he was gone.
“Remember what?” she bellowed into the fog, but the mist swirled and circled and filled her mouth and eyes and ears with a roar that sounded like wind and water and smelled like salt.
At least it wasn’t dark. It wasn’t dark, but it was wet. Wet and cold. A cold Darby recognized. It wrapped around her like a blanket, but without any warmth or
comfort. She took a step forward and felt her feet splash again, and then the floor tipped straight sideways and she flew through the air with a yell.
She found herself jammed into a corner with a pile of loose rope and bits of rusted iron and netting. Light shone in from around a small hole in the wooden wall through which a rope was dangling. It was also through this hole that much of the water appeared to be flowing. The only difference Darby could see between the wide planks of the floor and the wall was that the wall was more splintery. But only a bit. Her feet were flung over her head in a position her gym teacher would probably have said was good for her flexibility. But at the time, it mostly hurt.
She didn’t really have time to endure the pain, though, as the floor tipped again, this time the other way. Darby managed to turn herself right way up, but she still slid along, tangled in nets and feeling every splinter from the rough floorboards on her bare shins. A rope hanging loose from the rafters slapped her in the face and she grabbed it and clung on.
This turned out to be a good kind of accident, because when Darby looked up, she could see the rope hung from some kind of cleat in the low wooden ceiling. It meant she could plant her feet and hold on without slipping too much as the floor pitched from side to side.
Why was the floor pitching, anyway? And why was she alone, dangling from the rope, in some closed-up wooden room that looked nothing like
the little broken-down chapel behind the old blue house? She didn’t have a clue. What she did know was that, once again, Gabe had disappeared.
Darby wasn’t sure how long she spent dangling and pitching, but it was long enough to leave her arms very tired. It was also long enough to figure out a few things, only one of which was really important for the moment.
This was
no
hallucination. She knew pain when she felt it, and her right shin really hurt. And while Darby had her share of crazy dreams in her life, this was not one of them. She clung to the rope and counted the reasons out loud.
“One: Dreams don’t have splinters.” The floor pitched sideways again and water washed up over her shoes.
“Two: Shoes do not get soaked in dreams.” Well, unless you counted that unfortunate time when she was four and mistook her mother’s closet for the bathroom in the middle of the night. But hey, she was a little kid.
The floor seemed to be settling down, so she risked letting go with one hand to give her shoulder a bit of a rest on that side. Luckily, Darby had been riding the subway since she was small, so her shoulders and arms were almost used to his kind of abuse. She had just switched sides when the door flew open with a crash of iron and a splash of more water. Darby jumped and let go of the rope entirely, retreating until she could feel a solid wall at her back.
A man with black eyes that looked ready to pop out of his brilliant red face bodily flung another fairly small man onto the floor right at her feet.
“Ye’ll stay in ’ere until I can bear to lay eyes on you again, ye filthy Mick bastard,” he spat.
The smaller man at Darby’s feet just curled in a ball, and a good thing, too, as he was given several angry kicks by Bulging Eyes.
She flattened herself against the wall and waited for the anger to fall upon her next, but neither man took any notice.
“The next time ye steal from the food stores, ye bloody thievin’ wretch, it’ll be the fishes ‘oo gets fed. Not that there’s much meat on those pestilential bones o’ yers.” With a last kick—one that actually missed—Bulging Eyes stomped out of the room and slammed the door so hard Darby’s ears rang. The sound of an iron bolt closing with a crash immediately followed.
She stood frozen to the spot. If the man at her feet wasn’t dead, he must be close. But just as she bent over to check, he uncurled with a groan. Darby could see he had dirty black hair that might have been curly if it hadn’t been so matted. Over it, he wore a soft, mashed-up hat that slipped off as he rolled onto his back. And she couldn’t take her eyes off a trickle of blood that ran from the corner of his nose along the line of his jaw.
Before she had time to think, he opened his eyes and looked straight at her. “I’m not dead, in case that is your hope,” he said.
The face was plenty dirty, but Darby would have recognized those blue eyes anywhere.
“Gabe!”
“The same,” he said, rolling to one side with a wince.
Darby dropped to the floor. “You’re hurt!”
“The brilliance of you this morning outshines the very sun,” he said, and made it over onto his knees with another groan.
His voice sounded strange, but Darby didn’t really take the time to think about it. She stuffed her hand into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out the tissue that Nan had given her earlier.
“It’s clean, at least,” she said, and reached over to wipe the blood away from his nose. “You look like somebody who lives in a garbage can.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Thank you, but that will not help just now.”
“Don’t be so stubborn, Gabe,” Darby said, and took another swipe at the blood on his face. This time he just sat still, gazing at her patiently. She couldn’t get the blood to budge.
“That’s so odd,” she said slowly, looking from the clean tissue to the fresh, wet blood on his face.
Gabe reached up, grasped her wrist and gently pushed her hand away.
“I think we have a few moments,” he said, and slid over to lean against a wall. “Now that we are out of the open ocean, the captain will be very busy for a while. Too busy to return to a problem thief in his brig for a few moments, if all goes well.”
It was hard to take it all in, and Darby could make sense of only about one word in three. The one that stuck in her head for the moment was “ocean,” but only because she had been hoping she was wrong.
Careful of the splintery floor, she slid herself back against the wall to sit beside Gabe. He took the opportunity to swipe at the blood on his face with one of his filthy sleeves, which only served to smear it. This did not add to his allure.
“Our time together is likely short,” he said in a low voice. “And there are a few things you must know.”
“How did we suddenly go from ‘I’ll stay by your side’ to ‘our time is likely to be short’? And why are you talking with that funny accent, anyway?”
He lifted a hand warningly. “Now, Darby Christopher, I know how much the sound of your own words pleases you, but just try to keep them inside your mouth a moment or two more.”
“But I don’t get any of this,” she said. “I don’t have a clue where to start.”
“I know it to be true,” he said softly. “And you can ask all you like, but there’s only so much time for the answering.”
This made no sense at all, but Darby reluctantly agreed. She’d listen first, and then it would be her turn. But she couldn’t resist a single question.
“This is like the last time, isn’t it? It’s a different place, but the feeling is the same.”
He nodded. “There is much you must know,” he said insistently.
She hugged herself tightly and tucked her fingers under her arms. “It’s the same cold that I remember,” she said. “I’m so cold.”
“I am sorry,” he said. “For it is part of the price paid.”
“Price? What are you talking about?”
He muttered something, but Darby couldn’t hear him over the sound of voices. Voices outside the door, growing louder and angrier by the minute.
“I fear the captain returns,” said Gabe, and he actually did look scared. “I knew our time together might not suffice. Listen carefully, Darby. You are not of this time, but that does not mean you are safe from its reaches. If you are lost here, then lost you will stay. You must …”
The door flew open and a giant stepped inside.
Okay, so maybe he’s not an actual giant
, thought Darby,
but he’s one big guy
. The man was seven or eight inches more than six feet tall, and he looked even larger, slumped over in the low-ceilinged room. Tiny beady eyes that were too close together under a single black eyebrow gave him a Cyclops look. Behind the giant was Captain Bulging Eyes. His eyes were bugging out a little less than they had been earlier, but he had a nasty grin on his face that Darby didn’t like the look of at all.
“ ’Ere ’e is, Alec. The one who’s been stealing your dinner.”
Alec didn’t say a word. He just picked up Gabe by his collar and dangled him effortlessly, toes just above
the plank floor. Gabe squeaked and the captain’s grin broadened. “What shall we do wif’ the nasty little thievin’ boy from the bogs, Alec?”
Alec’s expression didn’t change. “Throw him over, Cap’n?” he said in a strangely nasal voice.
The captain strode across the room until he stood right in front of Darby. “My very thought, Alec. ’Ow clever of you to read my mind.” He paused for a moment, and then sniffed the air. Darby backed up as tightly as she could to the wall.
The captain sneered at Gabe. “Ye smell like a woman, ye thievin’ cur. ’Ave you stolen the scent from one of the poor wretches below, or perhaps just ’er purse?” He turned to the giant. “Shake the little rat, Alec, and see what comes of it.”
Alec did what he was told and poor Gabe was joggled until his teeth rattled together. But nothing fell out of his pockets except a small wooden comb that he had clearly not been using recently.
Alec threw Gabe down on the floor in a heap.
“No purse, then. Yer luck is wif’ ye this time, boy,” said the captain. “But I don’t trust ye as far as I can throw you. I’d put ye down below with the others if ye weren’t one of the few still strong enough to stand. So it’s here ye’ll stay until I decide what to do wif’ ye.”
“I cannot stay strong for long with this rough handling and poor food,” said Gabe as he rolled onto his knees.
The captain jerked his head and Alec slapped Gabe back down to the floor.
Darby gasped out loud. She couldn’t help it. She’d never seen a grown-up hit a kid like that before. It was sickening.
“The food is for the crew, ye wee rat, and you are to get no more than is doled out,” snarled the captain. “I need every one of me crew hale and strong to get out of this place.” He slapped a hand against the open door. “No amount of coin is worth these losses.”
He turned again to the giant. “Pick up that sorry mess, Alec. I’ve sails that need mending. He can work off the price of the food ’e stole.”
Alec hauled Gabe up by one shoulder and headed for the door. Gabe caught his hand around the doorframe for a moment and looked straight back in at Darby.
“If I had no chains on me, I’d wander the ship and try to pick up some news,” he said clearly.
The captain had stopped to wrap the bit of dangling rope Darby had been clinging to around some loose pieces of sacking that were stored above her head. A strange noise rumbled up from his chest. She realized he was laughing.
“Y’ really are a madman,” he said to Gabe. “Talking aloud to y’self are ye now?”
Gabe didn’t take his eyes off Darby. “It is true, sometimes I talk to myself. Is this not something all folk do from time to time?” he said. “I’m only saying, that since I will be on the deck repairing sails for you, Mr. Captain, sir, I will not have the chance to wander
free around to hear and see all that is happening on the ship, much as I would like to.”
“Ah—I knew ye for an idiot the first time I laid eyes on ye,” the captain growled. “Ye picked the wrong vessel to sneak aboard, and ye’ll earn yer passage like the rest.” Alec grabbed Gabriel firmly by one ear. And in case that wasn’t enough, he twisted Gabe’s arm behind his back until he winced, and then frog-marched him to the door.
The door slammed behind them so hard that it bounced open and didn’t latch. Darby sank back down onto the floor and tried to gather her thoughts.
So.
Here she was again. Or more to the point—here she
wasn’t
. She wasn’t at home anymore. She wasn’t in her own time and she wasn’t even sure she was in her right mind.
But.
She also wasn’t scared. Not really. For one thing, there was very little chance that a polar bear would be chasing her anytime soon. Just the thought of it brought a quiet laugh to her lips.
Darby had handled a lot this summer. She’d been yarded out of her regular life, dumped by her parents with a crazy grandfather, and found out that not everything she’d grown to believe was really what it seemed. The polar bear was the clincher, though.
She still didn’t know if that thing had really been chasing her or if it was just a phantom product of one killer of a headache. But if Gabe wanted her to have
an open mind, he could rest assured now—her mind was open. She was desperate to find out more.
It made her feel better that she was not alone. Gabe might not be right at her side, but at least she knew roughly where he could be found: on deck, mending sails under Alec’s watchful eye, no doubt.
He had risked another smack on the head to tell Darby to get out of this strange little room, have a look around and learn something.
So that’s what she did.
