Buried Fire (12 page)

Stephen bided his time once Sarah had gone. He loitered inside the house, showering and getting dressed, and all the time keeping an eye out of various windows to make sure his prey made no run for it. But Michael seemed content to sit in the garden, drinking the remains of the cold coffee and gazing out into the hills.

"That's fine," thought Stephen. "Just stay right where you are."

By and by, Michael seemed to gain a slight lease of life. He stretched, yawned and walked back into the kitchen, where he opened various cupboards in an aimless fashion. But if he was hungry, nothing took his fancy. He stood undecided for a moment, a vacuous expression on his face. Then at last he made for the hall. As he passed a darkened recess, a silent figure stepped out behind him. An iron arm looped round his neck and began to throttle him, while another hand pulled his arm up behind his back in a policeman's grip. Michael struggled wildly, but the figure had no mercy and marched him up the stairs. When he hesitated, he was encouraged by kicks and twists of the arm; when he stumbled, he was wrenched onwards by the loop round his neck. In this manner, gasping and dishevelled, he soon arrived in the bathroom, where the shower waited.

"Right," said Stephen. "Time for a little chat."

Michael squirmed sullenly. "There's nothing to talk about. I'm tired. I want to sleep."

"Nothing to talk about? Oh dear, we are in a bad way." Stephen gripped still harder. "Firstly—" (Here he took Michael firmly by the neck and forced his head down into the basin.) "—we're going to talk about last night. Then—" (Here he turned the dial to freezing and took the shower head off the holder.) "—we're going to talk about what's going on in that stupid head of yours. Any questions, before we start?"

"Get off, you fool," came a voice, echoing up from the basin.

"Fine." Stephen turned on the water and stuck the shower head down the back of Michael's shirt. The water jetted down, briefly ballooning the shirt outwards before it erupted out at his waistline in an icy waterfall. His trousers were soon saturated, and a pleasing pool spread out on the tiles of the floor. Michael struggled manfully, but Stephen's years told.

"How's it going?" he asked pleasantly, after three minutes.

"You'll regret this, you bloody idiot," was the only reply, and for several minutes more the water gushed, until the back of Michael's clothes hung so heavy that his trousers fell down.

"Still not talking?" Stephen seemed regretful and surprised. The answer was forcible, and in the negative.

Stephen was thus pushed into more extreme measures, which were justified by the almost immediate response.

"All right, you bastard," said Michael. "You can stop. I'll talk with you, but it won't do you any good."

Stephen allowed his victim to return to his bedroom, dry himself and recline at leisure on the bed. He stood by the door, leaning against the wall nonchalantly in an effort to maintain the authority he had won over his brother in such a messy fashion.

"Well?" he said, finally. "What happened?"

In a sullen monotone, Michael told him what he could remember of his dream; the sense of depth, the perceptive eye from under the earth, and the beauty of the souls, which their owners could never comprehend. But he chose not to talk about the voice, and what it had told him.

"And why were you by the window?" asked Stephen.

"I don't remember." Michael's lie came easily, and he made a smooth change of direction. "You must see it too," he said, a touch of colour returning to his voice. "No matter how stupid you are, you must see what a tragedy it is, How can we respect them? They just don't understand what they have there, what they lose every time they die. But we can understand the value of it – at least I can."

"And what," asked Stephen, "is this value?"

"The beauty of the souls, of course – you must see that! The beauty of those shining things! They're like jewels."

"They don't look much like jewels to me. There's too much movement in them."

"The movement's not important. That's just caused by thoughts and feelings – it's bound up with the characters of the people who own the souls. Well, who cares about that?"

"Hold on, how d'you mean, 'own them'? They
are
them, aren't they?"

"Maybe, but it's not something we can understand, and the souls are far more beautiful than the people themselves, anyway. We've worried too much into what the shape and colour actually mean, but that's all pointless. It doesn't get us anywhere. The beauty is all that counts." Michael spoke slowly, carefully, as if remembering something he had learned long ago.

"The point is, with the sight, we can own the souls too. Switch them on just by willing it. Make them change colour, too . . ." A wistful note entered his voice. "I wish I could see like that all the time. It stops my eyes hurting." Michael refocused suddenly with practised ease. He gazed at Stephen for a minute.

"Even yours is precious. Even yours. Like something made of pearl."

Stephen felt a sharp pain in his forehead and a slight sense of nausea. He shuddered, but did his best to conceal it.

"Snap out of it," he said. "I don't like you looking like that at me."

Michael gave a snort of mirth. "I know. I can see that easily enough. Your soul's quivering like a leaf. Our stupid sister's quivered just the same. Strange, they're still pretty when they're scared. More than ever, if anything."

Stephen gritted his teeth and forced himself to look straight into the curiously swirling blanks of his brother's eyes. He felt a strong urge to make the change himself, but he resisted it. "That's another thing," he said. "What kind of worm are you, to turn on Sarah like that?"

There was a lessening of the pain; a flicker of concern passed across Michael's face. Then he laughed, and his eyes changed back. The pain in Stephen's forehead vanished.

"All right, granted," he said. "It was unnecessary. I just wanted to see what it felt like. I won't do it again, if you don't want me to."

"You'd better not, mate," said Stephen.

"Are you finished?" asked Michael. "I'm tired, as I think I mentioned."

"No." Stephen forced himself to think. What had he been saying?

"How come," he said at last, "you're suddenly ignoring the connection between soul and character? You were obsessed by that yesterday, when you saw Cleever. Remember that?" He looked straight at Michael as he spoke.

He'd scored a point, he could see that at once. A faint cloud crossed his brother's brow, a flash of a memory that had been pushed into a recess and forgotten. Michael spoke faintly, as out of a distant gulf.

"The shape . . ." He paused.

"Was a reptile," reminded Stephen.

"I was taken in by the shape. It doesn't matter what the shape is. I said that just now."

"That's not what you thought yesterday. It was evil, you said. And I agreed with you. It was."

"The dream changed all that. Evil, good . . . no, that's not what souls are about. They're about beauty, and if you've got the power, and the will, like I have, you can see that beauty whenever you want. You should know what I mean, Stephen. You've got the gift too. Perhaps you'll have the same dream tonight."

"I hope not."

"You will, I expect. You're a little bit behind me. It'll come."

Michael rolled over on the bed, and pushed his face into the pillow. His eyes were shut, and Stephen suddenly noticed, with a shock, the hollowness of his face. The cheeks were pale and the area around the eyes was chafed, as if he had been crying.

"And why were you at the window?" Stephen asked again.

"I told you, I don't remember anything about it. I just remember waking up this morning, in my bed. Now I'm going to sleep. I'll see you soon."

Stephen left the room. His head ached.

For an hour or more he lay on his own bed, where the need for thinking won over the desire for sleep. He could no longer ignore it: the change to his sight was beginning to affect Michael's mind, in a way which Stephen did not like, nor begin to understand. It was tied up with Cleever somehow and the woman at the window, and if Michael had forgotten the look of the reptile souls, Stephen had not. The hunger in their eyes . . . What were they after? What did they want?

Cleever . . . Ms Sawcroft . . . He groaned aloud. All the village might be in on it for all he knew!

Well, not quite all. Not Sarah. Not Tom.

Tom. He put the half-formed idea out of his mind. The man was a minister. If he heard one word of this, he'd bring out the bible, bells and candles and start an exorcism. Besides, he was biased against Michael, no question of that, and probably didn't want anything to do with him again.

So he was on his own. A thrill of anxiety ran through his body and his eyes began to ache. All of a sudden, he knew that whatever was happening to Michael was slowly happening to himself.

"It's no good," he said aloud. "We need help. We need help badly."

He went down to the kitchen, raided the pantry and opened two cans of spaghetti hoops. By the time he'd polished them off cold, with a fork, from the tin, he had made up his mind.

Before leaving, he looked in at his brother, and discovered him still asleep. His breathing was very slow and the room was thick and stuffy. Stephen opened the window, then thought better of it, and closed it again. He remembered his brother's last mumbled words. 'I'll see you soon.'

Not till I say so, you won't, thought Stephen.

Slipping his hand round the door, Stephen found the key in the lock. He withdrew it stealthily, shut the door and locked it. Then he put the key in his pocket and left the house.

When Stephen rounded the corner onto the green, and was faced with the brash, careless summer face of the village, his resolution nearly failed him. The middle-aged gossiped outside the grocers, Captain Cone sat in his van, handing out soft ice-cream to sticky children, and the sun beat down pleasantly on all ordinary things. How absurd it seemed, to bring forth into that ordered world experiences so confused and strange. And how much more absurd it was to imagine anyone would believe them. Stephen almost despaired. Twice he halted his bicycle on the edge of the green, twice he stood astride it, deep in thought, and twice he cycled slowly on. Absurd though it was, for the moment his hope was all he had.

As he passed into St Wyndham's churchyard, a sudden pain behind his eyes flared up and died away. With it went the feeling of suppressed panic at his own absurdity which had beset him since setting out. Behind his back, the bustle of the village grew dim, and the tumbled gravestones and bent yews beside the wall signalled an older scale of values, longer of memory and slower to judge or condemn.

When he entered the church, and felt the restful solemnity of cool grey stone all about him, his reassurance had grown still further. He found it easier to tell than he had imagined.

"Tom," he said, "I have something important to say, though you will think I'm mad."

Perhaps Tom could have suggested a reason for the reassurance Stephen felt on entering the church. But he did not think of it; he was too busy wrestling with the implications.

Stephen told him nearly all. He began by telling him of the Pit and what had happened there, to Michael and to him. When he said this, Tom took a sharp breath, but said nothing.

He spoke of the sight and what it could do. When he said this, Tom frowned and almost interrupted, but instead held himself back and stared intently at the diamond panes on the window above the chancel.

He spoke of Mr Cleever and the nature of his soul. When he said this, Tom started and cursed under his breath, shifting his gaze for a second to the cross, lying quietly in its corner.

He spoke of the assault on Michael's room the night before. When he mentioned the name of the figure at the window, Tom rose and began pacing the nave furiously, rubbing his head with his hand.

Finally Stephen told him of Michael, and his behaviour that morning.

"When Michael was at Cleever's, and first saw under the surface, there was something Cleever said to him. 'What you see, you will become.' And something is happening to him, something which is right up Cleever's street. That's why I've told you this, because I don't know what to do about it. Please don't think I'm mad."

He finished, almost hopefully, because Tom's silence throughout his speech had puzzled him.

Tom said, "I don't think you're mad, Stephen, although it's very hard to accept your story about . . . the soul. But other things . . . Other things are not as difficult for me to believe as you'd imagine."

Stephen sat stony-faced. "To be honest, I'd almost prefer it if you laughed at me. It would be a little more believable. I would in your position."

"On its own, your story about the sight, and the . . . attack would be impossible to believe. But I was with you when we found Michael. I saw his condition, and was with the doctor when he said he was stumped. But more importantly – I've been having some . . . problems of my own in the last couple of days."

"Like what?" asked Stephen.

He told him. It seemed the only proper thing to do.

"It isn't difficult," he said at last, "to see how people with the sight could mistake the souls they saw for imps and devils, and it isn't difficult either to see why others thought them witches."

Stephen flushed. "Oh right, so you think I'm a witch."

"No, but I'm saying this power comes from a very dubious source. And you've no right, either, to assume that what you see are souls."

"What else could they be? Don't get on your high religious horse about it!"

"I'm not!"

"You bloody are."

"OK, OK." Tom controlled himself with difficulty. "We're losing valuable time. Cleever poses some threat to Michael and we shouldn't leave him alone until we understand things better. Oh Lord! Sarah!" He broke off suddenly, horror-struck.

"What? What about her?"

"She's gone to Hardraker Farm."

"Is that a problem?"

"Cleever asked her to go there. And it was mentioned in the book. A bad place."

"What! And you let her go?"

"Look, I didn't know about Cleever then. All right, enough. We don't know that she's in any danger. Michael we know is. I say we get Michael here, to the church. Historically it must have the best protection, if it was Wyniddyn's hall."

"It didn't prevent them breaking in before," objected Stephen.

"Have you a better idea? We get him here, then we'll look for Sarah. Then we'll consider the position. I think we need that bit of cross."

"They've probably destroyed it," said Stephen, "or flung it down a mine."

"They may have done, but I don't think we should assume it. Something is going on which is making them get pushy. Why are they so keen on influencing your brother? What are they after, and why aren't they after you?"

"Don't forget, I only got a little dose. Michael might have been soaking it up for hours, for all we know. Maybe that makes him more useful."

"The question is, for what? But come on, let's get moving."

Tom's car was parked on the other side of the green, in a small lot reserved for the public servants of Fordrace. He and Stephen crossed over the road and headed across the grass, which was worn into an August yellow and flecked all over with toddlers and litter. A Punch-and-Judy man was setting up his booth in the very centre of the green, and a small excited crowd was gathered in front of the red and white striped awning in anticipation of a show. Nearby, queues had formed around Captain Cone.

They had almost reached the centre of the green when Mr Cleever walked down his garden path towards them. He walked swiftly, wearing a white suit and carrying a cane by his side. Stephen and Mr Cleever caught sight of each other at the self-same moment. Stephen saw the large head jerk forward suddenly, like a dog that has just picked up a scent.

Stephen started to utter a warning to Tom, but an explosion of pain erupted in his head and sent him reeling. As he cried out, clasping his hands over his eyes, he sensed something enter his mind; an alien presence, which moved clumsily here and there, filthy and searching. This trespass into his most private self was too much for Stephen. The heat flared within him, and with a furious thrust he drove the questing presence from his mind.

All this happened in the briefest of moments. Tom had barely registered the boy's discomfort by the time Stephen had driven the intruder from within him and began to run.

He ran at breakneck speed across the green, squinting between the fingers that shielded his burning eyes from the light. Conscious only of the need to escape the approaching enemy, he created havoc where he went, bowling toddlers over like ninepins, stumbling over prone couples, dashing ice creams from several hands, leaving a screaming, cursing, gasping stress of citizens in his wake. Twice he received kicks and punches of his own, as furious bystanders sought revenge, but he dared not stop. Indeed, he hardly noticed them, since all the time he was aware of a presence following him, circling his mind and probing for entry.

Off the green and over the road between the cars he ran, towards the Olde Mille Tea Room and its white chairs and tablecloths arranged in gleaming order on the tarmac. Three chairs he spun over, one old lady he caused to drop a sticky bun into her flowery lap, and one old colonel he inspired to lash out with a stick, before he had vaulted over the wall, and disappeared into the alley that ran down beside the Tea Room towards the mill stream.

As he disappeared from view, so he passed beyond Mr Cleever's range, and that gentleman was forced to turn his attention elsewhere.

The Reverend Tom Aubrey had been stock still, watching Stephen's erratic progress with an open mouth. Now he turned, and noticed for the first time the man in white approaching him.

Oh no, he thought. For an instant he was tempted to follow Stephen's example and run for it, but the image of the Vicar of Fordrace cantering across the green encouraged him to stay put and bluff it out. After all, he told himself, he doesn't know I suspect him.

"Good afternoon, Reverend." Mr Cleever was saluting Tom with a cheery wave of his stick, and smiling. "And what a fine afternoon it is. Encourages the young to unleash their energy, which does them good. Young MacIntyre can fairly pelt, can't he? Should get him in the Youth Athletics Team."

"Yes, quite." Tom searched desperately for some mundane piece of church procedure to discuss. To his horror, he found he could not remember which committees Mr Cleever was on, let alone any suitable details which could be used in conversation. What could he say? What—

A small, firm pressure, in the centre of his forehead, as if a stick was being gently pushed into his skull. And then—

Suddenly the pressure became a tear, and with a mental ripping, his mind was wrenched open and exposed. He felt something enter, and the force of it was so great that he nearly fainted.

A voice in his head. 'What do you know?'

He could not refuse. The occupying presence squeezed his mind and the information came vomiting out of him in gobbets of thought.

'The cross. I know you stole it. And Vanessa Sawcroft is in it too. I know because of Willis's book. She tried to put us off the scent, but I found out anyway. And I intend to protect Michael from you.'

A small girl with blonde hair, carrying an immense cone of melting ice cream, wandered between them. Some ice cream dripped from the cone onto the grass. She stopped and turned round to look at it, and some ice cream splashed on Mr Cleever's shoe. Both he and Tom were statue-still. A mother's voice called and the small girl tottered away.

'We don't know why you want him. But Stephen has seen your soul and that is enough. Also, I believe you are linked to the dragon.'

Mr Cleever's eyes never blinked. Tom looked into them and could not escape. Around them the hubbub of the village green was dulled, as if heard from under water.

'We are going to the cottage now, to pick Michael up. Then we shall find Sarah at the farm.'

For the first time, Mr Cleever's expression flickered. His eyes narrowed slightly.

'Hardraker farm.' Tom sicked the thought up.

Mr Cleever's head was bent slightly forward in an attitude of extreme concentration. All of a sudden, he straightened. Tom's mind juddered as the presence withdrew. His ears popped. He felt the noise of the green erupt all around him. Screaming, laughing, shouting, cars starting . . . Mr Punch was beating the living daylights out of Judy with a stout oak cudgel. "That's the way to do it!" he screamed in triumph.

"Thank you, Reverend," said Mr Cleever. "It's always a pleasure to talk with you. And very instructive. Goodbye." He gave a wave of his stick, and walked swiftly back towards his house.

Tom stood expressionless in the centre of the green, eyes wide with an inner horror.