Raggy Maggie Read online

  It was the last thing I ever expected to hear him say, and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing – probably with relief more than anything. My eyes were getting used to the dim light, and I could see that he too was grinning.

  ‘Oh, was that you?’ I sniffed. ‘I thought it might have been me.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, and we both stood up. He edged away, making room for me to pass. ‘You first.’

  ‘Chicken,’ I scoffed, pushing through the gap in the chairs and out into the hall. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t see—’

  ‘Peek-a-boo,’ chorused a voice to my left. I spun to find Mrs Milton standing there, just beyond the alcove. Her empty eyes were locked on mine. ‘I see you.’

  I tried to shout, to scream, but she didn’t give me the chance. Her arms jerked suddenly upwards, and from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a hockey stick. A bomb went off against the side of my head, and an explosion of pain shook my skull.

  Somewhere far, far away a child giggled. The world lurched, and I found myself tumbling down

  down

  down into the still, stifling silence of sleep.

  Chapter Five

  SOMEWHERE ELSE

  It was the pain in my wrists that pulled me back from the abyss, waking me with a gasp. My head reeled and spun like I was riding a roller coaster, and for a panicked few seconds I thought I was about to fly right off the…seat?

  I looked down, ignoring the wave of nausea it brought on. Sure enough, I was sitting on a chair made of plastic and metal. My hands were pulled behind it, wrists bound tightly together and attached to the chair’s rusted frame.

  The swelling on my cheek throbbed in protest as I raised my head and looked around. The room I was in was dark, and the darkness – like everything else – was fuzzy around the edges. I closed my eyes tight, blinked a couple of times, and tried again.

  My vision cleared a little, but it didn’t make it any easier to figure out where I was. It was a large, mostly featureless hall. I could make out a few scattered tables and chairs, but very little else. Most of them were broken, toppled over or both.

  The floor was a knee-deep mess of shattered glass, rubble and litter. Here and there the smouldering embers of burned rubbish stood out as spots of orange among the shadows. Thin wisps of smoke curled up from some of them, before the breeze coming in through the many holes in the roof carried them away.

  Through the broken beams and shattered slates I could make out a dark, cloudy sky. Occasionally I’d spot a star winking at me through a gap, before the clouds rushed to cover it again.

  Night time. How long had I been unconscious?

  ‘Hello?’ I said. A cloud of breath rolled out into the chill air beside my voice.

  ‘Hello, Kyle.’

  My legs spasmed with fright. The voice had come from right behind me. It wasn’t Mrs Milton. In fact, it wasn’t a woman at all. It was a male voice, and one I was sure I recognised.

  He strolled past my left shoulder and stopped a metre or so in front of me. His hands were behind his back – but just held there, not tied like mine. He wore an expression of vague amusement on his face, as if someone had once told him a joke and he was only now getting it.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, his voice deep and rich. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  I glanced down at the floor, not answering. I didn’t know what to say, and even if I did, I’d be too scared to say it.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he shrugged. I lifted my eyes and watched him pick his way through the debris until he found another usable chair. It was half buried under junk, and it took him a few seconds to dig it out.

  He lifted huge chunks of stone away as if they were made of polystyrene, and I couldn’t help but be a little bit impressed.

  The last few things he shoved aside were flat and wooden with edges that curved upwards. It took me a few moments, but then it clicked. They were trays. Wooden trays. Just like the ones in…

  The canteen. I craned my neck and took in the room again. It looked about right. Right size. Right shape.

  Wrong world.

  I’ve already mentioned the Darkest Corners, the hellish alternative reality I somehow travelled to on Christmas Day. I hadn’t just met Caddie there. I’d also met the man who was now walking back towards me, a chair swinging from one hand.

  The man who had sent Mr Mumbles after me.

  My dad.

  The bits of the Darkest Corners I’d seen were just like the real world, only twisted and corrupted. A church back in our world became a crumbling ruin here. A street back home was overgrown with weeds in this reality.

  The school canteen, it seemed, had suffered the same sort of fate.

  I glanced back down, pretending I hadn’t been watching. I saw my dad’s foot sweep away a small pile of what looked suspiciously like bones, then the uneven legs of the chair he’d found plonked down on to the filthy floor.

  He straddled the chair, his arms resting on its plastic back. I could feel his eyes on me. I raised my head just a fraction. Sure enough, I immediately met his gaze.

  ‘Well, you did it.’ He was grinning from ear to ear, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. ‘I have to admit, I was a little surprised when I found out, but there’s no—’

  ‘I know who you are,’ I told him.

  His eyes twinkled. ‘Of course you do. That’s why I dropped off the photo. I knew your mother would recognise me.’

  This wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I’m not sure what reaction I did expect, but this wasn’t it. Maybe I thought he’d be so impressed by my deductive powers he’d let me go. It hadn’t occurred to me that he had deliberately revealed his identity, although in hindsight it seemed painfully obvious.

  ‘How did I get here?’

  ‘I brought you,’ he replied, lightning-fast, as if he’d been anticipating the question. ‘You’re not the only one who can flit between worlds, you know. How do you think Mumbles got out?’

  ‘You brought him?’ I said with a gasp.

  ‘Bingo.’ The smile stayed on his face, but a seriousness had now clouded his eyes. ‘I half expected you to reappear when you got the photo,’ he said. ‘Thought maybe you’d come looking for me. But…nope.’ He pushed a hand through his untidy black hair. ‘Still,’ he breathed, ‘you did it. You actually did it.’

  ‘Did what?’ I grunted.

  ‘Did what?’ he mimicked. ‘You beat him, that’s what you did. You beat Mr Mumbles.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That.’ I gave the rope around my wrists a tug. ‘Why did you tie me up?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he frowned, waving his hand dismissively. ‘It was the girl. So,’ he continued, leaning over the back of the chair, like a kid listening to an exciting bedtime story. ‘How did it feel?’

  The question surprised me. How did it feel? He must’ve caught my thought, because he continued before I could think of what to say.

  ‘Wait, don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘It felt incredible, right? All that power. All that strength. That buzz that can only come from taking another life.’

  I didn’t like the way he said that last part, and I told him so.

  ‘Well, how else can you paint it?’ he asked, still smiling. ‘You turned the guy to dust. You murdered him.’

  ‘I did not,’ I protested. ‘He was going to…he would’ve…’

  ‘Easy, easy,’ he said. ‘It was self-defence. Absolutely. You had no other choice. No one’s blaming you for what you did, killer.’ He spoke the word like it was a term of affection.

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ I said.

  ‘Why not? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s what you are. It’s what we are.’

  I opened my mouth to argue, but he pushed on, silencing me.

  ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it,’ he said. ‘When that power was buzzing across your skin, don’t tell me you weren’t tempted just to let it take over completely. Just to see where it took you.’

&nb
sp; I hesitated. ‘No. I wasn’t.’

  Dad pulled back and laughed. ‘Liar.’ He leaned in again and shuffled the chair a few centimetres closer. ‘Then why didn’t you just stop him?’ he asked, still smiling. ‘You realised you could do all these things, right? So why kill him? Why not just trap him, or send him away?’

  ‘I…I didn’t know how,’ I said.

  ‘But you knew how to turn plastic into steel?’ he pressed. ‘Pull lightning from the air – you could do that – but you couldn’t imagine him a pair of handcuffs or a cage?’

  ‘I don’t…there was no time to think about it.’

  ‘Exactly, so you acted on instinct. Your one true instinct.’ His expression shifted into something close to glee. ‘The instinct to kill.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘We’re the same, you and me,’ he said. ‘There’s a darkness inside us both. You can feel it there, can’t you? Lurking. Waiting.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Why haven’t you used it again? Why haven’t you let it back out?’

  ‘Shut up,’ I cried.

  ‘It’s a part of you, killer,’ he continued eagerly. ‘Don’t fight it. Feel that electricity tingling through your head. Set it free.’

  ‘Why?’ I demanded, pulling against the ropes that bound me to the chair. ‘Why should I? Why do you care?’

  Dad’s face took on a more serious expression. ‘Because you’re my son,’ he said. ‘And every father wants to see their child reach its full potential.’

  He stood up and took two big paces towards me. I screwed up my eyes, half expecting him to hit me. Instead I felt his big hand ruffle through my hair.

  ‘Don’t be scared of it, killer,’ he told me. ‘Embrace it. Surrender to it. And one day every man, woman and child on Earth will know your name. One day you will make the whole damn world burn.’

  He began picking his way across the rubble, heading for a hole in the canteen wall. ‘One day,’ he called back. ‘But not today.’

  My dad stopped at the wall and peeked into the darkness that lurked outside. His breath formed huge white clouds in the air, but though he was only wearing jeans and a short-sleeved checked shirt, I didn’t once notice him shiver.

  I was surprised to see someone else standing at the hole in the wall, waiting for him – a shorter, thinner figure, concealed by a long brown cloak and hood. I’d seen this person on my first visit to the Darkest Corners too. He – or she – had trotted after my dad like a lost puppy, never once speaking or even really acknowledging me much. I wondered how long the stranger in the cloak had been standing there, listening out my conversation.

  ‘You remember how you got here the first time?’ Dad asked.

  I could recall the events leading up to me arriving in the Darkest Corners last time, but I didn’t know if they were directly connected to me making the jump or not. ‘I’m…I’m not sure,’ I admitted.

  ‘Well, you’d better remember fast,’ he grinned. Keeping his eyes on me, he placed two fingers in his mouth. A sharp whistle split the silence of the canteen. ‘And if you do make it back,’ he said, ‘good luck with your second test. She’s a nasty one!’

  ThuBOOM.

  Before I could reply to him, the whole room was shaken by a sudden sound. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling, floating down like flakes of snow.

  ThuBOOM.

  The second noise was louder than the first. It vibrated the canteen even more violently. Half a roof beam dropped from the shadows just five or six metres away. The table beneath it disintegrated as the thick wooden support crashed down.

  ThuBOOM.

  Another thud. It echoed and rumbled like the snarling of a thunder god, and I felt my chair shudder a few centimetres across the floor.

  ThuBOOM.

  ThuBOOM.

  THuBOOM.

  ‘What is it?’ I gasped. ‘What’s making that noise?’

  My dad was pressed in next to the wall. The figure in brown was nowhere to be seen. Dad was bent at the waist, looking out through the gap in the brickwork. His neck was angled so his eyes were pointing up towards the sky.

  ‘To be honest I’m not sure what it’s called,’ he said. ‘But it sure looks hungry.’

  A sound like the end of the world shattered any chance I had of replying. I looked up in time to see the roof being ripped away as if it were made of paper. The silhouette of an enormous head hung there, glaring down.

  The faint moonlight picked out four huge, curved tusks in watery shades of silvery-blue. They jutted from the creature’s neck and chin, angled so they were all pointing directly at me.

  Something dangled down from its wide jaws. At first I thought it was a length of rope, until it dropped off and splashed down, forming a murky pool near my feet. Saliva. Or something like it, anyway.

  Its skin had a dull shine to it, like the scales of a snake. It was dark grey or black, but that may have been just the shadows covering the monster’s face. The eyes, in contrast, were two slits of dark pink. As they peered at me, the wide cavern of a mouth opened, revealing teeth that were bigger than me. Chunks of rotting meat hung from between some of them, the aftermath of a hundred grizzly meals.

  Hot steam hissed from the creature’s flared nostrils. It smelled rancid and sour, and burned the lining of my throat like acid.

  I let my eyes flick over to the wall for a fraction of a second. My dad had gone. Slunk away somewhere when no one was looking. No surprise there. Running out on people was becoming a trademark of his.

  A creeping tingle inched across my scalp. It moved slowly, as if it was scouting to make sure the area was safe.

  I coughed back the stench of the dino-beast’s breath and concentrated on the sensation. Above me, a long, snakelike tongue flicked across the monstrous teeth. A sound that was somewhere between a yawn and a growl slithered from within the black hole of the creature’s throat.

  The tingling became a crackle. It arced across my skull, flashing sparks of blue behind my eyes.

  The ropes were tight against my wrists. The chair beneath me was hard and uncomfortable. The jaws of death dangled wide and hungry above my head. I blocked it all out and concentrated on the glowing sparks. They surged across my vision at lightning speed. Flash, flash, flash they went, flecks of white and blue all racing through my head.

  The walls of the canteen groaned as the beast leaned down towards me. The heat and stench from its breath were almost unbearable.

  Flash. Flash. Flash.

  I heard its jaws click as they opened wider.

  Flash. Flash. Flash.

  Thick strands of drool dribbled on to my legs, coating them in hot, smelly liquid.

  The sparks flashed faster and faster. Inside my head I waited. Waited for the right moment. Waited for the right one.

  Flash.

  Like a jar around a firefly my mind snapped shut on the very next spark. It buzzed furiously, but I held it in place, just as I’d done in the church on Christmas Day.

  The world around me began to shimmer and change. I was doing it. I was doing it.

  But was I doing it quickly enough?

  I glanced up in time to see the dino-beast lunge. Its head came down fast. The pale moonlight glinted briefly off its teeth, and an impossibly large set of jaws snapped sharply shut around me.

  Chapter Six

  TEA FOR THREE

  Iscreamed, screwing my eyes tight as the teeth cut through the air on either side of my body.

  A few seconds later, when no pain came, I cautiously opened my eyes – one first, then the other.

  I was in the canteen. The real canteen. I was still tied to a chair, and the bruising on my face still hurt like hell, but I’d done it. I’d brought myself back.

  I looked around at the room. It was bright and clean – well, cleaner than the place I’d just left, at least. Daylight shone through the windows. A half-sigh, half-sob of relief escaped my lips. It was good to be back.

  As I studied my surroundings, I noticed my ch
air was now positioned right next to one of the canteen’s big round dining tables. Small, floral-patterned cups and saucers had been laid out in three places – one in front of me, one directly across the table, and the third halfway between those two. Another chair had been positioned at the placing across from me, but not at the one on my right.

  A sugar bowl and a milk jug sat on the table too. Like the cups, both of these were empty.

  From over my left shoulder I heard a whimper. By craning my neck as far as it would go, I could make out the shape of someone lying on the floor.

  Mrs Milton was curled up into a ball, her knees almost to her chest, her arms clutching her head. Her whole body was shaking. Every few seconds it would twitch wildly, forcing another whimper from her trembling lips.

  ‘Mrs Milton?’ I said. Although I spoke softly, the sound still made my skull throb. She didn’t respond, so I tried again. ‘Mrs Milton, are you OK?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to play with us any more.’

  I froze. The voice was the same one the headmistress had used – or maybe it had been using her – but it hadn’t come out of her mouth. It had come from somewhere further behind me, beyond my line of sight.

  I recognised the voice right away as the one I’d heard during my first visit to the Darkest Corners.

  ‘Caddie.’

  The little girl in the dirty white dress stepped into my line of sight. ‘Oh, you remembered,’ she beamed. As she did, the bright line of lipstick across her mouth curved into an exaggerated smile, like the grin of some demented clown.

  ‘What did you do to her?’ I demanded.

  Caddie’s face fell. Her wide, dark eyes blinked rapidly, as if fighting back tears. ‘She won’t play any more,’ she said. ‘We were having so much fun, but then she just wouldn’t play.’

  Down on my left, the headmistress gave another low sob. ‘S’not fair,’ Caddie sulked. ‘Every time I find a new friend to play with they get broken.’

  I twisted in my seat and looked down at Mrs Milton. She was rocking back and forth, weeping, shaking – a shadow of the woman she had been. Bruised. Battered.

  Broken.

  When I turned back, Caddie was standing by the table. Her back was to me and she was fiddling with something on the tabletop. The way she was bending her body made it impossible for me to see what.