Simon Clark - The Fall

‘Imagine this place, Limbo, is tucked out of sight in the fold of the map. Only we’re tucked out of sight by a fold in time. Do you follow that?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Well, it’s a secret place used by us and, bloody regrettably, by the Bluebeards as well. Luckily it’s big enough for us to keep out of the murdering bastards’ way.’

Nicole rubbed her head, dizzied by these new concepts, and dropped back onto the pillow. Above her she could see the thatch of the roof in the few rays of moonlight that filtered through a window aperture. ‘I’m sorry.’ She kneaded her forehead. ‘I don’t understand how we got here.’

‘Explaining’s difficult.’

‘But could you show me?’

‘Perhaps, if William here will taxi me there on those two legs of his.’

‘Bullwitt?’

‘Yes?’

‘Can you take me to the year where my friends are?’

‘Why?’

‘I need to tell them about all this.’

‘What on Earth for? Nicole, you should let sleeping dogs lie.’

‘But if there’s a way of moving forward as well as backward through time they should know about it.’

‘Nicole, sweetie.’ Bullwitt’s voice was gentle. ‘When I was a nipper I heard this story of what happened in the street where I lived. A toddler of about 15 months was taken from his pram when his mother left it outside a shop. You can imagine the mother wasn’t just distraught, she was torn apart by it all. Nearly went mad with grief, she did. Now, I know you’re wondering where I’m going with all this, so I’ll get to the point. Eight years later the truth came out. A woman whose baby had died had stolen the toddler. She’d loved it like her own. Brought it up. Of course, the toddler thought the kidnapper was his real mother. The police were brought in; it went to court. Now what does the judge decide? Does he return the nine-year-old boy to his natural mother, who’s a complete stranger to him by now? Or does he allow the woman, who’s nothing more than a kidnapper when all’s said and done, to keep the boy she genuinely loves as a son? And not forgetting this: the boy loves her as a mother.’

Nicole raised herself up on her elbows to look down at Bullwitt in the sleeping man’s stomach. ‘There is no easy answer,’ she said.

‘Exactly. Bit like the Judgement of Solomon story, isn’t it? Offer to cut the child in half and see which woman loves the child enough to allow the other woman to keep it. What I’m saying is, your old friends have been living there in 1865 for, what? Around six months? They’ll be putting down roots, my dear. Yes, it sounds a good idea to turn up there and say, “All right, we’re all going back home to 1990-whatever-it-is.” But there’s some who wouldn’t want to leave now. If they fall in love, do they stay with their fiancé in the 1800s or do they take them forward into the 1990s where the shock of seeing everything changed out of all recognition might send them stark, raving mad? You mark my words, dear. Let sleeping dogs lie.’

For a long time, Nicole lay there beside the sleeping William, with Bullwitt trying to reassure her how well everything would turn out if only it was left well alone.

She did realise she had new loyalties now. To her lover and to the people she lived with. She knew she’d never return to 1999. There were changes taking place in her body now. Mouse DNA had fused with human DNA. That would drive a wedge between her and the rest of humanity in any case. Nevertheless, she was uneasy about what Bullwitt had told her. If her old friends were in any kind of danger she knew she should warn them. And quickly.

Ryan Keith’s wedding day was a day to remember.

The bride, daughter of the wealthiest baker in Casterton, wore white, with a veil and a bouquet of peach-coloured flowers. Most of the refugees from 1999 were there, along with the bride’s family, and everyone was in perfect Victorian dress, the men folk in top hats and frock coats.

With the exception of the Reverend Thomas Hather, none of the local people knew that Sam Baker and the rest of the newcomers hailed not from some other part of the country but from, in fact, some other century – which must surely have been the best-kept secret in Casterton.

After the wedding banquet in the baker’s house Sam escaped the noise and exuberance of the party games to walk through the orchard and breathe the cool evening air. Stars had begun to prick their way through the deepening blue.

The apples on the trees were fully ripe, reminding him of Ryan Keith’s face duplicated over and over again. Ryan had grown plumper still, looking even more like Oliver Hardy. His cheeks were a rosy apple-red, and just as rounded.

He found Jud Campbell standing with his hand resting against a pear tree. Thoughtful-looking, he smoked a pipe as he gazed out over fields that sloped down to a railway line. A train rattled along the tracks, puffing out smoke balls.

Steam hissed from the gleaming side-rods as they turned the wheels against the rails with a pleasantly rhythmic clickety-clack sound.

‘Good party,’ Sam said. ‘I think they’re going to make a grand couple.’

Jud pulled on the pipe. ‘Grand, Sam? You’re picking up the local lingo?’

‘Oh, just the odd word.’ Sam smiled. ‘This place works its way through your skin after a while.’

‘So you’re turning native? But you’ll be none the worse for it. It’s a good place. Good people, too.’ He glanced back at the house where lamps filled the windows with a golden light. There was a chanted counting coming from the big parlour as another game got under way, followed by a whooooow ! that rose in pitch until it disintegrated into everyone laughing.

‘Aye, they’ll make a good couple. Champion, as they’d say hereabouts.’ Jud gave a small smile. ‘But you have to remember all this could end just like…’ He clicked his fingers.

‘The Bluebeards? I’ve seen nothing of them, have you?’

‘Not a sign. Of course, they could be away ransacking some other period in time – 1066? 1776? 2001? Who knows? No, if anything, I was referring to the time-slips. Any second we might open our eyes and find ourselves back in the amphitheatre, you sitting there alongside Zita, the reps in their fancy dress, me slipping the pin back inside my collar. Sam, all this could go. This life we’re building for ourselves could vanish in a flash.’

‘I guess it’s possible.’

‘Would you regret it if it did, Sam?’

‘Yes, I would. I’ve grown to like it here. I like the food, the beer… and, as you say, this is a good town filled with good people. I don’t want to lose it.’

Jud sighed. ‘You might have to do just that, so don’t invest all your emotions in it, will you?’

‘You mean like Ryan?’

‘He’s in love with the girl. And have you ever seen anyone so happy in your life? But if the time-slip comes again he’ll lose his wife.’

‘Maybe it won’t come to that.’

‘Hmm… Have you noticed that with every time-slip we have all our personal possessions restored to us just as they were? But we’ve not been able to bring back souvenirs from 1978 or 1946. They just vanish into thin air.’

‘Perhaps this mechanism, whatever it is, that pulled us back through time has simply gone kaput.’

‘Maybe.’

‘But you doubt it? Even though we’ve been marooned here for, let’s see, six months?’

‘So you think this is for keeps?’ Jud pulled on the pipe. ‘We’re staying in 1865 for good?’

‘Well, I figure we’ve rejoined the normal flow of time; we’ll just go forward with it along with the rest of the world. If we live to a good age we’ll see the new century, 1900. Not long after that we’ll be reading about the first flight at Kitty Hawk, the invention of the electric light bulb, cinemas, radio.’