The Monsters of Rookhaven, стр. 29

But he raised his head when Jem shouted at him.

‘What did you do to him?’

Mirabelle had been so rapt by the sight of Piglet that she hadn’t even noticed Jem advancing towards him. She tried to grab her, but Jem shrugged her arm away.

‘What did you do to him?’ she screamed, her whole body trembling with rage.

Piglet raised his head and sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed. They were green now, or were they red, flecked with a molten gold?

He threw back his head and bellowed.

Then it was Mirabelle’s turn to scream as Piglet charged towards Jem.

Jem was rooted to the spot. Even the reliably instinctive Odd didn’t seem to know what to do.

Mirabelle didn’t think twice. She pushed Jem out of the way.

Piglet’s form contracted and narrowed to a point, and now he was a spear of white light, and that spear hit Mirabelle full in the chest.

For Mirabelle everything seemed to freeze. Then there was the sensation of the world collapsing around her, and she felt as if she’d been swallowed by a tidal wave.

Mirabelle opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by mist, lilac in colour, with little sunbursts of golden light flaring in it occasionally. She was transfixed by these tiny explosions, sometimes with figures in them, sometimes with places. She could see their outlines, their shapes. Some were more vivid than others.

She panicked for a moment, flailing like someone who has just fallen into deep water. Somehow she managed to calm herself simply by gazing at the images. The gold, the lilac, the explosions of colour and light.

This is what Piglet sees, she thought.

And then she felt a sudden rush as another mind touched hers, and that mind was vast, and old, and yet also terribly young, like that of a child.

‘Piglet,’ she said, in recognition, her voice echoing in the mist, tears of happiness springing to her eyes.

She knew him now. Knew him like never before, and he knew her. And she saw what he saw, and she saw . . .

The most recent thing Piglet had seen.

Tom and Jem standing by a grave, holding hands, their heads bowed. Mirabelle could feel Tom’s pain. It was a raw thing that seemed to rake hot, burning furrows of agony even in her own mind, and she could feel his desperation, and his sadness, and his fear, and it was so overwhelming that she could feel herself choking on it.

The image ran and dissolved, like a watercolour in a rainstorm. Now Tom and Jem were sitting at a table, picking at a meagre dinner. A hulking figure entered the room. He shouted something at them. Tom stood up and stepped between the figure and Jem. The man shouted some more. Then he raised a stick . . .

The image darkened, became a low, mean-looking house on a derelict street. Tom and Jem were creeping out of the front door, both of them carrying small bags. As they ran down the street, Mirabelle could almost taste their terror, mingled with a strange, desperate joy.

The picture changed. Tom and Jem were now in a room in an abandoned bombed-out house. Tom was shoving ration books into a rucksack. Jem was pleading with him to stop, and Mirabelle could feel his anger and fear and his . . .

The picture changed again. Tom crouched in a corner watching Jem sleep on a dingy mattress, clasping his knees tight to his chest, trying his best to muffle his sobs. Mirabelle knew his thoughts. And his guilt was a terrible, awful thing that loomed over him, ready to devour him, but he owed it to his parents to do everything, anything to save Jem. It was up to him now. Everything came down to him.

Mirabelle felt all of this, knew all of this, in an instant, as if Tom’s very soul had been mapped out for her.

Another rushing sensation took her, as if she were being carried by a fast-moving current.

She was outside the House of Rookhaven now. But these were Piglet’s memories, not Tom’s.

The sky was grey, a soft wind blew. A car was coming up the driveway. She recognized it as Dr Ellenby’s. He parked in front of the house and stepped out of the car, then held the passenger door open for his companion. It was a woman. Dr Ellenby took her hand as he helped her out. The woman clasped a hand to her round belly, pushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes.

Enoch appeared at the front door and Piglet tried and failed to decipher the look on his face. Mirabelle could sense his confusion. She concentrated on Enoch’s face, to see if she could read it herself, but she couldn’t see clearly, and it was too late because the picture was already changing . . .

To a large bedroom. One that Mirabelle had seen before, that she knew was part of the house. The woman was lying in the bed and Dr Ellenby had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was mopping her brow as the woman’s head twisted and turned. Mirabelle noticed now how much younger Dr Ellenby looked. His beard was darker, and he was saying something to the woman, smiling in that easy way of his, exuding the same warmth and sense of strength he always seemed to have.

Enoch was standing in the corner, looking at the floor, clasping his arms to his chest as if to comfort himself. For the first time in her vision Mirabelle perceived sound.

The woman screamed.

Piglet screamed.

Mirabelle screamed.

Silence and darkness descended.

There was nothing now, for what seemed like an eternity and an instant.

Nothing.

Then the silence was broken by the soft steady rhythm of a heartbeat. And somehow Mirabelle could sense that the heart was new.

The darkness started to dissipate and now it was night, and Enoch was standing by the window looking out over the garden, and in his arms he