The Thirteenth (22 page)

Her mother told Mike to put her back down on the sofa. He lowered her slowly and Val started to feel the full force of the blows she had just received. This meant that the injuries he had inflicted upon her in her dream had somehow manifested themselves in the real world.

“Val, tell me where it hurts, honey?” Susan had a chequered tea towel at Val’s face. “I don’t understand what happened. We left you sleeping and the next thing we knew, you’d fallen through the coffee table.” Susan was shaking and Val could tell from her expression that her face must be a mess.

“I was having a bad dream, Mum. I’m sorry about the mess,” Val said, terrified that this thing that was tormenting her had crossed over into the real world.

“Don’t worry, we can clean this up. It’s your face that’s worrying me.” Susan held Val’s chin gently in her hands looking at both sides. “I swear, if you hadn’t been sleeping here just a minute ago I would say you had been in a fight.” Susan placed a kiss on Val’s head and handed her the tea towel. “Let me get you some ice.” Susan stood up, walking around Mike who was removing the broken glass.

“Mike get the car started, we’d better take her to accident and emergency.”

Mike nodded.

“NO!” Val shouted through the pain. The last thing she wanted was to be asked loads of questions. What if they wanted x-rays and she had to get undressed? What if they saw the tattoo? Add the excitement of some unexpected teleporting, and she would be locked up before the clock struck twelve.

“Val, I know you don’t like hospitals, but you have some nasty cuts. They may need stitches.” Susan had her serious look on, and Val knew she was going to have to work hard to convince her.

“I’m not going. Call Uncle Julian, he can sort me out,” Val pleaded. Val’s uncle was a local GP and at least he wouldn’t ask her to get undressed.

Susan sighed, then reluctantly agreed. “OK. I’ll give him a bell, but if he isn’t there you are going to the hospital.”

“OK.” Val crossed her bloody fingers.

Luckily for Val her uncle was there and he came around straight away. Val played her pain down as her uncle inspected her face. He was concerned by Val’s wounds but after her insisting that she felt wonderful, he agreed that she needed nothing more than the few steri-strips he had applied, and time to heal.

Julian patted his sister’s shoulder. “Susan, she will be fine, but be prepared for her to look a hell of a lot worse in the morning.” He smiled at Val and handed Susan some painkillers. “Give her two every couple of hours. She will be sore for a few days.” He gave them both a salute and went into the kitchen to talk to Mike.

“Beer time then.” Val grinned at her mum as best she could.

“Yes.” Susan placed two tablets in Val’s hand and gave her a glass of water. “Take these. Let’s see if there are any updates on the news about the plane crash.” Susan switched on the TV and as Val had expected it was still all over Sky News. But now the breaking news was different.

“They are calling it an act of God. Looking at the wreckage, no one can believe that anyone could have survived. However, I’m here today as a witness to the fact that every man, woman and child has walked off this plane alive. There are some minor cuts and bruises, but everyone is hailing the staff on this flight as angels. There is talk of an explosion inside the economy section of the plane. Nevertheless, the pilot had enough time to land safely and get everyone clear before the right side engine blew up.” The reporter kept turning and pointing at the wreckage that was still smouldering. “In my career, I have never witnessed anything quite like this. If I hadn’t seen those passengers being bussed away I would have said it was impossible.” The young male journalist was clearly shaken by what he had seen.

“Well would you believe it?” Susan just sat shaking her head. “All those people and not one dead! It is an act of God like that man said.” Susan looked towards the ceiling in an awed manner.

“That’s fantastic news.” Val could feel the effects of the tablets starting to overwhelm her. As her eyes closed she felt that maybe, at last, she was on the right path.

“Have a good sleep, honey.” Susan tucked Val under a blanket and stood up to go and see her brother in the kitchen.

“Ow,” Val hissed as she opened her eyes. The pain in her face was excruciating and she dreaded what her reflection might reveal. She could hear her mum humming some strange tune in the kitchen and, as she started to get up, a whoosh of pain hit her head and she had to spend a few minutes gathering her thoughts before she could get to her feet.

“Mum,” she called out weakly. Susan’s radar hearing picked up Val’s whimper quickly enough.

“Hey, morning.” She said rushing into the lounge.

“Mum, what time is it?”

“Oh, you look much better than I thought you would. It must be because you’re young.” Susan smiled at Val.

“Thanks…I think. Now what’s the time? I need to get to work.” Val tapped her wrist.

“You aren’t going to work, honey. I’ve already called that lovely Mr Gallymore. He said to take as long as you needed.” Susan smiled at Val.

“How did you call him?”

“Well, I know where you work, so Yellow Pages and presto, he was on the other end of the phone.” Susan led Val towards the kitchen.

“Was he at the shop?” Val could feel herself getting stressed. She would surely get the sack for this.

“Yes, he said he was here for a few days and that he would call to see how you were doing. He seemed so sweet.” Susan shrugged, unsure why Val was still asking her stupid questions.

“Have something to eat and I’ll run you a bath.” She patted Val on the shoulder, pulling a chair out, and placed a large English breakfast in front of her. Val’s stomach flipped.

“I think I’ll skip the food for now, Mum, thanks. Maybe some juice…” Val winced.

“OK, but you will have to eat at some point.” Susan pulled the plate away, not wanting to upset her.

At that moment the front doorbell rang. Val felt the whining noise go through her whole body like a chain-saw. How long this would last she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t going to hang around to feel sorry for herself. She had a job and she was going to do it.

Susan opened the door and Val heard a chorus of women’s voices. It must be her mum’s gossip group. Val grabbed a glass of juice and some painkillers and made her way discreetly towards the bathroom, praying no one would stop her with questions. She was sure her mother would be filling them in anyway.

As she entered the bathroom, the full horror that was her face stared cruelly back at her from the mirror. “So much for not looking too bad,” Val whispered. She realised her mum had been trying to be kind. Her cheeks were black and swollen with bruises and there was still dry blood on her lips. Val wanted to cry. She had never, in her life, felt so low. Her best friend had abandoned her, she had caused so much pain, and the worst part was the lying. She couldn’t even go to hospital when she was wounded.

Stuffing two tablets in her mouth and taking a painful gulp of juice to wash them down, she started to run the bath water as her tears rolled down her sore cheeks. She needed to sort this out and it couldn’t wait. She needed to get away from all her friends, old and new, until this was over, and go it alone. As she stripped off, she saw the reflection of the tattoo in the mirror, the same way she had just a week ago. Yet this time it was different. There were no longer thirteen symbols; now there were only six. “Well, not much longer to go,” she thought. She had better get sorted before someone called for her from downstairs, or maybe even further away.

Val felt better after getting into fresh clothes and was ready to face the world again. She shoved her sword and all the rest of her gadgets into the various pockets of her jacket. She would give them back to Shane to return to Sam, and then they could get on with their lives.

As she made her way downstairs, she could hear the women in the front room making appropriate noises as Susan told them all about the previous night’s goings on. Val loved her mum, but she had never understood why women spent hours over coffee talking about things that weren’t going to change. She wondered for a moment what would happen if all these people thought about world peace. ‘Maybe not,’ she grinned making her way to the front door, like a mouse escaping a fat, sleeping cat. She opened and closed the door and was free. The air hit her face like a soft kiss. She hadn’t realised how cooped up she had felt. Val checked her watch. “OK, next bus in ten minutes, time to get there.”

As she walked, the mixture of sunshine and fresh air made her feel a lot better. This feeling instantly disappeared as she arrived at the bus stop where a woman holding a baby let out a gasp when she saw Val’s face. She had forgotten how bad she looked. Val pulled up her collar and tried to keep to the shadows until the bus arrived. Then she waited until everyone else had boarded before running for the door.

“Hell!” the bus conductor blurted as Val boarded.

“No, just a return to Arcsdale, please.” Val’s voice was quiet yet stern enough to tell the driver she wasn’t in the mood for staring.

“There you go.” The driver passed Val her ticket without even making eye contact. Val moved down the bus searching for a seat on her own, which she found, pushing herself as close to the window as possible.

As she watched the view, she felt the stares burning her back. Still what did she mind? These people would never live through what she was living through, so who cared what they thought.

Val jumped off the bus with every intention of making her way to Shane’s, but something stopped her. She couldn’t face him just yet; she would go after work. She pulled out her mobile and switched it off. She didn’t feel like answering questions today. It was bad enough that she had missed one morning on only her second week at work; she didn’t want to prolong the pain of getting to work late any longer.

Arriving at the bookshop, she was greeted with an open sign and a nice crowd of people just exiting, waving goodbye to Mr Gallymore as if they actually liked him.

“Morning Mr Gallymore. I’m so sorry to get here late.” Val had her face down; she felt it would be safer not to make eye contact.

“Miss Saunders, you do look lovely this morning. I take it that you feel my customers want to be served by someone who looks like they have been ten rounds with Randy Turpin.” Wallace moved back over to the counter and put down a book he was holding.

“I’m so sorry, but I don’t know who Randy Turpin is.” Val shrugged.

“A boxer. World class, back in the nineteen fifties. Not to worry. You can sell books, Miss Saunders, but you obviously aren’t taking advantage of the facilities to broaden your knowledge,” Wallace finished.

“Oh, I do look at some books,” Val responded. If only he knew how important his books were.

“Well, let’s make a decision before you talk more of my precious existence away. Are you staying to work?” Wallace stared at Val.

“Well, if you don’t think my appearance will offend the customers too much, I would like to, if that’s OK?” Val tried to smile at the end of her sentence, but it must have looked quite odd. She felt like she had been to the dentist and been injected on both sides of her mouth. She wouldn’t be surprised if Wallace pointed out that she was dribbling.

“I employed you so I didn’t have to do this, so you make an educated guess,” Wallace snapped. Before Val could respond, he had grabbed his tweed coat and was heading for the door. “If you feel unwell, close the shop. I have just had another crate of important books from all over Europe delivered. It’s at the back of the shop. Please make sure these books are put out on the shelves
ASAP.
” He turned and was gone.

“Bye. Yes I will be fine, thank you,” Val mumbled under her breath. She turned and looked at the shop. Why had she taken this stupid job anyway? Oh well, no point in moaning. She grabbed a glass of water from the still mangled cooler and headed down the shop to check on the new books.

The bulky and aged looking crate sat by the window only feet away from Val’s first teleporting spot. As she started to open it, Val noticed how old and dirty it seemed considering it had just been delivered. The crate opened with ease and as she started to grab the books and place them onto the trolley, she saw that most were in foreign languages.

Val hadn’t yet got to know the shop well enough to be able to pinpoint a specific sub-section without spending at least an hour looking for it, so she simply grabbed a few books and started looking.

Val moved swiftly up and down the aisles completely engrossed in searching for her language section. Coming to work had definitely been a good idea. At least she wasn’t thinking about the pain from her stupid face. At last she spotted a small brass plaque with the words
Foreign Languages
embossed on it. “Cool,” she exclaimed to herself. Three rows away from the crate on the left hand side. She would get the hang of this eventually, if she didn’t get the sack first.

Val had started to unload her books when, directly in front of her, she spotted an aged brown book spine with the word ‘Theban’ embossed on it in gold lettering. Val grabbed it and pulled it from the shelf. She leafed through it and immediately recognised some of the symbols, which were the same as the ones in the zodiac book. However, this book would be of no real help to her because, to her dismay, the text was gibberish. How was she supposed to read it?

As she started to push it back onto the shelf, a small folded piece of paper fell out. Val slowly and painfully bent down to pick it up. It wasn’t as old as the book, but the edges of the paper were slightly brown and it seemed to have been folded for a long time. Val was careful not to rip it as she opened it out. On the page were the handwritten words: Theban alphabet translation. Underneath were images of the English alphabet and below each letter, a symbol. “Excellent!” Val said gleefully. Then she spotted something that left her cold. The symbol that represented the letter V was the symbol in the centre of Val’s tattoo. As if she was having a flashback, she remembered what the woman had called her during her dream: it was ‘V’. That was her name. Val closed the paper and shoved it into her pocket.