Necropolis

about the men and women who had sheltered here during the Blitz. Had they really believed that St. Meredith's had some sort of magical power to avoid being hit, that they would be safer here than in a cellar or a Tube station? She thought about them sitting there with their fingers crossed while the Luftwaffe roared overhead. Maybe that was what she would draw.
    She shivered. She was wearing a coat, but it was very cold inside the church. In fact, it felt colder inside than out. A movement caught her eye. A line of candles had flickered, all the flames bending together, caught in a sudden breeze. Had someone just come in? No. The door was still shut. Nobody could have opened or closed it without being heard.
    A boy walked past. At first, Scarlett barely registered him. He was in the shadows at the side of the church, between the columns and the side-chapels, moving toward the altar. He made absolutely no sound. Even his feet against the marble floor were silent. He could have been floating. She turned to follow him as he went, and just for a second, his face was illuminated by a naked bulb hanging on a wire.
    She knew him.
    For a moment, she was confused as she tried to think where she had seen him before. And then suddenly she remembered. It was crazy. It couldn't be possible. But at the same time, there could be no doubt.
    It was one of the boys from her dreams, one of the four she had seen walking together in that gray desert. She even knew his name.
    It was Matt.
    In a normal dream, Scarlett wouldn't see people's faces — or if she did, she would forget them when she woke up. But she had experienced this dream again and again over a period of two years. She'd learned to recognize Matt and the others almost as soon as she was asleep and that was why she knew him now.
    Short, dark hair. Broad shoulders. Pale skin and eyes that were an intense blue. He was about her age although there was something about him that seemed older. Maybe it was just the way he walked, the sense of purpose. He walked like someone in trouble.
    What was he doing here? How had he even got in? Scarlett turned to a girl who was sitting close to her, drawing a major explosion from the look of the scribble on her pad.

    "Did you see him?" she asked.
    "Who?"
    "That boy who just went past."
    The other girl looked around her. "What boy?"
    Scarlett turned back. The boy had disappeared from sight. For a moment, she was thrown. Had she imagined him? But then she saw him again, some distance away. He had stopped in front of a door. He seemed to hesitate, then turned the handle and went through. The door closed behind him.
    She followed him. She had made the decision without even thinking about it. She just put down her sketchbook, got up, and went after him. It was only when she reached the door that she asked herself what she was doing, chasing after someone she had never met, someone who might not even exist.
    Suppose she ran into him? What was she going to say? "Hi, I'm Scarlett and I've been dreaming about you. Fancy a Big Mac?" He'd think she was mad.
    The door he had passed through was in the outer wall, underneath a stained-glass window that was so dark and grimy that the picture was lost. Scarlett guessed it must lead out into the street, perhaps into the cemetery, if the church had one. There was something strange about it. The door was very small, out of proportion with the rest of St. Meredith's. There was a symbol carved into the wooden surface — a five-pointed star.
    She hesitated. The girls weren't supposed to leave the church. On the other hand, she wouldn't exactly be going far. If there was no sign of the boy on the other side, she could simply come back in again. The door had an iron ring for a handle. She turned it and went through.
    To her surprise, she didn't find herself outside in the street. Instead, she was standing in a wide, brightly lit corridor. There were flaming torches slanting out of iron brackets set in the walls, the fire leaping up toward the ceiling, which was high and vaulted. The corridor had no decoration of any kind, and it seemed both old and new at the same time, the plasterwork crumbling to reveal the brickwork underneath. It had to be some sort of cloister — somewhere the priests went to be on their own. But the corridor was nothing like the rest of St. Meredith's. It was a different color. It was the wrong size and shape.
    It was also very cold. The temperature seemed to have fallen dramatically. As