The Mind's Eye (5 page)
Authors: K.C. Finn
Tags: #young adult, #historical, #wwii, #historical romance, #ww2, #ya, #europe, #telepathic, #clean teen publishing, #kc finn
Leighton about the horrible Doctor Bickerstaff when we got back to
Ty Gwyn and he called him some names that I didn’t know were even
in a ten year old’s vocabulary. I should have told him off for
them, but in truth it made me happy to see Leigh go for him. He
promised me that when he grew big and strong he’d punch the nasty
doctor on the nose, but as he mimicked the punches I noticed his
hands were pink and pruney. I made him come closer so I could take
a look.
“
What have you been up to?” I asked him, looking at the
crinkly skin on his little palms.
“
Blod made me wash up the dinner service,” he said with a
scowl, “There were loads of dishes. She says someone special is
coming to dinner.”
“
And I’ll bet Mam asked
her
to do it, not you,” I added with a
frown.
the kitchen having a drink when the culprit returned to the scene
of the crime. Blod strode in wearing a flowing cotton dress and
high heeled shoes. She had a sunhat on and a magazine and I knew
exactly what she had been doing whilst Leighton was enslaved with
her chores.
“
Enjoy yourself catching the last bit of summer, did you
Blod?” I asked.
with a wicked grin, taking off her hat. “I’m trying to keep my legs
a nice colour for the harvest dance,” she explained, “Not your kind
of concern, I suppose.”
I had tried
to reason that Blod might come around to our presence in time, but
twenty four hours with the young woman had done nothing to support
that idea. Blodwyn Price was a cow, and that was that.
“
Listen you,” I said, channelling all my rage from the Doctor
Bickerstaff encounter into my voice, “You don’t tell my brother
what to do. Only Mam’s in charge of us here. Not you and not anyone
else.”
“
Oh really?” Blod answered, “And what are you going to do?
Leap out of that chair and knock me down if I’m mean to you? I
don’t think so somehow.”
more angry because she was right. If there was ever a time to learn
to propel myself in this chair it was now. Perhaps if I got good
enough I could run her over.
“
No, but I’m sure Mam would have something to say about the
state of Leighton’s hands,” I countered.
beautiful face faltered for just a moment. “Well, if you want me to
get on with the chores so badly, then clear out the pair of you.
Bampi’s coming for dinner and he’s not going to want to see you
scruffy articles cluttering up the place.”
Leigh took
the handles of my chair and pushed me out of the kitchen slowly.
When we made it to the black and white hall I told him to stop and
open my bedroom door. As he did so I reached down beside my leg and
produced the old pair of leather driving gloves that Mam had fished
out of her husband’s old trunk. Leighton watched me from the door.
I put on the tough gloves and gripped the wheels of my chair,
starting to push.
But nothing
happened. The pressure wasn’t enough. I pushed harder, feeling my
elbows start to strain. When they were stretched so far out that my
shoulders started to tense I felt movement at last, but the pain
was too much to push again. I had to stop for breath. I had wheeled
half an inch, perhaps less, and already my bones were creaking. I
dropped my arms, exhausted. I could feel my heart banging on my
ribcage in protest at the effort.
“
Honestly that Doctor’s got no clue,” I sighed, “How does he
think this is even possible?”
his punching motions again and I laughed, taking off the
gloves.
“
Shall I push you then?” he offered.
“
Yes please,” I replied, “You heard Evil Blod; we have to get
scrubbed up for dinner with a Bampi, whatever that is.”
that Bampi was the pet name for Blod and Ness’s grandfather, Idrys
Pengelly, who was the owner and operator of the farmlands around Ty
Gwyn. He was Mam’s father and he lived in a cottage on the far side
of the pasture behind the house where the cows grazed, so Ness Fach
was the first to spot him coming when she was playing outside that
evening. At her announcement that Bampi was walking through the
field, Mam helped me into the sitting room so Leighton and I could
be introduced.
The first
thing we knew of him was his booming voice as he entered Ty Gwyn; I
could hear him greeting Ness in the wide hallway. He came into the
sitting room at Mam’s call carrying her under his arm like a
briefcase whilst she giggled. Idrys Pengelly was a tall old man
with the same rosy face as his daughter. When he smiled he had
several missing teeth at the sides of his mouth, which was
surrounded by a reddish beard and moustache. The hair on his head
was much more grey and nestled largely under a flat-cap, which he
took off as he dropped Ness onto the sofa beside him.
“
Well now,” he said loudly, patting his knees with a thump,
“Who do we have yur then?”
almost exactly like Mam save for the deep, echoing tone that
threatened to shake the roof from its rafters. I instantly liked
him with his warm smile and the fact that he had worn his bright
blue farmer’s overalls to dinner, he reminded me of my own
Granddad, who had died when I was eight.
“
I’m Catherine, Mr Pengelly, but people call me
Kit.”
“
Short for Kitty, isit?” he asked. I nodded happily, then
nudged my brother in the side.
“
Oh! I’m Leighton,” he said with a start.
“
Are you indeed?” Idrys replied. “Well come yur and let me
look at you.”
a nervous look but I pushed him in the back, grinning. He
approached the old man very slowly until he was close enough for
Idrys to take hold of his shoulders. He looked at him carefully
with an approving smile.
“
Ie, ie,” the old man said, “you’re a strapping boy all right.
But what’s this behind yur yur?”
“
Behind my
what
?” Leighton asked, but Idrys had already put his hand up to
my brother’s ear. He pulled back his hand to reveal a shiny
sixpence, grinning at Leigh.
“
I think this must be yours mate,” he supposed, “I wouldn’t
keep it back there, if I were you.”
the coin with a look of amusement on his face.
“
Say thank you,” I pressed and he did, but very
shyly.
“
Blod and I’ll get the dinner on,” Mam said from the doorway,
“We’ll call you when it’s ready Da.”
“
Ta love,” Idrys replied.
back comfortably into the sofa and Ness crawled onto his knee and
lay down, looking up at the ceiling. Idrys tickled her belly until
she ran away to the corner with a huge grin.
“
It’s lovely to have young people in the house again,” the old
Bampi remarked, “Ness is too young to yur my stories,
see?”
“
What stories?” Leighton asked, learning forward eagerly in
his armchair.
“
Well I was in the first war, see, the Great War, but I
must’ve told Blod a hundred times and well, she’s grown up now
init? She’s yurd it all.”
“
I’m sure we’d love to hear some stories before dinner, Mr
Pengelly.” It wasn’t just that hearing about the war would be
interesting; the mention of Blod made me feel the need to escape
from the present moment for a little while.
“
Well then,” Idrys said happily, “D’you want to yur about the
battles or the spies?”
“
Ooh!” Leighton exclaimed, raising his hand like he was in a
schoolroom, “The spies please!”
“
In that case, I’ll tell you something you’d
never
believe and you
tell me if you think it could be true.” Idrys leaned forward and
steeped his fingers together, his loud voice becoming softer as he
started his tale. “When I was in Dover waiting to be sent out to
France, there was a spy billeted with us, sleeping in our barracks,
like. It was his job to infiltrate the German forces and look at
their top secret plans, but he did it all without ever leaving
Dover.”
for effect.
“
What? How?” Leighton asked impatiently. I found myself eager
for the answer too.
“
Well, he was what you’d call a psychic,” Idrys answered, “He
said he could travel, in his mind’s eye, to see things on other
continents.”
breath catch in my throat.
“
But that’s ridiculous!” Leighton exclaimed, slapping his leg,
“That’s like a fairy-tale thing!”
“
Ah well,” Idrys said, holding up a finger emphatically, “I
thought that too, so did all the fellas, so we asked this psychic
if he’d prove it to us.”
“
And what did he do?” I asked, finding that my voice was
trembling. I had never met anyone who talked about things like this
before, never heard anything even slightly similar to my secret
gift outside of fiction.
“
Well we locked him in the loo see, where it was pitch dark
and he couldn’t talk to no-one, then we sent our mate Billy into
the billet. Billy went round taking things out of everyone’s packs
and cupboards and putting them in new places. Then we sent Billy
away so he couldn’t give no hints and brought this spy fella back
to the billet. He stood at the door and he told us everything that
had just happened. He told us exactly where to find every object
that Billy had moved, he told us how Billy had swapped some things
over and changed his mind, then swapped them back. He told us all
sorts of things. And Billy came back and said it was all true. Well
if you can tell me how that’s possible, you’re a better man than I
am, Gunga Din!”
scratching his chin thoughtfully and Idrys gave us a satisfied
look. I knew, of course, exactly how it was possible. If you locked
me up somewhere and had me tell you what Leighton had been up to
all day, I’d be able to rattle off every action as though they’d
been my own. What fascinated me was not the demonstration, but the
fact that someone else out there had what I had, knew what I
knew.
“
Suppose it’s true that this friend of yours was psychic, Mr
Pengelly,” I began carefully, “Did he tell you how he did it? What
was his process to travel with his mind?”
“
Ah, you’re a scientific one, are you?” Idrys said with what
he thought was a knowing grin. Clearly he thought I didn’t believe
him. “Well Kit, he told me and the boys that all he had to do was
close his eyes and think.”
“
Think about what?” I pressed.
“
About where he wanted to go, or who he wanted to find,” Idrys
answered.
“
And was it easier to reach people he knew, but harder to find
strangers?”
a grey eyebrow at me. “That’s a funny question,” he said with
amusement, “Are you thinking of trying it sometime?”
It was hard
not to be flustered by the accusation, so I tried to laugh it
off.
“
I’m just interested,” I lied, “It’d be nice to think we have
people who can spy in on the Germans now, in this war, wouldn’t
it?”
“
I wish I could do it,” Leighton said excitedly beside me,
“I’d give all of Hitler’s secret plans to the Prime Minister!” I
wished I could tell him that it wasn’t as simple as
that.
Idrys moved
on to his battle stories at the dinner table, which caused Blodwyn
to groan regularly between bites of her roast. She only perked up
when her Bampi told her how pretty she was looking. I was totally
lost to my own thoughts as I chewed aimlessly on a piece of chicken
at the far end of the table, wondering about the psychic spy of the
Great War and his special skill. If it were true, then that meant
other people out there could do what I could do. If it were false,
then people who could pretend to be psychic were making a fool out
of the military. But the military wanted them, needed them even, to
gather their information.
It was silly
to think that a girl like me could ever be of use in the grand
scheme of the world war, but it was also quite possibly true. If I
could hone my focus into people and places further away than just
Leighton, there was a chance that I could actually be useful to
someone. I thought back to the German man from my dream the night
before and spoke without thinking, interrupting one of Blod’s
little rants.
“
Where’s Oslo?” I asked.
a stabbing look across the table. Idrys swallowed his mouthful of
potatoes as he turned to look at me.
“
Norway, love,” he answered, “It’s the capital
city.”
“
Why’d you ask Kit?” Mam said, shifting more vegetables into
the available space on my plate.
“
I, um, I heard it in a dream,” I answered, realising seconds
later how stupid I sounded.
“
That’s funny,” Mam remarked with a kind smile.
“
Yeah, she’s a funny girl, isn’t she?” Blod added. She too was
smiling, but not in the same way. The urge to slap people’s faces
was apparently quite a popular one for me today.
