Ancient Echoes (34 page)

‘What’s the point of cooking if you can’t have fun?’

‘Indeed. And what’s the point of fun if you can’t sink your teeth into a Green-Man pie?’

It was a warm, late autumn evening, perfect for a barbecue, perfect for sitting around by candle-light and talking, and exchanging news.

With Natalie under watchful eyes, Jack and Angela set out at six the following morning for the moors, and by nine were high above the surrounding land, buffeted by cold wind, striding out across the peat and heather, heading for infinity. They added grey stones to the cairns that dotted the wide land. They lunched below a craggy stump of rock called The King’s Tor, then used map and compass to pick a route to the west, avoiding the danger areas of Old Gould’s Pit and the Quaking Marsh, that would bring them to Windlash Edge, a cliff of more than two hundred feet, and a favourite ascent for climbers.

Here, with the wind in their faces and the sun now rosy behind thin clouds as it began to settle towards dusk, they sat, legs across the precipice letting the heady sense of ‘old time’ blow around and kiss them, drawing them almost out of time itself, so that they lay back and watched the sky, and smelled the scrub grass, the sharp earth, the crystal wind.

They held hands and closed their eyes. All concern, all confusion, was scoured from them. This was so peaceful, so remote, so private. They drifted together for what seemed like hours. It was almost like old times. Almost as good as when they’d first been together.

Almost …

‘Let’s stay here for ever,’ Jack said.

‘I need a pee.’

‘Pee over the edge.’

‘There might be a climber down there.’

‘Pee over the edge – run like hell!’

‘You would, too, wouldn’t you? Time to get the hell down, anyway. Civilization beckons. It’s two hours’ walking from here to the bus station.’

Jack checked his watch. ‘Oh Christ. Ninety minutes of light left. You’re right. Let’s move!’

The last part of the walk was along road, hard on sore feet and ankles, but safe in the darkness that had deepened in minutes. From the bus station they ’phoned Stinhall. Everything was fine. With an hour to wait, Jack suggested a steak; Angela argued for something spicier and they found a Thai restaurant in the town centre, asking for a table well away from the other customers.

‘We’ve been walking for seven hours.’

No problem, the courteous waiter assured them from a safe distance.

It was after ten when the bus dropped them in the nearest town to the hamlet. In pitch darkness, below heavy cloud cover, they trudged along the country road, a mile and a half to the hot bath and strong tea that both, now, craved. Their torch cast feeble light on the trees and hedges, on the bright eyes of rabbits and two owls that were out, pursuing their own activities.

As they crossed the hill before the road dropped to Stiniel itself, flashing lights in the distance made them stop for a moment.

‘Torches?’ Angela said as she stared at the four criss-crossing beams of pale, white light.

‘Torches,’ Jack agreed. ‘In the field behind Stinhall.’

‘Natalie!’

‘Oh Christ! He’s followed her!’

They ran frantically, on feet that were stiff and sore. Angela slipped on the muddy hill, bruising her thigh, but irritably shook off Jack’s helping hand.

They could hear Brian’s voice in the darkness, and another man calling from across the field. By the time they’d run along the drive, through the turf maze garden and across the thin bridge that crossed the deep, scrub-filled ditch that divided house from farmland, the scatter of torches was spread widely.

Wendy was closest. She saw Jack and came running over.

‘We think she’s in the woods. Jack, I don’t know what to say …’

‘It’s OK. We shouldn’t have assumed she wouldn’t do this here. She’s done it before.’

‘She played happily with Toby all evening, watched some TV, finished off the Green-Man pie; then went to bed, good as gold. Toby came down and said she’d started to laugh and dance in her room, so we went upstairs …’

‘And she’d slipped out of the house.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Jack reassured her. ‘She’s quite safe. We just have to get her home.’

A neighbouring couple had turned out to help in the search. If she’d run towards the woods, she was safe enough; but towards the bottom of the fields were pools and soft mud, a danger to animals, certainly to children. Felicity, the neighbour, had gone down to keep watch there.

Eventually they found her. Brian had gone into the deep wood and seen Natalie’s white nightdress. She had climbed a tree and was sitting on a branch, twenty feet from the ground, swaying slightly and singing.

‘Come on down, Natalie. That’s where the trolls live.’

‘Where’s Daddy?’

‘Coming up the field. Shall I get a ladder?’

‘No, thank you. Just fetch Daddy.’

‘You gave us quite a shock. We thought you were asleep.’

‘My friend came and I wanted to come and dance with him.’

‘What? Half way up a tree?’

‘No, silly.’

Jack arrived in the woods, breathless, relieved to see his
daughter. He could hear Angela calling behind him as she ran with Wendy. Jack had heard most of Natalie’s exchange with Brian, who was shivering in the cold air. ‘She must be perished,’ he said urgently to Jack. ‘I know I am. So I’m running home. Here …’

He took off his overcoat, then ran quickly in his pyjamas back through the dark.

From her branch, Natalie said, ‘Send them away, Daddy. He wants to talk to you alone.’

Here we go again …

‘Send them away!’ Natalie said loudly, her child’s voice teetering on hysteria. Angela and Wendy walked from the woodland edge, following Brian to the house.

Staring at his daughter, Jack said angrily, ‘Come down right now. No arguments. Down! Now!’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Is he here? Greyface? Is he here?’

‘I’m here,’ the girl said with a smile, blinking against the beam of the torch. ‘So of course he’s here.’

He’d followed this far! Two hundred miles away from Exburgh, and he was still in control!

Frightened and cold, unsure as to whether or not this was Natalie – or Natalie plus Shade – who spoke to him from the high tree, Jack said simply, ‘Shall I leave you here then? I’ll leave this coat. Put it on. Keep warm; or do some dancing. Whatever, make sure you don’t get a chill; and come down carefully from the tree when you come down. We don’t want any broken bones.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to Stinhall. To bath and bed. I’m tired from walking, so’s your mother. We’ll see you at breakfast.’

‘Stay here!’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, imitating the gentle sarcasm of her own words. ‘It’s been a long day, and as long as you’re happy out here in the woods, and as long as you climb down carefully, I’ll trust you. Goodnight, Nattie.’

He walked away from her, picking out the path with the torch.

‘Catch me, Daddy.’

‘You just be careful!’ he called back, but simple parental fear, uncertainty at his own strategy, made him glance back.

The girl was hanging from the branch by one hand, her body swinging, the white nightgown billowing about feet that twisted as if searching for a grip. She was watching him and smiling, face pale in the broad flood of the torch.

‘Catch me, Daddy.’

And dropped.

Screaming her name, Jack launched himself back towards the tree, aware that she had twisted in the air, nightdress flapping, legs swinging up so that she would strike the ground backside first. But he had gone no more than four paces when the city rose before him, emerging from the earth at an angle across him, flowing about him, bringing with it the smell of old, cold stone and damp cellars.

It shimmered: he was there again, at the entrance to the cave, the
Shimmering
that would lead him to the heart of the ghost city. Natalie was not in sight. Wherever she had fallen, she was outside of his sphere of consciousness, and though he struck forward, beating hands against the rough-hewn stone at the entrance to the cave system, all he heard was the echo of his own despair … and the distant sound of water.

‘Natalie …’

Somewhere here, right here, the child would have struck the ground. Was she broken? Had her spine snapped with the fall? A broken arm? He tried to feel through the new reality of Glanum, but the woods above Stinhall had gone, now, and ahead of him a voice called his name.

He emerged from the cave into the grey gloom of the shrine-city and faced the tall, white scaled woman who stood before him. The scales, he realized, were part of her tunic, slivers of white bone and shells made into armour, covering her from neck to mid-thigh, hugging the narrow contours of her body.
Long, fair hair flowed about a face as lean and elfin as any classical picture of the faery world, whose documentation in paint and puppet was the lifeblood of his friends in Stinhall. Eyes that glittered with amusement stared through the unruly fringe. A mouth, wide with anticipation, mocked a kiss, then a hand was raised, beckoning.

‘Come on, Daddy. We have a long way to go …’

‘Natalie?’

‘Shade, you old fool. Don’t you recognize me? Perhaps you don’t. It’s been a long time. Daddy’s girl has grown.’

‘Shade …?’

‘Come
on
!’

He was drawn to her

‘No!’

He turned and ran back through the cave system. Behind him, Shade followed, shrieking and laughing, he couldn’t tell whether with amusement or fury; this ghost of his daughter was a harpy he couldn’t and wouldn’t fathom.

He was suddenly on the moonlit hillside, and he stumbled forwards towards the glow of light from Stinhall. Behind him, a woman shrilled her anger. He turned quickly, searching the illusory cave and the towering monoliths for a sign of his daughter, the tree-falling daughter (he was aware that he trusted to Natalie’s natural, youthful litheness to have turned the fall into a perfect landing) but seeing nothing –
ran.

Shade drifted after him, cooing and calling, white scales reflecting the moon.

Behind Shade, Glanum pursed its cavernous mouth, stretching for the sucking kiss, following him down the hill.

Angela was waiting for him at the bottom of the garden.

‘Where is she? Where’s Nattie?’

‘Get into the house!’

‘Where’s my daughter?’

Jack turned. The
Shimmering
was flowing towards him, widening, will-o’-the-wisp shaping the entrance to the cave
White Shade walking ahead of it, lean and beautiful, reaching for her father.

‘Get into the house!’

‘Is she still in the woods?’

‘She’s safe!’

He tugged at Angela’s coat but she twisted away. ‘Safe? You’re mad! I didn’t expect you to
leave her.’

As Angela vanished across the bridge to the field beyond, Jack ran back across the turf maze, past the barbecue pit, towards the welcoming light of the kitchen.

Wendy stepped out to meet him, looking past him to the high woods. She was very calm, almost serene, her bright gaze fixed on something in the far distance.

‘Who
is
that?’

For a moment Jack was too confused to think, but then he realized that Wendy could see the approaching shade.

‘The ghost of my daughter.’

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘She’s just a ghost.’

‘I know. She’s still very beautiful.’

‘I’m in trouble, Wendy …’

‘Indeed you are. Go inside the house. I’ll try and talk to her …’

Wendy walked towards the glowing mouth of the cave, turning once to signal, ‘Go in! Go in!’ then crossed the maze and the lawn to face the spectral figure at the bottom of the field. Angela was lost in darkness, calling for Natalie up by the woods.

In the kitchen, Brian asked quite simply, ‘Where’s she going?’

‘To talk to the woman. The ghost woman …’

‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ Brian said quietly, angrily. His eyes were fierce, covering the fact that he was terrified for his wife.

‘I’m sorry. But she seems to know what she’s doing.’

Of
course!
Neither Brian nor Angela could see the
Shimmering.
Only Wendy, always more highly attuned to the
oddities and so-called
energies
of the natural landscape, could get a partial idea of what was pursuing her friend.

A moment later, the kitchen door was flung open and Wendy, dishevelled, her night clothes torn, burst into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her, leaning against it as she looked at Jack.

‘What a bitch! Oh Jesus, what a bitch!’

The house shuddered. A puppet fell from the gallery on the open landing. The glasses by the sink rattled.

‘I think we’d better get the hell out of here,’ Wendy said. ‘Sorry, Jack. Brian and I have charms …’

‘We need the charms?’ Brian looked even more alarmed.

‘We need something! That’s no ghost out there. You’re on your own, Jack. You should have warned us.’

She fled through the house. Brian picked up the puppet, a four-foot high representation of a troll, then grabbed a knife from the table.

‘We’ll be under the bed at the back of the house,’ he said with a wry laugh. ‘What have you
brought
with you, Jack? Not termites, I think.’

‘I didn’t know it would follow.’

‘You’d better take care of Natalie. Christ!’

The house trembled. Jars of dried beans and grains fell and smashed onto the flagstone floor.

The scaled woman was walking towards the light in the kitchen, shaking her head as she smiled, a parent approaching a misbehaving child. Behind her the night seemed to fold into the shimmering shape of the cave.

Jack withdrew into the sitting room, pressed himself against the stone wall by the small garden window. The wide fireplace glowed and crackled with the great log that burned there. The light of the flames cast shadows of statues and furniture about the walls. Toby’s toys lay scattered where he and Natalie had played during the evening. The tall Regency clock by the door whirred and chimed.

Shade entered the room, drifting effortlessly through the
stone. The cave mouth opened towards him, rank carved rock and gloomy entrance framed with eerie green light, flowing through the walls and open fire, bearing down upon the cowering man.