Jay, Lizzie and the Tale of the Stairs Read online

  Chapter 10

  Lizzie and the new dream

  It was Friday night.

  On a Friday night I usually went to play football with Kyle and whoever else we could grab. But lately Kyle had become friends with a boy from another school – Jason Simons. He’d play football with Jason but I know the real reason he was hanging around with Jason is because he was infatuated with his older sister Monique.

  I’d never seen Monique but he had told me a lot about her; how she plays in a girls’ football team, doing well in the local girls’ league; how she supports Manchester United; how she plays computer games ‘with the boys;' how she went to see England play with her step-Dad; how she’s such a laugh blah, blah, blah…

  I wasn’t jealous of his new friends and girlfriends but he didn’t call. So I was sat in with Dad watching game shows and a drama that was slow and boring. After the visit to the hospital the night before Elizabeth had once again pushed herself to the front of my mind like the tide coming back in. She had visited only once this week and seemed preoccupied with her missing brother. She had also gone on once again about how I could help her because I had special powers. I was still completely confused about this. What special powers? And if I did have them (which seemed unlikely) how could they help?

  Kyle still didn’t call. It was getting late so I played on my computer for a while.

  That’s when I had a sudden feeling that the walls were closing in.

  Well, not actually closing in, just a sense that my bedroom was suddenly getting smaller. My fingers hovered over the keyboard of my computer whilst on the monitor my character was annihilated by zombie demons. I flicked my eyes from left to right, not daring to move my head. In fact the feeling of being boxed in was horrible.

  My hands began to shake.

  “Dad!” I shouted without thinking. “Dad! Quick! Quick!”

  Dad must have known by the sound of my voice that something was wrong. He took the stairs two at a time and, breathing heavily, he swung round my doorframe.

  “Jay?” he spluttered, “What? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I turned to Dad anxiously. He looked at me, saw my wide eyes and frightened look, slowly entered my bedroom, peering up and down and left to right.

  “Jay?” His voice was deeper now. Serious. “Tell me what it is.”

  “I…I don’t know,” I said. And I was right. I didn’t know.

  Dad had been slightly hunched, ready to spring. But when he reached my chair he looked down at me. He tilted his head slightly to one side in a ‘don’t mess me around’ look. Straightened up. He turned and took in the room. When he came to face me again his hands were on his hips.

  “Well? What’s wrong?”

  “I felt…a bit weird.” Pathetic wasn’t it.

  “You felt a bit weird,” Dad said in a sarcastic way and turned slowly, taking in the room once more. “You felt a bit weird.”

  Now the feeling had gone I felt really guilty. Dad had a lot on his plate. He didn’t need this.

  “Well, Jay,” he said, “be sure to call me if this weird feeling comes back.” He left the room and clumped down the stairs.

  Left alone I felt uneasy. What was that all about? I couldn’t figure it out. I turned off my computer, checked the walls by placing my hands on their cold surfaces and looked up to where the walls joined the ceiling.

  As if this held the answer.

  It didn’t.

  I spent the rest of the evening downstairs with Dad who seemed to have forgotten the incident. He was drinking from a can of lager and laughing at a chat show on the TV. Not for the first time I didn’t want to go to bed. The wall thing had upset me. But, as sometimes happened on a weekend, Dad had sunk quite a few cans of lager and was starting to talk nonsense. So I said goodnight and climbed the stairs. There was some concern on Dad’s face when he said ‘goodnight,' but it was clumsy because of the lager and his attention quickly returned to the TV.

  That night I had a new dream.

  It was night. I was laid on something hard. I was staring up at the peeling paint and old wooden beams of a strange ceiling. High up the white wall at the foot of my bed was a half open window that had bars on the outside. Through this window I could see the branches and leaves of a tree moving in the wind. Moving like a skeleton’s arms. I swung my legs over the side of what I discovered were strips of wood for a bed, sat up. In front of me was a wall. I could lean forward and touch it. There was very little space at the other end of my bed, just enough room for a small pile of clothes, a pair of boots maybe, and some other bits and bobs. The walls were close. I could lean forward, lean back, lean left or right, and immediately touch the old, crumbling brick. My heart began to race and my breath came quickly.

  Suddenly, to my left, a door! A small door. Low in the tatty wall, almost hidden by the shadows. I slipped off the hard bed and made a grab for the handle. I twisted and pushed and, although the door moved in its frame, it wouldn’t open. I shook it. Banged on the inside.

  ‘Hello?” I shouted. “Dad? Dad? Mum? Can you hear me?”

  No answer.

  Voices. I could hear voices. I put my ear to the cool wood. Listened. Yes. Definitely voices.

  “Hello? Hello? Mum? Dad?”

  I rattled the door. Listened again. This time I heard someone laughing. At me. Someone was laughing at me.

  My breathing came even faster. My heart clanged metal on metal.

  I was terrified. Trapped. I started to cry.

  “Please don’t laugh. Please let me out. Mum? Dad? Please…”

  But the laughing went on and on.

  Even when they heard me crying.

  I was relieved when I woke up. Relieved that the tiny room didn’t exist at all.

  When I opened my eyes I realised I had a visitor.

  Elizabeth was sat with her hands resting on knees drawn together, politely waiting. A wobbly grey.

  “Hi,” I sniffed, wiping moisture from my eyes. Lizzie had been staring at me. She was concerned.

  She leaned forward. Frowned. “Are you alright, Jay?”

  Again I sniffed and wiped my eyes clear on the duvet. I decided to be honest this time instead of being brave.

  “Another dream, Lizzie. A scary one.”

  In a sudden movement Lizzie broke the invisible, unspoken line drawn across the middle of my bedroom. The invisible line she always seemed afraid to cross. Before I had time to speak another word Elizabeth had slipped quietly off the chair at my desk and covered the short distance to the side of my bed. She looked down at me.

  “What was it, Jay? What did you dream?”

  I was a bit taken aback and used my sheets to slide away from her. I’d never been this close to a ghost before.

  “Jay, you don’t understand,” she said, really concerned now. “You must tell me what the dream was.”

  I noticed that Lizzie had taken hold of the cross around her neck again. I sat up and explained.

  “I was in a small room and it was horrible. I could touch the four walls of the room it was so tiny.” I tried to remember more. “It was old and there was a funny smell. A damp smell. The walls were crumbling. There was a small window high up that had bars on with a tree outside. I saw a door and tried to get out. But I couldn’t.”

  The memory was painful. I felt that the people outside the door were familiar, familiar like Mum and Dad. But that was impossible.

  I found this hard to explain. “T…there were people on the outside of the room. They were laughing…I couldn’t get out…they wouldn’t let me. I…I tried…but I couldn’t…”

  Lizzie knelt beside my bed and I just didn’t notice. There was a heavy pain in my chest which I tried to rub away.

  It wouldn’t go. The memory of it was here to stay.

  I was starting to cry again.

  Through blurred eyes I saw Lizzie’s right hand move toward my arm in a gesture of understanding. Like Beth has sometimes done. Girls are good at these things. But Lizzie drew
back this hand. She probably didn’t like the idea of touching a ghost either, even if I was a ghost from the future. But when I did look at her she showed real signs of sympathy.

  “This could be important,” she said quietly in her farmer’s accent and to no-one in particular. “I think it’s time.”

  “Time for what?” I sniffed, still holding my chest.

  Lizzie stood up. “That you came with me, of course.”

  “Come with you where?” I was confused.

  “Jay, it’s time that you crossed over.”

  I held my breath, stopped rubbing my chest and looked at Elizabeth. I suddenly felt very scared.

  “Crossed over?”

  “Yes. To 1946.”

  She said this so matter-of-factly that I couldn’t believe I had just heard it.

  “Me? To 1946? Hang on a minute. I’ve got school.”

  Elizabeth knelt beside my bed again, all shimmering grey. Her lips moved and then the words came. “Jay, you could hold the secret to finding my brother Ernie. You’re powers are getting stronger. I can feel it. You must come with me before it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “I know he’s still alive. I just know it. I have special powers too and I know he wants to come home. He just doesn’t know how.”

  I thought about what had just been said. “And you want me to come with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “To 1946?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like, right away?”

  “Yes, Jay.”

  I groaned and covered my head with my warm and familiar football duvet.