THE BOY FROM THE PAST (2)

How the world has changed in a couple of centuries.

“If you want to come with me you’ll have to pass through this gate with us,” Timmy pointed the other side of the graveyard gate to the shadowy boy who called himself Arthur, the same name as the lad who was recorded on a gravestone as being dead for around two hundred years.

“It’s just… it’s just the monsters… I came this way before and there were beasts from another world or hell or somewhere, snarling at me, roaring, frightening…” mumbled Arthur.

“There aren’t any here,” smiled Lorna, trying to calm the nerves of someone to whom the world she lived in was alien. As she spoke a quiet car passed them, and Arthur’s reaction shocked both her and Timmy.

“A monster!” he cried, “a carriage and no horse, and no serf straining to pull it, just a carriage, running free…”

“We call it a car,” said Timmy, trying not to sound as superior as he felt, “they have engines in them, some driven by petrol and others by electricity. They wouldn’t have been around if you were alive in the first part of the nineteenth century. Don’t worry: most people have got one these days. They’re really harmless and very common.”

“My mum hasn’t,” added Lorna, “but she’s a widow and can’t afford everything, and anyway there’s a good bus service round here.”

“That one just now, it frightened me…” almost wept Arthur.

“If you’re going to be scared of something as ordinary as a car I think you’d best stay in the graveyard,” advised Timmy, “the only cars that come onto this place are hearses, and there aren’t many of them these days with most people being cremated when they die,”

“What’s cremated?” asked Arthur.

“Never mind. It doesn’t sound very pleasant even though it’s probably the best way of disposing of dead bodies,” muttered Timmy, not quite believing his own words, “now think about it: are you coming with us or are you staying here, where you probably belong?”.

Arthur, who had slowly gained more physical substance, nodded his head.

“Take me with you,” he said, “and I will follow.”

“Hold my hand if you like,” suggested Lorna, “that may offer you some support if another car comes along.”

“I will screw up my courage to the breaking point,” muttered Arthur, “so I won’t need your hand, for you are a girl, I sense. Though I’m grateful for the offer,” and at that the three of them moved onto Ursula Drive and started walking along the pavement towards the road where both Timmy and Lorna lived. Fortunately Arthur wasn’t disturbed by any more vehicles passing them on the short walk, and within a few minutes Timmy pushed the gate of his own home open and walked up the short path to his front door.

“This is where I live,” he told Arthur,

“Do you knock to be admitted?” asked the other.

“No. The door won’t be locked, but if it is I know where there’s a key,” smiled Timmy, and true to his word the door opened when he pushed on it.

Inside, was darkness. Timmy had suggested that his parents might be out, and so they were, which made it easier for Timmy to prepare Arthur to meet them should they return soon.

On the living room wall facing the door his parents had hung a somewhat ornate mirror, and when he switched the light on (and that made Arthur jump and turn as if to run away), their images were plainly reflected at them. But not Arthur’s. Where he stood with the two children was just a reflection of the room behind them. It was Lorna who noticed first.

“That’s odd,” she said, “I can’t see you in the mirror, Arthur.”

“I know mirror..” stammered Arthur.

“It’s spooky, you having no reflection yet I can see you here, plain as anything...”” shivered Timmy, and he looked at the nineteenth century boy. “Come on in,” he added shakily.

Once in the living room he closed the door and the boy Arthur looked around him. There was the usual array of furniture and a corner with a laptop open, but he pointed at the large black rectangle of a television screen.

“That’s the telly,” he said, “do you want to see what it does?”

“Will it hurt me?” asked Arthur nervously.

“It’s only pictures and sounds,” Lorna assured him, “and they never hurt anyone.”

Timmy picked up the remote control for the television and switched it on. Instantly the room was filled with the light from a battlefield, with soldiers on horseback racing across a green field towards the flags of an opposing force.

Arthur gazed in awe at what he saw, and even tried to see behind the set to see where the galloping infantryman might be hiding, but, of course, to no avail.

Then he decided what he thought. “Get rid!” he begged, “it is evil! The spirits of the damned can’t enter a home like that! And the horses… where are they stabled?”

“It’s only a story on film or video or something like that. I’ll change the channel,”assured Timmy, “let me see, what about some music?”

And the image changed to that of an orchestra playing a melody that was popular several years earlier.

“ No! We are damned!” croaked Arthur, “take me back to my resting place please! This must be hell and fires will be around any corner. Please!”

Timmy could see that the boy was distressed, so he did what he asked and the picture disappeared, leaving a silent black screen.

“That’s the telly,” he said, “and the first thing we saw was a film showing an old battle and the second one was a repeat of an old music programme.”

“I’m frightened,” stammered Arthur.

“I can see that,” put in Lorna comfortingly, “It’s because you haven’t seen anything like it before. But the telly is quite normal to us, and so are computers and the Internet.”

Before she could go on to mention half a dozen other things Arthur may never have imagined could exist anywhere under the sun, Timmy’s phone rang.

He pulled it out of his pocket and addressed it.

“Hello dad,” he said, “What’s up?”

“Timmy, lad, some hoodlum’s been wrecking the graveyard,” his father said, “so make sure you stay away from the cursed place. One of the older gravestones has been pushed over and goodness knows what has been stolen from where there must have been an old coffin and crumbling bones… it’s not at all pleasant. The police are here. So stay clear, lad. Are you at home now?”

“Yes, dad… what was that about a gravestone?”

“Doesn’t matter now, son. Just keep safe yourself and don’t go anywhere near the wretched burial place next to the Church of Saint Ursula… Now we’ll be back in a couple of hours, Timmy.” And his phone went dead.

“What’s that…? Arthur pointed at the phone in Timmy’s hands. “It talks to you, and you reply? Like magic?”

“It’s a phone and my dad rang me about your ... what would you call it? Grave? Coffin?”

“I don’t understand such evil things…” wept Arthur, and Lorna reached to put one arm round him.

But there was nothing there.

TO BE CONTINUED