The Door In The Wall

Chapter 4: At Home

Time passed, as it tends to do, and Billy had turned 15. It had been just over five years since the tragic loss of his father, and just under five years since he had returned home from the hospital in London.

In the first year, it took a lot of patience from his mother and a lot of kindness too. She had lost her husband, the man she had loved and still loved now, and for a time thought that she was going to lose her son as well.

Billy had woken one night in the hospital with a scream; the nurses said that a nightmare seemed to chase him back in to the world of the living. They ran tests on the child, asked him question after question but no answers came and the nurses told his mother that he seemed to have been shocked mute. 

P.C. Caplin managed to come and visit once a week, in her own time, to check on Billy and his mother. (In reality, to begin with, it was only because she had heard that he had woken up at last, and wanted to hear from Billy how he ended up in London.) After a few months of visiting and talking to Mrs Winter about the loss of her husband, she began to care for the pair of them and her visits became more about wanting to help than wanting answers to her own curiosity. The Police Force had told her not long after Billy was found that the case had been passed onto a local Police Officer, but some people will do anything and everything to find out what they want to know, even if it involves a 400 mile round trip once a week. (Not to mention the cost of a return train ticket each time.)

A few months after coming out of his coma, the hospital said that they had run all tests and could do no more for Billy. He was allowed to go home with his mother, much to her relief (and the relief of P.C Caplin, whom Billy's mother now called 'Liz.')

A sense of Deja Vu overtook Billy as the moving van came to his mothers flat to pack up her things for the move back north. She had quit her job after Mr Winter had died because his life insurance had been paid out  to his widow, and while it wasn't a fortune, it was enough for Mrs Winter to pay off the mortgage on the house and become a full time carer for as long as her son needed.

Billy still hadn't spoken.

They arrived back home in York in the early afternoon. Billy was walked into the house by his mother and Liz, then they all sat in the living room and tried to make conversation as though everything was well and normal. As a favour, Liz had been coming round to the house a couple of times a week to let some fresh air in, and to collect the mail for Mrs Winter so she knew her way around the kitchen. She made herself and Billy's mother a cup of tea, and gave Billy a can of Coke. He smiled at her, then popped the ring pull and drank. 

Before too long night had fallen, and P.C Caplin made her way home. Billy's mother thanked her for all her help and for all the care she had shown her and her son. Liz told her that it was no problem at all.

The first night of Billy being home, he refused to go upstairs, let alone in his bedroom. His mother, after asking him questions and getting nothing in return, figured out from her sons actions that he wanted to sleep in the living room. She asked if he wanted her to stay downstairs too, but he shook his head. After making him a bed on the sofa she kissed his forehead and said goodnight.

He still hadn't said a word since waking.

The second year passed by a lot easier than the first. Billy had decided that he was going to sleep in the living room each and every night, and so Mrs Winter had done away with their old sofa and bought him a pull-out sofa bed. P.C Caplin called in if she was near when working, and a couple evenings a week when she was not.

Apart from not talking, you wouldn't know anything was wrong with Billy. You might ask about the three scars on his arm, but hardly anyone did. Billy and his mother went out shopping together, and for walks around the park where Billy would kick around a football.