Fyrefall (Phoebe and the Wanderers, Book 1)

6 - Giving in to temptation

I braced, expecting to jolt awake, but instead I felt myself floating again.

A door slammed. I was in a dusty country lane, beneath a mournful grey sky. The lane was lined on one side with cottages, on the other with thick green hedgerows and, beyond them a patchwork of fields where knee-high grass waved in the gentle breeze. Another dream? I looked around for Alexander, but I seemed to be alone.

The cottage closest to me was tiny, smaller even than our little box of a house. A man stood just outside the door, with a knap-sack on his shoulder, his hand still on the knob of the door that he’d just slammed shut. As he lifted his head, his shaggy hair fell back to reveal his face.

It was Shakespeare. He looked tired. He had two days’ growth of stubble on his chin. As he walked away, the cottage door swung open. At the door appeared Anne Hathaway, or by the looks of it, she had to be Anne Shakespeare by now: she was holding one baby in her arms and another the same size sprawled on the ground at her feet.

“So that’s it,” she spat, her voice sour and shaky, her face streaked with tears. “You go to seek your fortune and I’m left here alone.”

Shakespeare’s shoulders sagged. “You are not alone. My father has offered to take you and the children in.”

“What humiliation! Abandoned by my husband and forced to seek charity from his family.”

“I thought I had your blessing,” he said. “I am not abandoning you. I shall send back money. There is an opening with the Admiral’s Men. I am promised an income.”

“How are we to live on a player’s wage?”

He turned to face her. “It is a beginning, is it not?”

She bit her lip, shook her head.

His voice shook, pleading. “I need to do this, Anne.”

“And what of my needs?”

“You have the children. You have their love.”

“Your love was all I ever needed.” Setting the baby on the ground, she stretched onto tiptoes, wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips to his. “I thought my love would be enough to keep you here.” Her voice cracked as she choked back a sob.

He unwrapped her arms from around his neck, kissed her brow and stroked her hair. “Before you know it, I’ll be back.”

 He turned to set off once more, when a tiny girl, still only a toddler, darted around Anne’s long skirt and raced after him, calling, “Daddy! Daddy! I come wif you!”

Shakespeare turned and crouched, scooping the little girl into his arms. “I will return before long, my little Susanna.” He kissed her and set her down. As he walked away the small girl let out a long wail, and her mother rushed to scoop up the heart-broken child in her arms.

I stepped back into the shade of an overhanging tree. A movement in the field just the other side of the hedgerow caught my eye. I knew he had to be here somewhere. “Alexander,” I hissed. He kept moving as if he hadn’t heard me.

I shuffled under a gap in the hedge and hissed, “Hey! Where you going?”

He kept moving. I darted out and drew alongside him. ‘You’re avoiding me,’ I whispered.

He halted, turned, frowned. ‘Clearly, I’m not having much success.”

“Why do you keep running away?”

 “Sshh!” He cut me off and gestured towards the lane.

Shakespeare reached the cross-roads at the end of the laneway. The main road was no more than a muddy rutted track, and by its side were tethered two horses. One pale brown, and the other dusty grey. Esther was sitting on a stile beside them, waiting quietly as Shakespeare approached. She was twisting a bunch of spring daffodils in her hands, their yellow glow reflecting on her skin, and humming a melody to herself.

Shakespeare drew up before her, and she greeted him with a smile like sunshine. ‘So here you are,’ she said. ‘London bound.’

“Aye,” he replied without enthusiasm. “Would that I could see into the future and know this is not some terrible mistake.”

Esther laughed. “Come, the rest of the company is a day ahead of us. We must make haste if we are to reach Banbury before nightfall.”

I glanced at Alexander. He had a look of deep concentration, almost serenity on his face and I sensed that he was preparing to bail out once more. “Wait,” I snapped. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re just going to evaporate out of here, aren’t you?”

“That Esther…” he tilted his head towards the travellers “…is still a few days ahead of me. I need to find out what she’s up to right now.’

‘Oh, well, that all makes perfect sense. Are you ever going to stop zipping around after Esther and tell me what’s going on?”

“You’re a dreamwalker,” he said.

“Aah, so not a treeforker?”

“What?”

“Never mind. What’s a dreamwalker?”

“It’s like you’re sleep-walking, but only your mind is going anywhere. While you’re asleep and I’m travelling through time, your consciousness can get tangled up with me. When that happens, you appear to me as a non-corporeal apparition.”

“A non-what?”

“It’s like a ghost.”

“A ghost?” I said. “I’m haunting you?”

“Sort of,” he said. “But only when I fyrefall.”

“Fire what?”

"Fyrefall. One word. And it's fyre with a y."

"Fyre-with-a-y. Thanks. Now it's all crystal clear."

He didn’t seem impressed by my sarcasm. “It's how we travel through time,” he said, like he was speaking to a four-year-old. “Fyrefall is like freefall, but instead of falling through air, we’re falling through the Drift.”

“And the Drift is?”

 “A parallel dimension formed of human consciousness and…” he looked at my blank expression and shook his head. “There’s really no point me trying to explain.”

“Well,” I said, smarting at the implication that I was too dumb to understand. “Maybe if you were actually trying to explain, instead of just firing all these big words at me, then I’d be able to understand.”

“Why should I help you understand?” he snapped. “I was getting along with my job, when, all of a sudden I’ve got a stowaway every time I fyrefall. Three times you’ve found me. Do you know how weird that is? Some people Dreamwalk by accident. I’ve run into them before. But finding me over and over again. That’s just plain creepy!”

“But you came to me first.”

“According to you.”

“Yes, and I know when I’m telling the truth. ” I folded my arms and took a step forward. “And that means I’m ahead of you. I’ve seen your future, even if it was just a tiny snippet. So maybe, just maybe I’m here because I know something you don’t and you need my help!”

He leaned so close that his forehead would have been almost touching mine, if I hadn’t been some kind of ghost. He was seething, words snaking out from between his bitterly clenched teeth. “I don’t now, and will never need your help.”

I turned away and muttered under my breath. “What you need is a good slap.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’d be the one to give it to me?”

“Well, right now, I’m a whatever-you-call-it apparition, but the next time I meet you in the flesh, I’m going to smack you. Hard.”

“You’ve got to catch me first.” He glanced down at his reflection in a puddle on the ground. His eyes glazed over.

I stomped my foot.  “Oh no you…”