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You couldn’t even see a person in there any more. It was a bright orange pulsing light, and sometimes it talked straight into your head.
When the spaceship landed.
I don’t know. I mean, it was bigger than the whole block, but it didn’t crush anything. It sort of materialised around us, so that our whole house was inside it. And the whole street was inside it too.
No. But what else could it have been?
A sort of pale blue. They didn’t pulse, either. They twinkled.
More than six, less than twenty. It’s not that easy to tell if this is the same intelligent blue light you were just speaking to five minutes ago.
Three things. First of all, a promise that Nerys wouldn’t be hurt or harmed. Second, that if they were ever able to return her to the way she was, they’d let us know, and bring her back. Thirdly, a recipe for fluorescent bubble mixture. (I can only assume they were reading Mum’s mind, because she didn’t say anything. It’s possible that Her Immanence told them, though. She definitely had access to some of ‘the Vehicle’s’ memories.) Also, they gave Pryderi a thing like a glass skateboard.
A sort of a liquid sound. Then everything became transparent. I was crying, and so was Mum. And Pryderi said, ‘Cool beans,’ and I started to giggle while crying, and then it was just our house again.
We went out into the back garden and looked up. There was something blinking blue and orange, very high, getting smaller and smaller, and we watched it until it was out of sight.
Because I didn’t want to.
I fed the remaining animals. Roland was in a state. The cats just seemed happy that someone was feeding them again. I don’t know how the chinchilla got out.
Sometimes. I mean, you have to bear in mind that she was the single most irritating person on the planet, even before the whole Her Immanence thing. But yes, I guess so. If I’m honest.
Sitting outside at night, staring up at the sky, wondering what she’s doing now.
He wants his glass skateboard back. He says that it’s his, and the government has no right to keep it. (You are the government, aren’t you?) Mum seems happy to share the patent for the Coloured Bubbles recipe with the government though. The man said that it might be the basis of a whole new branch of molecular something or other. Nobody gave me anything, so I don’t have to worry.
Once, in the back garden, looking up at the night sky. I think it was only an orangeyish star, actually. It could have been Mars, I know they call it the red planet. Although once in a while I think that maybe she’s back to herself again, and dancing, up there, wherever she is, and all the aliens love her pole dancing because they just don’t know any better, and they think it’s a whole new art form, and they don’t even mind that she’s sort of square.
I don’t know. Sitting in the back garden talking to the cats, maybe. Or blowing silly-coloured bubbles.
Until the day that I die.
I attest that this is a true statement of events.
Jemima Glorfindel Petula Ramsey
A Calendar of Tales
January Tale
Whap!
‘Is it always like this?’ The kid seemed disoriented. He was glancing around the room, unfocused. That would get him killed, if he wasn’t careful.
Twelve tapped him on the arm. ‘Nope. Not always. If there’s any trouble, it’ll come from up there.’
He pointed to an attic door, in the ceiling above them. The door was askew, and the darkness waited behind it like an eye.
The kid nodded. Then he said, ‘How long have we got?’
‘Together? Maybe another ten minutes.’
‘One thing I kept asking them at Base, they wouldn’t answer. They said I’d see for myself. Who are they?’
Twelve didn’t answer. Something had changed, ever so slightly, in the darkness of the attic above them. He touched his finger to his lips, then raised his weapon, and indicated for the kid to do likewise.
They came tumbling down from the attic-hole: brick-grey and mould-green, sharp-toothed and fast, so fast. The kid was still fumbling at the trigger when Twelve started shooting, and he took them out, all five of them, before the kid could fire a shot.
He glanced to his left. The kid was shaking.
‘There you go,’ he said.
‘I guess I mean, what are they?’
‘What or who. Same thing. They’re the enemy. Slipping in at the edges of time. Right now, at handover, they’re going to be coming out in force.’
They walked down the stairs together. They were in a small, suburban house. A woman and a man sat in the kitchen, at a table with a bottle of champagne upon it. They did not appear to notice the two men in uniform who walked through the room. The woman was pouring the champagne.
The kid’s uniform was crisp and dark blue and looked unworn. His yearglass hung on his belt, full of pale sand. Twelve’s uniform was frayed and faded to a bluish grey, patched up where it had been sliced into, or ripped, or burned. They reached the kitchen door and—
Whap!
They were outside, in a forest, somewhere very cold indeed.
‘DOWN!’ called Twelve.
The sharp thing went over their heads and crashed into a tree behind them.
The kid said, ‘I thought you said it wasn’t always like this.’
Twelve shrugged.
‘Where are they coming from?’
‘Time,’ said Twelve. ‘They’re hiding behind the seconds, trying to get in.’
In the forest close to them something went whumpf, and a tall fir tree began to burn with a flickering copper-green flame.
‘Where are they?’
‘Above us, again. They’re normally above you or beneath you.’ They came down like sparks from a sparkler, beautiful and white and possibly slightly dangerous.
The kid was getting the hang of it. This time the two of them fired together.
‘Did they brief you?’ asked Twelve. As they landed, the sparks looked less beautiful and much more dangerous.
‘Not really. They just told me that it was only for a year.’
Twelve barely paused to reload. He was grizzled and scarred. The kid looked barely old enough to pick up a weapon. ‘Did they tell you that a year would be a lifetime?’
The kid shook his head. Twelve remembered when he was a kid like this, his uniform clean and unburned. Had he ever been so fresh-faced? So i
He dealt with five of the spark-demons. The kid took care of the remaining three.
‘So it’s a year of fighting,’ said the kid.
‘Second by second,’ said Twelve.
Whap!
The waves crashed on the beach. It was hot here, a Southern Hemisphere January. It was still night, though. Above them fireworks hung in the sky, unmoving. Twelve checked his yearglass: there were only a couple of grains left. He was almost done.
He sca
‘I don’t see it,’ he said.
‘I do,’ said the kid.
It rose from the sea as he pointed, something huge beyond the mind’s holding, all bulk and malevolent vastness, all tentacles and claws, and it roared as it rose.
Twelve had the rocket launcher off his back and over his shoulder. He fired it, and watched as flame blossomed on the creature’s body.
‘Biggest I’ve seen yet,’ he said. ‘Maybe they save the best for last.’
‘Hey,’ said the kid, ‘I’m only at the begi
It came for them then, crab-claws flailing and snapping, tentacles lashing, maw opening and vainly closing. They sprinted up the sandy ridge.
The kid was faster than Twelve: he was young, but sometimes that’s an advantage. Twelve’s hip ached, and he stumbled. His final grain of sand was falling through the yearglass when something – a tentacle, he figured – wrapped itself around his leg, and he fell.