Lazar (14 page)

The ensuing yell and the sound of breaking foliage indicated
that her warning came too late. Jan held on to a tree trunk and looked down
into the ditch at her cousin, sitting at the bottom, brushing grass off his
trouser leg.

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah, nothing broken.” Hal got to his feet and continued
brushing himself. “How are you going to get down?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Jan called down to her cousin. “I’ve
just had an idea.”

She moved carefully sideways, feeling her way with her left
foot until she appeared satisfied that she had reached firm ground. She then
edged the toe of her right shoe forward, slightly beyond the surface of the
slope, as though feeling for the edge of something.

“Yes,” Jan cried out, exultantly. Hal watched, fascinated, as
his cousin let go of the branch she was holding on to and took a short step
forward and down. Gaining in confidence she took another, then another, then
descended at a graceful pace as though sweeping down a flight of stairs. When
she reached the bottom she ran halfway up, turned and ran back down.

“Don’t tell me,” Hal insisted. “It’s a medieval staircase.”

“Yes.” Jan was kneeling at the bottom of the slope she had
just descended, running her hands over the surface of the earth, or, more
precisely, just above it. “I thought there must be steps here. This is where
Margaret came down to meet me. They must have been carved into the side of the
dyke.

“I can’t feel the whole of every step – modern reality
seems to take precedence over the medieval past – but where the soil’s
eroded I can feel the stairs as solid as anything.”

Hal leant over and brushed his hand across the topsoil
unimpeded by any phantom flight of stairs. He had only just stood up again when
Jan suddenly rushed past him and ascended the slope two invisible steps at a
time.

“I’ve had an idea,” she shouted back over her shoulder. When
she reached the top she sidled to her left until she bumped into a barrier that
neither she nor Hal could see. “It’s a fence or wall or something,” she
explained to her cousin down below. “I’ll just go back a bit to see if I can
get round it.”

She disappeared behind a clump of trees. A few seconds later
she reappeared, a little further along the top of the dyke, standing
precariously at the very edge. Hal moved quickly along the bottom of the ditch
and positioned himself directly beneath her.

“Be careful,” he called out, “unless, of course, there’s
another invisible staircase I’m not aware of.”

“There isn’t a staircase,” Jan looked down, “but there is a
bridge.”

“What?”

“I can feel the bridge over the dyke that leads to the West
Gate. I’m just going to take a step forward to see if it will take my weight…”

“Don’t be stupid, of course it won’t.”

Jan tentatively put her right foot forward into thin air. “Don’t
worry, you can catch me if I fall.”

“Hah! I’m not sure I’d be able to.”

Within an instant, he found out. All he could do was buckle
under the weight of Jan as she fell straight down on top of him. He doubled up
and collapsed beneath her, and, while she rolled away completely unharmed by
her fall, Hal writhed about in agony on the ground.

“Good heavens, Hal! What happened?”

“We went outside into the fresh air.” Hal smiled glumly at
his mother as Jan helped him down on to the settee. “I told you it was
dangerous out there.”

“But how…?”

“It’s my fault,” Jan explained. “I fell on top of him when I
tried to climb something. He was right underneath.”

“Yeah, I fell awkwardly and twisted my ankle – it might
be broken.”

“Oh, Hal! What on earth were you doing, Jan?” Jan’s aunt
looked accusingly at her niece. “What did I tell you this morning after your
accident yesterday?”

“It’s not Jan’s fault,” Hal came to his cousin’s defence. “And
in any case, Jan’s been a hero. She’s carried me all the way back here on her
own.”

“You should have phoned,” Hal’s mother snapped. It sounded
more like a reprimand than a suggestion.

“We tried, but there wasn’t any signal.”

“I see. In that case thank you, Jan. But, really – I
told you to act your age.”

“Well, if you’d not made the suggestion…” Hal retorted
provocatively. “After all, you can’t hurt yourself playing games on a
computer.”

Jan frowned at her cousin. She could sense that Hal’s teasing
was annoying her aunt.

“Since you have brought up the subject of your computer,”
Hal’s mother said testily, “you left it on when you went out. You’re always
doing it. I turned it off. I wouldn’t mind if you helped pay…”

“Turned it off?” Hal leapt to his feet, then collapsed back
on to the settee. “Ow!”

His mother’s expression changed immediately from annoyance to
concern.

“Jan, bring that footstool over and help Hal to get
comfortable,” she instructed. “I’ll go and phone for the doctor.”

They both stared at the images of Old Wickwich on the screen
– Hal intrigued as to how his computer was able to simulate the lost
medieval city in such detail; Jan transfixed as the landscape of her nightmare
took on shape and form before her eyes.

The screen went blank. Hal shot a questioning glance at Jan.

“That’s where the town appeared to disappear under the sea,”
she confirmed. “I couldn’t see what was in the water. I only sensed it was
something awful.”

“Good!” Hal exclaimed, apparently not hearing the second half
of what Jan said. “It doesn’t look as though Mum damaged anything when she
turned it off.”

“I’m so pleased.” The mild sarcasm in Jan’s voice was far too
subtle for her cousin’s ear. He was busy trying to make himself comfortable at
his desk in preparation for a long session at his computer, using both hands to
lift his heavily bandaged left ankle on to a stool.

“Let me help,” Jan offered.

“Out of interest,” she continued, as she moved the stool a
little closer to the desk, “can you find out from your computer what time your
mother switched it off?”

“Yeah, probably. Why?”

“Oh, I was just wondering…”

Hal was already tapping away on his keyboard and clicking
away with his mouse.

“There you are. The file manager shows that the CAD files were
last accessed at ten thirty-seven precisely – I can give you that to one
hundredth of a second if you like.”

“No, ten thirty-seven will do fine.” A broad smile of
vindication broke out on Jan’s face. “That is precisely the time I tried to
cross over the bridge.”

“What? You don’t think…?”

“I most certainly do. I reckon I can only touch and feel
‘medieval’ Wickwich when your computer’s turned on.” Jan stood up and began to
wave her arms as she warmed to her theory. “That’s why when I tried to help you
out of the dyke on the way home I couldn’t find the steps I’d come down
earlier. And if your mother hadn’t turned your computer off I
would
have been able to walk right
across the ‘medieval’ bridge and into Wickwich.”

“But how…” Hal began, but realised his mistake immediately. “But
why?”

“Why indeed,” Jan acknowledged with a smile. “As I was saying
this morning, there’s something really important about this route from St
James’ chapel to the sea; something Margaret wants us to find out.”

“And you think it’s something to do with whatever it was in
the sea?” Hal half suggested and half asked.

“Yes.” Jan frowned again. This time she looked apprehensive. “Yes,
whatever it was absolutely terrified her – if they were Margaret’s
emotions I was experiencing in my dream. So much so that her spirit hasn’t been
able to rest for all these centuries.”

“You reckon it killed her?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps that’s what I’ve got to find out.”

“But how are you going to do that? Have another dream?”

“No.” Jan pulled herself up to her full height with sudden
determination. “I’m going to see just how far I can walk down the streets of
‘medieval’ Wickwich. I’m going to see if I can make it to the sea.”

The air was as heavy as a hammer and the clouds on the
horizon black as anvils. The atmosphere was far more sultry than it had been
that morning and Jan was feeling very hot and sticky. Having to fight her way
through a hedgerow hadn’t helped. But now she was there, standing at the top of
the embankment, looking across the dyke toward the site of the West Gate.

Jan knelt down on one knee and leant forward, holding out her
right hand and probing with her fingers, as though gently feeling her way
through the air.

Yes. There it was – only visible through her sense of
touch – the medieval bridge. She could feel it. She could run the palms
of her hands across its gently undulating surface of weathered, well-worn
planks of solid timber. She leant out a little further until she began to
topple over.
 
She automatically put
out both her hands as she fell forward.
 
And then stopped – right there, suspended in midair. She stared
down through her fingers at the steep sides of the ditch beneath her. This was
amazing.

Jan jumped to her feet and lifted her left foot slightly off
the ground. She looked into the dyke. Now that she was standing, the bottom of
the earthwork appeared to be a lot, lot further down, and she hesitated for
several seconds before taking her first tentative step forward into empty
space. It took her weight.

Instinctively, like a tightrope walker, she stretched her
arms out either side as she took her right foot off the solid earth of the
embankment and stepped forward on to – nothing. At least, nothing she
could see. But she could feel it beneath her feet, flat and firm and tangible. She
took another step. Then another. She let her arms drop to her sides. She was
standing in the middle of the bridge, halfway across the ancient ditch and
several metres above it.

She stood still for a considerable time, savouring the
sensation of … what, precisely, was the sensation she was feeling? Was it
floating? No. If she had been floating she would not have been able to choose
the direction in which she wished to go simply by walking to the end and back
again. She did so, just to demonstrate her point. Neither was she hanging in
thin air. That would have implied suspension, whereas she could most definitely
feel the bridge beneath her feet, supporting her in the way that bridges always
do. She jumped up and down to prove that this was so as well. She even did a
cartwheel.