‘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 momen
t, 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.
If that’s what hatred did for you then she wanted no part of it. Everyone in Tarwich – or Hensonville as it was now known – was so unhappy and, for all his talk, Daniel was no happier. He was a bully and a tyrant. And worse still he was doing it for her. But Lydia didn’t want this. Maybe once, but not now.
Lydia desperately tried to think of something to say that would convince her brother to stop, but before she could say a word, pain flared through her arm, up past her shoulder and down to her fingertips. She winced and laid her right hand over her wound. She could feel her shirt sticking to her skin. Her wound was bleeding again. When that Night Guard had grabbed her arm, he must have damaged some of the staples. Lydia pushed up her sleeve and looked. She was right. Blood was seeping down her arm.
Lydia looked up at Daniel. He was watching her suspiciously.
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing as he glimpsed the wound.
Before Lydia could reply, an insistent bleeping noise interrupted her. Daniel dug into his trouser pocket, took out his mobile phone and touched its screen.
‘Bring her to me,’ a woman’s voice ordered.
‘Why?’ Daniel asked.
Lydia took a step closer and craned her neck to see who Daniel was talking to. Although she could see the screen, she couldn’t make out who was on it. Daniel frowned at her and turned his back on her to continue his conversation.
Lydia took a quick look around. Coming here had been a really bad idea. Now was her chance. She had to get back to the others to warn them that Daniel knew about their tunnel. She had to stop them from using it.
Lydia took off towards the woods in the opposite direction to Daniel, her heart racing faster than her legs.
‘Hold your fire! Don’t shoot! Get her!’
Lydia looked around, not slowing her pace for a second. Night Guards were racing after her from all sides. Lydia wondered frantically why Daniel had stopped his guards from shooting at her again. Was he beginning to believe that she really was his sister? Should she have stayed and tried to convince him that she was telling the truth? By running, would he think that he was right to doubt her?
Lydia reached the woods and ducking down low, she darted around tall trees which loomed over her like giants and low bushes which whipped at her legs. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let the guards catch her. Not until she had warned Fran and Mike’s mum and the others in the Resistance.
Suddenly, Lydia couldn’t see a thing. The moon disappeared behind a cloud and the stars were just tiny pinpricks of light above her.
Lydia stopped running immediately. She didn’t want to run into a tree – or worse still a Night Guard! But what should she do?
Up ahead, through the trees she could see a faint pink shimmer, lightening the sky towards the horizon. She rubbed the back of her neck where it had begun to prickle.
Dawn must be coming up, Lydia thought. She hadn’t realized that she’d been unconscious for so long after she’d been shot.
‘Get those lights on. NOW!’
Lydia heard Daniel’s angry voice in the distance. Almost instantly searchlights lit up the night. Lydia didn’t hesitate. She raced towards the pale pink shimmering light. It didn’t matter that with each step towards it her skin prickled more. Somehow she knew she had to get there.
‘Lydia, quick! Down here!’
Lydia looked around. She could hear Fran’s voice but she couldn’t see her anywhere.
‘Down here!’
A flash of light emerged from the gnarled surface roots of an old oak tree up ahead. Lydia raced for the tree. She threw herself down on the ground and crawled frantically into the small hole beneath the trunk. Even now she could hear the heavy, running footsteps of the Night Guards just behind her. Lydia tumbled past Fran down a couple of dirt steps. The burgeoning dawn light in the tunnel disappeared as Fran immediately blocked the entrance.
Shakily, Lydia stood up.
‘Am I glad to see you!’ Lydia breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I thought you’d left. Mike told you to get going.’
‘Just as well I didn’t get very far, isn’t it?’
‘Daniel and his Guards know about the tunnel.’
‘Yes, I know. I heard them firing at you and Mike,’ Fran said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘We’ve got to get a message to the . . .’
/> ‘Shush!’ Fran shook her head quickly and pointed above them.
Lydia got the message. The Night Guards were too close to risk talking. For all Lydia knew, they could be standing just by the oak tree, still looking for her. Fran took the lead and once again, Lydia found herself trekking through the tunnels beneath Hensonville.
‘D’you remember Mike’s instructions?’ Lydia whispered.
‘I think so. I hope so.’ Fran’s voice sounded worried.
‘What d’you mean . . . ? Never mind.’ Lydia decided not to ask.
Getting back to her own time was becoming more remote by the second.
Chapter Seventeen
Mrs Joyce
With each step, Lydia had to rub her neck harder and harder. Only now it wasn’t just her neck that was prickling. It was as if each drop of blood in her body had turned into a tiny red-hot needle that was trying to pierce its way through her skin. She gritted her teeth and scratched the back of her legs and the front of her arms. It didn’t help.
‘Where are we?’ Lydia risked speaking after at least thirty minutes of silence.
‘Under the moors,’ Fran whispered. ‘It should be safe to come out here.’
‘Why the moors?’ Lydia asked. ‘Why can’t we just go back to your house?’
‘The Tyrant knows that Mike and I are friends, so he’ll send his Night Guards straight there, looking for you – and me,’ Fran replied. ‘And if we’re found in anyone else’s house it will be instant termination – for both of us and for the family that hides us.’
‘I don’t believe it . . .’
‘It’s happened before,’ Fran insisted.
What could Lydia say? There was nothing to say.
‘We’ll have to lie low for a while,’ Fran continued.
‘On the moors?’ Hiding on such a wide open space seemed like suicide.
‘It’s the best place – believe me.’ Fran smiled.
‘I suppose you know what you’re doing,’ Lydia said doubtfully.
They turned left and began to walk up a dirt slope. Fran pushed at some bracken and moss above her head at the top of the slope. Lydia closed her eyes and clenched her fists.