In the deepest sleep I fall into the arms of Goliath. Deep like the bottom of the sea. A magical coma. I can’t wake myself up.
I am trapped in a dreamworld, locked up in the grandfather clock.
I am lying on a bed in a forest. Beside me, the grandfather clock ticks gently. His great eggy eyes roll from side to side. The trees in the forest are deep and dark, branches coiling, frogs croaking softly.
And I sleep and the clock ticks, singing to me its mechanical lullaby.
After some time a little boy with hair the colour of lemons approaches me. He is carrying some flowers.
“I picked these from the forest for you,” he says. He is small and shy. The flowers, tiny and blue and shaped like stars.
“Who are you?”
“My name is John Loveheart and I am lost in the forest with you.”
And he sits on the bed with me while I hold the flowers.
“They are very pretty. Thank you.”
Holding hands we walk into the trees, like Hansel and Gretel.
“Will you help me get out of here?” he says.
“Yes,” I reply. The grandfather clock watches us leave.
We walk into a clearing where a little house made of sweets and chocolate stands. It looks delicious. Through the window I can see a lemon drizzle cake sitting like a golden treasure.
“Don’t go in there,” says Loveheart. “Do not eat any of it. A witch lives in there. It is all poisoned.”
And so we continue, the smell of candyfloss under my nostrils, back into the darkness of the wood.
We come across Mr Rufus Hazard holding a rifle, pointing it into the trees. We approach him carefully, and when he sees us he smiles, big and beaming. “Well hello there.” He has a big sack next to his feet.
“What are you doing?” says Loveheart.
“I am hunting,” he grins. “Do you want to see what I have caught?”
We look into the bag. There is a dead girl in there.
“The other one has run away. But I shall find her.”
“Do you know how we can get out of the forest?” I ask him. Loveheart is frightened and stands behind me.
“Mmm, I can’t remember,” he says, stroking his moustache,”but there is a lady sitting in a tree over there who may be able to help you.” He points in a rough direction and then lifts his rifle again, and so we leave him and walk over a carpet of lavender and moss and come across a huge gnarled tree with white death masks all over it. Mrs Foxglove, in a long, blue dress, is sitting on a branch, drinking a cup of tea. She stares down at us.
“Lovely morning, isn’t it?” The death masks are chatting and she tuts at them, “Oh, do be quiet, children, we have visitors.” The death masks grumble.
“Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you. Please can you tell us how to get out of this wood?”
Mrs Foxglove looks puzzled. “I don’t understand the question, dear.”
And so we leave her. And we walk for many hours, and eat berries and nuts, and drink from the stream. And we finally find a clearing where a traveling magician sits with a white rabbit in his top hat. It is Mr Fingers.
Loveheart says gently, “That man is not my father.”
Mr Fingers looks at me and says, “Would you like to stroke the rabbit, little girl?” The rabbit, I notice, has black eyes.
“No, I would not.”
“Would you like to play a game?” He tilts his head slightly.
“No. How do we get out of this wood?” I demand.
“Little girl, there are consequences for what you have done. You have manipulated time. You have turned back the clocks. You have broken cosmic laws. Such action does not go unpunished.”
“You are in no position to judge me, sir. You are a nasty little demon. And I have trapped you in time.”
“Not for much longer,” he sighs. “It is sad that we cannot be friends.” And he pulls a bunch of fake flowers from his sleeve, hands them to me and laughs.
“What is going to happen to her?” Loveheart pleads.
“You will have to wait and see. It’s a surprise.”
VIII: Goliath & his Schoolfriend, Mr Icabod Tiddle
I carry her as far away as I can. Miles across England, under a sack of space. Nowhere becomes, finally, somewhere – the home of my old school friend, Icabod Tiddle, the celebrated writer of children’s fairy stories. I haven’t seen him for nearly twenty years and Mirror is slumped in my arms when I knock on the door of his cottage in the Kentish village of Otford. It is raining heavily, the drops pounding the earth. And thankfully, after all these years, he recognises me and lets me in.