Season 04 - Episode 13

‘eyes and groans’

“...and, and,” says La breathlessly. “Ty says The World Below is a real place and it is below us but it's a very. very long way below us so it's hard to get to and Ty says there are other places where people live too, lots of other places and, and...”

“Oh no,” La's mother whispers and begins to cry.

Ty watches through the vent as La sits on her bed beside her mother telling the story while her father paces up and down. The more La talks the more worried her mother looks and the more angry her father becomes.

“...Ty says The World Below isn't as nice as people think it is,” La is saying. “And actually, a lot of the people who live in The World Below aren't really very happy at all because there's something wrong with it, with The World Below and, and, and Ty says there's something wrong with this place too, where we live...”

“By the Builder,” groans her father, stopping his pacing to drag a hand down over his face. “She's going to get us all killed.”

“But it's alright, Daddy,” says La happily. “Because Ty says there's a whole other place we can all go to and it's not anything like this place or The World Below or even any of all the other places. Ty says...”

“Stop it!” her father snaps. “Just stop it! La, you cannot talk like this, you cannot say these things!”

“But why, Daddy?” asks La, puzzled.

“Because it's heresy!” cries her father. “You must understand that. There are certain things we do not say, things we do not even think, ever!”

“But Ty says...” La begins.

“There is no Ty!” her father roars so that La cringes and shrinks against her mother.

La's mother sobs and rocks, her daughter clamped against her. La's father turns away and strides across the room, composing himself before returning. He crouches in front of La and when he speaks again his voice is soft.

“La, darling,” he says. “I'm sorry for shouting but this is really important. Where did you hear these things?”

La stares at her father doubtfully from within her mother's embrace.

“Ty showed me,” she says eventually.

Her father rubs his eyes and groans but maintains his calm.

“What do mean, darling,” he says. “How did he show you?”

“With the light pictures,” she says, suddenly happy once more. “They're pictures but they're not flat like in a book, they stand up and they look like you can touch them with your hands but if you try to touch them with your hands then your hands just go straight through them and actually you can't touch them at all.”

Her parents look at one another and shake their heads. Her mother kisses the top of La's head and holds her tighter, rocking her even more.

“And where is Ty when he shows you these things?” asks her father, his jaw tight.

“Silly Daddy,” La giggles. “You know where Ty lives! He lives behind the vent.”

Her father stands and strides over towards Ty who shrinks away, pressing himself against the cold metal wall of the shaft.

“Right,” says her father before lunging downwards and gripping the edges of the vent with his thick fingers.

Growling and wheezing, La's father pours all his fury into his whitening fingers until suddenly, with cracks and crumbles, he wrenches the whole vent out of the wall and falls backwards.

“There!” he cries, turning triumphant and scrambling to his feet, casting the vent to the floor and pointing back behind him as he faces his wife and daughter. “Look! There's nothing there! Do you see? Nothing!”

It takes him a moment to notice his wife's face, her glassy eyes staring, her jaw hanging slack. Slowly he turns and then staggers backwards in shock as there, framed in the ruined edges of the newly made hole in the wall, cowers a little boy named Ty.

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