PodCastle 628: Vincent’s Penny

* Author : Chris Barnham

* Narrator : Matt Dovey

* Host : Summer Fletcher

* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh

*

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Dimension6, Issue 16 (April 2019).

Rated PG.

Vincent’s Penny

By Chris Barnham 

May 1941

I’m a child this time. Five or six years old.

Fully clothed under a bed, on a wooden floor. I touch a hand to my throat, but there is nothing there. I examine my hands and arms, astonished by the smoothness of the skin. At last, I crawl out from beneath the bed and leave the room.

Light from a jagged hole in the roof, blue sky beyond, streaked with horsetails of cloud.  The floor is dusted with splinters of wood and brick. The window at the end of the hall has daggers of glass clinging to the frame.

Over the banister, more rubble and destruction below. Some of the stairs are broken, but I pick my way downstairs, helped by the fact that I am so light now, in this child’s frame. I could skip across a field of grass and barely disturb the dew. There is a door at the foot of the stairs. I turn the handle and push, but at first it does not move. Maybe the wall has shifted in the raid. I try again, ramming my tiny shoulder against the wood.

The door releases its grip and tumbles me outside.   

The Previous Day

Before they take me out, they put a hood over my head. A hand on my arm guides me down a flight of stairs. On the flat, they shove me forward. Hands pull me to a halt and there is the sound of a car door, before someone pushes down on the top of my head, pressing me inside. As the car engine starts, I hear a loud wailing in the distance.

“Air-raid siren,” I say. “Are you sure we should be going for a drive?”

“No need to worry about Hitler’s bombers,” a familiar voice says. “Nothing he can do to you that’s worse than what Vincent’s got in mind.”

The car gathers speed. The sirens fall away and another sound comes; a strengthening growl high above. I can picture the swollen metal bellies of the Heinkel bombers, stuffed with high explosives. With the motion of the car, I feel the ancient metal disc move on its chain beneath my shirt. Vincent’s penny; maybe it can bring me luck again.

“You can let me go. Who will ever know?”

“Why would we do that?”

“If you let Vincent do this, who will stop him doing worse in the future?”

The car stops, doors open and close. As they lead me away from the car a succession of explosions in the distance makes me flinch. A sound like a giant striding towards us, wading through houses and shops.

The hood is snatched away, revealing a large empty space, an abandoned warehouse. A table and three chairs in the centre of the room.

I know I will never leave this place.

May 1593

Two men on horseback approach early in the morning. I see them from my perch astride a tree branch overhanging the river. They cross the bridge and turn right on a path that will bring them to Father’s workshop. I scramble down and I’m in front of the house when they arrive.

They look tired. One of them hangs his head low as he rides, close to falling asleep in the saddle. The other is more alert. His dark eyes catch and hold mine as he draws close.

“Can we get water here, boy?”

“Them horses need more than water.”

“What are you talking about?”