Chapter 9: The Second Day

A Chapter by Mathew Nicolson

“It’s dawn,” Billy observed unenthusiastically. “Last night I was with Mum and Rebecca, safe and peaceful…”

Neither Paul nor Anonni replied. They were standing in a field, surrounded by curious cows.

“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Paul asked.

“The plan is to have no plan!” Anonni grumbled. “We can either sit and do nothing, and hope they find us, or we look for them!”

“But we’ll be looking for days, Manchester is a big place!” Paul argued.

“Trust me,” was Anonni’s answer.

Billy yawned.

“Tired?” Anonni asked.

“And hungry… yeah…”

Anonni pulled off his rucksack, and looked through it.

“Ah, here we are,” he said, pulling out a small tub. He opened it, and inside was piled full of twenty-pound notes. The boys stared at it in disbelief.

“How did you get that?” Paul asked.

“It’s good to know the local currency. Come on, let’s find a shop…”

Rebecca and Carrie had just finished their breakfast �" one sandwich each. Neither had had much sleep after the ordeal, and had said very little to each other.

“What now?” Carrie said, breaking the silence.

“I need it back…” Rebecca replied. She didn’t know why… but it was hers, as a reminder of what she had lost, and what had caused it. She didn’t think she could face the Knight without it. She was almost half hoping that bringing the Knight and the locket together would cause some fantasy explosion, destroying both her problems.

“You’re mad!” Carrie cried. “How could you want it back?”

“If you won’t help me then go back home,” Rebecca replied. “But I’m getting it back.”

Carrie sighed.

“I don’t have a choice,” she said. “The Knight attacked me last night, at my house-”

“It what? Was anyone hurt?” cried Rebecca.

“I… don’t know!” Carrie exclaimed. “It chased me for a bit, and I ran quite far away, so they… might be ok…”

“Do you want to go and check?” Rebecca asked. “We could meet back here tonight, and I’ll try to find out where that man lives?”

Carrie thought for a second. Rebecca was unpredictable at the best of times, not to mention when she’s getting revenge against her mother’s murderer, but thinks she needs the object that killed her uncle and aunt to do that, which was currently not in her possession.

“No, I’ll stick with you,” she said finally.

“Right, lets go then.” Rebecca got up, and looked around. “You came from there… so that’s South over there… Carrie are you ok-?”

Carrie had pulled herself up, and then stumbled onto the ground again.

“My foot…” she sighed. “It hurts to walk on. I did run all the way here!” she added, after Rebecca rolled her eyes.

“Here…” Rebecca said, taking off her bag and rummaging around inside it. She took out a shabby pair of slippers. “These were in my bag when I left. I have bigger feet than you… but I think they’ll do.”

Carrie put them on, and nodded.

“Right… lets go!”

“Where?”

Rebecca glanced around at the trees.

“This way I’d think,” she replied, and marched off.

The only shop they could find open that early in the morning was a fish and chip take away.

“Not bad,” Anonni said. “Better than what I’m used to in Meadous. But I don’t think any food can beat the Clovery Kettle-Burn… That was, quite astonishing to say the least.”

“I prefer Chinese myself,” said Paul, half sarcastically. Billy however was more interested.

“And these are all actually places? Is your world?” he asked.

“What? Not all in my world!” he replied. “This is only the second world I’ve been to, besides my own… It’s not very easy to do, travel to another world. We’ve known about the other worlds for… it must be over a century now. But we’ve only recently been able to travel between them… My world, Meadous, seems to be the world between all others. If you want to go to another world, you’d need to travel through Meadous. You could say it’s like the centre of the universe.”

“Modest, your lot,” said Paul.

“You need lots of energy to break down the barriers between worlds, and even then it’s very temporary. Say… a nuclear explosion, in your world, would only tear a hole between our worlds for seconds, before it closes up again,” Anonni continued. “And that would have to be directed at a weak point in the fabric of reality. Not to mention the impracticalities of having to be at the epicentre of a nuclear explosion seconds after the blast…”

“So how did you get here?” Billy asked. “And, how will you get back home?”

Anonni didn’t answer him, and began chewing on the last bit of fish. He swallowed, and seeing the other two had finished, said “Let’s find Rebecca first, I don’t want to have to explain too much twice. So!” He leapt up dramatically. “We find the Knight.”

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