The Key to the Indian

“How do you know?”

“I just—” He stopped suddenly. He was beginning to feel creepy about this. He did ‘just know’, he was certain. But how?

His father took a deep breath, and went on. “Okay. Anyway, when she was trying to write the last of the Account, she became too ill and weak, and had to call in her son Frederick to finish it. This last page of her writing…” He pointed to faded, scrawly words that you could hardly make out. “… indicate to me that she was not only very ill by the time she came to write it, but that she was writing about a time when she was almost crazy. She felt Matthew had died because of her, that Lottie had been falsely accused, that more terrible things were going to happen because of what she’d done.

“Now, Omri, if you’ve got a bit of her ‘gift’, use it. Imagine her as she was – is – at this moment. Ten days after the theft of the earrings. Three days after she found out about Matthew’s death.”

Omri didn’t have to imagine very hard. He’d been through this already, when he had read this part of the Account. He had almost seemed to be suffering with Jessica Charlotte in this awful crisis in her life. He had felt her guilt, her horror, her remorse. He didn’t want to experience that again, or even a shadow of it. It was a terrible thought that, down through the layers of time, she might still be going through that; that if they brought her, they would have to see her going through it.

“She’s right in the middle of it, Dad. Her – her – awful time.” A new, appalling throught struck him. He took the notebook away from his father and peered closely at the semi-legible words. “Alone… wandering… despair… river… coward… never…” He suddenly and shockingly understood the meaning behind the word ‘river’ and the word that followed it.

“Dad! She – she tried to drown herself!”

“What!”

“I’m sure of it! Why didn’t I notice before? I was so disappointed that the Account had stopped, thinking I’d never learn the secret of the magic now, I didn’t read into it like I did the rest. ‘Alone – wandering – river – coward’. Don’t you see? She was in such a state she wanted to throw herself into the Thames, and maybe she couldn’t because she was too afraid. Or maybe she was too much of a coward to go on living… And that’s what’s going on right now, back in her time! Oh, Dad!” he exclaimed, forgetting to be quiet, staring at his father across the notebook. “We’re not going to bring her now are we?”

“If we want her to make us a key, to go back and help Little Bull,” said his father slowly, “we’ll have to.”

4“River… Coward… Never.” (#ulink_5df3848a-5c7e-58e4-a8b1-a4ff3c383e57)

It was a school day. Omri whispered to his father as the house woke up that he might pretend to be ill so he could stay home and they could talk more. But his dad said no way.

So there was a normal breakfast and Gillon and Omri set off for school on their bikes. Adiel was having a long weekend exeat from his boarding school. Omri envied him. But no, that was absurd. If he, Omri, were incarcerated in a boarding school, there’d be no question of any adventure.

Actually it turned out that having to be in school was a good thing. It gave his mind a sort of rest. When school was finished, and he went back to thinking about it on the bike ride home, he came to it fresh, and at once an interesting thought occurred to him.

Bringing Jessica Charlotte might be a kind of relief to her. She’d enjoyed being with him and Patrick, it had lifted her out of her sorrow about Lottie. Perhaps it would be like that again. However terrible she was feeling, she might feel a little less terrible if she were taken out of her own life and into theirs.

No one was at home when he and Gillon arrived. The door of the cottage was never locked (what a difference from London!), so they let themselves in and made peanut butter sandwiches and milk (their mother had banned fizzy drinks from the house since she went on her health kick). Gillon drifted TV-wards and Omri, seeing him putting down roots at the other end of the house, felt safe in shooting upstairs and fastening the brand-new bolt on the inside of his bedroom door.

He looked at the cupboard.

The mirror in its door reflected his own face back to him. You’d never think it was anything special. Just a little white-painted metal bathroom cabinet, the sort you put medicines and tooth things in. It looked a little smarter since he’d repaired and repainted it, but it was old and essentially commonplace. No one would guess! No one who didn’t know, would ever guess!

He lifted it on to the floor and opened it. The key was inside. So were the figures of Little Bull, Twin Stars and her baby, the pony, Matron and Sergeant Fickits. He took them all out and wondered where he could hide them now that the bricks of his makeshift bookshelves had gone. Eventually he found a pretty good place. There was a small, unused, old-fashioned fireplace in one wall. He reached up the chimney and found a sort of little ledge up there. He wrapped the figures individually in Kleenex, put them into a plastic bag, and put this out of sight on the ledge.

Then he wiped the soot off his hands, took Jessica Charlotte’s figure out of the cashbox and stood her on the shelf of the cupboard. Just to see how she looked there.

She looked fine, just as he had last seen her, dressed up in her beautiful red dress with the bustle and the big, plumed hat. Her figure was posed in a stagey position, hand on hip, the other hand over her head, waving to them.

Omri stuck the key in the keyhole. Just for somewhere to put it. He wasn’t going to do anything, of course – not without his dad.

He closed the cupboard door carefully. There. Now everything was ready. Now he would go and do his homework.

Instead, he turned the key. His hand did it. He couldn’t stop it.

It gave him a shock when it happened. He really did try to restrain his hand, but his fingers acted, there was the familiar click, and it was too late.

Galvanised, he turned the key back again and threw the door open.

There she was. But no longer strutting, actress-like, brazen and bold. Now she was lying very still on her face. Her hat was gone. She was in a different dress. It looked strange, somehow. So did her hair. Omri reached in and lightly touched her with the tip of one finger.

She was soaking wet.

All the muscles in Omri’s face went slack. He picked her limp wet body up and laid her face up on the palm of his hand. Her face was grey. Her hair and dress streamed with water.

He realised then why his fingers had turned the key when he hadn’t meant them to. His fingers knew what they had to do. They had to bring Jessica Charlotte, now. Right now. They had to recall her from the river.

For a split second, looking at her putty-coloured face, her closed eyes, her streaming hair, he thought she was drowned. But he knew she couldn’t be – she had the rest of her life to live. Still, he had to help her, and there was only one way.

He laid her carefully on his bed, rushed to the fireplace, fished the bag he’d just put away out of the chimney, and frantically unwrapped the figures till he came to Matron. He thrust her into the cupboard and locked her in.

When he re-opened the door, she was standing with her arms akimbo, looking extremely severe.

“My dear young man,” she said. “This cannot, I repeat cannot, keep occurring. You are going to get me the sack. I had a great deal of explaining to do, the last time. Don’t you realise there’s a war on? These little excursions are all very fine, but we are rushed off our feet. Do you understand? I am on duty!”

“Matron! Please! I’m sorry. I need you.”

“And the unhappy victims of the Luftwaffe do not?”

“Just for five minutes! You must!”

He didn’t give her a chance to argue, but picked her up by the waist and airlifted her to the bed where Jessica Charlotte was lying, a watermark spreading over the quilt. Matron bent over her for only a moment.

“Put her on something firm,” she ordered.

Omri transferred them both to his desk.

“Turn her on her stomach.”

Omri obeyed. Matron knelt beside the prone figure and began artificial respiration, her hands on either side of Jessica Charlotte’s ribcage, rocking to and fro with a strong, purposeful rhythm. After a short time that seemed long to Omri, he heard a sound like a tiny cough, then a choking, then some gasps and groans. Matron sat back on her heels.

“There we are. She’ll be all right now. Keep her well covered. You need to get those wet clothes off… Oh. No, I quite see that would be, er… difficult. All right. Go away and get me something to wrap her in.”

Omri stumbled to his chest-of-drawers, got out a pair of woollen socks and some scissors and hacked out a little blanket. He returned to the desk with his eyes averted and handed it to Matron.

“All right. She’s decent.”

He looked. Jessica Charlotte’s wet clothes had all been pulled off and were lying in a soggy heap. There seemed to be quite a lot of them. Matron was just finishing rolling her patient in the sock-blanket like a cocoon. Only her head stuck out.

“Pillow!”

Pillow! Omri’s brain raced. A much-folded Kleenex was all he could think of. At least it would soak up the water from her hair.

“There now. She’ll do. She’s half-awake. Something hot to drink, with a drop of Scotch in it. How did this happen? No, don’t tell me. I’ve seen it all before. Very little of that in wartime, y’know. Funny thing.”

“Very little of what?”