Lazar (13 page)

“Yes – that’s it precisely.” Jan stood staring at the
screen in silence for a considerable time, then fetched a chair and sat down
next to her cousin. She leant forward and ran her finger up the screen.

“There’s the city wall – it’s made of wood, you know
– and there’s the church I passed, and that’s…”

“Hello, you two. Why aren’t you outside enjoying the sunshine
while it lasts?”

Hal turned and saw his mother come into the room.

“Hi, Mum. We’re busy looking at something on the computer.”

His mother gave a long sigh of despair.

“I don’t know – you children.” She shook her head. “All
you ever want to do nowadays is play computer games. I’m especially
disappointed with you, Jan.”

Jan tore her eyes away from the screen and looked round at
her aunt.

“I was really pleased when you first arrived and persuaded
Hal to get out into the fresh air,” her aunt continued. “I should have known it
wouldn’t last, and that he’d end up persuading you to stay indoors.”

“But it’s dangerous out there, Mum,” Hal turned toward his
mother, trying hard to keep a straight face. “If we had stayed indoors and not
gone out like you suggested then Jan wouldn’t have cut her forehead or blackened
her eye.”

“Well,” his mother responded curtly, not realising that she
was being teased, “I thought you were both old enough and sensible enough not
to go clambering over ruined walls. If you had both acted your age Jan’s
accident would never have happened.

“And,” she continued, “I still say that getting out into the
fresh air is better for you than sitting in a stuffy room playing computer
games.”

“But we’re not playing games, Mum. We’re doing research. Look,
we’ve managed to create a street plan of part of medieval Wickwich.”

“Yes, very interesting. I still think it would be a lot
better for you if you both went outside and enjoyed the sunshine while you’ve
got the chance.”

“Got the chance?” Jan queried.

“Yes, according to the forecast we’re due to have a storm
before the day’s out.”

“That would be appropriate,” Jan commented. Her aunt and her
cousin looked at her, as though expecting an explanation. “Today’s St Lazarus’
Day,” she said in answer to their stares. Hal broke into a smile, in
recognition of the significance of what Jan had said, but his mother still
looked confused.

“I thought it was St Swithun’s Day that had something to do
with the weather?”

“No, it’s not a superstition like that, Mum,” Hal explained. “It
was
on
St Lazarus’ Day that a
terrific storm blew up in 1280-something and swept half of Old Wickwich under
the sea.”

“My, you have been doing your research.”

“Yes,” Jan enthused, “and according to a legend, it’s on St
Lazarus’ Day, every year, that the ghost of the old city rises from the sea
– we reckon that’s because it was St Lazarus who Christ raised from the
dead.”

“Really,” Hal’s Mum said bemusedly. “I didn’t realise he was
a Saint.”

“Well, we assume it was him,” Jan reasoned. “After all, there
can’t be that many people called Lazarus.”

“There were two in the New Testament,” Hal’s mother pointed
out. “One was the brother of Mary and Martha, who, as you correctly say, Jesus
restored to life. The other was a beggar who Christ cured of leprosy.”

“Your mother will be pleased.”

“Why’s that?” Hal enquired as he loaded his computer printer
with a fresh supply of paper.

“She’ll think that it was her little chat that’s encouraged
us to go back ‘out into the fresh air’,” Jan smiled.

“As long as she doesn’t think we’ll be going out to clamber
over walls again,” replied Hal as he turned his attention to the map on his
computer screen. “We must remember to act our age this time,” he added with a
grin.

The image on the screen scrolled up and down, from the ground
plan of the chapel to the medieval coastline and back again.

“This is going to take a lot of paper,” Hal was speaking to
himself, “unless …”

He turned and looked at Jan.

“Could I borrow your phone for a second?”

“Why?” responded Jan, although she found herself reaching
instinctively for her back pocket.

“I want to see if I can download the map on to it.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“To be honest,” Hal replied as he unravelled a length of
slender cable and plugged one end into a socket at the back of his computer, “I
don’t know, but…” He held out his hand.

“But what?” Jan held on to her phone.

“I was wondering whether your phone can catch the ‘Margaret’
virus from my PC.”

“How would that help?”

“I’ve no idea,” Hal frowned, “especially as your phone
doesn’t have any CAD or virtual reality software.”

Jan watched her cousin bring his hands together – palm
to palm, fingertip to fingertip – and raise them so that his forefingers
pressed into his lips. He stared beyond his computer screen for a moment then
held out his hand again.

“But it does have maps. Perhaps the plans of old Wickwich
will get superimposed on them somehow. Or,” Hal suggested excitedly, “we may
even download a ‘Margaret’ app.”

His enthusiasm got the better of Jan as she pulled the phone
from her back pocket and handed it to him.

He plugged it in. The computer beeped and the phone vibrated
in confirmation that communication had been established. Hal stared at the
screen and then at the phone.

“I’m not quite sure what I’m expecting to happen,” Hal
confessed. He scrutinised his computer for several seconds and then turned his
full attention toward the smartphone, stabbing at the screen with his
forefinger.

“No, nothing.” He held up the phone for Jan to see. “Nothing’s
changed. It’s just the bog standard Google map.”

“What’s that?” Jan pointed at a white annulus in the region
of St James’ church. “That’s Margaret’s icon. Scroll down, is mine there too?”

Hal slid his thumb down the smartphone’s screen.

“Yep, there it is.” He looked up and smiled. “You’re standing
in my room according to this.”

Jan laughed.

“I guess you were hoping for something a bit more exciting
than that from Margaret’s virus,” she said as Hal handed the phone back to her.
“It’s still really amazing though.”

“Yep, it’s a bit like having a spectral satnav,” Hal agreed,
then turned his attention back to his computer.

“It does prove one thing, though,” Jan stated after zooming
in on her icon with thumb and forefinger and looking closely at the detail.

“What’s that?”

“It proves that the haunting definitely isn’t over yet.”

“You can have a go, but I doubt whether you’ll be able to
feel anything.” Hal struggled to find the appropriate page amongst a ream of
paper he had printed off from his computer. “The map’s still showing only the
northern half of the monastery.”

Jan walked over to the south side anyway, and, just as Hal
had predicted, she was able to wave her arm about in the air above the ruined
wall. She sat down on the rubble. Hal joined her.

“It’s the same all the way through.” He turned the sheets of
paper over so that Jan could see. “We only get the details of the buildings on
the sides of the roads you walk down in your dreams. I wonder how many dreams
you would have to have before we could map out the whole city?”

“They weren’t dreams. They were nightmares. How many times do
I have to tell you?” Jan shouted. She stood up and walked away.

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Hal called out after her. “What
happened, then, exactly?”

Jan stopped and turned and looked along the ruins of the
monastery toward the slight rise on the horizon that marked the site of the
medieval town.

“I can’t remember
exactly
.
All I know is that there was something awful at the end of it – something
in the sea.”

She came back and sat down next to Hal and took the sheaf of
printed maps gently from his hands. “I think this route, from St James’ chapel
to the sea, is significant. It’s something to do with Margaret, something
important in her life. I don’t think it would make any difference how many more
nightmares I experienced, we wouldn’t find out any more about Old Wickwich than
we know already.

Jan frowned and looked down at the maps.

“I was wrong, yesterday, when I thought this haunting, or
whatever it is, was about me passing a message back through time to Margaret. The
whole reason for all this is for a message to come back the other way – from
her to me.
This
is what Margaret
wanted to tell me,” Jan waved the sheets of paper in front of Hal’s nose, “and
she wanted to tell me in time for tonight.”

“In time for what?”

“In time for when the city rises from the sea?” Jan
suggested, then shrugged. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”

“How?”

“Not ‘why?’” Jan said, half to herself, then stood up again. She
glanced briefly at one of the maps then stared hard at something in the
distance, toward the sea.

“The church in my dream – this one, near the city
gates.” Jan pointed at the map, for Hal to see, without taking her eyes off the
distant skyline. “It must be that one, over there.” She stretched out her arm toward
a point on the horizon. It was the ruined tower that had captured her
imagination when she first arrived in Wickwich.

“Right,” Jan said decisively, and set off down the nave in
the direction of the sea. “Let’s go and find out just how much of the route in
my nightmare still exists on dry land today.”

“Mind you don’t bump into anything,” Hal warned as he ran to
catch her up. “Let’s climb out over the south wall. We know there’s nothing
there to stop you.”

They clambered over.

“Where now?” Hal asked. “
You’ve
got the map.”

“Over there.” Jan pointed at a high, wind-twisted hedgerow
along the east side of the field. “If we go over to that corner there’s a gap
between those trees. If I’ve got my bearings right, that’s where the West Gate
used to stand. It’s where I first met Margaret.”

They both set off across the field. Hal stepped out very
briskly and Jan had to almost run to keep up with him.

“I don’t think your mother believed you,” she said
breathlessly, “when you told her that she was right and that ‘we really ought
to get out into the fresh air more’, starting now.”

“She certainly looked surprised,” Hal smiled broadly. “It
just seemed a whole lot easier than telling her we were going out to touch some
invisible buildings.

“Actually,” he added, “we will be able to see them when we
get back home. I left the computer running so that the CAD program could
convert the plans into three-dimensions while we’re out.”

Just then they reached the corner of the field and Hal ran
straight on through the gap between the trees.

“Be careful,” Jan called out, “its very steep on the other
side.”