Free The Mind's Eye by K.C. Finn Page A

streets and properties
smashed and destroyed. Until one image flickered into focus, an
image that made me gasp aloud. Oslo. The boulevard that I had been
looking down on with its leafy green trees and the lines of
soldiers in their big black boots next to the open canvas trucks.
Except that now those soldiers were dragging people away, and part
of the street in the forefront of the image was smeared with
something dark. Blood.
    “ The occupation of Norway began this week seeing hundreds of
innocent residents in the capital city of Oslo taken away. These
propaganda photographs released to the European newspapers claim
that the Nazis are hounding out traitors and resistors to their
cause. The Norwegian government has been overthrown and replaced
by…”
I couldn’t
bear it anymore. I closed my eyes and my mind to the cinema screen.
Henri was there in that awful place. He’d have seen the blood on
the streets; he might even have been taken away. I had met with him
for less than half an hour, but I knew he was a good young man. I
considered my state carefully, deciding that I was no longer as
tired as I had been in the morning. Perhaps I had rested enough to
reach him. Blod was still sulking to my left and Mam was in the
chair on the other side of her, engrossed in the newsreel still. I
sank back into my wheelchair slowly, putting my head out of their
field of vision.
My arms and
hands took their usual position as I nervously began to shut out
the sounds and sights of the screening. Perhaps if they saw me,
they would just think I had a headache, or even that I’d nodded off
to sleep. With a nervous, thumping pulse building behind my ears, I
took my two deep breaths, thinking hard on the scenes I had just
witnessed, the young smooth hands of the boy in the store room. His
voice and his name. Henri.
When I opened
my eyes I was at a table sewing on a button. Or more precisely
Henri was. I recognised the trickle of the nerves down his spine as
he tried to concentrate, the sight of his hands filled me with
glee. If I had had the physical strength to leap for joy this would
have been the moment to do it. I had the found the right mind at
the right time for once. I watched him for a few seconds as he
continued to attach the button to a man’s brown suit, but I
couldn’t resist the urge to make contact for long.
    Hello Henri , I thought.
The young man
stabbed himself with the needle as he jumped half out of his skin.
He looked up into the same store room he had been in when I saw him
last. There were a few other stations for tailoring among the
swathes of cloth, but he was alone.
    “ Hello?” he said aloud, sucking on his now-sore
finger.
    I’m so sorry , I answered, I didn’t mean to startle you .
    “ No harm done,” he answered with his finger still at his lips,
“I had begun to think you were something in my
imagination.”
    I had to rest my mind before I could come
back , I explained, but they’re reporting on the occupation here, I wanted to
make sure you were all right.
    “ You did?”
Henri felt
sort of warm suddenly. I was grateful that he wasn’t able to see
the blush that might have crept into my cheeks at his words.
    I don’t know how long we have to speak , I thought, avoiding his question.
    “ Then tell me your name,” Henri prodded, setting down his
tailor’s tools.
Kit, Kit
Cavendish.
    “ Kit,” he repeated in his rich voice.
    How old are you? I asked.
    “ Seventeen,” he answered, “And you?”
    An awkward moment settled on me. Well, I’ll be sixteen in June.
    “ So you’re fifteen,” he corrected with a laugh hitched in his
throat. I could feel his merriment rising slowly.
Where are
you? Are you a tailor?
    “ Something like that,” Henri replied. He looked up around the
room again to make sure no-one had come in. “I was an apprentice,
but all the older men fled north to escape before the invasion, so
now I am the only boy left. This is Mr Hoffman’s building, the
clothing shop is