Chapter Fourteen
A Choice is Made
They got back as the sun stretched behind the fields. Charlie had nothing left to say to James - he was too stunned.
On the slow and quiet walk back to the Room he let his eyes follow the tips of his trainers, skirted by the cloak, pacing the pavement. He spent a long time testing names in his head:
James Scripton.
Flora Mercier.
Flora Scripton.
Etienne Scripton.
Etty Scripton.
It sounded wrong to him: too many consonants. Then again, Charlie supposed, had James survived the war and gone on to raise his children and grandchildren, considerably fewer of them would have had French names. What might Etty have been? Emma? Ethel? Charlie grimaced at the thought, and then felt annoyed with himself for thinking about her again. What other thoughts could distract him from the ever-present image of her heart-shaped face, apricot hair, straight and thick and just brushing her shoulders…
Oh. Of course there remained the problem of Victoria. Charlie was in half a mind to tell James he’d return to the Room later, but when he lifted his head, he groaned: they were already at the threshold. James didn’t step in straight away.
‘You can’t hide from her forever, chappie.’
Chappie. And so the nickname list gained another embarrassing addition.
Sighing, he pushed through to the Room before he could change his mind. Everyone else seemed to be present, having either lounged around for hours or very recently come back from duty.
Charlie scanned the chairs and sofas. There she was, her back rigid and turned away from him. She was more difficult to spot than the others - with such dark hair accessorizing a midnight-black cloak, Victoria blended right into the shadows.
He could have sworn the moment of his entrance had been scripted, the way the other Grims ceased all conversation and put their attention solely on him. Victoria continued not to move. He wished he had some idea of her expression; he cleared his throat.
‘Hey everyone.’
Silence. Bobby threw Charlie a look from across the Room that said, Wish I could save you from this awkward moment, mate, but…
Charlie curtly raised his eyebrows in reply. Take Two.
‘Victoria. Can I talk to you…please?’
There was the most imperceptible turn of her head, a few degrees to the right. Her voice was measured and exact.
‘Private conversations are hardly our forte, Charles. Anything you have to say, feel free to say them right now, from where you are standing.’
He could feel everyone hanging on his unsaid words. If only a director could step in now and yell, “Cut!” Breathe in.
‘Sorry doesn’t cover half of what I want to say, but I hope it’s a start. I hope you’ll forgive me at some point, but only when you want to. And I hope we can be…civil.’
Self-reproach sprung up as he finished speaking. It sounded like a bad impersonation of Victoria, which was obviously not what he was aiming for.
She didn’t deign to respond. Instead, she reached into her cloak pocket to unravel her sheet of parchment listing everyone’s duties. Suddenly her body language was filled with urgency. She faced Charlie for the first time since he walked in.
‘You fool,’ she muttered. ‘You nearly made me forget about a duty for which we are both needed. Move.’
Baffled, Charlie obeyed, moving fluidly back over the threshold onto the street.
‘Does this mean you accept my apology enough to talk to me now?’
‘Oh, yes, fine,’ she said distractedly, speeding off. He soon matched her pace. ‘But move quickly. We are needed in Kingside.’
Charlie and Victoria sped along pavements, twisting country roads and crop fields for a stretch of thirty minutes before they reached the town border.
It didn’t take long at all for Charlie to realise, horrorstruck, what the emergency was. The two Grims marginally slowed their pace, Victoria ahead of him, steely and determined. She led him around corners and down alley shortcuts like an expert, Charlie’s eyes all the while fixed on the coiling cloud of black smoke against white sky. He was ready to break out into a cold sweat.
A thicket of bystanders stood helplessly behind two red fire engines parked hastily outside a house in flames. It wasn’t the cottage in Southside, but it felt familiar enough for Charlie to forget how to breathe.
‘Who?’ was all he could get out, as he and Victoria halted at the edge of the scene.
‘One firefighter. Geoff - ’
‘Don’t give him a name. I don’t want to know.’
The orange flames were ragged and ferocious, spitting sparks in all directions and reducing everything in their path to charcoal. Every second counted - Charlie suddenly found his feet taking off towards the house.
He vaguely heard Victoria shriek his name, imploring him to be careful. Although each day he’d felt a distinct lack of physicality, what awaited him past the disintegrating front door was too good a reminder that he was flesh and blood, both of which were searing.
Charlie ripped off his black cloak, which was soaking up unbearable amounts of heat. He crossed his bare arms over his face, trying to make out anything beyond the smoke. Blindly he waved one hand around, feeling for walls or doorways.
A patch of yellow flared up in the left corner of his eye. He turned: it looked like a kitchen. He could see more clearly because someone had smartly thrown open the windows. Someone on the floor.
The fireman, helmet and visor askew, protective gloves blackened, lay face down disturbingly close to Charlie’s feet. He turned the man over with difficulty. His uniform weighed him down, but Charlie recalled his telekenetic sessions back in the Room and used the newfound power to the best of his abilities until the man was on his back.
His eyes were closed, and his square face was smeared with soot and sweat. He wasn’t dead, not yet - Charlie could just make out a pulse on his wrist.
Nothing had fallen on the fireman, and there were no obvious burn marks, so it must have been the smoke that was slowly killing him. Only at that moment did Charlie notice, stunned, that he himself was breathing with ease. What had happened to his lungs over the past few weeks was a mystery.
A wooden ceiling beam came crashing to the floor, barely five feet from the dying man. He had to do it, now.
Taking advantage of his ability to breathe, he put his arms through the fireman and, after grasping it carefully, withdrew the soul.
He stood up, and the ghost of the man stood with him. His eyes were bewildered and full of adrenalin, and although Charlie wanted badly to reassure him, there was no time.
As another beam fell into chunks and splinters, he got the fireman’s right arm around his neck and steered him hastily out of the kitchen. He panicked for a second as they plunged into the black smoke again, but immediately his elbow found the frame of the front door. By now it was no longer a door, but a gaping entrance to a disaster zone. And an exit: an exit into the mild night air. Charlie half-expected there to be a collective gasp from the crowd as he emerged with the fireman, but of course, why would there be? They were invisible to the world.
He dragged his feet across the front garden, past the other firefighters who were dousing as much of the house as possible with jets of water, and into the empty road, where Victoria waited. Charlie wanted to cry with relief that it was over, and because the smoke had got to his eyes instead of his lungs.
She wordlessly took the fireman off his shoulder and calmed him down. Charlie fell to his knees, staggering exhausted breaths. He wiped the back of his fist across his forehead, and noticed the skin came away as grimy as the fireman’s.
‘Charlie, are you all right?’
‘Yeah, yeah I’ll be fine. Let’s just get out of here, my eyes are killing me.’
‘Wh-where are you taking me?’ He heard the fireman’s weak voice for the first time. Victoria placed a firm hand on his shoulder and began to lead him away from the drama, back in the direction of Southside.
‘Please, sir, there is no need for concern or alarm. There is a place where you may finally rest. Do not look back.’
Rendered speechless again, he let his head nod and walked slowly with her. Charlie got off his knees and joined them.
They went back down the unpeopled streets and silent roads; the fireman was clearly overwhelmed by the speed at which they swept across the nighttime horizon, but with Victoria and Charlie taking an arm each for support, there wasn’t much he could do to about it.
They reached the Room in what felt like good time, although now the post office and Laundromat had been padlocked and grilled-shut for the night.
‘Here we are, Mr. Kendle,’ announced Victoria in her professional work-voice as the three of them stepped over the threshold. In another lifetime she might have made a good airhostess or receptionist.
‘What’s here?’
‘A gateway between this world and the next. All you are required to do is to walk through that door at the end. I will open it for you.’
Geoff Kendle, as Charlie now knew him, was dazed into submission again. Victoria certainly didn’t provide much time to absorb the impact of the things she said.
‘Mate?’
Charlie glanced to his right, and saw Bobby’s face. He was already wearing his protective glasses, holding out a second pair.
‘Oh, thanks Bob.’
‘You look like you’ve had a tough time. Ought to wash your face after this.’
‘Hm? Oh, yeah. Keep forgetting.’
‘And…what happened to your cloak?’
Charlie had to look down to remember that the cloak was most likely a scrumpled ball of burnt fabric by now. Now that someone had pointed it out, he felt almost naked in just a t-shirt, jeans and trainers.
‘It came off in the fire.’
‘Oh it was a fire. That makes sense.’ Bobby sucked air through his teeth. ‘That’s rough. Well done for getting through it, especially after…well, you know.’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s alright.’
The conversation ended when blinding white light spilled into the black room again. A chorus of hands raised themselves to shield eyes even in spite of the glasses.
Then Geoff the fireman was gone. Victoria turned around and brushed her hands off on her cloak. This caused her to finally notice Charlie’s lack of one.
‘Wait…where - ’
‘Sorry, but I had to get it off in the house, the heat was so bad.’
‘Oh, of course. I understand. Here you are.’
His eyes widened considerably at the sight of another black cloak already draped over her offering arm. He hadn’t seen anything move, and yet there it was; Charlie was too drained to ask any more questions, so he said thank you and shrugged it on. The material somehow felt cooler and silkier than that of his other one, or perhaps it was something to do with his skin, dried out by the fire.
‘Well, I’m off,’ said Peter from his usual sofa, as he reluctantly stood and stretched his broad arms out in front. ‘Got a client up in Northside.’
‘I need to go too,’ said Julia, padding over to the door. ‘See you later everyone.’
‘Bye,’ came the collective voice. Before Charlie had the chance to make himself comfortable after his ordeal, Victoria lightly placed a hand on his arm.
‘Wait. If it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience, I would like to walk with you.’
‘Now?’
‘Please.’
‘Well, I…oh, alright.’
How many more reflective walks Charlie would have to go on was anyone’s guess.
As they walked, he wiped as much of the soot from his face with his sleeve as he could.
‘So what do you want to talk to me about? Is it going to be a long night?’
‘Perhaps. First and foremost I will say that I have decided to forgive you.’
‘Already? I mean, that’s generous of you, but -’
‘Charlie, really, I don’t feel rushed. I thought you merited my forgiveness as I watched you disappear into that burning house, even after everything you have been through. It was…highly commendable behaviour, for which you have gained my sincere respect.’
‘Well, thanks. I still feel bad for shouting at you, though. Not exactly commendable behaviour then.’
‘My own outburst was no less commendable, if you can bear to remember.’
An understanding silence passed between them as they walked in no apparent direction.
‘Victoria, now that we’re, you know, on good terms again…’
‘Yes?’
‘I was wondering if I could ask you another question.’
‘What is it?’
‘A while ago you said I almost made us late for our duty.’
‘And I said so mistakenly. For that I also apologise.’
‘Sure, but that’s not what’s bothering me.’
‘Oh?’
‘It got me thinking: what if we had been late? Would that fireman have died with nowhere for his soul to go? I mean, has that ever happened before?’
Victoria looked ahead, her eyes puzzling over the answer.
‘I…I don’t know, Charlie. I suppose the scenario never crossed my mind. I wish I could be more articulate, but as far as my knowledge extends, no, there has never been such an incident. But then…thinking on it, surely it could never happen, because otherwise what would be the point of our existence as servants of Death? The more I consider the possibility, the more it seems to me a logical impossibility.’
‘Er, hang on a sec,’ said Charlie coolly. ‘If it hadn’t been for me tonight, if I’d panicked and stayed with you, the fireman might well not have been saved. I just told you.’
Victoria turned her face to meet his, and to his surprise, she smiled, as though she’d just grasped the meaning behind a complicated riddle.
‘Exactly.’