Authors: K.C. Finn
Tags: #young adult, #historical, #wwii, #historical romance, #ww2, #ya, #europe, #telepathic, #clean teen publishing, #kc finn
The Mind's Eye (24 page)
echo of what I thought was thunder as I looked into a totally black
scene. My mother had her hands over her ears and her eyes tight
shut. She was trembling all over, but right in the centre of her
chest was a flush of anger I couldn’t understand. When she opened
her eyes I looked out into a dimly lit underground station that I
didn’t recognise. It was packed with hundreds of people in wet
raincoats split directly in half: into those who were looking up to
the sound of the thunder and those who were burying their faces
down towards the ground. Mum joined the ones looking up, until
another clap of the horrific noise came echoing down the stairwell
nearby.
It wasn’t
thunder of course. The bombs were bigger than I could ever have
imagined, louder than if you’d flown a biplane straight through a
thunderstorm. Most of the women in the makeshift shelter were on
the ground, huddled with their children, trying to soothe them. I
could hear their little cries reverberating around the station. It
was strange to see this many people gathered without the faintest
sight of a train. On the other side of the tracks they sat in rows
along the wall, some people were even laid out trying to sleep on
their wet coats. Another bomb went off overhead and the collected
people shook like they were of the same mind, my mother rubbed her
arms, holding herself steady.
Dad should be there to hold you,
I
thought.
I’d become far too casual with my thoughts, it had come from
spending all my nights talking to Henri. Mum stiffened, raising a
hand to her face to cover her mouth.
“
Kit?” she whispered. “Was that you?”
surprised by the total lack of shock in her voice, or in her body
for that matter.
Yes,
I said unsurely,
I suppose I should explain?
at a pace to an abandoned block of telephones nearby. As she
reached one she put it to her ear and I heard the tone that meant
the phones were out of service. My mother deftly slipped a pair of
sewing scissors from her handbag and snipped the phone line so the
noise died out. She held the two ends of the cut cord in her hand
where no-one could see the break. I watched in fascination. Mum had
always been a confident, no-nonsense sort of woman, but I had never
witnessed such a cool and collected display from anyone I knew,
least of all her.
“
You don’t need to explain to me sweetheart,” she spoke as
though she was using the phone, “I know what you can
do.”
My first reaction was not relief, but betrayal.
Why didn’t you tell me you knew?
I demanded.
All these
years that I’ve been wondering who I am, what I can do? And you’ve
just been keeping it a secret!
“
I had to darling, or they would have enlisted you!” Mum toyed
with a long curl the same auburn colour as mine, I could feel her
agitation.
Who would have enlisted me?
I
pressed.
Enlisted me for what?
“
People like us are exploited in times like these,” she
replied.
People like us,
I repeated,
stunned.
Then… you can do it
too?
“
I suppose it’s time to tell you love,” my mother began sadly;
“I don’t work in a factory. I have never worked in a factory. I do
what I can for the War Office.”
Did Dad know what we are?
I asked
fearfully.
Is that why he left
us?
body changed, every muscle growing tense. “That’s not a
conversation we can have in public, Kit. You never know who’s
listening.” I tried to speak again but she cut over me fiercely.
“Look Kit we’re not supposed to talk like this. People with our
abilities shouldn’t link up, it causes problems.”
I know
, I answered,
It always gives me headaches, finding
you.
“
And when I find you it makes you very ill,” Mum said, a
bitter taste of guilt catching in her throat, “I’m so sorry about
that by the way, I stopped peeking into your life as soon as I
realised what it was doing to you.”
The fevers!
I exclaimed as
explanation dawned. I was excited by the deduction for a moment,
until I realised that meant that Mum had been a witness to me
threatening Doctor Bickerstaff that time. I didn’t even have time
to feel ashamed before she was talking again.
“
I’ve been using Leigh to keep an eye on you both since then;
he’s not getting ill is he?”
No, he’s the same as usual,
I
answered.
“
Good,” she said with a nod, “Look you really must go darling
before it hurts you too much. Your granddad used to spy on me years
ago and it set me off with migraines for days sometimes. I’m fine
here; they’ll keep us all night if they need to, until the city’s
safe again. Just keep yourself and everyone else there safe and
well.” She paused a moment, a grin slowly forming on her lips. “And
give my regards to Henri.”
When I
returned I was weak and aching like someone had hit me in the back
of the skull with a brick. Idrys and Henri took me to my room and
heaved me onto my bed, shutting the curtains to let me recover in
the dark. After some of the ache had subsided I told them what I’d
seen and most importantly heard. Idrys reclined in thought in the
chair, rubbing his beard, but Henri came to sit beside me on my bed
and held my hand. He grinned with a flushed face, shaking his
head.
“
I’ll bet she watched us dancing,” he mused
awkwardly.
“
How embarrassing,” I said, throwing my free hand up over my
face with a sigh.
into bashful giggles until Idrys cleared his throat.
“
What was your mum’s maiden name Kit?” he asked.
“
Arkwright,” Henri answered for me. I gave his hand a squeeze,
impressed that he’d remembered.
“
I wish I’d known that before,” the Welshman mused. We both
gave him a curious look. “That fella from the Great War that I told
you about…”
“
The psychic spy,” I filled in, turning my head on my pillow
to see his face properly, “What about him?”
“
His name was Reggie Arkwright.”
“
My grandfather,” I replied. It wasn’t even worth being
shocked anymore; I just had to accept the fact that my whole family
had been keeping secrets around me all my life. It wouldn’t do to
be bitter about it, I was just grateful that it was all finally
coming out for me to put the pieces together. “I guess that means
this psychic thing is an inherited gift.”
“
If you have children, they might have it too,” Henri said
excitedly. I couldn’t help but return his grin.
“
Fate’s a funny thing, init?” Idrys asked, “Makes you think
there’s a plan for us all.”
what the plan was, so long as it involved us all surviving this war
so I could finally interrogate my mother about everything I needed
to know. And the first thing on that list would be what had really
happened to Dad.
bombs in London raged on all through the month of September. Mum
sent me and Leighton a huge letter telling us that she was all
right and how good the air raid wardens and the shelters were in
the city, but made no mention at all of any of the questions I
wanted her to answer. Henri suggested that she must be doing it to
protect me, but I waved that off angrily every time he said it. I
was sick of everyone trying to protect me, I wanted answers about
my gift, my family, my father, and the war was getting in the way
of it all. Worse than that, time was running out even faster than
before for me and Henri.
I cried buckets when he came home with his train ticket to
get to Essex for basic training. He’d leave at lunchtime on
September 30
th
to get there for the start of the next day and
Bickerstaff had booked the same journey. Mam was the one to find me
sobbing over Henri’s imminent departure, which made me feel all the
more awful since she was still doing plenty of sobbing of her own
when she thought no-one could hear her. She put her arms around me
until I quietened down, whispering that everything was bound to be
all right. I wasn’t sure which one of us believed her words
less.
remaining days together Henri and I did the usual things that
teenagers did, which was a whole new experience for me since I’d
been confined to my chair, shying away at home for so long. We
walked in the hills, the flatter ones at least, looking at the
orange blanket of autumn that had settled over the village. We went
to the cinema and sat holding hands as some dashing romantic heroes
pranced about on the screen. We even did the shopping for Blod a
few times, just to be out and about together. Nobody seemed to want
to intercept us anymore and we were alone together often, but I was
growing impatient now that Henri hadn’t kissed me. Or wouldn’t kiss
me, to be more accurate.
We were about
a week from his departure when I decided I’d tackle the subject. He
watched me walk to a spot beneath our usual tree and I managed to
get down into the crunchy leaves all by myself. Instead of leaning
on the trunk I lay flat amongst the foliage and grass, looking up
into the colours of the branches overhead. Henri lay down next to
me and took hold of my hand, stroking along my knuckles with one of
his fingers.
“
Are you trying to stop me from getting too attached?” I asked
suddenly.
“
What do you mean?” he replied.
steeling myself for the important question. “Do you think that if
you kiss me, it’ll be too much for me to cope with when you
go?”
He let go of
my hand. My heart sank for a moment when I thought he was moving
away from me, but he shuffled his long body onto its side and
slipped his arm over my stomach. He held my side and pulled gently
until I grabbed his shoulder to turn and face him. His black hair
and lightly tanned face shone against the leaves as he let his
fingertips stroke my cheek.
“
If I kiss you,” he began slowly, “It’s me that won’t be able
to cope.” He let his hand fall back to my waist and pulled our
bodies close together until I couldn’t see his face. I nuzzled my
nose into his collarbone and kissed him there lightly through his
shirt. “The promise of your kiss is what I’ll live for out there.
It’s what will help me come back home to you.”
feel special, but I was happy and sad in the same moment. He
sounded like he used to when I was in his head, the Henri surviving
hard times who had relied on me to be there for him. But that was
also the Henri who’d been beaten and harassed by Nazis, the Henri
who had streaked past armed guards and almost been tossed out of a
boat to his watery grave in the choppy North Sea.
“
Don’t you need to know what kind of kiss it is you’ll be
coming back to?” I pressed, playing with the button on the pocket
over his heart. I tingled all over when he held me even
tighter.
“
The curiosity is killing me, I promise you,” he chuckled. He
let out a deep sigh against the top of my head. “Do you think I’m
going to die out there?” He asked the question quietly, but he
didn’t sound worried.
“
No, of course not!” I exclaimed, pulling back so I could see
his face.
“
Then there’s no urgency, is there?” Henri said with a soft,
level tone. He started to stroke my face again, calming my frayed
nerves. “I’ll go and I’ll do my part for the war. And when I come
back, you and I will always be together.”
many things I wanted to argue against, so many worries I had that
he just couldn’t soothe. But the moment between us in the autumn
air was quiet and precious. I didn’t want to remember any part of
my time with him ending in a fight.
“
Okay,” I said weakly, trying to smile, “In that case, shall
we steal Blod’s radio and try to have a dance?”
No-one could have made better use of their time than we did
during that last month; I had bucket-loads of laughing, smiling
memories of Henri to see me through the times when he wouldn’t be
there beside me. But it was still a shock when there came a knock
at the door on the morning of September 30
th
. I was in the little
sitting room alone when I heard Idrys answer the door and caught
wind of Doctor Bickerstaff replying to him. The two men went
upstairs and Blod came to find me from the kitchen, taking off her
apron as she entered the room.