The Owner of the Crown: 1. The Eccentric Crosser – Opening Chapters

1

DR TEMPEST PEARSON

MONDAY, JANUARY 12th, 2026, and it seemed like the dawn of any other bright wintry day for the small English Northumbrian port and ex-coalmining town of Blyth. There, in the slowly lifting darkness, the town, just minding its own business, was gently waking up to the constant tickling of the cold North Sea. Surely this tiny, yet oh so proud, Geordie town could not be the launching pad for events defying any normal description of magic or the most outrageous understandings of reality, could it?

The early risers were beginning to emerge from their dreams in the hope that the new week would bring some excitement into their humdrum lives—except for one. London born and bred Dr Tempest Pearson hoped for nothing but the most ordinary unexciting week existence could possibly deliver. Either he or they were going to be bitterly disappointed.

In his humble one-bedroom rented flat in Chirton Green on Blyth’s Druridge Housing Estate, a beleaguered 54-year-old Dr Pearson began tucking into his simple bacon and eggs breakfast accompanied by a couple of slices of thickly buttered toast. It was just about the only meal he could cook without the help of his microwave oven.

Dr Pearson was a maths teacher at Blyth’s lively Statesville Community School, but before he entered into the teaching profession, he was a scientist. He didn’t believe in ghosts, aliens or dragons, or anything else out of the ordinary. But this didn’t mean he was bereft of a magnificent imagination to die for. And it didn’t mean he believed such things couldn’t exist no matter how ridiculous he believed them to be. However, his dream of last night challenged his beliefs …

* * *

Dreams, as far as Dr Pearson was concerned, were ambling, incoherent, distant affairs. But the one he was now experiencing was not. Oh no, it was far from such nebulous things. It was a dream in the sense that he knew he was asleep, and yet somehow he was fully awake. It just didn’t make any sense.

“Blimey, how on earth did I get here?” he murmured. “Am I really dreaming, or is this something else? Seems so real …”

He seemed to be eighty years back in history, sheltering in London’s Holborn Underground Station on the Central Line route during a Second World War bombing raid.

The low percussive sound of exploding bombs thudded and boomed somewhere from above the single track platform, threatening to break through the many tons of concrete that served as the underground station’s ceiling. The gently swirling black dust that pervaded the station clogged up his nose and tickled his throat. It was a stifling hot, smelly, sweaty, foul tasting unhealthy place altogether. But not as unhealthy as the place above it. And despite the menacing noise and liver shaking rumblings, this was one of the safest places to be during a bombing raid, Holborn Underground Station being a deep level underground station.

Dr Pearson gave his surroundings a keener look.

He marvelled at the sea of civilians strung all along the length of the platform and those on the wooden covered single track. Concerned mothers dressed in flower-patterned dresses comforting small children dressed in white flannel nightdresses playing with their homemade toys. Men keeping cool in their white cotton string vests. Old couples with a knowing look of a long considered death in their eyes. And many others besides. And keeping order and ready to administer first aid if necessary to this sheltering potpourri of humanity were a small team of Shelter Marshals.

Most of the civilians had come prepared, somehow making homely areas for themselves, masters of their air raid sheltering routine. Others, he thought, looked decidedly out of place, no doubt caught out by the timing of the air raid.

For instance, he spied a drunken rabble wearing animal costumes unsuccessfully attempting to bully those near them into joining in with a boisterous singsong. And farther in the distance he saw a group of young women plastered in makeup, resplendent in their beautiful evening dresses, perhaps abandoning a theatre visit.

Most of these civilians, like him, were sitting on standard issue rugged brown cotton mats amid the bags, sheets, discarded jackets and summer coats that littered the platform’s concrete floor and the wooden pallets temporarily covering the single rail track.

However, Dr Pearson found himself to be dressed in his usual twenty-first-century teaching clothes. He was sat with his back against the soot-stained white porcelain-tiled platform wall, facing the platform edge. And he realised he was a living anachronism.

A newspaper was spread out in front of him and he found himself reading an article about retaliatory air strikes, titled “The Germans Don’t Like It Up Them.” He then moved on to a disturbing article announcing that Heinrich Himmler, a leading member of the Nazi Party, had begun experimenting on women in the Auschwitz concentration camps.

Then as he moved on to a paragraph headed: “Convoy PQ17 in troubled seas!”, his reading was disturbed. He had only managed to read “The order ‘Convoy to Scatter’ left merchant ships in the convoy isolated …” when his eyes were drawn to the date of Tuesday, July 7th, 1942, at the top of the paper, drawn because he could have sworn that the black lettering had flashed gold for a split second.

“Hmm … that date rings a bell … but I can’t quite place it …”

Next to him, on his left, was the head of a British bulldog barking wildly, a head that stuck out of a huge bashed-up leather holdall clothes bag.

“Shh, Winston! You ain’t supposed to be here, boy,” said a blond-haired boy in a cockney accent who looked to be about eight years old. He patted the top of the bulldog’s thick floppy-skinned head enthusiastically.

“Woof, woof, woof!” Winston either didn’t agree or didn’t understand what his owner had said.

Dr Pearson was taken aback slightly at the collar of the boy’s white cotton shirt. It was filthy. And the scabs on his knees showing just beneath the hem of his grey short trousers gave the impression that he had spent half his life walking on his knees. His blond hair was short and slightly clumpy and it was clear that wherever he had had his hair cut, it was never at a hairdressers. When he looked closer at the boy’s face, he noticed a number of scars. Dr Pearson decided children of the 1940s were tougher than those of his modern times.

His attention turned back to the barking bulldog’s head. He thought the boy’s pet was aptly named, looking as it did, exactly like Winston Churchill, Britain’s Prime Minister during the Second World War.

“All that dog needs is a cigar stuffed into his barking chops to complete the illusion,” he said to the boy.

“What are you gassing on about, mister?”

“Oh, nothing really. Just joking.”

Suddenly, above the incessant noise of the barking bulldog and the thuds and booms of the exploding bombs, a loud crackle of electrical activity spat out of the underground station’s speakers. This was followed by the mature sound of a man grumblingly clearing his throat as if expecting the underground to quieten down to hear what he was about to say.

And incredibly it did.

Winston stopped barking and seemingly ducked his head in reverence to the speakers.

The sheltering civilians hushed, including the drunks and babies.

Even the sound of the bombs petered out.

Seconds later, a voice cried out of the speakers, a voice, perhaps ironically, none other than that of Winston Churchill.

“People of Britain,” he said, “Hitler continues to spread his evil shadow over Europe. But when he picked a fight with us, he picked a fight he could not win.

“If we’ve told him once, we’ve told him twice, we shall never give in.

“But still he tries.

“Well, let his bombs fall upon our valiant people. Bombs have no malice. Only their commanding forces bear such a despicable label.

“Oh, we shall never give in. Are you listening, Hitler? Never! Smash us until all that is left is a single atom and we shall never give in. And when you smash that single atom into its sub-atomic parts, each part will defy you. Hitler, it is what binds such parts together that will always defeat you.

“Do you understand?

“No. I didn’t think so.

“Hitler, let me address you directly, when you look upon me, you see but the pointed tip of a belligerent, humungous iceberg, but the part of the iceberg you cannot see, the significantly larger part, the part that will sink you however Titanic your evil may be, that part is the people of our blessed islands. I am just one who speaks for many against one who speaks for few.

“Our secret is that your evil unites us whereas our good divides you. We will never fear to fight and always fight our fear. So bring it on, you mangled, misguided meanie. And least you forget, you yourself shall never need to fear that your day of reckoning shall come and you too shall get your chance to fight against overwhelming odds. Good luck, sir—for all the good it will do you. For you have sown every wind, and you shall reap every whirlwind. So you can huff and puff and blow our houses down, but we’ll still be standing. Ask not how we do it; ask why. When you find the answer, you’ll see the certainty of your complete demise and utter destruction.

“For me, Hitler, it’s all about my people. For your people, it’s all about you. Because for you, it’s all about you. You, you, you. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the darkest of them all? But no! Any mirror worth its glass would be too ashamed to offer your dastardly reflection.

“We British love our words, sir. Words, words, words. We British are not too scared to make a fool of ourselves with our humble attempts to spray some suspect words, for we appreciate their power. For your words, each ear is a nail, a nail to be hit with your hammer of a mouth. Smash, smash, smash! There is no sophisticated rhythm, no change of subject, no love. Just smash, smash, smash! Well, perhaps you should hear a bit of English iambic pentameter, Mr Hitler. You may drop as many bombs as you like, but we shall beat them off with a few Shakes of a Speare. Yes, Shakespeare, sir. Shall we try an English sonnet inspired by the Bard’s 18th? One suitable for the likes of you? Well let me give it a go:

Should we compare you to a winter’s day?

Of winter’s storms so cold and colder still:

Of frozen hearts that march on feet of clay,

Of icy seas that spill and chill and kill:

Where snow falls thick to put to bed your soul,

A snow so pure it hides the black beneath.

Where spears of ice grow long and lose control,

Their sharpened points to stab as stray shark’s teeth;

You are that winter’s day that wants to freeze,

To death the light of us that shines on you;

But we will not accept your tyrannies,

Your every cell of black we will break through:

So long as we can breathe and fight the dark,

So long lives light the life of freedom’s mark.

 

“Ah, words. Our doggerels of war can fight, can spit and snarl and bite. Oh yes, Mr Hitler, you sick misfitler, for though your sticks and stones may break our bones, our words shall surely kill you!

“Oh how desperately your evil hand attempts so malevolently to eclipse the shining good. But you do yourself no favours, Mr Hitler. For one day, we will all be judged—if not by God, by history.

“So people of Britain, we shall not despair in our dogged defiance. We shall not fall foul to believing it a futility. For Freedom is our answer to the question: To be, or not to be? And as the poem insists:

So long as we can breathe and fight the dark,

So long lives light the life of freedom’s mark.

“FREEDOM!”

A loud cheer and answering shouts of “FREEDOM!” reverberated like an avalanche of passionate patriotism rolling along the platform.

Dr Pearson found himself surprised that his voice rose above the rest. He wasn’t sure if he understood the speech and its poetry, but he felt like he did. Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough to inspire him to rise to his feet and applaud as many others did. But there again, he had not suffered the consequences of war that they had.

He gathered his senses and wondered what had come over him. It wasn’t like him to get swept along in the euphoria of a country’s resistance, especially a resistance that existed generations before he was born. He reasoned he had reacted so emotionally because he saw Hitler as no different to the National Education Authority whose “commanding forces” had many “despicable labels”. Too many to mention. It didn’t seem to matter that Hitler was long since dead, an evil chapter in ancient history, because everything Hitler stood for was very much alive and forever kicking in Dr Pearson’s waking world—especially with the jackboots of Britain’s National Education Authority.

The platform speakers crackled into submission.

Immediately, the thuds and booms of Hitler’s commanded bombs recommenced. Thuds and booms that quickly increased in number and intensity, as if the German commanders had heard Winston Churchill’s speech and not taken too kindly to it.

The other Winston was barking away again as if it was all he had ever done.

“Come on, boy, shush now, you’ll get me into trouble!” said the blond-haired boy, pointing to a poster among the many plastered around the platform that read in large red letters: “HEALTH HAZARD! — NO PETS ALLOWED!”

However, Winston ignored his owner’s pointing finger and continued his fit of barking, staring up fearfully to the underground station’s arched concrete ceiling.

“The bombs must be frightening him,” said Dr Pearson to the boy.

Just then, a fast approaching distant scream shrilled from above followed by an enormous boom that shook the entire station. Dust and tiny pieces of dirt and concrete rained down from the ceiling showering the sheltering civilians.

“Aaaaaah!” screamed Dr Pearson, thinking that perhaps the ceiling might be about to cave in. He instinctively lifted his arms over his head in a defensive manner.

The boy fell into a fit of laughter so loud it overpowered the sound of his manically barking bulldog.

Nudging Dr Pearson’s shoulder mockingly, he shouted, “Winston’s not the only one the bombs are frightening, is he, mister?”

“I suppose not,” muttered Dr Pearson, lowering his arms and quickly attempting to regain his dignity, which wasn’t easy to do in a sitting position.

The boy looked at the top of Dr Pearson’s head and grinned.

Dr Pearson cringed. He could feel a bald-spot joke coming on.

“Looks like a bomb landed on your head some time ago, mister.” The boy bent over double, laughing. The bulldog’s barks raised in pitch so that even he seemed to be laughing hysterically at his owner’s witty observation.

Dr Pearson knew his saucer-sized bald-spot surrounded by grey-streaked black hair that always stuck up so that he looked like a man wearing a crown of hair, was an amusing sight to many children. Still, it was a rude remark for someone so young, particularly one from 1942. Did the boy somehow know he was a teacher? What was it about teachers that brought out the worst in children?

And still the bombs screamed and thudded above. And if anything, with increased venom.

 

2

THE NINE SLEEPING PUPILS

IN RESPONSE TO THE increased bombing activity above the underground station, an uplifting bout of community singing broke out with a suitably defiant song:

 

Cheek to cheek,

in tunnels bleak,

beneath your bombs,

we’re up the creek.

 

Toe to toe,

without a glow,

beneath your bombs,

we’re lying low.

 

But, Mr Hitler …

we shall resist ya,

until the end of bloomin’ Time,

and no matter how deep we are buried,

we shall climb, climb, climb!

 

And we shall fight you,

on the hilltops,

and way beneath the bloomin’ ground,

in the streets and on the beeches,

we shall hound, hound, hound!

 

Oh yes …

 

Cheek to cheek,

in tunnels bleak,

beneath your bombs,

we’re up the creek.

 

Toe to toe,

without a glow,

beneath your bombs,

we’re lying low.

 

But, Mr Hitler …

we shall resist ya,

until there’s no more bloomin’ light,

and no matter how deep we are buried,

we shall fight, fight, fight!

 

So, Mr Hitler,

You sick misfitler,

we shall fight you even when we’re dead,

and when our ghosts at last destroy you,

love will spread, spread, spread!

 

ONE MORE TIME …

 

So, Mr Hitler,

You sick misfitler,

we shall fight you even when we’re dead,

and when our ghosts at last destroy you,

LOVE WILL SPREAD, SPREAD, SPREAD!

 

Eventually the Holborn Underground Station community singing died down. It had done its trick. The bombing had petered out.

Dr Pearson turned his attention to the blond-haired boy who was pushing down his barking pet’s head and zipping up the leather holdall clothes bag that the bulldog was in. Thankfully, Dr Pearson noticed plenty of homemade breathing holes for the hidden creature who had taken to whimpering.

“Shush now, Winston. The bombs have quietened down for now. Maybe I can bring a few back. Just wait here.”

The boy left the bag and took to charging along the edge of the platform with his arms stretched out wide imitating a bomber plane, shouting:

“Bombs away! Bombs away! Boom, boom, BOOM!”

“What am I doing here?” murmured Dr Pearson watching the boy picking his way through the civilians sprawled about the platform. “Something’s up. This is not a normal dream. It’s … it’s … real. Really real. Yet I’m absolutely certain that I’m somehow still asleep in my Chirton Green flat. None of this makes any sense …?”

Through the throng of people, Dr Pearson saw that the boy had taken to encircling a group of sleeping schoolchildren, still repeatedly shouting “Bombs away! Bombs away! Boom, boom, BOOM!” The boy then jumped off the edge of the platform and charged off noisily along the wooden pallets that temporarily covered the station’s single rail track, picking his way through the odd civilian and other air raid shelter paraphernalia. He did not stop at the empty tunnel at the far end of the platform. Like most boys of his age for ever seeking adventure in the most unlikeliest of places, he charged right into the blackness of the tunnel with his voice echoing, “Bombs away! Bombs away! Boom, boom, BOOM!”

And it was only when Dr Pearson had drawn his eyes away from the disappearing boy and decided to have another read of the newspaper that he noticed in the corner of his eye just who the sleeping schoolchildren were …

“Oh no!” he said under his breath, his eyes searching for a better look between a number of sprawled out civilians. “Pupils from my school! They’ve even taken to invading my dreams. It’s definitely not fair. And the school uniforms, from what I can see, look modern.”

From his sitting position, Dr Pearson could see the Statesville Community School pupils quite well. Especially after he noticed that there was a circular concave mirror above an exit arch that exposed their reflection from a more or less bird’s eye view.

He saw ten narrow gold coloured mattresses arranged like the spokes of a wheel. One was empty, but on the other nine mattresses were the pupils sleeping on their backs.

“Now let me see …?” he mumbled. “Seven of the pupils are from my Year 7 tutor class of eleven to twelve-year-olds. Yes, there’s Molly Treddington, Hannah Trelawny, and … erm, Melanie Grafton, Nicola Berlin, Alana Crimer. And two boys, Andrew Johnston and Martin Hardcastle. And let me see now … ah, yes, one of the others is Erica Ashbarten, but she’s in my Maths class. And the ninth and remaining pupil is Erica’s thirteen-year-old older sister Katie Ashbarten who is in my Year 8 Maths class. I suppose it makes some sort of sense that the pupils most memorable to me, have popped up in my crazy dream, and at least I’m not the only living anachronism in it. And I wonder if that empty bed is supposed to be meant for me?”

The pupils had their feet pointing to the centre of the wheel of mattresses—all except for one.

And of course, it had to be Nicola Berlin the cheekiest pupil of his tutor group. Who else would be sleeping the wrong way around with her feet on her pillow? And, although he shouldn’t think it, he did—she was the silliest pupil in all the schools he had ever had the pleasure to teach in. Of course, this made for great entertainment, though almost always at the expense of the teachers. Dr Pearson knew her silliness was far too consistently brilliant not to be the production of a highly intelligent mind. Unfortunately, Nicola’s test results in every subject were rock bottom and offered no support for the existence of an intelligent mind, nor anything remotely approaching one. Just like the dream he was in, Nicola made no sense. An all too common conclusion he had reached for many pupils.

“I suppose the unusual wheel-shaped configuration of ten mattresses with its sleepers, and the vacant mattress that is almost certainly meant for me, must symbolically mean something. Dreams are like that.”

Dr Pearson, still sitting, more closely examined the reflection of the wheel of ten gold coloured mattresses …

All of the pillows on the mattresses were each of a different colour and seemed to almost glow. On the empty mattress, he made out the reflection of the word “DOC’ which was embroidered in thick twisted gold thread on a bright-green pillow, which backed up conclusively that the mattress was meant for him.

He then spied a circular sign at the hub of the wheel of mattresses. It was quite hard to translate the reflected words, so he dipped his eyes down from the mirror in an attempt to get a better view of the sign so he could more easily read it.

Fortunately, he could, because in a gap between two groups of civilians it was positioned at a slightly upward angle so that he could read it. He didn’t even have to stand up. He figured that when dreams wanted to make things easy to do, they could do so without a problem. The sign read: “WARNING: DO NOT DISTURB THE TEN SLEEPING HEROES!”

“What’s all that about …?” Dr Pearson struggled to come to any conclusions. “Only Erica Ashbarten could ever be thought of as a hero.”

He rubbed his eyes, thinking his dream must be playing tricks on him. He decided his school pupils did not belong in a 1942, London underground station. But then he mumbled, “I’m here, though, so why not them?”

Dr Pearson decided to give the wheel another close look …

“Yes, it’s definitely the same nine pupils—oh no. One of them is getting up … And it just had to be Nicola Berlin! Please, please, don’t notice me. This dream’s bad enough as it is. I think I would rather the realism of the thumping bombs than a humiliating attack from Nicola Berlin. I dread to think what efforts she might rise to in the framework of a dream?”

Dr Pearson watched cautiously as Nicola Berlin rubbed her eyes and shook her thick shoulder-length black hair out of her face, before taking in the scene around her. All three foot two inches of her. The school joker. She was unmistakeable, not just because she was so short for her age, but because of her looks. She had sleepy looking eyes that hardly opened. In fact, her whole body, gave the impression of being squashed and just waiting to one day stretch out. But there was hope that she would soon start to grow as her brothers and sisters were all at normal heights for their ages. Otherwise she was due to start a course of growth hormone tablets at the end of the Spring Term.

Fortunately, for the sake of his sanity she did not seem to notice him. He knew that if there was ever going to be an award for the most inimitable character that ever lived, Nicola Berlin would at least make the shortlist. Of course, he also knew that she had no idea of her inimitability. Whereas, she did have an excellent idea that there was nothing inimitable about almost everybody else she met. And here she was in his dream. He knew she would do something he could never predict, such was her nature. But what could she do?

Just about the only activity she could possibly engage in was making a cup of coffee. Surely that was unlikely to provide an opportunity for her often outrageously humorous inimitability. But he knew better not to put anything past her.

He watched as her narrowly opened eyes searched the platform for a victim to entertain, eyes that were quite striking in that they were coloured pale-blue like the leathery leaves of a forget-me-not flower on a hot-summer’s day, with the whites of them looking clear and raw like the white of a freshly poached egg.

Finally, Nicola’s sleepy-looking eyes centred their attention on a friendly looking lady who served coffee from a large steel canister that rested on a sturdy wooden table.

“Oh dear. That poor lady can have no idea what’s coming …!”

Nicola, adjusted her school uniform making it as comfortable as possible as it was far too big for her, even though her mother had done a good job making it fit. She swished about her navy-blue blazer whose hem rested just above the knees of her navy-blue trousers, making sure it was at least symmetrical. Then she ambled towards the coffee-serving lady with comedic intent.

“Eeee!” bawled Nicola loudly, obviously hoping to attract the attention of the entire platform, her “Eeee!” rising and falling in both pitch and volume in typical melodic Geordie fashion as if it were a word made out of elastic. Dr Pearson had learned by now that Geordies of all ages used the word “eeee” in response to anything interesting, sensational or shocking … and a lot more besides.

“That’s a big can Mrs Lady. What’s all the mugs for?”

“The big can is a large canister of coffee. These smaller canisters contain milk. And there’s plenty of bowls of sugar.”

“Oh aye, man. I see.”

“Are you from Newcastle? You sound like a Geordie.” Her Geordie accent was given away not so much by the words “Oh aye” but more by the word “man”. Unlike the word “eeee” which is used elastically, the word “man” is a more squashed up affair—on this occasion, much like the irrepressible tyke delivering it. Whereas the word “eeee” usually announces a sentence, the word “man” usually terminates one. Both are used incessantly.

“Aye. And you sound like someone from EastEnders. It’s my favourite TV programme.” On realising the woman was not a Geordie, Nicola spoke in her more easy-to-understand English.

“Well, I am from London. Not from the East End, though.”

“What are you doing here then?”

“I work here, serving the coffee.”

“Na, I didn’t mean that. I meant, if you’re from London, what are you doing here on the Metro?”

“I’ve never heard of a place called the Metro. Where’s that?”

“You kna, the Newcastle Underground.”

“There’s no such a place. But this is an underground. It’s the London Underground. It is Holborn Underground Station, see?” The lady pointed at the station’s sign.”

“Eeee! Ye boogger ye. What’s all this funny business, man? Eeee!”

“Well, would you like a cup of coffee?”

“How much?”

“Free of charge, as per usual.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Nicola, eyeing the lady with a deep Geordie cynical suspicion. “Well, all right then. We’ll soon see. Can I have a cupincheenio please?”

“Do you mean a cappuccino?”

“Aye. That’s what I just said. Hadaway, man.”

“I’m afraid this canister’s just filled with ordinary coffee. It doesn’t produce froth. And there’s no chocolate or cinnamon to make a cappuccino.”

“Eeee, lad. Hadaway, man. Watch this!”

Nicola pulled a sturdy looking wooden chair towards her and the lady. Dr Pearson wondered what on earth she was up to.

She grabbed a mug from its table and took out a half-eaten bar of chocolate from her top blazer pocket. She then gleefully showed them around to all the citizens whose attention she had gained, as if she was about to perform a magic trick, which in a way she was.

Nicola then noisily nibbled some pieces of chocolate as if she was a rabid beaver and spat them out into the mug. She put away her diminished bar of chocolate. And again she showed the mug around to her ever increasing audience, being careful to tip the mug so that everyone could see her masticated chocolate swimming serenely in her spit.

Then she attended the table and poured a little milk into the mug.

Next, she took a spoon to one of the sugar bowls and counted out loudly eight heaped spoonfuls of sugar that she dumped on top of the chocolate and milk. She seemed pleased that her audience were joining in her count raucously. It seemed as if the whole station was watching what the strange little mite was up to.

Nicola showed the latest contents of the mug to her captive audience before carefully placing the mug on the floor just in front of the chair.

Then she went back to the table and grabbed another mug, moved over to the towering coffee canister, pushed down its coffee release lever, and filled up the empty mug three quarters full of coffee.

Then she cautiously clambered up onto the chair.

She stood her full three foot two inches and showed the three quarters full of coffee mug to her audience.

“And now for the piece de resistance!” she exclaimed joyfully.

Nicola ominously raised the mug high up and out in front of her. Then she allowed the mug to tip forwards ever so slightly, and finally allow the piping hot coffee to slowly trickle from the mug and pour down in a thin stream of liquid into the waiting mug below.

Slowly but steadily, Nicola’s original mug began filling up with a gurgling, splashing sound, gradually increasing the amount of froth on its surface.

And as the last drop of coffee was spilled from her raised mug, she quickly jumped off the chair and put her empty coffee mug on the table behind her.

Finally, the extremely diminutive Nicola picked up the mug of her homemade cappuccino, and showed it to the coffee serving lady and the captivated smiling citizens.

“One mug of the best cupincheenio!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

She received a considerable amount of applause for her efforts.

“Thank goodness Nicola decided to do something unusually silly rather than unusually rude,” mumbled Dr Pearson.

His attention was then distracted back to the blond-haired boy who emerged from the black circular tunnel exit, charging and clattering along the wooden pallets. He was still shouting, “Bombs away! Bombs away! Boom, boom, BOOM!”

He jumped up onto the platform and seemed to be making a beeline back to Dr Pearson, who watched carefully as the shouting bomber with his arm spread out wide to his sides, weaved in and out of the sprawling ragtag sheltering civilians. His scab-ridden knees pumping up and down vigorously causing one of his grey woollen socks to slip down to his ankle.

And the boy weaved ever closer to Dr Pearson despite the fact that one of his shoelaces had come untied and was whipping about in rhythm with his strides.

“Bombs away! Bombs away! Boom, boom, BOOM!” continued the boy.

The boy was heading straight towards Dr Pearson and was only a matter of a few strides away …

Dr Pearson didn’t feel he had time to stand up and get out of the way so he pushed his arms out ready to protect himself. Surely the boy would veer away from him at the last minute?

He would never find out, because just then, a flash of blinding white light forced him to shield his eyes, and the shouts of the boy and all the sounds of the underground station instantly cut off …

 

3

THE GOLDEN WOMAN’S INITIAL WARNING

SILENCE FILLED DR PEARSON’S EARS. A soundlessness that instantly became highly conspicuous by its distinct absence of any noise whatsoever.

A deathly, eerie silence.

Dr Pearson kept his eyes covered, scared of what sight might greet him if he removed the palms of his hands from them.

He wondered if perhaps Holborn Underground Station had suffered a direct hit, if somehow a bomb had made its way through a ventilation shaft …

Perhaps he was dead.

But he soon realised the silence was not so pure—he could hear his breathing, fast and furious, and he could hear and feel his heart pumping like a 1942 steam-driven factory piston.

Perhaps, after all, he was alive …

Slowly, tentatively, he lowered his hands from his face and opened his eyes …

“Huh? Where is everyone?” he whispered.

The station was completely empty!

No wooden pallets covering the rail tracks.

No posters on the walls.

No clothes, belongings or other air raid paraphernalia anywhere to be seen in the station.

No people.

No Winston.

In fact, all that remained, other than himself, was the Tuesday, July 7th, 1942, newspaper.

This was all very strange.

But then from his sitting position, he noticed something even stranger when he looked closely at the porcelain bricked concave wall opposite the platform edge of the single track. The name of the station had changed from “Holborn” to “Token Warehouse”. Moreover, the underground station’s partial route map did not display the usual London station names on a red-lined route labelled “The Central Line”. It showed different station names on a route labelled “The Links”.

All of these replacement station names were unrecognisable to him except for the station he was now apparently in. The Token Warehouse was the name of a room in his school where the teachers awarded pupils prizes as a reward for good work, attendance or behaviour. It was a room with shelves packed full of trinkets, toys and pupil stationery. He doubted this name was a mere coincidence. There were only three other stations on The Links route. The four station names in order of appearance were:

Token Warehouse.

Preparation Rooms.

Bridge of Sacrifice.

Heartbind.

“Oh my goodness. What the hell does all this mean?”

Suddenly, a draught of wind coming from the semi-circular opening of the train tunnel at the end of the platform on his left-hand side whipped up the newspaper from the concrete floor and blew it along the desolate platform away from him. Off it fluttered like a giant black-and-white speckled butterfly.

In the distance of the tunnel to his right, the shake, rattle and roll of an approaching underground train grew louder and louder.

Dr Pearson managed to push his back up against the platform’s porcelain-tiled wall and struggle up onto unsteady feet to his full height of five foot seven inches. Many of the pupils in his school were taller than him, but thankfully his registration class (tutor class) being a Year 7 class of eleven to twelve-year-olds, helped—and poor old diminutive Nicola Berlin made him look like a veritable giant. In an instant he reminded himself of the circular sign on the hub of the wheel of mattresses. He couldn’t see how Nicola Berlin could ever be thought of as a “sleeping hero”. It was a ridiculous notion. But he recognised the teasing way life often served up the ridiculous.

He looked expectantly into the tunnel’s blackness, listening intently to the sounds of the approaching train.

After a few seconds, he saw two powerful beams of yellow light pierce through the blackness, and the train soon trundled into the light of the station and screeched to a juddering halt.

“Empty?” muttered Dr Pearson.

In perfect synchronisation, all the double doors of the train’s carriages on the platform side hissed open.

Dr Pearson shrugged his shoulders, stepped into the nearest carriage, and threw himself down wearily onto a leather-upholstered seat. He felt the seat was far more comfortable than the tube train seats of his modern age.

“I guess this is my best chance of finding out what’s going on in this crazy dream,” he mumbled.

The carriage’s open double doors hissed closed.

The train juddered into motion, picked up speed rapidly and rattled through the blackness of the underground.

The next stop on The Links, according to the route map emblazoned along the top sides of the carriage was the Preparation Rooms.

The train took less than two minutes to burst out of the blackness of the tunnel and decelerate rapidly into the well-lit Preparation Rooms underground station. The platform was on the same side as it was at the last station.

The train screeched to a halt, and the carriage’s platform side double doors hissed open.

In sauntered a semi-transparent woman dressed in the clothes of a 1940s man. She had a golden glow all about her. She was tall, at least six feet, and despite her male attire, looked strikingly beautiful with great poise and elegance.

“Oh dear,” muttered Dr Pearson. He felt increasingly unhappy to be experiencing such a strange and lucid dream full of the unexpected at every turn. Somehow this had to be the work of the National Education Authority. But how?

The glowing golden phantom sat opposite him and smiled. It was a beautiful smile. Under different circumstances, the smile would have put him at ease. But under these circumstances it made him feel fearful.

The carriage’s double doors hissed closed and the train juddered itself forwards and got on its rattling, cascading way, disappearing into the blackness of the underground once more.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” said Dr Pearson to the woman.

“What makes you think that?” replied the woman in a beautiful fruity voice that sounded as sweet as honey and as rich as Christmas pudding. Her diction was perfect English without a trace of any regional accent. If she wanted a job at the BBC reading the news, it would be hers.

“Well, other than being back in Time and experiencing bombs dropping, flashes blinding me, people disappearing and stations changing their names, I’d say having a see-through woman sitting opposite me glowing gold and dressed up in men’s clothing and looking for all the world like a wingless Angel, has made me draw such a conclusion.”

“I see.”

“Am I dead?”

“No, you’re asleep.”

“Shouldn’t I know that myself?”

“Don’t you?”

“I suspected I was dreaming earlier, I suppose. But all this seems too real. It seems much more than a dream. I mean, I seem to be back in the past, in the Second World War, a time that existed generations before I was born.”

“And you saw the date on the newspaper?”

“Erm … yes, Tuesday, July 7th, 1942. I’m good with dates and figures. I’m a teacher of mathematics.”

Dr Pearson was impressed that the woman knew about the newspaper. But then he recalled how he had thought the black lettering of the date had flashed gold. He now realised that it had, and that such a phenomenon was probably the eerie looking woman’s doing, particularly as she was continually glowing in a golden ethereal light herself and was dressed in the clothes of the 1940s. No doubt she was responsible for the newspaper itself as well as everything else.

“Did the date remind you of anything?” Her keen sparkling blue eyes demanded Dr Pearson’s fullest attention.

“Almost … I seem to recall it from somewhere, but I can’t remember where.”

“And my semi-transparency and golden glow? My strange choice of clothes?”

“I can’t quite …?” Dr Pearson stroked his chin deep in thought.

“Perhaps you should think about Blyth. That beautiful town whose wonderful people successive governments have seen fit to devastate, or at best ignore. The town where you attempt to teach your mathematics to class after class of enthusiastic madcap Geordies.”

Dr Pearson’s eyebrows arched in surprise. He suddenly realised who the woman had to be. Her men’s clothing, her ghostly appearance complete with golden glow. The Tuesday, July 7th, 1942, date. Suddenly, the disparate pieces of an elaborate phantasmagorical jigsaw puzzle fell into place.

“You’ve got it, haven’t you, Dr Pearson?” The woman allowed a beautiful smile to light up the trundling train as it continued to roar through the blackness of The Links tunnel.

“You’re Agatha Cookson. The Golden Woman. Tuesday, July 7th, 1942. The date that spawned the Tale of the Old Railway Line Curse.” Dr Pearson wondered how on earth the Golden Woman knew his name. But what did it matter in such a crazy dream?

“Well, done!”

“An interesting dream, I suppose. Beats dreaming of the crooked and cruel National Education Authority.”

“Never mind the National Education Authority. Let me tell you, Dr Pearson, seeing your contract through and getting your full teacher’s pension is the least of your problems. It is your crossings through the portal in the Old Railway Line railings that should be your main concern.”

“Rubbish. That old local ghost tale is comical. Though I’ve got to hand it to the Geordies, only they could have thought something up like that.” He decided against asking the Golden Woman how she seemed to know all about him.

“It’s not a ghost tale,” scolded the Golden Woman.

“What? The Crown—a crown made of gold supposedly created, what was it, 427 million years ago when there weren’t any people around at that time to make one. That red-skinned black-hairy half-man half-monster Saliman guy? A beast of a man that transforms into a Pink Mist when severely injured? And you, Agatha Cookson, becoming a ghost with a golden glow? What’s that if it’s not a ghost tale?”

“It is not a ghost tale, and I am not a ghost! And you failed to mention the Crown’s gemstones.”

“Big deal. Okay, a crown made of gold with ten expensive looking, different coloured gemstones fixed around its rim, gemstones that all fell off and are supposedly missing to this day.” It suddenly struck Dr Pearson that maybe the gold coloured mattresses he had observed earlier, represented not a wheel but the Crown, with the different coloured pillows representing the Crown’s gemstones.

“Dr Pearson, the Crown was not manufactured from just any kind of gold.”

“So what. It can be 24-carat for all I care.”

“That is only 99.9% pure. Tell me, Dr Pearson, you were once a scientist, are there not many types of pure gold?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. Gold, like any element, can have many isotope forms depending on the number of neutrons its atoms have.”

“And just how many isotopes do you know of?”

“It’s not a subject I studied to any great depth. But I know there’s more than one. There’s definitely a radioactive isotope. Ah, yes, that’s right, it’s come back to me now … there’s just one non-radioactive isotope and as many as 36 radioactive isotopes. I had to remember that for one of my exams many years ago.”

“By many of your textbooks, I would have to admit your memory serves you well, Dr Pearson. But what if there’s substances unseen, undetectable by science as you know it, within these atoms. Wouldn’t that make yet other forms of gold possible?”

“It would mean there would have to be other forces of nature to account for such an integration.”

“Precisely. An Inner Force that acts on Inner Substance.”

“Look, is this conversation going somewhere sensible, or is it imitating this tube journey?”

The Golden Woman simply smiled, but her eyes seemed to search deep into Dr Pearson’s mind with a sarcastic glint.

Thankfully, there was a brief pause in the conversation. In the lull, Dr Pearson became aware of the rhythmic cascading clamour of the charging tube train’s heavy steel wheels juddering along on the underground’s steel tracks. Bouncing ever so gently in his comfortable leather seat as the tube train lurched and bumped its merry way through a long and snaking tunnel, he gazed out of the thick dirt stained window to his side at the streams of dirty red bricks whooshing past in a never-ending blur.

Eventually, his eyes locked back onto his travelling partner.

“At least do yourself a courtesy of not believing this is simply your independent dream,” said the glowing ghostly woman.

“What do you mean?”

“Churchill did make a speech on that day and at that time in your past history. But of course it differed. And the Shakespeare allusion, complete with a parody of one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, had never come out of his lips in your particular past history. Wouldn’t you know such Churchillian words, if they had? Admit it, Dr Pearson—you have never heard such Churchillian words, whether they exist or not, have you?”

“No. So what?”

“And so this was your dream, and your dream alone, you would have had to have made such words up. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“And do you think yourself capable of such words?”

“Erm … not really. Well no.”

“So, yes, you are dreaming. But the place of your dream is completely independent of your dream. And the whole point of giving you access to one of Churchill’s finest parallel realities, was so that you could hear the power of his words. In case you didn’t realise it already, words are powerful weapons, that Inner Force can use as tools—even more potently than Churchill used them. And remember what Churchill said of the inner atom’s subatomic particles: ‘Hitler, it is what binds such parts together that will always defeat you.’ Are you beginning to understand?”

“Maybe.”

“Sometimes speeches are not just ornamental rhetoric. Sometimes they are vehicles of instruction: didactic rhetoric. And sometimes they are simply weapons of the mind that inspire, argue and sustain a people to greater acts of bravery than they thought possible of themselves. Whatever the case, you needed those words of Churchill to get you off on the right foot.”

“Really?”

“Honestly and truly.”

“If you say so.”

“Let me just say this, Dr Pearson. If you go through that portal on your way to the school later this morning it will be your one-hundredth crossing, and you should know what that means. So be prepared for its consequences!”

 

4

“MIND THE GAP!”

IT WAS A STRIKINGLY ominous, stark warning. Nonetheless, Dr Pearson said nonchalantly, as if he had suddenly become bored by the whole situation, “I’ll be what the tale calls the Crosser. I’ll release the evil energy as well as the good, and Saliman will try to fulfil his curse. Anyway, it’s not a portal, just a silly gap in the railway railings. It cuts about half a mile off my journey to the school. Bah, this is all hogwash!” He let out a long dreamy relieving sigh, feeling more relaxed, as he felt the reason for the dream was beginning to fit into place.

The Golden Woman stood up and slapped him hard on the side of his face.

“Ouch!” cried Dr Pearson. The slap stung and he rubbed the side of his face. Nevertheless, despite the assault of the Golden Woman he was impressed with her effortless skill in maintaining her upright balance on the jiggling carriage.

“You fool! You’re not taking this seriously. You had better be ready for your responsibilities, because all will depend on you and your helpers. The stakes make Hitler’s war but a child’s friendly game by comparison.” She slapped him again. Hard.

“I can have you done for that,” said Dr Pearson, borrowing a line many of his pupils had barracked him with when he had as much as mildly disciplined them.

The Golden Woman slapped him hard yet again, on both cheeks for good measure.

“At least consider the possibility that the tale might relate to the truth,” she insisted, before gracefully sinking back into her seat, her eyes keenly examining Dr Pearson.

“Oh, leave me alone,” complained Dr Pearson rubbing his cheeks.

Then he nodded his head knowingly and allowed a soft smile to form on his face because he felt he had cracked it. He was dreaming such a dream because he had been taking a shortcut through a gap in some old Victorian stainless steel railway railings. The gap that Agatha Cookson, this ghostly Golden Woman sitting opposite him, was alleged to have created with the Crown back on Tuesday, July 7th, 1942, as documented in the Tale of the Old Railway Line Curse.

He knew he would be making a one-hundredth crossing that morning when he woke from the dream. He had only been keeping count of his crossings of this gap because of the persistence of Erica Ashbarten, the bane of every other teacher in the school, but whom for some reason, he had no problems with. According to the tale, such a fateful crossing would make him the Crosser, with all the terrible responsibilities that went with such a role.

He concluded that the dream had its roots in the fact that he was confusing such fictitious stress with all the real stress he was suffering from due to his teaching job, courtesy of the National Education Authority.

He could see the Golden Woman eyeing him suspiciously.

“I’ve got a job to do,” complained Dr Pearson. “I’ll never get through the final year of my contract if I have silly dreams like this. It’s just a gap in some old Victorian stainless steel railway railings. Just a silly gap. A short cut.”

The Golden Woman slowly shook her head disparagingly.

“Your problem, Dr Pearson, is that you are obsessed with the National Education Authority’s attempts to force you to resign and henceforth lose your pension. Even in this dream your obsession blinds you.”

“I wouldn’t say I was obsessed, just vigilant.”

“Really … We’ll see about that.” She leaned forward, her confident face uncomfortably close to Dr Pearson’s uncertain face. “You are a teacher of mathematics, but I’m sure you have done your fair share of reading. Am I correct?”

“I’ve read a few books, of course. Too busy these days though.” Dr Pearson looked to the side to see another stream of dirty tunnel-wall bricks whizz by in a blur, as keeping eye contact with the Golden Woman was no easy task.

The Golden Woman reached out and placed one of her golden semi-transparent glowing hands on Dr Pearson’s jaw. She may have looked semi-transparent but her warm touch was as firm as steel. She physically jerked Dr Pearson’s jaw and forced him to face her. He felt his eyes light up with fear and knew he must have looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a juggernaut. Eventually, when she looked as if she had his sole attention, she let go of his jaw.

“So you’ve read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice?” she said.

“Huh? Oh yes. Read that one for my school exams.”

“Can you recall the opening line?”

“Let me see, now … I’ve got a good memory … and not just for numbers either … ah yes, I remember now. Yes, I can remember it perfectly, just as if the book was open in front of my eyes right now.”

“And?” The Golden Woman gave him a strict look.

“You want me to speak out aloud the opening line of Pride and Prejudice?” Dr Pearson felt out of his comfort zone and his fingers dug nervously into the leather edge of his carriage seat.

“Yes please,” insisted the Golden Woman, crossing her arms and tapping her foot impatiently.

“Righto. It goes: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged in these modern English times, that a teacher in possession of an ensuing pension must be in want of retirement, but will never be granted it.’”

The Golden Woman unfolded her arms and let out a squeal of derisory laughter, and for once, her extraordinary balance seemed out of kilter as she rolled about on her seat.

“What’s so funny?” said Dr Pearson, feeling and looking deeply offended.

“You are so funny, Dr Pearson,” said the Golden Woman, regaining her composure. “Do you realise what you have just said?”

“Of course. I quoted the opening line of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I think I got it right, too.”

“Fiddlesticks, did you. Dr Pearson, the opening line is: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ Not: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged in these modern English times, that a teacher in possession of an ensuing pension must be in want of retirement, but will never be granted it.’ See? There is no doubt you are obsessed with the National Education Authority and their dastardly efforts to rob you of your pension.”

“Did I really misquote Jane Austen the way you said I did?”

The Golden Woman gave a simple slow nod of affirmation.

“Oh dear.” Dr Pearson couldn’t believe he had said what the Golden Woman had claimed he had, though reluctantly, he knew he probably had. He honestly thought he had quoted Jane Austen correctly. “All right, I admit it. I know I’m obsessed, but who can blame me?”

“Only you can do that, Dr Pearson.”

The train screeched and started to brake in the middle of a seemingly pitch-black tunnel. The deceleration pinned Dr Pearson back into his leather-upholstered seat. His body juddered forwards slightly as the train came braking to a stop. Outside he could see nothing through the windows on either side of the carriage, except possibly some far away points of light. He could see his reflection in the carriage windows but surprisingly not the Golden Woman’s.

The double doors hissed open—on both sides of the train.

He could see now that outside were thousands of distant stars shinning like diamonds on a black velvet sheet. And he saw a huge metal London Underground signpost weightlessly cartwheeling with the name of the scheduled station on it, the Bridge of Sacrifice. He watched hypnotically the white lettering on its navy-blue background, slowly twisting and rolling, appearing and disappearing. It was as if the carriage was suspended in deep space.

The Golden Woman lifted herself gracefully with majestic poise from her seat and sashayed to the open doorway of the carriage, turned, and with her back towards it, faced Dr Pearson. Her glowing gold semi-transparent figure seemed glorious and the stars behind her formed an eerie mystical backdrop. She gave Dr Pearson a serious glare before stepping backwards into the void. Drifting slowly, weightlessly, away from the doorway and just missing the cartwheeling signpost, she uttered in her gorgeous fruity voice her last words:

“Mind the gap! Mind the gap!”

Dr Pearson held his head in his hands in a gesture of mental exasperation. No doubt the gap the Golden Woman was referring to was not the London Underground gap between a train and curved platform, but the gap in the railway fence he had been taking a regular shortcut through. The whole situation was insane. But it would get worse …

The train carriage’s double doors all hissed closed …

Suddenly the train juddered then started to fall!

Dr Pearson’s stomach lurched and seemed to leave his body as the train went into free-fall. He became weightless and slowly floated off his seat.

“Oh my god!”

The train begun twisting and rolling as it fell.

Like an astronaut in a space capsule, Dr Pearson whirled around slowly in the carriage, not knowing up from down except in terms of the carriage. The star field, he spied through the windows, wheeled around unpredictably.

Quickly he turned his attention to focusing on the carriage. An upside-down carriage poster extolling the virtue of growing vegetables in one’s back garden with its “Dig for Victory” message juggled for his attention with a poster claiming “Careless Talk Costs Lives!” He also made out the upside-down name of the next station on The Links route: Heartbind. It was a stop he somehow knew he would never reach.

Pushing his weightless body off the beech-wood slats of the carriage floor with his hands, he righted himself in relation to the carriage and drifted up towards the carriage’s gently arching metal ceiling.

On the tan-painted steel sidewall of the carriage about two feet away from his weightless body, he spied a small length of red painted chain that had a sign above it. In red lettering on a white background the sign read: “EMERGENCY STOP — PULL CHAIN!”

He managed to reach out and grasp a leather passenger-steadying handle and pulled himself towards the red chain.

His hand grasped the chain, and he pulled … !

Immediately, the haunting sound of a Second World War bombing raid siren began wailing through the train.

His heart hammered in his chest as if it wanted out.

The train began decelerating at a terrific speed and Dr Pearson found himself pinned to the floor of the carriage between two facing seats.

Moments later, just before the train could slow to a stop, the train crashed onto something solid with a deafening blow.

Dr Pearson’s carriage snapped in half, and he was catapulted unceremoniously high into a blackness through torn twisted steel, as if he were a rag doll kicked up into the night by an angry child.

Down he eventually plunged, bouncing and tumbling to a standstill on a hard flat surface. He lost consciousness …

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Dr Pearson came out of his stupor and found himself waking up on the cheap and cheerful carpet of his cold bedroom floor none the worse for his crash. But he began stroking a painful cheek, as if at least the Golden Woman’s slaps on his face had been real.

Looking over at the green-glowing digits of his bedside cabinet alarm clock, Dr Pearson realised he still had another two hours of possible sleep. So he dragged his weary body back into his welcoming warm bed.

And even as he struggled back to sleep, he could feel a presence in the room, and thought he could still hear the Golden Woman whispering to him.

“Dr Pearson, if you pass through the portal just one more time, you will release the forces of good and evil. Just you remember that you must find the Crown’s diamond gemstones as quickly as you can, restore them on the Crown, and then with the help of some of your maverick Geordie pupils, bring that Crown to me. If you fail to deliver … God help us all!”