Circles of Seven (11 page)
Bonnie choked back a sob. A mutant? Her throat squeezed shut. Her skin rippled with stinging pain. A thousand invisible needles pricked her skin, goading her toward the pond. A million eyes stared at her, voices laughing and mocking. “Lizard face! Dragon girl!” The laughter turned into shrieks, children running away in fright. She was a hideous monster, a winged freak. She felt her cheeks again. Could it really be that bad?
The pool’s crystal surface beckoned. Although Bonnie’s entire body shook, and hot tears streamed down her cheeks, she refused to budge. “I won’t take the fruit!” she shouted. “I won’t!” She finally sank to her knees and, looking up toward the sky, cried out, “You promised me escape! I need it now!”
Billy jumped to his feet, gripping Excalibur with both hands. “Bonnie!” he shouted. “Where are you?” He glanced all around, shuffling his feet on the carpet of thick, long-bladed grass. The evening sky boasted a milky array of bright, familiar stars, adding to Excalibur’s faint glow, and a wafer-thin moon hung low on the horizon. The faint smell of mold rose through the wet air, and Billy’s forehead gathered drops of sweat and dew.
He stood still and listened. Silence. Heavy silence. Not a chirping bird or a rustling leaf interrupted the thick layer of musty air. He looked for the entry window but saw only trees and thick undergrowth with a single, narrow path leading into the midst of the dark foliage.
While holding the sword in front like a long, heavy flashlight, Billy followed the path, dodging or pushing aside branches that protruded from the dense forest. Within minutes he came to a clearing, a grassy area that led to a small pond. In the twilight he saw a pair of silhouettes standing between the pond and a strange old tree. One of the shapes was much larger than the other, but he couldn’t figure out what they were. He tiptoed slowly into the clearing. His danger signals seemed jumbled, warning him one second, then calming him the next, as though someone was jamming his radar.
As he approached, the two shadows took no notice of him. He skirted the pond, keeping his eyes fastened on the sharpening images. A huge set of wings protruded from each of the shapes, but the smaller one was clearly a female human.
He dashed ahead. “Bonnie! What’s going—” He halted. The other figure was a dragon! A big one! Billy could tell right away that it wasn’t Clefspeare, but was it friendly? He surveyed his danger signals again, but they still sent contradictory messages. He ran up to Bonnie, stopping at her side. She had her hands on her cheeks and her lips were moving, but no words came out. “Bonnie. What’s going on?”
Bonnie didn’t turn to answer. She spoke to the dragon, and the dragon responded, but there was still no sound. They were like ghosts stopping by the pond to have a quiet chat.
Billy reached to place a hand on Bonnie’s shoulder, but his fingers passed right through. He jumped back and stared at his hand. His face grew hot, and the dampness of new sweat moistened his clothes. He took a longer look at the dragon. It seemed to glance at him from time to time, taking millisecond looks while talking to Bonnie. Yet, he seemed to be a phantom as well. Excalibur’s light passed through his semitransparent body and illuminated the grass behind him.
Billy rested the sword’s point on the ground and bit his lip. Was this the first test of the circles? It didn’t seem to relate to Merlin’s poem at all. He grabbed the card from his pocket and held it close to Excalibur’s glow.
Young Arthur holds the window’s key
To ancient realms that bear his quest.
The circles know where lie the beasts,
Who crave the light, who crave their breath.
The beasts conceal the ancient truths
That dwell behind divided tongues,
But dragons’ hearts reveal their flame
From shining light and psalms well sung.
He slid the card back into his pocket and looked again at the huge phantom.
Dragons’ hearts . . . I wonder . . .
He stared long and hard at Bonnie and the dragon, trying to read their body language. Bonnie was obviously upset, and the dragon looked smug, deceitful, even dangerous. Billy raised Excalibur to get a better look at the dragon’s face. His eyes shone with a reddish glow, and they glanced at Billy more frequently. . . . He was definitely watching.
Billy moved the sword lower. A shadow appeared in the middle of the dragon’s body, a round mass that blocked the light. The dragon moved abruptly. He seemed to float backwards toward a tree that stood alone behind the pond. Billy followed, hoping to figure out what the dragon’s inner shadow meant. Maybe this was his heart, the key to learning the truth, just like the poem said.
As he walked alongside the beast, Billy gently pushed the sword toward the dragon’s body. Excalibur passed through his scales easily, but the blade stopped when it reached the “heart.” The point of the blade pricked the heart’s outer layer. Black scum slowly oozed out and dripped to the ground. The slime gathered on the grass into a twisting, vibrating mass, dividing into squirming, worm-like shapes that crawled away from the dragon.
Suddenly a burst of anguish splashed through Billy’s mind, his familiar sense of danger roaring through his soul like never before. This was more than danger; it felt like imminent death, cloaked in the toothy smile of this haughty-eyed lizard. The heart of the dragon vanished, and the dragon floated into the tree, disappearing among the leafy branches.
Billy spun on his heels. Bonnie had covered her cheeks with her hands, staring wide-eyed toward the pond. He ran to her side, shouting, “Bonnie! Can you hear me?”
Bonnie dropped to her knees and seemed to wail, her head lifted upward and her mouth wide open in a soundless scream. Hundreds of tiny snakes, each with real, flesh-and-blood bodies, crawled all over Bonnie’s phantom form. The dragon’s gooey blood had transformed into vipers, and they bit Bonnie viciously, each one striking with a pair of long, needle-sharp fangs.
Billy pricked one with Excalibur and slung it away, then another. He lunged for a larger viper, but his foot slipped, and the blade swept through Bonnie’s head and passed harmlessly to the other side. Billy then hacked at the snakes without care, ferociously swiping with both arms and stomping the wriggling bodies of those he merely wounded. Within seconds, every snake lay dead.
Billy thrust the sword back to its sheath. The sky brightened. A few puffy clouds appeared overhead, creating dark reflections of themselves on the spongy ground. Billy blinked in the sudden daylight and looked down at Bonnie, who had bowed her head and closed her eyes. She heaved a great sigh, and a relieved smile graced her lips as she rose to her feet. When she opened her eyes, she looked straight at Billy. Her smile burst into laughter and she jumped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Billy! You’re here! Thank God!”
Billy felt a new rush, the pure fountain of love. The feeling of danger washed away, replaced with relief, joy, and a wave of exhaustion. He returned the embrace for a moment, then pushed Bonnie away gently. “Did you feel those snakes crawling all over you?”
She scanned the ground. “What snakes?”
Billy rubbed his shoes across the grass. He expected to find dozens of mangled snake bodies, but the lush carpet was unspoiled. “Whew! This is a weird place.”
“I did feel something,” she explained, crossing her arms and rubbing her shoulders, “sort of like needles. But there weren’t any snakes on me.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but I saw them and whacked their heads off. I could tell you couldn’t see me. It was like we were in the same place but in different worlds.” He glanced at the tree. “What did that dragon say to you?”
“He said . . .” Bonnie held a hand up to her cheek. “Billy, what’s wrong with my face? What does it look like?”
Billy squinted and cocked his head. “What do you mean? Your face looks normal.”
She ran her index finger down her face from her eye to her chin. “I feel . . . ridges . . . something like scales.”
Billy brushed her other cheek with his own finger. “I don’t feel anything.”
Bonnie tilted her head and gazed at the tree. “Hmmm. I wonder . . .”
Billy pulled out the prophecy card again. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know we have to find a belt of some kind lying around. At least that’s what the poem says.” He read it out loud while Bonnie looked on.
In circle one there lies a belt,
The camera’s eye to watch your tale,
A tale as old as man’s first tears
When Adam donned the dragon’s veil.
“It mentions Adam,” Bonnie said. “I’ll bet this place is like the Garden of Eden.”
“So this
is
the first circle. Now if we—”
“Billy!” Bonnie grabbed his elbow. “There are
two
of those strange fruits on the tree now. A few minutes ago there was only one.”
Billy slid the card into his pocket. “That’s weird. How could it grow so fast?”
“What do you think it means?”
Billy shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? Let’s just forget the tree and look for the belt. I don’t see it around here, so we might as well look back in the woods.”
Billy marched toward the forest with Bonnie at his side. She kept glancing back at the tree, but he riveted his own gaze on the ground. The green undergrowth was like a carpet of ferns with long fronds that covered all but a narrow path, forcing Bonnie to drop back and walk in single file.
Billy pulled out his sword and hacked away the thicker brush as he walked, making sure nothing snapped back to whip Bonnie’s legs. He took his time, poking through every bush. The belt could be almost anywhere, and he didn’t want to pass it by.
As they walked deeper into the woods, the path grew darker. Billy looked up at the thick tree canopy and held out his palm. “It’s starting to rain.”
Bonnie tilted her head upward and blinked several times to ward off the droplets. “We’d better find shelter.”
“But where? Do you think there are any buildings around here, or maybe a cave?”
Bonnie shook her head. “I haven’t seen either one.”
A new voice sounded from behind them. “Would an umbrella do?”
Chapter 8
The professor threw back the curtain that hid the window portal, flooding the room with light. “Since the note Sir Patrick left didn’t say when he would return, it makes no sense to wait for him. If the fiends of the New Table have found a way into the circles, as he wrote, they will not wait for us to act.” He placed his hand on Sir Barlow’s shoulder. “Thank you for bringing in the table and chair, my good fellow. Would you please station yourself in the corridor and stand guard?”
Barlow gave a polite bow. “Your wish is my command.” The burly knight hurried into the hall, dodging the protruding spears of the shattered doorjamb.
Ashley set her laptop on the table in front of the window and slid into the chair. “Is there an electrical outlet in this room?”
Marilyn pulled aside one of the curtains. “I don’t see one.”
“This is an ancient chamber,” the professor replied, shaking his head. “Perhaps we can run an extension cord from the newer section.”
“Want me to fetch one?” Walter asked. “I think I saw one by a hedge trimmer on the porch.”
Ashley adjusted the screen angle as the laptop flashed to life. “It can wait. The battery will last for a while.” After a few keyboard clicks, a series of eight horizontal bar graphs appeared on the display, each with a different color. Next to the laptop, Ashley placed her new invention. “This device—I call it ‘Apollo’—gathers and reads electromagnetic waves, much like my old photometer, but it does a lot more.” After flipping a switch on Apollo’s base, the computer’s graphical bars became animated, their lengths changing constantly. “My computer is analyzing Apollo’s readings. I want to see how the data changes when it gets close to the window.”
The professor pulled a pair of spectacles from his shirt pocket and slipped them on as he leaned over to read the screen. “I don’t mean to question your strategy, Miss Stalworth, but how will that help us in our quest?”
Walter joined him, two heads, one young and one old, straining to read a series of cryptic numbers.
Ashley adjusted the screen’s brightness with the press of a key. “Larry found a bunch of research on alternate dimensions, but since most of it was rubbish, he had to filter out all but a couple of instances of similar phenomena. Strangely enough, the remaining data is directly associated with this part of the world, stories about Glastonbury being the gateway to the world of the dead.”
The professor pulled off his glasses and folded the earpieces. “Well, many theories abound.” He slid the glasses into his pocket and grasped his chin. “The ‘world of the dead,’ as you call it, has also been referred to as Hades or Sheol, and I, too, have heard tales about the town’s reputation as a portal to that world.”
“So we’re probably on the right track.” Ashley pointed to three rows of numbers near the top of the screen. “I’ve downloaded the characteristics of the spectral trails that were found in those purported cross-dimensional windows. You see, if there really is another dimension, it has to exist somewhere, in a real time and space continuum. Otherwise, Billy and Bonnie wouldn’t be able to go there.” She looked up at the professor. “Are you with me so far?”
“Yes, I believe so,” the professor said. “Go on.”
“I’m clueless,” Walter added. “But go on.”
Ashley pecked a couple of keys, and a diagram popped up on the screen that looked like a topographic map. “The microchips you gave me, Professor, have embedded transmitters that send location coordinates based on what I call magnetic reckoning. In other words, they keep track of where they lie in the earth’s magnetic field and transmit the data using light-encoded signals.” She traced a line with her finger through several flashing dots on the map. “I’ve programmed these blips to represent the New Table knights, but they’re inoperative right now. Once I figure out how to correct the signals for the cross-dimensional rift, I might be able to read them and plot their locations on this map.”
“Cool!” Walter exclaimed. “A computer eye on the bad guys!”
“Yes,” the professor agreed. “It is . . . cool . . . but what benefit will that be?”
Ashley gave a shrug. “I’m not sure; I haven’t gotten that far yet. But since information is power, I’m hoping we’ll be able to use it. At the very least, we should get an idea of what’s going on.”
The professor gazed at the jungle scene. “Yes, if this window is a live viewport, we may have some idea eventually, but, for now, it’s just a static image, no more useful than a framed photograph.”
Marilyn stood next to the window with her hands on her hips. “It does seem like it’s changing a little bit, maybe darker than it was just a couple of minutes ago, and it looks kind of misty.”
“But no Billy and Bonnie,” Walter noted.
The professor picked up a long, sharp splinter from the floor. “No, not a sign of them. Patrick’s note indicated that they entered successfully, but the condition of the door does not bode well.” He tossed the splinter to the side. “I hope my absence during their entry doesn’t endanger their mission.”
“Why would it?” Marilyn asked.
“The new song. It seems that the lyrics are crucial, and I have no way of communicating them to William. I’m confident that the timing of the song’s arrival in my mind coincided with William’s departure. If I had been here, I could have informed him and set him on the correct path to finding his father.” He bowed his head and whispered, “What a fool I am!”
Marilyn hooked her arm in the professor’s. “You’re no fool. You did everything you could. You can’t be everywhere at once.”
Ashley snatched up Apollo and walked closer to the window. She motioned for Walter to join her. “Hold Apollo at this spot while I look at the readings.”
Walter saluted and piped, “Aye, aye, Captain,” then wrapped his fingers around one of Apollo’s external dowels.
Ashley began to turn away from the window but stopped. She slowly pivoted back, squinting at the portal scene. “What are these white things on the ground?” She pointed at the lower portion of the window. “Right here by these ferns. Any idea?”
Walter dropped to one knee and leaned his head toward the tangle of ferns. “You got me. Bones, maybe?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Ashley said quietly. “Bones.”
Marilyn gently brushed one of the white, bone-like images with her fingers. “I don’t know how to explain it,” she said, “but it just doesn’t feel completely solid. There’s an odd sensation, like a vibration.”
Ashley chose another “bone” on the window and copied Marilyn’s movements. “I see what you mean, like a force field of some kind.” She pressed her index finger against the wall. “Put Apollo right in front of where my hand is.” Walter complied, and Ashley marched back to her laptop, pressing her hand on her jaw. “Karen, you with me?”
Karen’s voice sputtered through the laptop speakers. “Like grease on an axle, Ash.”
“Hook Larry up to my computer again, please.”
“Two seconds.” Karen’s voice shrank, sounding farther away. “Okay, Larry, behave yourself, or I’ll put your source code on a hackers’ website.”
Ashley suppressed a laugh. “Okay, Larry. Time to do your thing. Are you getting this spectrum data?”
“One moment, please, Ashley. I was just reading your e-mail. Obviously your spam filter needs adjusting. Three thousand four hundred fifty-two messages. How did you get on an e-mail list for herbal foot fungus remedies?”
“Never mind,” Ashley snapped. “Just read the spectrum data.”
“Cool your jets. I’m on it.”
The professor and Marilyn looked over Ashley’s shoulder at the computer-generated graph while Ashley directed Walter’s position. “Okay, move Apollo slowly to the right.”
She drummed her fingers for a moment. “This is too weird. The wavelengths shift like crazy with every inch of spatial change, almost like a steep slope on a contour map.” She waved her hand at Walter. “Lower now, at the bottom and against the wall.” She pointed again. “There! It bottoms out at that point and then starts the upslope again. It’s like an electromagnetic depression. That wall is absorbing a narrow band of wavelengths, but it’s not a one-way street. It’s allowing the entire visible light spectrum to exit along with quite a bit of ultraviolet radiation.”
“Absorbing?” Walter asked, still holding Apollo in place. “Like the candlestone?”
“Not quite. The candlestone traps all excited light energy, but this portal seems to absorb a much narrower range. The window is also producing a strange electromagnetic field that we can sense when we touch it.”
“Are you able to find the New Table transmissions?” the professor asked.
“That’s a job for Larry.” She clicked a few keys, then held two fingers on her cheek. “Larry, I’m opening this data gateway directly to you. Can you tell me what the microchip transmissions from the cloaks would look like after passing through this vortex?”
“Certainly. One complex codex of vortex com-specs coming to your cortex vertex.”
“What?”
“Translation—I’m sending the data to you now.”
“Karen!” Ashley barked. “What’s with the rhyming nonsense?”
“I tried to insert a new vocabulary range like you told me,” Karen replied, “but the database must have included a rhyming dictionary.”
“What’s the matter, Ashley? Can’t duplex your index?”
Walter laughed so hard, tears began rolling down his cheeks. “I think I need a Kleenex.”
“Not you, too, Walter!”
Walter clapped his hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he said, talking through his fingers.
Ashley squinted at the screen, and her voice lowered. “Something strange is going on. Professor, is there some other source of light energy in this room?”
“Not that I know of, unless, of course, you count the hole in the ceiling.”
Ashley looked up at the gap in the roof. “That couldn’t be it. It’s dark outside, and the data doesn’t indicate a white light frequency.” She swiveled her head and nodded toward the center of the room. “According to Apollo, it’s coming from that direction.” She rose from her seat and walked to the compass design on the floor, gazing at the etchings in the circles. “What are these?”
“Representations of the circles in the other world,” the professor said. “We assume that Merlin put them here centuries ago.”
Ashley stooped at the edge of one of the circles. “How weird!”
“This is the Eden circle,” the professor explained, “and the two people in the drawing are likely Adam and Eve.” He dropped to one knee. “This is very strange indeed!”
Marilyn joined them and leaned over the circle. “What do you make of it, Professor?”
“Hey!” Walter called from the view port. “Let a guy in on the news, will you?”
Ashley waved him over. “You can put Apollo down now. Come and see for yourself.”
Walter set Apollo on the floor and hurried to the center of the room. He crouched next to Ashley and gaped at the sight. Although the etching of Adam and Eve was simple, he could tell they were facing outward as if they were looking straight at him. Their tiny eyes, each about the size of a pinhead, glowed, pulsing like scarlet beacons. Walter reached forward and touched Adam’s left eye, feeling the slight rise in the drawing. It seemed as though a glass bead had been wedged into the floor, and a light from underneath poured a ghostly beam through the bead, making it look like a tiny ruby. He glanced around at the trio of worried faces, and his gaze landed on his teacher. “What do you think it means, Prof?”
The professor shook his head. “Very mysterious. I have no answer.”
Marilyn knelt and placed her own fingers on Adam’s eyes, rubbing them gently. “Call it a mother’s intuition, but I think they represent Billy and Bonnie in the first circle.”
Billy spun around. An elderly man stood on the path, his body erect and tall. With one arm he held out a candy-striped umbrella toward Bonnie, and under his other arm, pressed against his body, he held two other multi-colored umbrellas. Dressed in a black tuxedo, complete with tails, a frilly white shirt, and a broad cummerbund, he looked like an old-fashioned butler answering the door to a mansion or a maitre d’ handing out menus at a fancy restaurant. Bonnie took the umbrella and popped it open, while the stranger extended a purple and gold one to Billy.
Billy stared at him for a few seconds, wondering how he appeared so suddenly and why he was there. The stranger opened the second umbrella and placed it over Billy’s head. “What were you expecting, a penguin? Please, take it before you catch your death.” The man opened a silver and black umbrella over his own head, gave a friendly smile, and bowed. “My name is Joseph, and I am at your service.”
Bonnie bowed her head. “Pleased to meet you, Joseph. Thank you for the umbrellas.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Billy looked through a circular shield of dripping rain. “It’s really starting to pour now.” He replayed Joseph’s “penguin” comment in his mind, tightening his grip on the umbrella’s silver rod. How could this guy have known about the recurring dream?
“Oh, you’re most welcome,” Joseph replied. “I heard you were coming, so I put on my best tuxedo.”
“You have more than one tuxedo?” Bonnie asked.
Joseph cocked his head, a pained expression on his face. “Well . . . actually . . . no.” He passed his hand across the frilly shirt. “But this
is
my best one.”
Billy slid his hiking boot across the expanding puddle on the footpath. “Do you always carry umbrellas around?”
“In this circle? Of course. Terrible downpours here. Just terrible. And you never know when a visitor might come through.”
Bonnie turned her head back and forth, smiling. “Really? Do you have other visitors now?”
“Oh, no,” Joseph replied, waving his hand. “Haven’t had another visitor in almost forty years. But your presence proves you never know when one might drop by.” He lowered his head and sighed. “Of course, thousands of souls come to this circle every day, and they pass directly to valleys before I ever see them. They’re not allowed here in the high places.”
“The high places?” Bonnie asked.
Joseph twisted his shoe on the grass. “Yes. Up here on the solid ground. This part of the circle was once called Abraham’s bosom, and many dwelt here, but they have been taken to their final home, and only the lost souls remain.”