Journey to Jahennah: Chapter One

Nothing out of the ordinary ever usually happened when Lila went to her grandfather’s house. More often than not, she would sit and listen to him tell stories about his life and complain when she dunked biscuits in her tea. However, during this visit, everything seemed different. Perhaps it was her family squeezed into the cramped living room, either squashed onto the sofa or perched uneasily on rickety stools, brows furrowed and talking in hushed voices. Perhaps it was the weather, which, with its overcast sky and brisk, bitter wind, was unusually cold for July. Or perhaps it was her grandfather, who was normally so calm and cheerful, but now sat twitching and mumbling incoherently to himself in his oversized, grey armchair.

Lila had known this was coming. Before they’d left her house that morning, her mother had sat with her to discuss ‘Grandpa’s little turn’.

“Before we leave,” she began, “I must tell you that your grandfather is not very well.”

She went on to explain that people suffered in lots of ways when they lost a loved one, and this combined with old age sometimes caused the brain to not function as well as it used to. Lila sniffed. She was twelve years old after all, she understood the ageing process just fine. And the grieving process, actually. It was, after all, Lila’s grandmother that had died, not a second cousin once removed. She didn’t say this though, only nodded as she took in her mother’s appearance.

They had the same grey eyes and red waves, mirror images of Lila’s grandmother, but Lila could see the strain of the last few weeks. The creases in her face had become slightly deeper, the frown lines on her forehead slightly more prominent. Her mother had never been a large woman, but she looked slightly gaunt like she had lost a lot of weight in a short time. She was missing some of the twinkle that usually danced in her eyes; she was clearly more affected by her father’s behaviour than she was willing to let on.

“It may be a bit of a shock,” she said gently, “Grandpa is acting… rather strange.”

“More so than usual?” Lila asked. Nana had died two months before and Grandpa hadn’t been the same since.

“Yes. He was reluctant to let me in yesterday,” her mother replied. “It was like he was unsure of who I was. Then whenever I tried to speak to him, he almost jumped out of his chair unless I whispered. I’m afraid grief may have taken his mind to an awful place.”

Lila watched her grandfather now. He was hunched in his chair, fiddling anxiously with one of the buttons on his favourite grey cardigan. His eyes kept darting to the window, almost as if he expected someone unpleasant to walk up the path. Even though the room was full of people, he seemed deaf to the conversations surrounding him, and his hands were shaking violently. He didn’t look grief-stricken, he looked terrified.

They sat for a long time, making small talk, sipping tea and watching the old man through wary eyes, as though frightened he may collapse. Lila’s great-uncle sat in the armchair next to him, ignoring the rapidly cooling drink in his hands and staring at his brother with a sadness that made Lila’s heart break. Her four-year-old sister Ava was sat on the floor at Grandpa’s feet, happily colouring. She was too young to understand the tension in the room, but she obviously knew something wasn’t quite right; every now and again she would turn around and pat Grandpa on the leg.

As the minutes crawled by (and the thirteen clocks on the wall told them just how many), Lila felt increasingly uncomfortable. Her grandparents had always found the sound of so many clocks soothing, but the ticking stopped her stringing together even the simplest of thoughts. Eventually, she nudged Kenji with her shoulder, then leant towards her mother and whispered that they were going to the basement. She nodded and continued her muttered conversation, glancing at her father, who seemed oblivious to everything around him. As they stood, Ava got to her feet excitedly, but Lila shook her head. She sat down again, pouting. Kenji ruffled her hair and sneaked her a chocolate bourbon from the plate on the coffee table. Ava’s face lit up and she hid the biscuit in both hands, taking tiny bites and trying to stifle her giggles to hide it from the adults. Grinning, Kenji grabbed three custard creams, shoved them in his pocket, and followed Lila out of the room.

“Well, it isn’t the best family gathering I’ve been to, but at least the snacks are good,” he declared, grinning impishly.

Lila smiled at him. Kenji was able to look on the bright side of any situation and she was grateful to him for being there now. He was staying with her family while his parents visited university friends in Leeds, meaning he’d been dragged along to her grandfather’s house. They had been best friends since they were two. He was half an inch smaller than her, though he insisted that boys usually had their growth spurts around twelve and so he would be shooting up any day now. His wild, jet-black hair sprang from his head and his dark brown eyes were always kind behind his rectangular framed glasses. Lila beckoned him to follow and made her way towards the basement.

She usually loved being in her grandparents’ home. On the outside, it was a simple, semi-detached house on a quiet street in a quiet area of Kent. Not a blade of grass nor a petal was out of place and even the pebbles that formed the path to the yellow front door were arranged in neat, smooth lines. On the inside, however, it was delightfully bizarre, filled with mismatched furniture, random ornaments and an impressive collection of clocks. It was a fantastic place to explore, an adventure around every corner with hidden stories behind every decoration. Best of all was the basement, a museum of squashy armchairs, peculiar trinkets and the most remarkable of all the clocks. The shelves were filled with fascinating objects, from a bottle of mysterious liquid the exact same shade of blue as a summer sky, to a bowl of large, pointed stones that Nana had sworn were dragons’ teeth. Grandpa had once told Lila that this was where they kept everything magical that they’d found on their travels.

Lila had spent hours of her childhood in the basement with her grandparents making up stories and playing games. Her grandmother had been an artist and would paint endless pictures of her with Ava, riding with centaurs, swimming with merpeople and flying with hippogriffs. She told them tales of her own mythical adventures, and they were so magical Lila had almost believed they were real. Even as she grew older, listening to the stories was just as special.

Lila felt a pang of sadness as she thought of her grandmother. They had been very close, and her death had come as a dreadful shock. She knew heart failure was more likely the older a person got, but even though she was eighty, Nana Jess had been full of life. She and Grandpa Sid had been volunteering in Fiji when it happened; nobody had seen it coming. Lila climbed into her favourite checked armchair and curled up into a ball. She covered her face with her hair so that Kenji didn’t see the tears spilling down her cheeks. He sat on the floor, his head leaning against the arm of her chair. They sat in silence, Kenji nibbling on a biscuit.

After a while, he spoke.

“What is your Grandpa scared of?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she sniffed, wiping her eyes.

“Well,” Kenji paused. “He looked petrified. It was almost like he was waiting for someone to burst through the door.”

Lila stiffened. “I thought that,” she said quietly, “he looked seriously freaked out about something.”

“What could it have been?”

They wracked their brains but neither could think of anything.

“Maybe he went out and ran into a gang of kids?” suggested Kenji. Lila shook her head. There were no children living on Pebble Avenue and the only place her grandfather ever went on his own was to the corner shop to buy a scratch card and a pint of milk on a Tuesday. If she’d had her phone, she would have checked for recent incidents in the area.

Unfortunately, it was at home on her bedside table; there had always been a strict ‘No Phones’ rule at Nana and Grandpa’s house. Lila sighed heavily. She was desperate for an explanation but knew that her mother was probably right; grief was taking its toll on Grandpa.

She looked around the room sadly. She loved it down here. Her grandfather hadn’t come to the basement for weeks; Lila knew it reminded him too much of his wife. It was full of memories; everything in the same place it had been for years. The same furniture, the same ornaments, the same…

Lila stared at the wall opposite her. She counted. She counted again. She stood and walked over to the wall. She counted a third time. Kenji watched her blankly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lila held up a hand to silence him.

These nine clocks were the most special in the whole house. They were the ones with the best stories from her grandparents’ travels around the world. One was a gift from a school in Bolivia where Lila’s grandmother had taught English. Another was a talisman from a carpenter in a tiny Ghanaian village to give the couple good luck. There was magic surrounding these nine clocks. Except there were no longer nine on the wall. There were ten.

In a clock collector’s home, it should not have been surprising. But Lila knew that this wall had not changed in over thirty years. Everyone in the family knew that these were the most precious of the forty-seven clocks.

Lila spotted the odd one out immediately. It was brown with a simple illustration of a house in the centre and the words ‘London, England’ underneath it. The numbers around the edge were written in Roman numerals and the hands were thin, delicate and black. It was entirely ordinary but stood out like a sore thumb.

“This wasn’t here before,” she said.

Kenji shrugged. “Maybe it’s from another room?”

Lila shook her head. “I know every clock in this house, this one is not part of the collection.”

Kenji got to his feet and looked at the new clock curiously. Then he shivered.

“Woah, did you feel that?” he whispered, his face pale.

She did. She hadn’t moved, but her heart was pounding, the blood surging through her veins, her fingers tingling. A feeling of unease pressed on her stomach and as she looked at the clock, she knew (though how she did was beyond her) that there was a terrible reason for its presence.

Taking a step closer, Lila noticed that the eighth numeral on the clock was incorrect: the III had been placed in front of the V, it was the wrong way around. This wouldn’t have mattered to most people, but her grandparents’ collection of clocks was their pride and joy; each and every single one was perfect. They did not put this clock here - she was certain of it.

“We need to take it down,” she said abruptly. She reached out, but Kenji grabbed her arm.

“Lila, don’t touch it,” he warned her anxiously. She glared at him.

“We need to take it down,” she repeated, pulling her arm from his grasp. He didn’t understand. This clock shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t explain why, but Lila knew that this clock was the cause of her grandfather’s fear, and it needed to be removed immediately.

She tried to lift it off its hook, but the clock wouldn’t move. She pulled a bit harder; nothing. She tugged, twisted and turned but it didn’t move even a fraction of an inch. Kenji attempted to prise the clock from the wall with no success. They stopped and surveyed it, breathing heavily from their efforts.

Lila looked more closely at the eight. There was something bothersome yet significant about it being incorrect. She touched the numerals gently. Nothing happened.

She sighed. Part of her had hoped this would reveal something, anything about the clock being here. She shook her head to clear it, realising how ridiculous it was to think a clock could be hiding something. Lila began to pull her hand away. As her fingers grazed the surface of the clock, two of them lined up with the shape of the V that formed part of the incorrect eight.

A peculiar prickling spread through Lila’s hand. It was stuck. She pulled, but she was glued to the clock. With her free hand, she grasped her wrist and tried to pull herself free again, but then watched in horror as first her fingers, then the rest of her arm sank into the clock face. She screamed. She tried to call to Kenji for help, but her voice caught in her throat and only a choking sound left her. She tried to pull away, but no amount of tugging made any difference. Kenji grabbed her around the waist, attempting to wrench her free. It was no use. She shouted at him to let go, but he couldn’t; the clock had trapped him the moment he’d touched her.

The prickling built up slowly, creeping all the way up Lila’s arm and across her torso, filling her entire body. She couldn’t tell if it hurt; she only felt the fear that was coursing through her. She sank deeper into the clock, unable to feel the abyss it was taking her to, pulled forward by the force that gripped her. With her free arm, she grabbed hold of the hand that was glued to her waist. She called desperately to Kenji, shrieking for him to try and free himself, but her voice was lost in the void as their feet left the ground and they were dragged through the face of the mysterious tenth clock.