When I sat down and began writing this account of the adventures of me and my idiot sister I was determined that it should be a no-holds-barred honest and upfront account of everything that happened to us. I promised myself that I wouldn't compromise and that no matter what I would strive to maintain the integrity of this work. There would be no way I would be swayed by commercial interests or allow anything as crass as product placement. So you can believe me when I say that the vegetable pasties from Patrick the Baker are the finest savoury pastry-based food item on the high street.
Despite my large breakfast I had found room for one when Dan, my inadvertent rescuer, had offered to buy it for me to calm my nerves. Amber had joined us – the hideous noise of the crashing lamp post having brought a number of people out of the shops – and we were sat, with Dan, on a bench outside the branch of Golden Olden Times where he worked. He was on his lunch break and had opted for soup and a roll. Oh, and a small egg custard for afters. Amber had accepted a cheese straw but clearly would have preferred to continue shopping. I had convinced her that we had reached our goal though when I introduced her to Dan.
'Yep, that's the address of the shop,' he confirmed, handing the scrap of parchment back to me. 'And I'm Dan Burdock. Who did you say gave you this?' He took a sip of his soup. It was Broccoli and Stilton. That's another reason to go to Patrick's – they always do good soups.
'He said his name was Kevin Curtis.' This is my sister's idea of a bluff. Kevin Curtis? Where did she get a name like that from? 'He's pretending to be an Italian from long ago in a play or something. For school. We just met him. He's new at our school. He asked if we were coming in to town today and could we get this prop for him. He gave us this address, but he didn't know what the shop was called. He doesn't speak much English. Kevin Curtis isn't his real name. He's really from Europe and has a different name. Kevin Curtis is his English name. He gave us your name off of your Facebook, where it says you work selling old Italian stuff. That's what he said, I don't know if that's true. Do you sell old Italian stuff?'
I'd been mouthing 'shut up!' at Amber all through her babbling but she'd chosen to ignore me. Dan didn't look like he had a problem with anything she'd said, but he couldn't have been that dumb. Could he? His glasses had flown off when he'd bumped into me but he'd got them back on now. Sat there, all hunched over, squinting through them with breadcrumbs all down his front he looked a bit gormless if I'm honest. Maybe he took what she said at face value.
'Nothing in there's really old,' Dan told us. 'It's all repro stuff. Some of it's Italian, I think. I mean it'll say “Made in China” on the bottom but it'll look like it's from Italy. Mostly it's mancala sets and posh bookmarks. Let me have my egg custard and we can have a look.'
Amber cadged another cheese straw. Down the street we could see the police and highways van looking at the smashed remains of the lamp post. It looked like it was an accident – I'd overheard somebody say something about recent work on a gas main that had probably weakened it. Didn't look like a demon attack, but then over Christmas my dad let me see The Omen and there's a really cool bit in that where someone gets their head cut off by a sliding pane of glass and it looks like an accident but really it's the Devil. Maybe it was something like that (hope I haven't spoiled The Omen for you. That's only part of it. There's lots more).
After a decrumbing session we went into Dan's shop. He said hello to Gail, who was his supervisor, and then goodbye to her as she went off to take her turn for lunch. He went over to his till which was one of those touch screen ones with different buttons for different items.
'Give us a second, I'll see if we've got one in stock,' he said. 'What's it called again?'
'A lodestone,' I said. Difficult to say that casually. I don't think I managed.
He tapped the screen a few times, scrolling through a few options then gave an 'ah!'.
'”Chianti Lodestone”: it's in with the ornaments and collectibles. This way...' And off he went to the back of the shop, past candles, necklaces, DVDs and other stuff all piled high and reduced in price as though nobody they'd been stuck there for some time and no-one wanted to buy them.
Amber hesitated before following him. 'I think I'm going to sneeze,' she said. 'Only I'm not.'
'What?'
She wrinkled up her nose. 'There's something tickling my nose. Something in the air. It's like smelling something that isn't there. It's making me want to sneeze, but not letting me.'
It really annoys me in films and books and on the telly when something like this happens and the person involved says something like 'oh, it's probably not important. Forget about it,' and they carry on about their business and you scream at the screen 'of course it's important! Are you not paying attention! Weird and dangerous things have been happening to you all day, why have you chosen to ignore this when it's clearly connected!' Well, you probably don't scream all that, but you go 'Arrgh!' anyway.
But that's the weird thing. When you are actually in that situation that's exactly what you do! I know! It's stupid, isn't? But I said to Amber, 'It's probably nothing. Come on.' Even as I'm writing it I can't believe I said it, but I did. I was so into what was going on I didn't want to get sidetracked and I strode off after Dan. Amber came right after me, and that should have been a clue of sorts because she almost never does anything I say without making a fuss about it.
'I should have guessed this is what you were talking about.' Dan was unlocking a glass case that was bolted into the wall. Inside were all sorts of knick-knacks: pendants, brooches, figurines, even tie-pins and cuff links. All mimicking designs from ancient Egypt or the Aztecs or the Celts. Except for one. There, in the centre of the case, as if whoever had placed it there had decided it was more important than all the other items, was the cube frame that Cabriatti had described. It was definitely the Lodestone – there was the metal double-arrow at its centre, dangling from threads attached to each corner of the cube. It looked brand new, like all the other items in the case. I remembered what Dan had said, about everything in the shop being a reproduction and I could feel disappointment arriving before I'd even had the chance to get excited. There was no way this thing was 500 years old. Then Dan said something that perked me up again.
'You're not the first people to be interested in this. There was a woman with a cat in here yesterday who wanted to take a look at it. A lodestone, so that's what it is. I never knew.' He removed it from the case and passed it to me. 'She must be doing the same play,' he said without the slightest hint of irony. He really had believed Amber's story. 'She said she was looking for something authentic, though. This wasn't good enough for her. Look.'
He turned the Lodestone over and showed me, just as he had mentioned earlier, the words 'Country of Origin: China'.
I swore then. Sorry about that.
'I don't think I've ever seen a woman with stubble before,' said Dan.
'I beg your pudding,' said I.
'The woman looking at your lodestone. She had a proper five o'clock shadow. That's not something you see everyday.'
I was thirteen when all this was taking place so it's fair to say I didn't know much about women or demons at this point. But I had a really horrid sinking feeling (no, worse than when I heard they were going to do a movie version of The Space Carpenters and I knew they'd make a right hash of it and miss all the stuff that makes the original cartoon funny, clever and brilliant) that the woman Dan was talking about – and her cat – were exactly who Cabriatti had warned us about. What if they'd come today instead of yesterday? We could have bumped right into them! Looking at this knock-off of the Lodestone I didn't know whether I was disappointed we hadn't found the real one or relieved that the demon sisters hadn't found it either. I turned to Amber.
'Achoo!' Amber sneezed right on top of me.
It was disgusting! She didn't even cover her mouth. Half of her spit and snot combo went on me and the other half on the Lodestone.
'I'm sorry, but you're going to have to pay for that now,' said Dan. I'm not sure if he was joking or not. Because before I had time to shout at Amber or challenge Dan another one of those bizarre things happened that seemed to be cropping up with more frequency these days.
Amber's foul mucus had dripped from the threads within the frame of the Lodestone onto the metal hanging at its centre. Now I hadn't thought about what that metal arrow-thing was made of. I want to say 'pewter' because that seems to be what these sort of things are usually made of and it's a really good word – 'pewter' – but I haven't the first idea. But what I can tell you is that when the remains of Amber's sneeze reached it, it began to glow. Dimly at first, but then with an incredible brightness that reminded me of when they set fire to magnesium in chemistry at school. With that thought, for a second, I believed that was what was happening – the Lodestone was burning up. But the glare soon died down and revealed that the arrow, and the threads about it, were still intact. With one crucial difference.
I might not have known what metal it was before, but there was no mistaking what it was now.
Gold.
More soonliest.
No comments:
Post a Comment