Bag of Weasels. Chapter 9

I followed my nose, Ralph trusted, and we hopped and tripped to Upton Lane in the blackest hours of quiet night; nice and easy to the side door.
Which opened on our arrival. Something was on our side. We stepped in, and once again the cold and fear poured out of the soles of my feet into the wooden floor. Second time that night.
I remembered now, this place had impressed me' there was wood everywhere, and I put my hand to the wooden panelled walls.
They were warm. I whipped my hand away, then put it back again. Still warm. Very odd. "Feel the walls. Ralph. He did, and his eyes widened just that little bit. Astounded.
"There's no heating here, you know, and it's not a warm night. We moved our hands around and all the panels were giving out heat. I stepped back, cast a glance over the wall in the hallway, and forgot about the warm wood; there was something stranger still: every vertical surface was laid over in script, line after line going round and round in the warm walls. I could see it crawling round doorframes, a fine slanty script that flowed with the wood, and I followed it like it had whistled me over, and traced it into the heart of the house.
Stairs rickety creaked round walls and corners to more floors laid out to no plan, scattering out from the stairwell, and the script wrapped round us, as we followed it up and up.
"This wasn't here before, I whispered, "This must have taken ages. Look at it! This isn't just a scrawl. This is painstaking work. Ralph just nodded. But his eyes were wide and shiny.
I touched the script where it came up to my head: I put a finger in the cut, and traced it round, following it up and along. Words came to me.

"Be Alive. Speak to me I will speak to you in lines of light from here and back to before and beyond. I crept out and slept in lost rooms til I heard you - and I now plead to my few to let me be and shine like snow covered nights...

Ralph put his hand on my shoulder. His eyes were even wider: "You know you're speaking the words?
"What?
"You're speaking the words. As you follow them.
"I can't be, I replied, a little freaked by Ralph's claim, "I've not even traced a whole word. But we read the script, right where we stood, and the words on the wall were the same ones I'd spoken.
We were Electrified; it was pure zing. We spun off different ways, forgetting ourselves, free to wander through the script.

"For a thousand years, and a thousand more, rising and falling, waiting and hiding, searched for and hunted by friends and foes, feared and fearless.
Shining in the time of Stone.
In the time of Iron.
In the times of the Temples, the times of the Churches, when the few who held on were burned by fear.
Fear of the free.
Here through it all. Waiting but fading.
Come to me.

I went skipping in and out of different rooms to fix on the different strengths and tastes of the words to be found, for each room had its own stamp, but it would change on entering a second time; sometimes I was calm, and sometimes I felt wired, but each time was a joy. It seemed to me that the house just went on for ever, and it was some time before I realised I had been going in and out of the same rooms again and again: I had drifted around the first floor like a sleepwalker. But still, I did it some more, until finally, things died down, and I was simply walking in and out of bare rooms to no avail, so I descended the stairs to find Ralph standing in the hallway. I could only just make him out, for the house had grown dark. It only occurred to me then that I'd been seeing just fine up til then on a very dark night.
"It's gone back in, Ralph said. Finally, I knew what he meant. At last, I was in. We perched on the bottom two stairs in the tall hallway, tired now as the buzz wore off.
Ralph leaned up really close so I could see his face. He was staring into my eyes. I stared back, but felt uncomfortable; it felt like he was looking right in. He sighed, brushed his hand over his thickening stubble of a haircut, and looked further in.
I fidgeted under the gaze.
"What?
He smiled.
"What you looking at?
"Do you believe me, Sunny? Do you believe my tall tales? He was still smiling.
I didn't know. I was into something here, but I might be sharing some madness, or hallucination. I could not trust my senses, but we were on the same tip here.
"Believe in this, Sunny, and it will come to you. It needs us to believe to come back to us.
"What, like fairies?
"What?
I knew straight off it wasn't the cleverest thing to say, but that was all I could think of: some kids' story. Clap your hands and believe in the fairies, or something. Say they don't exist and one of them dies. That was all I could think of.
"I hope, said Ralph in an even more serious, heavyweight tone than usual, "That you will wake up to this.
I wanted to ask, wake up to what, but I'd played out his patience with my fairies quip.
I hated feeling all at sea, it usually made me move off and hide again. And here I was again, at sea, confused, but nowhere to go. I'd come back here for refuge and didn't want to go out again right now.
"Sunny, you brought us here, that was no accident. You are becoming part of this story. I don't think you know it. I don't know what it is, but we have to go with the flow. The key is to trust. To believe.
He wasn't making things any easier for me. I didn't like going with anything but my feet. I felt like a child, at the mercy of forces bigger and older, brighter than me.
I just wanted to rest. The burst of energy I 'd experienced on entering was well and truly dissipated; we'd been running and rowing and walking and hiding for ever it seemed and it was taking its toll so I suggested a rest and a new start in the morning, which surely could only be hours away.
"Sure, said Ralph as he slumped against the banisters and we sat there in silence, too drained to move.
We were still sitting there when we heard the rattling.