The Face Beyond the Window

By Peter Scott

On a winter’s evening in 2041, 14-year-old Tom arrives at Albans School, tucked away in an isolated Blue Mountains location west of Sydney – a special school for children with disabilities. Tom doesn’t speak, can’t hear and has no word recognition. Watching Tom’s arrival from the school library is Abbey, a book that no one has ever read.

Abbey’s desperate need to be read drives her to find a way to communicate with Tom and unleashes a terrifying and thrilling adventure.

They encounter a global conspiracy using artificial intelligence to control the minds of the younger generation – the inheritors. Together, they forge an exceptional team to fight back, from the very place the global conspirators plan to destroy – imagination.

As they confront increasingly perilous challenges, they come to understand why they are like they are and the meaning of partnership.

Books become the guiding influence as Tom and Abbey light the flame of self-belief to rise above their limitations. To fight for a new generation’s right to freely choose the society in which they want to live and who they want to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398486195

Peter Scott

Peter Scott grew up in post war austerity Britain and joined the RAF.He was lucky enough to be posted to Kenya which sparked an interest in mountaineering and the local ecology, but it also acquainted him with the cruelty inherent in our own species.Later, as an aircraft engineer in various parts of the world he could see the difficulty of squaring rapid population growth without poverty and damage to the natural environment.Now settled at home he dismally concludes that his own precious island is also struggling to be a green and pleasant land as the population heads for seventy million.Apart from being a general misery, he enjoys playing clarinet and jazz saxaphone; ranting on the BBC, and writing.

Book preview

Prologue

Abbey lay in the darkness unable to move. Her life-light now an intermittent flicker. She gazed at it as pain pleaded: Please…let go.

She had come so far—so very far. Now, lost—here in the dark.

Why? An expectation; following a dream. What was it?

She struggled to push through the pain to remember. It must have been important. The occasional flicker barely lit her conscious that was hanging by a thread.

The thread stretched and contracted like an elastic ribbon with a weight attached—her life. Pulling away. Let. Go. Returning.

Thread movement lured her as it pulled away. Follow the thread.

The thread returned towards the light. The light caught a shadow. Abbey struggled to focus as pain continued to wash through her spine. Concentrate.

The shadow took shape. A face? Why there? The light ignited Abbey’s awareness. Who is he? Survival seeped back through her—pushed through the pain barrier. Don’t detach!

A scraping sound, sliding along a concrete floor. The air radiating heat. Where am I? She looked at him floating in her life-light. His arm extended towards her. I can’t reach his hand. Her sliding away. His face etched with anguish. Abbey’s conscious roared back. She looked ahead. Some sort of disposal chute edging closer.

Metal scraping on concrete screamed. Rising heat sucked air away. Sliding towards the chute. Dig-in. No traction. At the edge. Tilting towards the chute. Push back! Hot air flamed.

Falling into the chute. She looked up. His image shrivelled away. Flames licked at the chute’s end waiting to burn—to remove all trace of what had happened.

No! The thread snapped. Silence and the dark swallowed her.

It had all started with a secret.

Part 1

Abbey’s Secret

Once upon a time…

1. A Winter Evening

July 2041

Abbey packed in like she did most evenings. Next to her, shouldering in, an outspoken expert on public transport—she likened their situation to peak-hour commuting and tinned sardines. Abbey knew nothing about peak hour and tinned sardines yet felt for the imagined victims. Then another squeezed in further along. Abbey’s spine bent from the pressure.

She wanted to cry out. However, emotional responses were not permitted; no one listened. Then, another eased out, everyone flexed, momentary relief. Distractions are like that. They deflect dwelling on unpleasant subjects. Something Abbey learned from a neighbour who encouraged her in working on her community engagement.

She introduced herself to the community, ‘Hey, I’m Abbey.’ She explained her presence: a gift from an aunt to her niece. Her title ‘Abbey’s Secret’ scripted across the dust cover. The neighbours accepted Abbey. They always welcomed new books for young readers, particularly a first edition. Fresh face, fresh ideas. And modern dust covers really highlighted an invitation: come, read me.

Abbey had not quite worked out where gift plans fell off the rails. She now dealt with the consequences. Two years had passed since she had been donated to Albans School library.

Abbey’s initial excitement—being discovered by a young reader—had been first and foremost in her early morning preparation. Anticipating new experiences—to have her cover opened, little eyes looking upon her title, fingers feeling her texture. Breathing life into her close-pressed pages. Allowing her words to stretch and prepare. To convey her words and ideas to a young mind. Kindling imagination like a spark to a dry, ready-to-burn, landscape.

Dreams are made for children. They do not always come true for a book. She’d been about to throw herself off the shelf when a life-coach book engaged her—‘Living with Life’ or LW to her friends. It dealt with emotional and mental suffering. The practical advice helped for a while.

However, disappointment for Abbey became a precursor of more. Even some weighty scholarly volumes—particularly the ones up on the top shelf—had offered helpful hints. They meant well, perhaps useful fifty years ago, even twenty, but did nothing for Abbey. Her focus an expectation: a new respect for young books contributing ideas. An awareness gained from other manuscripts at the publishers’ while awaiting her print run.

Another winter evening befell Abbey in the library. The wind gusting, windows rattling, falling snow drifting against the outside library wall. Naked trees were ghostly spectres in the landscape, etched by the school porch-lights. At least she had some solace at the shelf’s end near the window—a view. Out of sight, out of mind. Who—ever—gives a thought to how a book feels stuck on a shelf? Unread, unloved, lonely.

Abbey stared beyond the window-glass, lost in thought somewhere off in the darkness. What would become of her? The light from the table lamp cast shadows across the room like it did every night—still shadows. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed six times. She would soon hear feet scurrying down the stairs or the whee from someone sliding down the banister rail. Leap-frogging over the newel post and plopping onto the timber floor. Then, racing to the dining room. Chairs sliding, cutlery clinking. She did not have to listen. Routine etched like ruts in her mind, narrowing as they trailed into the distance. Following a retreating dream.

Life ruts have no useful purpose other than as something to be avoided. There is another use though—attracting attention. It could be anything. The scene appeared the same as every other evening. Then she noticed something had changed. Eyes glazed beyond the window, her despair, the still shadows cast by the lamp light. Then a movement. Her eyes flickered awareness, then focused in search.

What had changed? There, outside on the window. Misting from warm breath onto cold glass. Behind it a hooded face. Nose to the glass, flashing eyes. They darted left and right, looking around the room. They roamed the bookshelves row upon row, end to end. Past Abbey on to the next shelf, then hesitated. Slowly, they inched back up to Abbey’s row, momentarily fixed on Abbey. A blink, then moved down again.

Abbey watched those eyes as they worked their way down the shelves until they stopped at the bottom with the last book. What were they doing? What was happening behind those eyes? They flashed with a look that startled Abbey. The eyes retraced their journey back along the shelves, faster and faster until they arrived at Abbey’s shelf—resting upon Abbey.

If Abbey could have blushed, she would have turned a deeper shade beneath her dust cover. Eyes had never looked upon her like that. She knew uninterested looks, bored looks, even snobbish ones—who would read you? These eyes were different, quizzical, finally pondering. Abbey thought: Who is this face beyond the window?

2. An Arrival

Abbey blinked when the hooded face turned from the window and continued along the porch. A key in the lock, door off the latch, boots dropped on the porch. A comforting voice from the Boarding House Master. She caught a glimpse as they moved past the library doorway. A young boy. Head down, the master’s hand placed on his back. Reassuring, guiding him down the hall.

Abbey’s spine tingled, rising up to her ribbon place-marker. A first for Abbey. Oh, I like this change. The bookshelves were still as usual. Heavy breathing from the scholarly volumes on the upper shelf. They always drifted off to sleep with night’s arrival. The occasional stretching by friends as they settled in for the night. Crinkling from a book cover, a creak from a spine, the occasional sigh.

Abbey strained to decipher the words drifting from the kitchen—to no avail. They came from the master and mistress. Not like a conversation, something with which she had no experience.

Wow, a day like no other!

The mysteriousness cut through her boredom. As a winter chill snaps through a dust cover. A word-use conveyed to her by Thea on the shelf above.

Thea, a thesaurus, had embraced Abbey’s quest to better understand how to express a viewpoint. Word selection. A year or so back, Abbey had stumbled with a statement to her closer friends. Frustration rising. Not so much a rant, just not leading where it should. Thea chimed in with a word. Abbey finished the sentence.

Thea’s maternal instinct kicked in and flourished with Abbey’s thirst for knowledge beyond her subject matter. Thea was a relic from an old dawn. Before online spell-checkers, thesaurus and writer-help apps. Her deep-ocean blue leatherette had lost its youthful tautness. The gold lettering no longer fresh and enticing. Her edge corner-tips inward bent. She looked and felt past her time. She had wondered when she would follow the encyclopaedias into a recycle bin.

Taking Abbey under her word-wing gave Thea new heart. With time, Abbey developed an understanding not apparent in her own text—relationships. She needed Thea and Thea needed her. A quantum leap for a young book. A leap that explored relationships with other books and their subjects. They chuckled at her title, ‘Abbey’s Secret’, when they, too, had secrets. Nevertheless, while they all looked different, they had a unity. These personal revelations kept Abbey’s thoughts intact and balanced her shelf-life. Gosh, I mustn’t become a pun victim.

Abbey settled for the night. I’m exhausted. She even missed the hand switching off the lamp allowing moonlight to steal through the glass. Washing the library in certainty: its presence. It had phases, interruptions from overcast nights but always returned to light a path through darkness.

Despite the grandfather clock chiming through the night, Abbey slept tight. She dreamed a rejuvenated dream that carried her skipping through field after word-field. Tripping over a sentence, raising an eye at an exclamation mark, rolling down a paragraph, smiling at a comma, and resting beneath a question mark. Sleep, perchance to dream.

Abbey jolted from a sound. What was that?

She fought through her disorientation; peeping out from her wakening eye-slits. This is new. Normally, her eyes opened to the world as she had left it the night before, the week before, the month before. She blinked a few times to help focus.

Something’s different.

She sensed something between her and the opposite wall. All fuzzy for a few moments then clearing like a focusing lens. Two eyes gazed upon her. Not too close, just close enough that she could see curiosity. Moments ticked by. Behind those eyes some cogs were turning, gears meshing. She knew all about this from ‘An Introductory Guide to Neurological Mechanics’. Not the read for a young book. However, she’d thought it might come in handy. It still may. These were the eyes from the hooded face beyond the window. The eyes that belonged to the boy she had glimpsed fleetingly last night.

A movement behind those eyes broke Abbey’s concentration. The master stood behind the boy. He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. The boy turned his head towards him. Neither spoke. The master pointed to the library door. The boy nodded and they both walked through into the hall. The boy turned back for a last glimpse, then followed the master.

Speculative shelf-chatter dragged Abbey from her thoughts.

‘Who was that? Why is he here? Why in the library? Was that Abbey he inspected or A Tourist’s Guide to Public Transport?’

The last comment brought a groan, rumbling along the shelves, from the younger books. Abbey could not suppress her smile. Guide nearly fainted. Excitement rose within Abbey. Actually, I’m bubbling over. Even the scholarly volumes on the top shelf were chatting among themselves, looking for precedents. Rustling among hundreds and hundreds of page-years seeking an answer for something they could not understand.

This is a buzz? Certainly, sounded like it. Never had one of these. A book in the throng called out to ‘Silent Witnesses and Forensic Pathology’—SW to everyone. ‘Any clues?’

The chatter slowed to a murmur then an expectant silence. Abbey fidgeted impatiently. Please, no riddles!

SW muffled a sigh then advised in a learned voice: ‘The answers to your questions, except the book he looked at, are to be found in the master’s actions.’

The response caught Abbey by surprise. What was hidden in the master’s actions?

Abbey had so many questions that she was likely to trip over them and fall from her shelf. She had to call on a reference aid, the only one who could help.

‘Feel up to helping with something, SW?’

‘Yes, Abbey.’

Abbey took SW back to the minutes when the young boy gazed at her. Then the master walked up behind him. He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. The boy turned, the master pointed towards the door, the boy nodded and they left the room.

‘What does it mean, SW?’

‘Everything has meaning Abbey; you just have to find it.’

‘How?’

‘Analyse statements, either written or visual. Look for parallels and differences from the big picture down.’

Abbey wrestled with the big-picture concept. The library? No, too vague. The boy looking at her? No, that’s another matter. The interaction between master and boy? SW said the answers to our questions were in his actions. Interaction must be the big picture.

Abbey nudged SW. ‘No one spoke.’

‘Correct, Abbey. Now the detail.’

Abbey suppressed a grin and applied herself to the task. How to examine the detail. Hmm…hmm…hmm.

‘Event sequence?’

‘Keep going Abbey.’

‘The hand placed on his shoulder.’

‘How placed?’

Abbey rewound her scene memory. The master approaches, his arm moves to the boy’s shoulder and his hand places. Frame freeze. Gently!

‘The master gaining his attention; a gentle placement. No pulling. He wasn’t communicating to the boy that he shouldn’t be in the library.’

‘Good progress Abbey. Now the rest.’

Abbey moved her memory frame-by-frame. This is really neat. The boy turns, the master points. The boy nods in agreement and they move out through the door. Hmmm, not secret stuff to avoid being overheard. Only books know that a book can eavesdrop on a conversation.

Abbey paced back and forth across an imagined floor. How can you think if you can’t pace a floor? Tick…tick…tick…tick…Stop that, I’m nearly there.

Abbey flashed a cover-to-cover grin at SW.

‘And, Abbey…?’

‘The boy can’t speak.’

‘And…?’

‘He can’t hear.’

‘Atta book, Abbey. Now you know what you might be dealing with.’

Abbey had now encountered a new concept: probability. Yep, I’m probably correct. I can manage probability. Another concept loitered in the background trying to attract Abbey’s attention.

What? Oh…OK. Something else. Something possible. NO!

Abbey’s newly found achievement washed away like a snap flood. This isn’t fair. Life lessons befell Abbey faster than she could store them away. When a book came off the production line, supposedly fit for purpose, everything seemed certainly simple. No one thought to include a life-lesson link.

Abbey had come to a devastating realisation—the worst thing that could happen. She wrestled with it, tried to ignore. It lit up like a Christmas tree. What if he cannot read?

Abbey mulled the realisation for weeks, oblivious of changes beyond the window. She looked out one morning to find colour back in the landscape. Buds returning to the copse across the way. Spring light recoloured the trunks. Life flowed up through trunks, along branches out to the buds. Nudging them into action. Wake up, spread your leaves. Soon, new chicks would arrive like they did year in, year out. Parents taking turns to find food and return to their squawking. Later, learning to fly; to fend for themselves in a new world. No different to me.

What is in a sound? Abbey heard a click. She had been biding time through what seemed an eternity. She had something to do, something important. Someone needed her. She waited for him to open the door, cross the room and lay his eyes upon her. Before she could engage him, she had to face up to a question: why his need?

3. Let There Be Light

If a pin had dropped, the library walls would surely have trembled. Abbey glanced around. All the books are on their shelf edge. No one dared turn a page. A Danielle Steele up the end frantically took notes. ‘Watch it, Dannie. I hold the copyright!’ Thea closed the gap to Abbey, cover-to-cover, bringing a reassuring smile. My debut, Mum. Younger books were dizzy with expectation.

The door hinge creaked. Eyes bulged. The door inched its way into the room. Abbey watched with nervous anticipation. The suspense is getting to me. He stood in the half-opened doorway backlit by the hall light, wispy hair strands highlighted. The door pushed back against the wall, spilling light from the window across the doorway, lighting up his face. He’s here!

His eyes panned the shelves, coming to rest on Abbey. The ink on her pages almost froze. Abbey kept her cool. I’m barely clinging to it.

Books whispered, ‘He’s walking over to Abbey!’

A hand reached up to Abbey, four fingers rested upon her then gently slid her from the shelf. Relax girl. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. That’s better, deep breaths.

He placed Abbey on the desk. She looked the best she had in years. Sigh! An index finger slowly traced her title. The old books silently swooned, remembering their own first reading. ‘A Boy’s Annual’ snickered, only to receive a whack in the spine. A second one for good measure.

The boy turned her title page. Tick. The starting line. Once upon a time. He turned another. His eyes blankly studied the page. What’s he waiting for? The eyes randomly fell among the lines like a seeker looking for hidden Easter eggs. I’m not the Easter Bunny. What’s he looking for?

Abbey needed to engage him. Concentrate girl. Capture those eyes. Abbey put all her energy into the opening line to make it stand out. His eyes flickered, drawn to the line’s energy. Abbey moved her energy along the line. His eyes followed. What’s that buzzing as his eyes take in my words? The boy seemed lost in what he was doing. Abbey chased after his gaze to overtake. The boy’s eyes caught up. There it is again, a buzzing as they passed.

Abbey searched frantically for a solution. Frame-freeze? I wonder. Abbey again raced ahead, hitting Freeze as his eyes fell upon a word. The buzzing whirred down to silence. Frame-forward and the buzzing wound up. Abbey repeated her actions twice more. The third time she hit Frame-forward, matching pace with his eye movements. Continuous buzzing. ‘Hang on everyone, we’re throttling up.’

The library books looked down in awe. Abbey pushed Frame-forward, speeding up the movement. The buzzing changed. Abbey flashed across the lines, yet still confronted a puzzled face. In desperation, she sped down the page centre. His mind is processing words.

The boy’s eyes flashed in amazement. Abbey realised what he experienced: Word recognition. She could not lose the moment on a passing word.

‘Hey.’

The boy looked around, bewildered.

‘Hey, it’s me; down here—the book.’

He turned back and looked down at Abbey.

’Yep, really me. My name is Abbey. You can hear me in your mind.’

Abbey’s words spilled into his mind. He chased after them, caught them, collected them, sniffed them, put them to his ear. Shook them.

‘Hey, gently there. I can be fragile.’

His eyes lit up this time, powered by something new—talking words.

Abbey gave him some word space to collect his thoughts. A smile crept across his face. Here we go! Time for introductions.

‘What’s your name?’

His eyes powered up again.

‘T…T…T…Tom.’

‘Nice to make your acquaintance Tom.’

‘Th…Th…Tha…Than…Thank y…yo…you.’

Abbey had not encountered stuttering. She wrestled with how she could engage with Tom while he fell over his words. An old memory is trying to talk in his mind. Hmm…Abbey had reached an engagement crossroad. One at which every potentially good-read arrives. The library watched in silence. I can do this.

‘Tom, do you know how I can talk to you?’

‘N…n…n…no.’

‘Your mind has a window to the world.’

Tom’s eyes glazed over as he absorbed Abbey’s words. Bookshelf tension rose. Nervous fidgeting rippled among the books. Thea watched, willing Abbey’s word-idea choices. Thanks Thea!

‘Do you know how I got here?’

‘N…no.’

‘You invited me. The way you looked at me, taking me from the shelf, opening me, turning a page—freeing my words.’

Tom’s eyes opened wide in wonderment. Abbey sensed his crossroad approaching.

‘Tom, we don’t need speech to communicate, just our thoughts. You can see mine. I can see yours.