Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 42

It’s remarkable how easy travelling is when I’m not thinking about it. When I’m so concentrated on my target and intention that the process takes a back seat.

I don’t take Yates anywhere on earth though. I concentrate on a moment in my past, something I think he needs to see.

I feel him struggle and I fear I’ll lose him in the darkness that envelops us. It’s over in a second though so I don’t worry for long.

Our feet hit solid ground. I wish I could visit a memory that didn’t include school. For a vast amount of time I had hated the place. That’s the thing about dying at 17: there’s only one place you spend most of your time.

The passage behind the tech rooms was quiet every lunch-time. I found it after a few years at St Bartholomew’s. Years of sitting in the playground by myself, or asking teachers if I could sit in their rooms lead me to find a place to sit in the quiet.

‘Where have you taken me?’ asks Yates in a panic. ‘I’m going.’

He wrenches himself from my grip and starts running.

‘No, Yates!’ I shout after him. He can’t leave. I have to help him. Penny would have wanted me to help him.

I chase after him, down the path, towards the shouts of lunchtime in the distance.

We were on the edge of the woods. I know travelling only a few hundred metres would lead me to the smoking hut. I wonder could I visit Penny, even now in my memories.

I hear a shout from around the corner of the building. I turn myself and see why.

The darkness has found us, in a great void off the edge of a cliff. I hear a yelp and watch as Yates tumbles over, helpless to stop himself.

His scream echoes all around me like it’s my own. I reach the edge and peer over, anxiety clutching at my heart.

‘Yates!’ I call. But only silence greets me.

We couldn’t travel any further because this isn’t my memory. My memory is of the path behind the tech rooms and reading comics by myself with my packed lunch. I wanted to show him that he wasn’t alone, and now he’s plummeted. I led him over the precipice.

I know what I have to do. I can’t abandon him to this. So I have to follow. I can’t get lost in my own memories. I have to follow Yates through my mental maze. And we travel by thinking.

I take two steps back and take a run, letting the fear of falling grasp me. My stomach lurches and I plummet into the darkness.