A Hole in the World (4 page)

‘Ew! Mum!’ Bianca pulls a disgusted face and walks across to the table. She drops her plate down on the surface and drops down into one of the chairs.  She rests her elbows on the table, dropping her face into her hands. ‘I’m fifteen,’ she says, into her palms, ‘you’re supposed to be
discouraging
boyfriends, not encouraging them!’

Not to mention that if her mother paid
any attention to her at all
she’d have worked out boyfriends aren’t part of the Bianca experience.

‘Who said the b-word?’ Bryan says, walking into the room and sitting down opposite his daughter. ‘You haven’t got a boyfriend already, have you, Bianca?’

‘No, Dad.’ Bianca sighs and pulls a face. ‘Trust me, that’s the one thing you
don’t
need to worry about with me.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Julia sits down between the two of them at the head of the table and picks up her own slice of toast.

‘Bianca’s a
dyke
,’ Topher says, from the opposite end of the table.

‘Topher!’ Julia exclaims. ‘Don’t say such things about your sister!’

‘Yeah!’ Bianca glares at him. ‘Shut up, you slimy maggot!’ She flicks marmalade-coated toast crumbs at him and turns away.

‘You
do
like boys, don’t you, Bianca?’ Bryan enquires, nervously.

‘Yeah, Dad,’ Bianca says, with a sigh. ‘I think boys are just
swell
.’ She looks down at her plate. ‘Especially when they’re not within a mile of me,’ she mutters, beneath her breath.

*

‘Any particular reason you wanted to hang out today?’ Scotty enquires, as he approaches Bianca, who’s sitting on a swing in the park. After the boyfriend discussion at breakfast, Bianca had phoned Scotty, who was asleep, and asked him to hang out, he was more than happy to comply, although Bianca feels guilty now: he looks like he didn’t get
any
sleep
at all
.

‘I just... I didn’t want to be at home. Is that okay?’ Bianca asks, not meeting his eyes as he sits on the next swing.

‘Always,’ he says. ‘I just wasn’t expecting to hear from you today. You’ve seen me practically all day every day for the last five days... you
must
be overdosed by now.’

She laughs. ‘I could never overdose on you,’ she tells him, with a smile.

‘So...’ Scotty extends the O, in the hope of starting a conversation.

‘I had another one of those dreams last night,’ Bianca says, after a moment. ‘The same one I’ve been having for a while, but...’

‘But?’

‘Usually, I’m stood outside the hole and I know I shouldn’t go in. The girl starts calling out and I turn and run away... usually to my mother, for whatever reason. But this time, it felt almost right. Not quite, but...’

‘Did you go in there?’

‘No, you know I haven’t.’

‘I mean in the dream. Did you go in?’

‘No.’ Bianca shakes her head. ‘I was scared. Really, really scared. Like if I went in there... everything would change.’

‘Perfect reason to go in there to begin with, don’t you think?’ Scotty smiles at her. ‘Come on.’ He holds out his hand, which she gratefully accepts, and the two of them jump off the swings together. He gives her a moment to collect her jacket then he drags her across the playground and out.

*

It’s a few minutes before they arrive at the hole at a run and then they skid to a halt before it.

‘Go on then,’ Scotty tells her, releasing her hand and gesturing at the hole. ‘Go for it.’

She shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know...’ She reaches out, brushing her fingertips along the jagged edges of the rock, like she did in the dream. This time, however, she comes away with blood on her skin. ‘I just... I don’t...’

‘Don’t what?’

‘I don’t think it’s the right time yet...’ She shakes her head. ‘You must think I’m
mental
.’

He laughs. ‘I don’t think you’re mental. Actually, I lie. I
know
you’re mental. Always have. But this doesn’t add to it or anything.’ He raps his knuckles against the rock. ‘Seems solid enough. Want
me
to go in?’

‘No!’ Bianca exclaims. She grabs him and pulls him back. ‘
No
, Scotty. Really... No. Don’t.’

‘Okay...’ He shrugs. ‘We could go get a pasty or something instead? If you wanted...’

‘Yeah.’ She smiles. ‘Okay.’

*

‘I can’t sleep. Talk to me.’

‘Biancs?’ Scotty sounds tired. He yawns and grumbles. ‘What’re you doing phoning me at this kinda hour?’

‘I can’t sleep, I told you. Just... talk to me about something.’ Bianca rolls over and looks at her clock, which is blinking two am into the darkness.

‘We have school tomorrow, Bianca. I really can’t talk. I need my beauty sleep, unlike you. You’re already beauty.’ He yawns.

‘If I’m Beauty, who are you? Lumiere? Cogsworth?’

‘I’m too tired to talk about this. Seriously, Bianca. Go back to sleep and... just sleep, okay?’

Bianca shrugs, even though he can’t see it, and mumbles, ‘Yeah, fine. Night, Scotty.’

‘Night.’

There’s a click as he hangs up and Bianca sighs, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling.  It’s dark, but the small amount of light coming from the small lamp she’d turned on to find her phone is casting shadows across the walls and ceiling.

She’s restless, unable to even lie still for even a moment. She rolls onto her side, then restlessly returns to staring at the ceiling. After a moment she sits up. Then she lies down. Then she wriggles. A lot. Finally, she groans and gives up.

‘Oh,
whatever
.’ She sits up and moves the duvet, reaching for her trainers and slipping them onto her feet.

*

Half an hour later, with her thick, fuzzy and warm coat wrapped tightly around her shoulders, covering her pyjama top and shielding her from the numbing cold of the late winter night, Bianca nervously approaches the hole in the wall.

‘This is stupid,’ she mutters, to herself. ‘It’s just a hole. It leads to some private property or something and no one’s ever bothered to fill it in because it’s small and hardly an issue. Pull yourself together...’ She stuffs her phone into the pocket of her coat and clambers up onto the outer wall, careful not to let the loose laces of her trainers snag on anything. She pulls herself up onto the edge and reaches for the jagged rock of the hole.

Her fingers close around the edge and she pulls herself through with one determined tug.

She squeals as she falls forward and rolls over herself and into the cavern beyond. She lifts her head, hair a mess now, and stares around her in disbelief. 

The cavern is immense, too big inside to fit into the small area behind the hole.

‘Oh, my god,’ she whispers, clambering to her feet and staring around. ‘TARDIS cave.’

She calms herself down with long breaths, unsure whether she’s excited or terrified. The cavern is exactly the same place as she remembers from when she was younger, when she still had pigtails and an innate curiosity that lead her to crawl into a hole in a wall while older girls knew it was unwise to do so.

Except... she’s doing it again now. She’s exploring an impossible cavern instead of turning around and going home. Her survival instincts tell her it’s not safe, but every other instinct and every gut feeling whispers,
take a chance
.

‘Hello?’ she calls out, making her descent down the slightly sloped tunnel ahead. ‘Anyone here?’ Her words echo around the surrounding walls and follow the same path as her. 

The second cave is how she remembers it: five tunnels leading out like spokes from a wheel. There are doorways, each at least twenty feet high, with flaming torches burning between each and every one.

She steps in a little and shrugs off her coat. It’s warm inside, unlike outside, so she drops it in the doorway from which she came as a marker. She knows better than to risk getting lost in catacombs and vaguely wishes she had thought to pick up a ball of wool or some chalk.

She steps carefully towards the opposite tunnel and quietly enters the large doorway, which leads into a more man-made corridor.

The corridor in question is dark, lit only by flaming torches on the walls, one of which Bianca pulls from its holder as she walks, observing her surroundings with mounting caution.

The ceiling is twenty feet above her and made of the same stone as the walls. The walkway is loose beneath her feet, and crumbles beneath her with every step. Before she’s even reached the end of the passageway she’s decided she’s no longer in her world.

She follows the winding passageway for a few long minutes, not worried about getting lost due to there being no options except to keep walking straight ahead or turn and go back. Somehow, she feels the latter is no longer an option.

She rounds the final corner and is assaulted by a blast of heat and light. For a moment, she flinches backwards, covering her eyes and retreating a few paces back into the tunnel behind her. Once her eyes have adjusted to the change, she steps back out and looks, for the first time, at what she can only describe as Hell.

The inside of the chamber she’s in is made of dark stone. There are fires in small pits scattered around the room and the floor is cracked and broken in many places, a river of lava two foot wide flowing through the room. The remaining floor makes up islands and on each island is a cage.

The first few cages she sees have skeletons and she inches backwards, slightly, starting to realise how much danger she’s really in. The second couple contain creatures she couldn’t name if you paid her (one with long, pointy ears and maroon skin, the other with a large head and no discernable body). Some of the cages are too far away for her to see without binoculars, but the last one she looks at is the nearest.

Six metres away, the cage is sitting on a large island in the lava. It’s approximately four feet in each direction, made of iron and contains, she realises with horror, a young girl around her age, chained to the cage.

‘Oh, my god!’

She doesn’t stop to think, instead drops her torch and makes off at a run as soon as she sees her, plucking a bobby pin from her hair as she goes. She leaps across the river of lava, realising what she did only after she lands, and drops to her knees in front of the padlocked door of the cage.

‘Are you okay?!’ she exclaims, already inserting the pin into the lock. Oh, the things you learn from junior arsonists and their jailbird-in-training friends!

The girl, who is probably only a year or so older than Bianca, turns to look at her as soon as she starts picking the lock and, for the first time, as their eyes meet, Bianca takes in her appearance. The girl is blonde, her hair wavy and flowing freely down her back, seeming to glow slightly in the light from the fire and very, very obviously completely natural in colour. She’s dressed in a horrifically poufy pink ball gown, with overly puffed sleeves and a disgusting flower pattern lacing the square-shaped neck, sleeves and waist. It’s the kind of thing that Bianca would have to be
dead
to wear, and even then you’d have to catch her rotting corpse on the run, first.

But even as these thoughts float through her head, the thing that causes Bianca to pause is the three-foot-high, pink conical hat perched precariously upon the blonde girl’s head.

‘Who are you?’ the girl asks, staring down at Bianca with big, wide blue-green eyes and reaching for the bars.

‘I could ask you the same!’ Bianca exclaims, as she deftly works the lock. She turns her face away, feeling rather than looking, and works at it gently. She’s pleased to notice the chains wrapped around the blonde’s body are looped through the padlock. Release that, release all of her bindings.

‘Why are you here?’ the girl enquires.

‘To rescue you, it seems,’ Bianca replies, after a moment, as the lock clicks and gives way.

‘Are you Prince Charming?’ the girl asks, hesitantly.

Bianca stares at her. ‘What? No.’ She pulls the chains from the released lock and quickly helps the girl shed the ones wrapped around her.  ‘No,’ she repeats, as she slips the bobby pin back into her hair. ‘I’m Bianca.’ She reaches out and grabs the girl’s hand, squeezing it tightly. ‘And I’m going to get you out of here.’

Bianca pulls the blonde girl to her feet by the hand and when she wobbles for a moment she places her other hand on her arm, steadying her. ‘What is this place?’ she asks, cautiously.

‘It is the Grand Enchantress’ Prison,’ the girl says, as though it’s obvious. ‘You know not what this place is and yet you have come to rescue me! You are truly a
remarkable
Prince!’

Bianca shoots her an irritated sideways glance. ‘Look,’ she says, as she pulls the girl towards the exit, ‘let me make one thing perfectly clear: I’m not a Prince. I’m not a Princess either. I’m just a girl. A
normal
girl.’ She glances down at their hands, fingers linked together, and switches her grip to the girl’s wrist, deciding that hand-holding doesn’t help the not-your-prince defence.