My skin isn’t on fire . . . my skin isn’t on fire . . . she told herself. It didn’t work.
‘Come on, Lydia,’ Fran beckoned.
Lydia crawled out of the tunnel after Fran. She looked around. They were totally alone.
Then she saw it.
Rolling towards them from the horizon was a massive swirl of burning pink and flame-yellow and fiery-red – the same as before, when Lydia had run away from home to walk on the moors. It wasn’t just some clouds that were heading their way. It was as if the whole sky was rushing towards them. Lydia stared up at the racing colours and her stomach dipped and dived within her. It was still the most frightening and yet the most beautiful thing Lydia had ever seen. Why did she feel so drawn to it and yet so repelled by it at the same time?
‘What is that?’ Lydia pointed.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’ Fran shook her head.
With great difficulty, Lydia forced herself to look away.
‘What do we do now, Fran?’
Fran didn’t hear her. She was still staring at the swirling sky colours.
‘Fran?’ Lydia shook Fran’s arm. ‘What do we do now?’
It took a few moments for Fran to come out of her reverie.
‘Sorry,’ she breathed. ‘I’d better phone Dad and tell him where I am.’
Fran took out her smartphone and touched the bottom of the screen before saying, ‘Phone Dad’. Lydia moved closer to see what she was doing.
‘What’s that?’
‘A phone,’ said Fran.
‘Why didn’t you use it when we were in the tunnels? Wouldn’t that have been safer?’ Lydia asked.
‘Phones don’t work down in the tunnels.’ Fran frowned. ‘You really don’t know anything, do you?’
‘I’m from the past – remember,’ said Lydia.
And Lydia remembered that it was the year she was supposed to die . . . She’d never see her next birthday . . .
‘So is Daniel Henson your brother?’ Fran asked carefully.
Lydia nodded.
‘Did he believe you?’
‘No. According to Daniel, I died . . . his sister died,’ Lydia said miserably. ‘I tried to tell him about my accident on the moors but he wouldn’t listen. He thinks I’m part of the Resistance and you’ve operated on my face to make me look like his dead sister.’
‘You died?’ Fran said, horrified. ‘Oh Lydia . . . I don’t know what to say.’
‘Well, it hasn’t happened yet. Meanwhile, I’ve got to make Daniel stop what he’s doing. He hates this whole town and everyone in it because of me,’ said Lydia. ‘Because of me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Lydia chewed nervously on her bottom lip.
‘I . . . I didn’t tell you the whole story before,’ Lydia admitted. ‘The reason I was on the moors in the first place was because . . . because I ran away from home.’
‘Why?’
Lydia looked towards the swirling colours which were getting ever closer. She had to fight hard against the urge to run towards them. They were almost like invisible hands, pulling at her. She looked away.
‘Everyone at my school thinks I’m a thief. The whole town thinks I’m a thief, but I’m not. The Collivale School sports cup went missing and it was found in my locker,’ Lydia said quietly. ‘Everyone turned against me – even my best friend, Frankie. I got surrounded in the playground and called a thief. They wouldn’t stop picking on me. Then Frankie had her accident and I got blamed for that too.’
‘The Collivale sports cup . . . ?’ Fran stared at Lydia.
‘Yeah! Isn’t that stupid?’ Lydia smiled bitterly. ‘It seems so far away, so tiny. All this started because of a school sports cup.’
Lydia closed her eyes and tilted her head back until she could trust herself to speak again. ‘Frankie slipped on some ice. It was an accident but . . . but I can’t help wondering . . . If I’d just been a bit faster, maybe I could have caught her and stopped her from falling. Or maybe if I hadn’t slapped her hand away from me in the first place then she wouldn’t have fallen . . .’
‘Oh my God! That was you?’ Fran stared at Lydia, profoundly shocked. ‘Lydia, Mum didn’t blame you at all. She always said it was her own fault. She slipped and you tried to grab her but you couldn’t – that’s what she told everyone.’
Lydia shrugged and looked away. ‘Frankie was too late. I ran away because a reporter came to our house. And we started getting phone calls and Mum and Dad got paint thrown over their car.’ Lydia shivered at the memory. ‘Daniel told me that Mum and Dad were driving us to my aunt’s house in London to get away from all the unpleasantness. That’s when the motorway accident happened . . . happens. That’s when I’m killed.’
‘Lydia, I think . . .’ Fran chewed on her bottom lip nervously. ‘Hang on a second.’
Fran moved a few steps away from Lydia, then keyed some numbers into her phone. Within moments Mrs Joyce’s face appeared, covering the whole device.
‘Mrs Joyce, you’re back! I was worried that the Night Guards might have decided to keep you for longer than one night,’ said Fran.
‘They’ve never got anything out of me and they never will,’ Mrs Joyce snorted. ‘It’s just my weekly dose of harassment – courtesy of the Tyrant.’
‘Lyd . . . My friend and I are on the moors,’ Fran explained quickly. ‘We need to see you. It’s really important.’
‘Where’s Mike?’ Mrs Joyce frowned.
Fran gave Lydia a worried look.
‘I’m sorry Mrs Joyce, but the Tyrant has him in his mansion,’ Fran replied.
‘My God! What happened?’
‘Mike took us to the Tyrant’s mansion but they were waiting for us,’ Fran explained.
‘He did what?’ Mrs Joyce exploded. ‘Mike wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t be that stupid. Why did he do it?’
‘It’s a bit difficult to explain . . .’
‘No, never mind. Not over the phone,’ Mrs Joyce interrupted harshly. ‘Mike . . .’
Lydia moved closer to Fran to see the phone’s screen, but Mrs Joyce had her head bent, as if she didn’t want anyone to see the pain she was going through. Fran pushed Lydia away as Mrs Joyce straightened up. Lydia frowned at her, wondering what was going on.
‘Is he all right?’ Mrs Joyce’s face was now a mask. She could have been asking about the weather.
‘When I last saw him he was,’ Fran said.
‘Mike won’t tell the Tyrant anything . . .’ Mrs Joyce seemed to be speaking more to herself than to Fran. She added with a bitter laugh, ‘Daniel Henson really hates us, doesn’t he?’
Lydia frowned at Fran. Although she couldn’t see Mrs Joyce’s face, she could still hear what was being said and instinctively she knew that Mrs Joyce wasn’t talking about Daniel hating the whole town. She was talking about Daniel hating her and Mike specifically – Lydia was sure of it.
‘Mrs Joyce, can we come to your house? Is it safe yet?’ Fran asked again.
‘No. You can’t come here. The whole town is crawling with Guards and at least half of them are surrounding my house. I’ll have to come to you. But don’t worry, I’ll get past them,’ said Mrs Joyce.
‘OK. We’ll meet you in sector 4-M in twenty minutes,’ said Fran.
She pressed a button and hung up. Lydia turned towards the colours which lit up the dawn sky. White lightning flashed from the clouds, but there was no thunder and no rain.
Maybe it’s an electrical storm? Lydia wondered. Whatever it was, it was still approaching.
‘We’d better get going. We’re meeting Mrs Joyce just outside the town so we’ll have to be careful. And you’ll have to change your clothes as soon as possible. The Guards will be looking for you and they know what you’re wearing,’ Fran said.
‘Shouldn’t we warn Mrs Joyce that my brother knows about the tunnels?’ asked Lydia.
‘The Night Guards never enter the tunnels. They’d be far too easy to pick of
f,’ said Fran. ‘They’ll use the tracker mobiles and Mrs Joyce can handle them.’
‘Even so, shouldn’t we tell Mrs Joyce . . . ?’
‘It isn’t safe. We can’t say too much. We can’t risk the Guards tapping into our transmission and tracking us down,’ said Fran. ‘Besides, that’s not the reason I want us to meet up with Mrs Joyce.’
Lydia waited for Fran to continue. Worry and indecision flitted over Fran’s face. She kicked at the ground beneath her feet. All of a sudden she couldn’t look at Lydia.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Lydia, do you really want to help us?’ Fran asked at last.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Even though Daniel is your brother?’
‘What he’s doing is wrong,’ said Lydia without hesitation. ‘I just want him to stop.’
‘And what about returning to your own time?’ said Fran.
‘I don’t know,’ Lydia whispered. ‘I’m afraid to go back if it means I’m going to die but . . . but I don’t belong here either. I don’t know what to do or how to do it.’
‘Lydia, I know about the Collivale sports cup . . .’
‘You do?’
Fran nodded. ‘My mum told me before she died. She told me about it going missing and someone in her class being blamed for taking it, even though they hadn’t. She never told me that person’s name though. I didn’t realize that it was Lydia Henson, the Tyrant’s sister . . .’
Lydia frowned and waited for Fran to continue.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Fran said urgently. ‘I never realized that the person accused of taking the cup and Daniel’s sister were one and the same person. That explains so much. Very few grown-ups know about this and those who do never talk about it.’
‘I still don’t understand.’ Lydia shook her head.
Fran sighed. ‘My middle name is Lydia, you know. My mum named me after you.’
‘Did she? Did she really?’ Lydia beamed like a Cheshire cat.
‘Lydia, Mrs Joyce can tell you the truth about how the cup got into your locker . . .’
‘How would she know anything about it?’ Lydia asked.
‘I think she should explain that, not me,’ Fran replied.
Lydia huffed with exasperation. Fran was being so mysterious. It was driving her crazy! But it was obvious that something was troubling Fran deeply. Lydia put her arm around Fran’s shoulders and smiled. Fran looked at her but didn’t smile back.
‘We’d better get going,’ Fran said unhappily.
Lydia took one last look at the colours and lights flashing behind them, before she purposely turned her back and walked beside Fran across the moors.
They made their way in silence to sector 4-M which was about a mile away from where Lydia had first seen Fran. After a quick look around, Fran said, ‘We’ll be safer sitting down.’
Lydia sat down, still looking around. The moors held very little cover and rolled towards the horizon in all directions. Lydia imagined the Night Guards jumping out at them at any second but she knew that wasn’t possible. There was no way the Night Guards could sneak up on them from any direction without one of them seeing the Guards first.
‘Look over there.’ Fran pointed.
Lydia did as directed. In the distance she could see two figures gliding along.
‘The Night Guards patrol the moors each morning and evening,’ explained Fran. ‘They stand on their patrol boards and chat while they travel right round the perimeter of the moors. It’s a five-hour journey but they don’t have to take a step! That’s what they call “patrolling”! Lucky for us that they’re so lazy.’
Lydia watched them for a moment. The Guards were moving about on what looked like hovering skateboards. The boards made no sound, at least none that she could hear at this distance – and travelled about forty centimetres off the ground. It was so weird watching the Guards glide along silently.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Fran.
Lydia shrugged, then nodded. ‘A bit tired, but I’ll survive!’ She turned to Fran. ‘Now are you going to tell me what’s the matter?’
Fran shook her head. She dug a hand into the earth beside her and let it trickle through her fingers.
‘Lydia, my mum . . . my mum was always on your side. She knew you didn’t take the sports cup. Mum always reckoned that Anne Turner did it, although she never managed to find any proof. She was working on Anne to try and prove it when you were killed,’ said Fran.
‘She was? She never told me that,’ Lydia said.
‘Mum said she tried, but you wouldn’t listen. She told me that she tried to talk to you one time in a supermarket. And another time at school, just before the end of term.’
‘I know about the supermarket. That happened . . . yesterday? The day before? Or thirty-seven years ago, depending on how you look at it!’ Lydia realized ruefully. ‘Frankie wanted to talk to me but I was too angry to listen. That’s when she had her accident.’
‘I wish you had listened to her,’ Fran sighed.
‘So do I,’ Lydia agreed. ‘I will do when I get back to my own time – if I get back . . .’
‘Oh yeah! Not everything has happened yet,’ Fran remembered. ‘This is so peculiar.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Lydia said drily. ‘You keep talking about things in the past tense, things that haven’t even happened to me yet.’
‘You two should pay more attention to who’s sneaking up behind you!’ Mrs Joyce’s angry voice made Lydia jump. She and Fran sprang to their feet immediately.
‘You scared us,’ Fran breathed.
‘Good! Then maybe next time, you’ll chat and keep a look out at the same time,’ said Mrs Joyce, grabbing Fran by her arms and shaking her. Lydia tried to pull Fran away from Mrs Joyce’s angry grasp. ‘Is that how my son got caught? Is it? By chatting to you and not paying attention?’
‘We were ambushed. As soon as Mike and I set foot out of the tunnel, the Tyr . . . Daniel’s Night Guards were there waiting for us.’ Lydia lowered her gaze when Mrs Joyce turned to look at her and kicked moodily at the dirt beneath her feet. ‘It was a trap. They knew about the tunnels.’
Now that Lydia knew the Tyrant and her brother were definitely one and the same, she couldn’t bear to call him by that name.
‘Is that why you two dragged me all the way out here? To explain about my son?’ Mrs Joyce’s ice-cold voice chilled Lydia. ‘What were you two doing there in the first place?’
‘I asked for Mike’s help. I wanted to see Daniel Henson,’ Lydia admitted.
‘And my fool of a son took you through the tunnels.’ Mrs Joyce gave a bitter laugh.
Lydia looked up. Mrs Joyce gasped with shocked amazement. Lydia stared. Mrs Joyce looked just like . . . But it couldn’t be . . . It just couldn’t be.
‘Mrs Joyce, this is why I asked you to come,’ Fran said. ‘Lydia’s full name is Lydia Henson. Lydia Angela Henson.’
Mrs Joyce’s head whipped around. She stared at Fran, then turned back to Lydia, her eyes growing wider and wider.
‘You can’t be. I don’t believe it. Lydia’s dead,’ Mrs Joyce whispered.
‘No, she isn’t. She was caught in a storm and pitched into the future – to our time,’ said Fran.
Mrs Joyce came closer until her face was only centimetres away from Lydia’s. A mixture of disbelief and suspicion and wonder played across her face.
Lydia backed away, her heart slamming against her ribs. This was a grown woman. Mike’s mum. A stranger. It couldn’t be . . .
‘Lydia, Mrs Joyce’s name before she got married was Turner,’ said Fran quietly. ‘Her name is Anne. Anne Turner. She’s the one who put the cup in your locker.’
Chapter Eighteen
Traitor!
‘You mean . . . you mean you’re Anne Turner?’
Lydia couldn’t believe it. The person who had put the school sports cup in her locker. The one who had started all this. Anne . . .
‘Lydia, what’re you thinking?’
Fran asked, uncertainly.
‘This is some new trick of the Tyrant’s. Fran, he’s brainwashed you,’ Mrs Joyce interrupted with conviction.
‘Look at her, Mrs Joyce.’ Fran pointed to Lydia. ‘Just look at her.’
And all the time, Lydia studied the grown-up before her. The hair was cropped shorter, the face was slightly puffier, the lips a lot harder, the eyes a lot colder – but it was her.
‘Anne Turner . . .’
And Mrs Anne Joyce was doing her fair share of scrutinizing as well. She shook her head slowly, then stopped.
‘It really is you, isn’t it?’ Mrs Joyce said, stunned. ‘I don’t know how or why, but it really is you.’
The air crackled with the tension between them. Lydia clenched her fists and forced her hands to remain by her sides. Her whole body remained stiff, as she fought to stop herself from flying at Anne.
‘Why did you do it? Why did you put the cup in my locker?’ asked Lydia, her face hard-set like ice.
Mrs Joyce laughed with self-derision. ‘Would you believe because I was jealous. Fran’s mum, Frankie, had always been my best friend – and then you arrived.’
So Bharti had been right . . .
‘And how did you get the cup in my locker?’ Lydia asked frostily.
She didn’t see the grown-up woman standing in front of her. She saw Anne Turner, a spiteful twelve-year-old girl who had played a joke that had made her life a misery. Anne, who’d delighted in telling everyone that Lydia had deliberately caused Frankie’s accident. Anne, whose ‘jokes’ were ultimately going to cost Lydia her life . . .
‘I remember I left school, then doubled back and hid in the toilets. I knew you wouldn’t take the cup.’ Mrs Joyce closed her eyes as she spoke. ‘I was so pleased with myself. No one else realized that the lockers had backplates that were only held on with four screws. It was easy. I kept the cup in my locker until the next morning. After you’d arrived at school the following day, I just unscrewed the backplate with my screwdriver and put the cup in your locker. Then I left a message under the headmaster’s door saying that if he wanted to find the school’s sports cup, he should check all the lockers in the girls’ cloakroom.’