The Mind's Eye (8 page)
Authors: K.C. Finn
Tags: #young adult, #historical, #wwii, #historical romance, #ww2, #ya, #europe, #telepathic, #clean teen publishing, #kc finn
“
Oh Doctor Bickerstaff will be pleased with you,” she
observed.
a fig for how the rotten doctor felt; I was just interested in
keeping him from causing me trouble.
The door of
Ty Gwyn burst open, bringing a flurry of cold, snowy air into the
hall that made me shiver all over. The blast let in three tall,
strapping figures in smart blue uniforms, the tallest of which
slammed the door behind him. Clive’s smiling face was red with the
morning frost as he took off his blue officer’s hat and hung up a
huge overcoat that he had been carrying. It was clear that he and
his sons hadn’t wanted the sight of their uniforms to be obscured
as they made their way here. Mam rushed to Clive with an explosion
of pride and relief, hugging him repeatedly before it was the turn
of her sons to have their bones crushed.
I knew that
Thomas was the blonde one and also the eldest child. He had a
handsome face with a lot of Blodwyn’s features and the same pale
blue eyes that ran through the whole family. The other son, two
years younger at twenty-two, was Ieuan, which I had learned to say
as Yai-yan in the run up to meeting him. He had Idrys’s gingery
look, but with Clive’s long nose and square jaw.
“
You must be Kit,” Ieuan said when Mam had released him. He
shook my hand very gently. “Mam must’ve written a hundred letters
about you and your brother being yur. I feel like I know you
already.”
“
Pleased to meet you Ieuan,” I replied with a
smile.
lot of bustling as Idrys, Ness and Blod each got their hugs whilst
Leighton and I were introduced to the boys. It was a long time
before everyone had spoken to everyone and we were all stood frozen
in the black and white hall by the time they were all settled
again. Clive and the boys were exhausted from their overnight
journey across North Wales in the back of a truck, so Mam packed
them off to bed each with a cup of tea and a biscuit and set about
making a huge welcome home dinner. Idrys tried to put her off since
we’d already be having a huge lunch the next day, but she wouldn’t
be deterred.
I had gotten
used to a full table of food at Ty Gwyn, but now that her boys were
home I finally understood Mam’s tendency to overprovide. Clive,
Thomas and Ieuan ate like they had been starving in the desert for
weeks on end, consuming everything in their immediate vicinity and
then asking for more, which Mam dutifully provided. Leighton seemed
very glad to be at my end of the table where his share was safe
from them, but as he gave me one of his cheeky looks, his eyes fell
to my hands and he frowned.
“
What’s happened to your skin?” he asked in a
whisper.
down, horrified to see a peculiar salmon-coloured rash spreading in
blotches over my left hand. I pulled up the sleeve of my jumper to
find it was travelling there too. It had happened before, now and
then, just small patches, on my leg or on my tummy, but never
anywhere that anyone could see, and certainly not on such a scale.
Doctor Baxendale had told me it was just something some people got.
I shoved my hand under the table, eating with only my fork.
“
It’s fine,” I told Leighton, “Get on with your
dinner.”
fine, it was hideous. And, worse than that, I was starting to feel
very hot in my jumper. Clammy beads of sweat formed under my hair
at the nape of my neck, but if I took off the jumper now then
someone besides Leighton was sure to notice the rash and make a
fuss. It would most likely fade like it had in times gone by, so
the last thing I wanted to do was make a spectacle of myself,
especially with new people at the table. It had taken the last four
months to get used to the first half of the Price family, I didn’t
want to make an odd impression on the rest.
But the heat
grew as dinner went on; I was starting to think it wasn’t just the
jumper. I could feel sweat behind my knees under the table, even my
feet were clammy in my shoes. When I checked under the table, the
blotchy pink rash was also on my legs and in the space of fifteen
minutes at the table it was suddenly on my right hand too. Mam was
so thrilled to have her boys back that she hardly looked at anyone
else, that was until I dropped my fork and it went clattering onto
the plate loudly.
“
Sorry,” I said clumsily, my eyes shifting in and out of focus
as I tried to find her at the busy table, “Excuse me.”
forward for the fork, but when I went to grab it my blotchy hand
didn’t seem to find the right place.
“
What on earth’s wrong with her?” Blod demanded. Her voice
echoed in my head.
suddenly darker. I wanted to ask who had switched off the
lights.
“
Oh my God,” said Mam somewhere very far away, “Somebody phone
the doctor!”
thing I was aware of was the sight of the black beams of the
ceiling in my downstairs bedroom. My eyes flickered open six or
seven times before I could get them to actually stay open, so when
they did I let them focus on the ceiling for a while as I tried to
remember what had happened. I noticed as I lay in the bed that I
wasn’t wearing my splints, so I shifted my weight around to see if
any damage had been done when I presumably collapsed out of my
chair at the dinner table. I was still horribly sweaty all over, my
limbs were weak and though I could move them it was a terrible
strain.
“
Ah, good afternoon,” said a voice I recognised beside
me.
head too quickly, feeling dizzy and sick. Doctor Bickerstaff. He
wasn’t wearing his usual doctor’s attire, just a woolly jumper and
a pair of corduroy trousers. He had a book on his lap and his face
was terribly haggard. He looked as tired as I felt and a thick
layer of blonde stubble covered his jaw.
Good afternoon
, he had said. If I
had collapsed on Christmas Eve, then that could mean only one
thing.
“
I’ve ruined their Christmas,” I said, my voice tiny and weak.
It was too exhausting to be sad; the words came out flat and
dry.
“
No, they’re fine,” Bickerstaff said in his proper tone,
“They’re all downstairs around the wireless waiting for the King’s
Christmas message. You’ve only ruined
my
Christmas, and I daresay you’ll
feel a lot less guilty about that.”
“
Sorry,” I whispered. He was right, but I did feel a little
bad for him in spite of everything.
“
Don’t worry, it wasn’t much of one to ruin.”
invitation to press the topic any further, but of course I knew
that he lived alone without him having to tell me. Bickerstaff put
the back of his hand across my forehead and I could feel my damp
skin sticking to him.
“
Do you feel hot or cold right now?” he asked.
“
Cold,” I replied, “What’s happened to me?”
“
Fevers and rashes are not uncommon symptoms for people with
your condition,” he replied clinically. There was no trace of
empathy in his face whatsoever.
“
I used to get fevers when I first got sick,” I replied. He
just nodded. I didn’t feel feverish now, just sticky and
horrid.
the bedroom opened and Ness Fach ambled in wearing what looked like
a new dress. Doctor Bickerstaff turned in his chair to see her. She
watched him carefully for a moment, sucking on the hand of her
Dolly.
“
Hello little one,” he said in what he must have thought was a
warmer tone. It didn’t sound much different to his usual
one.
without a word. Bickerstaff’s mouth twitched awkwardly a little,
and he was about to speak to me again when yet another visitor
appeared in the wide doorway.
“
Oh she’s awake then,” Blod said, her look was not relieved in
the least, “Mam sent me to see if you wanted another
cuppa.”
Bickerstaff stood up and brushed off his jumper, forgetting the
book on his lap which dropped to the floor with a thud. His mouth
twitched again as he looked at Blod.
“
No, no,” he stammered. Was he nervous of something? “I
daresay Kit’ll be up and about by this evening. Her fever’s broken,
so I’ll be going once I’ve spoken to your mother.”
with the kind of contempt she usually reserved for me, which was a
nice change, I’ll admit.
“
All right then,” she said, quickly turning on her perfect
heels to sweep away.
looked at the space where she’d been standing for a moment before
he turned back to me. I knew I was giving him what must have been a
rather rude, quizzical look, but he chose not to challenge it.
“
I’m curious as to what brought this fever on, Kit,” he said,
his face falling back into its relaxed emotionless template, “Your
physical progress isn’t good enough to suggest overexertion. Have
you strained yourself in any other way?”
“
Peeling a potato is a strain in my world, doctor,” I
answered, “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“
Well what about mental strain?” he pressed, a glimmer of
annoyance hanging on his lip. He wanted to sneer, I was sure of it,
but for some reason he was holding it back. “Have you been reading
a lot or doing something else that uses your
concentration?”
“
I have been reading a lot,” I lied quickly, “There’s not much
else to do here.” Of course I knew the real answer to his
question.
“
Well that could be bringing it on,” he explained, “A relaxed
mind does wonders for one’s health, see that you remember
that.”
it meant stopping him from invading Ty Gwyn ever again. I watched
him pick up his things and go, already formulating a new way to
balance my mental training and keep my brain strain-free the rest
of the time. The fever had been awful, but now that it was over
there was a lesson to be learned and more practice to be done. But
first, I remembered, there were a few hours left of my first Welsh
Christmas to enjoy.
***
The New Year
brought plenty of nasty shocks with it, including the introduction
of rationing, which sat about as well with Mam as the idea of birth
control did with the Pope. Mam said that she was terribly grateful
that Clive and the boys had been home at the right time before the
government had taken control of how much food each household could
have, but she couldn’t imagine what she would feed them the next
time they came for a visit. I felt sad that I had only spent a few
hours with them before their scheduled return on Boxing Day, but
she assured me they would come again when they could. Leighton was
hit almost as hard as Mam by the news that he could no longer have
a snack at every hour of the day and night.
“
But this is farm isn’t it?” he protested, “What you grow and
make here should belong to you, not the Prime Minister!”
the question until Leighton understood the problem of feeding all
the soldiers defending us whilst also compensating for the supply
chains that had been cut off from some parts of Europe. “This is
how we do our part for the war!” he explained proudly, and Leighton
seemed happy with that, even if his stomach disagreed.
In the time
it took for winter to change into spring I had once again honed my
mind-hopping skills to overcome the new obstacles in my path. By
staying away from Mum and the painful connection to London I had
reduced my raging fevers to nothing but mild sweats, which kept
Doctor Bickerstaff away from the house right up until the start of
April, when he turned up out of the blue and spent a very long time
talking to Mam in the kitchen. I resisted the urge to step into his
head and listen to what he was telling her, and I was sincerely
glad I had when Mam told me later that I wasn’t making enough
physical progress and the doctor asked ‘could I please try a bit
harder when I had the time’. I was certain Doctor Bickerstaff
hadn’t been that kind in the phrasing of his request.
I could have
been annoyed, but the doctor didn’t matter to me that day; I had
bigger fish to fry. Leighton was at school and the family were
going out shopping for a new dress for Blodwyn’s birthday. The
house was mine for three solid hours uninterrupted. And I was going
to try to reach the German soldier at last.
I had been very nervous of trying to reach Germany in my head
in case it brought on a fever, but April the
9
th
had a feeling about it, like the time was right. I felt
unusually healthy as I settled myself in the sitting room, pushing
the door shut behind me. I could wheel myself much better than what
I had shown the doctor, or anyone else, so I put my chair in the
centre of the room and turned away from the bright afternoon light
in the windows to prepare for the usual routine.
