find a name and a date on the first blank page of a book of Burns’ poems which read ‘Isabel Sutherland, 1932, Dunfermline’, but it was a very old book and had probably been bought second-hand with the name already in place.
‘This doesn’t feel like Dunfermline,’ said Chloe to herself.
As she was replacing the book on its shelf the front door rattled.
Chloe picked up the nearest heavy object, a stone carving. She held it like a club, ready to use.
Her heart was beating fast. She was beginning to realise that she was going to get nowhere in this house. It was far too ordinary yet at the same time, very very strange. It could be a house anywhere in England, Scotland or Wales. And the fact that they thought she belonged here frightened her more than anything else.
Who had tried the door? Had it been the wind, or was there someone out there, trying to get in? It could have been anything from flesh-eating monsters to unexpected relatives. Both seemed equally scary at that moment. Or it might even be someone like the TV licensing authority, for this family was too average not to be wholly innocent of all crimes and misdemeanours. Chloe did not want to get any further involved in this family’s affairs.
She put the heavy carving in her jeans pocket and went upstairs to check on the children. They were fast asleep, both of them. The temptation now was to go, to leave them all to it, but something kept her there until she heard the parents’ car returning. Then she ran down the stairs, opened the deadlock, and rushed back up again. She heard them come in, talking softly. Chloe had already put a chair under the hole to stand on, so that she could climb up and pull herself back up into the attic. This she was doing as the woman came up the stairs. She and Jane exchanged quizzical glances, then Chloe was up and through the hole.
Once up in the attic she slammed the trapdoor shut.
‘You were quick,’ said Alex. ‘Did you come up because the string came off?’
‘That came off hours ago.’
‘No – just now. Wasn’t it just now?’ Alex’s question was addressed to a tall boy in a long raincoat with many capes, a big floppy hat and big boots. ‘Less than a minute ago.’
The youth said, ‘But she’s been down there.’
‘Anyway,’ Chloe said, ‘it didn’t work. I did spend hours down there, but I couldn’t find out what town it was. And they were expecting me, Alex. They called me Sarah and said I was one of the family.’
‘You can’t just go down anywhere you please,’ said the youth in the capes. In each side pocket he had a rat both of whom kept looking up at him when he talked. ‘It’s just throwing a spanner in the works. You don’t fit. It’s a wonder you got back without causing all kinds of damage. Going down through a wrong hole creates a turbulence. It’s to do with matter and space. See,’ he explained, using his hands to describe the contours of creatures in the world below, ‘there’s a perfect empty shape for everything that moves and breathes down there, from an elephant to a mouse. Each elephant fills an elephant space. There be only so many elephant spaces. If there was one more elephant than spaces it would mess up the entire universe. Same if it was a mouse, or a bee – or, like you, another human.’
‘Oh – oh,’ said Chloe, upset. ‘They kept calling me Sarah. Do you think I displaced a girl called Sarah? Will she find her – her space again?’
‘Who knows?’
Chloe was quite distressed about this. On the one hand she felt that Sarah was well enough out of such a family, wherever she was. But then again, who was she – Chloe – to judge for another girl? Perhaps there were good reasons why Jane was such a harridan. You couldn’t just walk in on a family and start making judgements as to what was right and wrong. In many ways they were a nice enough family.
‘Well,’ said Chloe, ‘I’ve done it now and there’s nothing much I can do to repair the damage. I’m certainly not going down again …’
‘That would be disastrous,’ agreed the boy in capes.
‘And just who are you?’ asked Chloe, now that she’d regained her composure.
‘He’s a bortrekker,’ explained Alex excitedly. ‘He treks the boards. And,’ his voice rose