David Mitchell - The Bone Clocks

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. But before Holly can respond, her head lolls back at a weird angle and her face begins to shut down. What’s happening now? Once I saw a diabetic colleague go into what he called a hypo and this looks a lot like that. Sharon says, “Grab her!” and I lurch forwards, but Brendan and Kath have Holly and stop her falling.

The manager’s saying, “Through here, bring her through here,” and Holly is half dragged, half supported into a back office.

Her breathing is now ferocious in-out-in-out and Kath, who took a nursing course in Cork years ago, tells everyone, “Space! Back back back!” as she and Brendan lower her onto a hastily cleared sofa. “Slow your breathing, darling,” Kath tells her daughter. “Nice, slow breaths for me now …” I ought to be next to her but there are too many Sykeses in the way and the office is tiny, and, anyway, whose fault is all of this? I’m close enough to see Holly’s eyes, though, and the pupils shrinking away to almost nothing. Pauline Webber says, “Why’re her eyes doing that?”—and Peter’s shoulder gets in the way — and Holly’s face spasms — and Dave says, “Kath, shouldn’t we call for a doctor?”—and Holly’s face shuts down like she’s lost consciousness altogether — and Brendan asks, “Is it some sort of attack, Mam?”—and Kath says, “Her pulse is going fierce fast now”—and the manager says, “I’m calling an ambulance”—but then Holly’s lips and jaws begin to flex and she speaks the word “Ten …” blurrily, like a person profoundly deaf from birth, but huskier and tortuously slow, like a recording at the wrong speed, enunciating the syllable in drawn-out slow motion.

Kath looks at Dave and Dave shrugs: “Ten what , Holly?”

“She’s saying something else, Kath,” says Ruth.

Holly forms a second: “Fiffffff …”

Peter Webber whispers, “Is that English?”

“Holly darling,” says Dave, “what’re you telling us?”

Holly’s shaking slightly, so her voice does too: “Tee-ee-ee-een …”

I feel I ought to take charge, somehow. I mean, I am her partner, but I’ve never seen her — or anyone — like this.

Peter puts it together: “Ten-fifteen?”

Dave asks his daughter, “Love, what’s happening at ten-fifteen?”

“It won’t mean anything,” says Brendan. “She’s having an attack of some sort.” The pendant with Jacko’s last labyrinth on it slides off the edge of the sofa and swings there. Then Holly touches her head and winces with pain but her eyes are back to normal, and she blinks up at the array of faces frowning down. “Oh, f’Chrissakes. Don’t tell me I fainted?”

Nobody’s quite sure what to say at first.

“Sort of,” says Sharon. “Don’t sit up.”

“Do you remember what you said?” asks Kath.

“No, and who cares, when Aoife — Yeah. Numbers.”

“A time, Hol,” says Sharon. “You said, ‘Ten-fifteen.’ ”

“I’m feeling better. What happens at ten-fifteen?”

“If you don’t know,” says Brendan, “how can we?”

“None of this is helping Aoife. Did anyone finish my call with the police?”

“For all we knew,” says Kath, “you were having a cardiac arrest.”

“Well, I wasn’t, Mam, thanks. Where’s the manager?”

“Here,” says the unfortunate guy.

“Get me the police station, please. They’ll drag their heels on the 108 if I don’t fire a rocket up them.” Holly stands and steps towards the door and the rest of us shuffle back out. I reverse around behind the reception desk to make space — and a voice speaks: “Edmund.”

I find Dwight Silverwind, whom I’d forgotten about. “It’s Ed.”

“That was a message. From the Script.”

“A what?”

“A message.”

“What was?”

“Ten-fifteen. It’s a sign, a glimpse. It wasn’t from Holly.”

“Well, it certainly looked as if she said it.”

“Ed, is Holly at all psychic?”

I can’t hide my irritation. “No, she—” The Radio People. “Well, when she was younger, stuff happened, and she … A bit, yeah.”

Even more lines appear on Dwight Silverwind’s oak-grained, drooping face. “I won’t deny that I’m as much a ‘fortune discusser’ as a ‘fortune-teller.’ People need to voice their fears and hopes in confidence, and I provide that service. But occasionally I do meet the real thing — and when I do, I know it. Holly’s ‘ten-fifteen.’ It means something.”

His Gandalfy face, my headache, the spinning pier, Eilísh … Any car could blow up at any time … The thought of Aoife being lost and scared and her mouth taped up —stop it stop it stop it …

“ Think , Ed. Those numbers, they’re not random.”

“Maybe they’re not. But I–I’m crap at codes.”

“No, no — the Script’s not some complex formula. As often as not it’s just staring you in the face, so close you can’t see it.”

I need to look for Aoife, not have a discussion on metaphysics . “Look, I–I …” Dwight Silverwind is standing by the pigeonholes for the room keys. Room keys, these days, are a bit of an analog throwback, as most British or American hotels — not Iraqi — use rewritable plastic key cards with magnetic strips. Each pigeonhole is numbered with an engraved brass plaque that corresponds to the number on the ring of the key it houses. And six inches to the left of Dwight Silverwind’s head is a pigeonhole labeled 1015. 1015. The key is there.

It’s a coincidence — don’t start “seeing signs” now .

Dwight Silverwind follows my faintly appalled gaze.

How improbable must a coincidence be before it’s a sign?

“Cute,” he mutters. “Sure as heck know what I’d do next.”

The receptionist is turned away. Holly’s waiting by the phone. The others are miserable, flapping, pale. One of Sharon’s friends appears and says, “No sign of her yet, but everyone’s looking,” and Austin Webber’s talking into his mobile, saying, “Lee? Any sign of her?”

I take the key to 1015; my feet get me to the lift.

It’s waiting and vacant. I get in and press 10.

The doors close. Dwight Silverwind’s still here.

The lift goes up to the tenth floor, no interruptions.

Silverwind and I step out into a tomblike silence I didn’t expect in a busy hotel in April. Sunlight slants through dust. A sign says ROOMS 1000–103 °CLOSED FOR ELECTRICAL REWIRING UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE. I walk to 1015, put the key into the lock, turn it, and go in. Silverwind stays outside and, ignoring the unlucky thought that says if Aoife isn’t here I’ll never see her again, I walk into the musty room and say, “Aoife?”

There’s no reply. Signs aren’t real . You’ve lost her.

Then the silence is ruffled. The coverlet moves. She’s curled up on the bed, asleep in her clothes. “Aoife.”

She wakes up, puzzled, sees me, and smiles.

These seconds burn themselves into my memory.

Relief this intense isn’t relief anymore, it’s joy.

“Aoife, poppet, you’ve given us all quite a fright.”

We’re hugging each other tight. “I’m sorry, Daddy, but after you fell asleep I still wasn’t sleepy so I thought I’d go and find Granddad Dave for a game of Connect 4, so I went up some stairs, but then I–I got a bit lost. Then I heard someone coming, or I thought I did, and I was afraid I’d be in trouble so I hid in here but then the door wouldn’t open. So I cried a bit, and I tried the phone but it didn’t work, so then I slept. How much trouble am I in, Daddy? You can stop my pocket money.”

“It’s okay, poppet, but let’s find Mum and the others.”