The Mind's Eye (36 page)
Authors: K.C. Finn
Tags: #young adult, #historical, #wwii, #historical romance, #ww2, #ya, #europe, #telepathic, #clean teen publishing, #kc finn
called once more this time the whistle it was coming from was right
beside us. A shovel broke through the thin layer of earth and
caught Ieuan on the hand with a painful stab. He winced and pulled
his hand back, using the other to scrabble through the now
collapsing wall of dirt until a flashlight and a face came into
view. Dad’s face.
“
Hello boys,” he whispered, “come on, it’s this
way.”
relieved, passed the message back to the others in the line, then
started crawling over the mound between the two tunnels and into a
much larger, well-supported space.
“
I see you got the message about the bird call,” Dad told him
with a cavalier wink.
that Ieuan’s expression was horrified, but I stifled my amusement
at Dad’s attitude. He couldn’t feel how scared the young man was or
couldn’t remember how frightening it must have been the first time
my mother put her voice in his head. Through Ieuan’s eyes I watched
Dad crawl on casually in the wider tunnel, his huge muddy boots
threatening to kick us in the face.
“
Keep to whispers ‘til we’re out of the camp boundary,” Dad
instructed, “shouldn’t be long.”
Tell him your name,
I urged
Ieuan,
I’ve told him about you. He’ll help
you get back home to Mam and Blod.
“
Sir,” he whispered, catching up to Dad so they were almost
side by side as they crawled, “I’m Ieuan Price sir.”
“
You’re acquainted with my daughter Kit,” Dad answered with a
nod, “Is she with you now?”
how much he didn’t like the question, a bolt of electricity shot
down his spine as he tried to answer.
“
I… Her voice is…”
“
It’s all right,” Dad said. I could see his little grin
illuminated by the flashlight hanging from his shoulder. “Don’t
even try to explain it. In fact you’d be better off forgetting this
whole night once you’re home and dry.”
“
Yes sir,” Ieuan murmured, taking a look back to see the row
of happy men trailing behind him.
“
Hang on,” Dad said, trying to crawl with one arm as he
fumbled in one of his pockets, “we’re at the camp limit I think. I
need to give a call to say we’re coming through.”
Tell him I could do that,
I pressed
to Ieuan, thinking that I could nip over to Henri at the tunnel’s
end and let him know.
hesitated too long and when he did begin to speak Dad was already
using the crow call again, giving three bursts in a row of the
baying call. The second he did there was a great eruption of noise
like something heavy was falling somewhere and a second later
something unbearably sharp hit me. Dad covered Ieuan’s mouth
instantly, masking the horrifying scream that he would have let
loose. A searing agony made my stomach twist as I saw my father’s
horrified face. Ieuan tried to move and I felt its cause.
A long
blade.
Straight
through his shoulder.
Ieuan
struggled to breathe as the blade, which had been stabbed down into
the tunnel from above, twisted behind his shoulder blade and made
me feel like I wanted to vomit. I felt every moment of his
unbearable pain. I could hear the frantic whispers of the men
behind him now realising what had happened. They were retreating,
leaving us there to die. The blade retracted and this time Ieuan
bit hard into the dirty skin of Dad’s hand so as not to make any
more noise, but the puncture left him breathless and weak. The
tunnel was getting darker all the time; all panic had run out of
Ieuan’s body, leaving only a sickening, unending pain.
Somewhere in
the top of his chest was something still out of place. Even though
the blade had gone, I felt a sharpness, a foreign body sticking
into the back of his shoulder blade. It was horrid, I felt like I
wanted to reach in and tear it out, but the ache of the object was
too deep to get at. I didn’t know if Ieuan felt it too, there were
so many wild and agonising sensations swilling around his frantic
mind.
“
Dear God,” Dad whispered, grabbing us by the torso. He
struggled along, pulling Ieuan onto his back so he could crawl with
him down the tunnel, but it was little use. My vision was almost
gone; all I had were Ieuan’s ragged breaths, growing weaker by the
second as he lost the ability to breathe.
of his head desperately and fled to Henri, finding it hard to
change from the dark scene to the faint light of the cosy little
barn. My words came so loud and frantic into Henri’s head that he
leapt a mile from the tunnel opening where he had been
waiting.
Henri, oh God Henri please help them!
I tried desperately to collect my thoughts for the proper
words.
Dad… Ieuan’s been stabbed. Dad’s
trying to carry him. He can’t manage.
He
might be dying. He can’t breathe. And they might stab down
again!
terrifying thought that hit me came out in a jumbled mess in
Henri’s mind and though there was fear in his heart he jumped head
first into the tunnel mouth and starting to crawl down in at once.
All the training on his hands and knees with Sergeant Cross in
Essex had paid off; he scurried down the dark tunnel like a rat, I
could already hear Ieuan’s desperate gasps and Dad’s effort-fuelled
grunts echoing back at us. They couldn’t be far away. If Henri got
to them and pulled them out in time, things might be okay.
My vision
began to fade, but this time there was no cold shiver to mark that
my psychic trip was coming to an end. Instead I felt a wet sort of
a heat all over my face as the sight of the tunnel dissolved and
when I came back to Ieuan’s little room in Ty Gwyn I was soaked all
over in a cold sweat. A headache slowly made itself known in the
back of my skull and my eyes shot open as the all-too-familiar
sensation of a fever kicked in.
“
Mum!” I shouted furiously.
You’ve done well sweetheart,
she
promised,
but you really can’t see this
next part.
“
No!” I protested. My eyes shot to my door as Idrys poked his
head in. I had woken him up. “Please don’t put me under! Not a
fever, please!”
pause, but my headache raged on. The dark room was already growing
black as I felt Idrys put his smooth, dry hand on my clammy
head.
I’m sorry,
love, but I just can’t trust you not to go back there.
In all
fairness, that was exactly what I wanted to do, but I struggled all
the same until the world became one big dark bubble once more.
was only the next afternoon that I came round. Idrys was there
watching over me, so I told him everything I could as floods of
tears poured down my face. His expression had a ghostly pallor to
it when I was done; his calloused farmer’s hands were trembling. He
took me downstairs as soon as I was able and we piled into
Bickerstaff’s room where he and Blod were sat on the bed sharing
his lunch. I didn’t know when or how Idrys and the former doctor
had realised that each other knew about my gift, but there seemed
no need for a preamble. Idrys launched right into the tale of
Ieuan’s injury and made me repeat it to Bickerstaff.
“
Could he survive that Steven?” Idrys urged, “Is there any
way?”
Bickerstaff’s arm tightly, her lip trembling as she took in the
shocking news. Bickerstaff considered things very carefully for a
moment.
“
When Henri was approaching,” he asked gingerly, “was he still
breathing?”
furiously from the chair Idrys had dropped me into. “I could hear
him… gasping.” I shut my mouth quickly as my stomach gave a lurch.
I took a few breaths in through the nose to calm down.
“
Oh God,” Blod said, burying her head against her beau’s
shoulder.
was largely ignorant to everyone’s pain, his mind consumed by
matters medical. I could see the process of his thoughts behind his
huge eyes. His breathing became sharp as he thought things
out.
“
It could just be a collapsed lung, but not a punctured one,”
he suggested, “if so he’ll make it.”
“
And if not?” Idrys asked, biting hard on the knuckles of his
clenched fist.
“
If not I don’t think he’d be breathing loud enough for Kit to
hear him from that distance,” the former doctor replied carefully.
For once his emotionless face was extremely useful; its blankness
seemed to calm everyone down. “Remember it’s only one lung that’s
been affected. He’s got a fighting chance if they get him to proper
care right away.”
“
But we don’t know if they have,” Blod pleaded, surfacing from
Bickerstaff’s now soaking wet shoulder.
“
They seemed to be very well organised,” I offered, “I’ll bet
they have medics and all sorts.”
“
But you don’t know that, do you?” Blod snapped at me with
damp eyes, “You didn’t see any yourself?”
exhausted and defeated. “Well, no but-”
Blod made to
shout at me but Idrys waved a serious finger at her. She shut her
mouth slowly and sniffed in her angry sobs. At last Bickerstaff
seemed to realise her pain and put an arm around her. She sank into
the side of his body in silence.
“
Even with the most basic equipment, it could still be done,”
he said in a low tone, “if they get him to a doctor in
time.”
I was taken
back upstairs to rest and I hoped that perhaps my sleeping mind
would take me back to the Resistance, but had no luck. I was out
cold for another few hours of sheer blackness until I managed to
haul myself out of bed for dinner. I dressed this time and clunked
my way down the stairs, feeling confident that I was rested enough
to go back to Henri for an update as soon as the meal was over. To
hell with what my mother had said, I hadn’t done enough until I
could give Blod and Idrys better news.
I froze in
the doorway to the kitchen. Mum was sat in my space at the table,
fretting over a hole in Leighton’s school jumper. When she turned
and smiled at me I could see all the sadness and apology in her
face. Nothing she had done was out of spite, but I couldn’t bring
myself to smile back at her. I said hello to her in a quiet, flat
tone and settled myself in a seat a bit farther away.
“
You’re early, Mum,” I commented, trying to sound bright as I
eyed Mam stirring up the gravy, “The wedding’s not for three more
days.”
“
I had some time off, so I thought I’d come and lend a hand,”
she explained.
“
Very kind of you,” Mam said. She turned and beamed at me. “Oh
your mum’s brought the most beautiful flowers and real chocolate
for the cake! Blod’s going to flip!”
glare. What a bald lie it all was. She was here to keep tabs on me
so I couldn’t go against her will again. She knew that I knew, I
could tell by the way she looked down at the table, unable to keep
meeting my eyes.
As the rest
of the family settled in for dinner, the mood became tenser still.
Idrys and Blod hardly touched their food and Bickerstaff was lost
in thoughts so deep he didn’t even notice Ness stealing all of the
potatoes from his plate. Idrys kept looking at Mum with a glint of
steel in his eyes, waiting for Mam to spin out the last of her
chatty conversation so he could strike with a line of his own.
“
I believe we have someone in common Gail,” he said in what
seemed like a casual tone, “I knew your father, Reginald
Arkwright.”
“
My goodness,” Mum replied with half a smile, “what a small
world it is, with Kit coming to stay here, of all
places.”
“
Good job she did,” Idrys added quickly, “she’s been a godsend
this girl.”
“
Here, here,” said Mam, oblivious to the real conversation
happening beneath the words, “very useful to have
around.”
Idrys persuaded Leighton to help Mam wash up with the promise of a
trip to the cinema, which left the rest of us free to coerce my
mother into the little sitting room. Bickerstaff and I were the
last to arrive as we limped along at the rear, taking up the whole
sofa between us and our crutches. Mum was outnumbered, but she
gathered herself with a deep breath as Idrys closed the door.
“
I’d been to check on things just before I got here,” she
said, giving the old farmer an apologetic look, “your grandson is
still alive.”
“
Thank God,” Blod muttered, putting her pretty face in her
hands. Bickerstaff reached out and rubbed her knee gently, but his
face was still totally focused on Mum.
