say, but his mind was blank. With a quick smile he ran after Cati. Contessa watched him go, her face kind but grave.
“Like your father before you, you will be tested,” she murmured. “Like your father.” With these words, sorrow seemed to fill her face. With a sigh, she turned back to the bustle of the kitchen.
When Owen emerged on to the corridor, he saw that Cati was almost lost in the crowds ahead. He dashed after her, but the flaps of leather coming loose on his trainers made it hard to run. Cati dived through another doorway and Owen, following, found himself on yet another twisting staircase rising upwards.
“Hurry up!” Cati shouted back to him. He was panting for breath when he emerged into daylight at the top. He stumbled on the top step and shot forward, landing flat on his face to find himself looking down the sheer wall of the Workhouse to the ground hundreds of metres below. A hand on his collar hauled Owen back. Cati was surprisingly strong and she practically lifted him to his feet before he pushed her hand away.
“I’m all right,” he said, trying to sound gruff. “Leave me alone. I can look after myself.” If she was offended by his tone, she didn’t show it. She met his eyes for a few seconds and he felt that he was being judged by an older and wiser mind, but he thought he saw sympathy there as well. “What is so important anyway?”
She pointed behind him. Owen realised that they were standing on a flat platform in the middle of the Workhouse roof. The slates on the roof were buckled and covered in mildew, and the stonework was weathered and cracked. In the middle of the platform was a large round hole.
“It’s a hole,” he said. “I can see that.”
“Listen,” she said. At first, he could hear a faint rumbling deep in the hole. Then there were deep groaning and complaining noises, as if some very old machinery was grumbling into life. There was a boom which sounded a long way away and then the rumbling got louder and Owen started to feel tremors in the ground beneath his feet. As the rumbling grew, the whole building seemed to shake and pieces of crumbling stone began to fall from the parapet.
“What is it?” He looked at Cati, but her attention was on the vast gaping hole in front of them. More loud groanings and creakings and protesting sounded from the hole, followed by a long, ominous shriek.
“Stand back!” Cati shouted above the noise.
Just as he did, a vast cloud of steam burst upwards and then, with terrifying speed, what looked like the top of a lighthouse shot from the hole – a lighthouse which seemed to be perched on top of a column of brass, which was battered and scarred and scratched and dulled as though it was ancient. Owen realised that the thing was coming out of the hole section by section, like a telescope, the sections sliding over each other with deafening groans and shudders and bangs, the whole structure swaying from side to side so that he thought it would fall on top of them. Cati gripped his arm.
“Jump!” she yelled, propelling him forward. The stained brass wall reared up dizzily in front of him and he saw himself rebounding off it, being flung over the parapet.
“Grab hold!” Cati shouted, just as Owen was about to hit the wall. Terrified, he glanced down and saw a brass rail coming towards him at great speed. He grabbed it with both hands and Cati pushed him over it, until he landed on his back on a narrow walkway as the platform shot upwards, swaying and groaning sickeningly.
After what seemed like an eternity, the platform heaved and clanged to a halt. Owen raised himself cautiously on one elbow and looked through the railing. It was a long way down. The figures on the ground below them were tiny. He turned and looked up. The little turreted point that resembled the top of a lighthouse was maybe twenty metres above him. Despite the battered look of the rest of the structure, the glass gleamed softly as if it had just been polished.
“What is it?” he said, his voice sounding a bit more shaky than he would have liked.
“This is the Nab,” Cati said.
“What’s that up there?”
“That? That’s the Skyward,” she said, almost dreamily.
“What’s it for?”
“For seeing, if it lets you. For seeing across time.”
“You could have killed us,” he said, “jumping like that.”
“Don’t be cross,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t jump on your own.” Owen opened his mouth then closed it again. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. He looked around and saw that the platform they were on joined two sections of a winding staircase which led to the Skyward. He got to his feet, holding on to the rail. A sudden gust of wind caused the whole structure to sway gently. Owen took a firmer hold and looked out across the river.
Where Johnston’s yard had been there were trenches and tall figures in white, although the pale mist that came and went made it difficult to get a proper look at them. But there was no mistaking the defences that had been thrown up on his own side of the river. Earthworks topped with wooden pallisades. Deep trenches. And down near the river, hidden by trees, the flicker of that blue flame. Further in the distance he saw the sun touch the horizon, an orange ball, smouldering and ominous. It reminded Owen that he should be home and his eyes turned to the house on the ridge at the other side of the river.
He blinked and looked again, thinking that he was looking in the wrong place, but he knew from the shape of the mountains in the distance that he was not. He was looking for his house. The long, low house with the slate roof and the overgrown garden that his mother once kept. The house at the end of the narrow road with several other houses on it. No matter how much he blinked he could not see them. The road, the other houses, his own house where his sad mother wandered the rooms at night – they were all gone, and in their place a wood of large pine trees grew along the ridge. As if they had always grown there.
“It’s gone,” Owen said, his voice trembling. “The house is gone, my mother…”
He felt Cati’s arm around his shoulder.
“It’s not gone,” she said, “not the way you mean it. In fact, in a way it was never really there in the first place. Oh dear, that wasn’t really the right thing to say…”
That was enough. Tearing himself away from her, Owen started to run, clattering down the metal stairs of the Nab, out on to the roof and then down the stone stairs inside the Workhouse. He could hear Cati calling behind him, but he didn’t stop. Whatever was going on in this place, it was nothing to do with him. He was going to cross the river and get his mother. On he ran, through the busy main corridor now, elbowing people aside, shouting at them to get out of his way so that they turned to stare after him. The corridor cleared a little as he approached the kitchen, and he was running at full tilt, Cati’s cries far behind, when the sole of his right trainer came off and caught under his foot. Arms flailing, he tried to stay upright, but it was no good. With a ripping sound, the sole of the left trainer came off and Owen went crashing to the ground, his head striking the stone floor with a crunch.
He lay there for a moment, sick and dizzy. He put his hand to his head, feeling a large bump starting to rise. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of elegant slippers. He looked up to see Contessa peering down at him with concern. Cati skidded to a halt beside them.
“I didn’t tell him… I mean, I said it would be explained…” she stammered. Contessa held up a hand and Cati stopped talking. Owen sat up and Contessa knelt beside him.
“Our house,” he said hopelessly, “my mother, they’re gone…”
“I know,” Contessa said gently. “I know. Here. Drink some of this.” She pulled a small bottle from under her robes and put it to his lips. The liquid tasted warm and nutty.
“I have to go,” he said. “She might be frightened…” But as he spoke, everything seemed to become very far away, even his own voice. His eyelids felt heavier and heavier. He had to fight it. He had to go home. But it seemed that his brain refused to send the order to his