Lazar (16 page)

“We do?” Hal looked perplexed.

“Yes, we do. The reason why I’m being haunted is so that I
can walk down to the waterfront and find out what happened to Margaret in
1286.”

“And then?”

“Then, Hal, I’ll know why Margaret has haunted Wickwich for
the past seven hundred years.” It was now Jan’s turn to theorise. “When you
read about ghosts in books…”

“I don’t read about ghosts in books,” Hal interrupted. Jan
ignored him.

“…they’re nearly always the spirits of dead people who can’t
rest because they died before something important was completed or some secret
was passed on. I’ve been chosen by Margaret to find out what her ‘something’
is, and to do whatever needs to be done to put it right.”

“What if this ‘something’ – presumably whatever this
thing was in the sea – turns out to be dangerous?” Hal looked hard at his
cousin. “Don’t ghosts came back to haunt people because of the horrendous way
they died.”

“But it can’t affect me … can it?” Jan asked uncertainly, as
if seeking confirmation of her statement. “It happened centuries ago.”

“It seems to be able to affect my computer,” Hal pointed out,
“and your brain.”

“Yes, but we have total control over your computer don’t we?”
This time Jan’s question was the affirmation of a fact. “All you have to do is
turn your computer off and any kind of physical manifestation immediately
disappears.”

Hal sat back in his chair and moved the tips of his
forefingers to his lips.

“And when do you propose to go in search of this
‘something’?” he asked after a moment’s reflection.

“Tonight.”

“Tonight? You must be mad.”

“Why?”

“Well, I mean, at night … Isn’t that just a little bit
spooky?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?”

“I don’t. But I don’t believe in going looking for trouble
either.”

“But where’s the ‘trouble’? If you’re here, sitting at the
computer, monitoring my whereabouts by watching my ring’s icon on the screen,
then….”

“Hello, you two.” Hal’s father breezed into the room. “What
are you talking about so seriously, then?”

“Eh? Oh,” Jan quickly improvised, “we’re discussing the three-dimensional
model of Old Wickwich that Hal’s created on his computer.”

“Ah, yes. You mentioned something about that the other
morning. Sounds interesting. May I have a look?”

Hal’s father strode across the bedroom and stopped and stared
down over his son’s shoulder toward the screen. It was displaying the exterior
of the chapel in St James’ churchyard.

“Aha! The Lazar,” he enthused.

“Laser?” Jan repeated in surprise. “That’s what Margaret
said.”

“Who’s Margaret?” enquired Hal’s father without turning from
the screen. “Is she your ‘ghost’?”

“Yes, something like that. She got very agitated about the
laser when she saw Hal’s computer. I thought she was talking about the printer.”

“No, no,” Hal’s father smiled and turned toward his niece. “Not
laser,
lazar
– l-a-z-a-r. That
chapel was once part of Wickwich’s medieval Lazar hospital.”

“What’s a Lazar hospital?” asked Hal as he zoomed in on the
image on the screen as though searching for an answer to his question.

“Most towns had a Lazar hospital in the Middle Ages,” his
father explained, “although they weren’t hospitals as you and I would
understand the word. They were more like leper colonies; places where lepers
lived and died in isolation, away from the centres of population. That’s why
Lazars are always found
outside
the
walls of medieval cities.”

 
He stopped
suddenly, thrown off his stride by the sight of both children staring at him
open-mouthed. Their silence suggested that further clarification was required.

“They were called Lazars after…”

“Lazarus,” Hal and Jan completed his sentence in unison.

“Yes, that’s right. So you knew about Lazars all the time.”

“Not really,” Jan replied. “It was just that Jill mentioned
Lazarus to us this morning. He was the leper in the Bible.”

“That’s right. Lepers were a common sight in medieval England,
and the populace had an almost pathological fear of leprosy.”

“What is leprosy, exactly?” Jan asked, thoughtfully.

“Ah, I’m not a medical expert, but I believe it’s a virus or
bacillus or something that causes severe mutilation of the extremities like
toes and fingers, even the face – the lips and ears and nose.”

Jan zipped up her jacket and picked up a torch, then opened
the door to her room without making a sound. She crept down the stairs toward
Hal’s room as quietly as she could. His door was slightly ajar. She tiptoed in.

“So you’re going through with it, then?” he asked, without
taking his eyes off the map of Old Wickwich his computer screen.

“Of course. I reckon it’s tonight or never,” Jan whispered.

Suddenly Hal turned and looked straight into her eyes.

“I suppose there’s no way I can stop you, is there?” he said
with a mixture of entreaty and resignation.

“Short of telling on me to your Mum and Dad, no,” Jan
replied. “And I know you wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, but if you got hurt or anything I’d get it in the neck
for
not
telling them.”

“Oh, I see. So that’s what’s bothering you.”

“No.” Hal sounded slightly hurt at Jan’s suggestion. “No, I’m
worried about
you
. I’m not happy
about your going there alone.”

“Ah, thank you,” Jan responded with the sarcasm born of
embarrassment. “But there’s no one else who can come with me. You certainly
can’t. There’s your ankle for a start, and – more importantly – I
need you here to keep an eye on your computer and make sure that no one turns
it off. And in any case, what on earth is there to worry about anyway?”

“Well,” Hal began, “if I understood you correctly earlier on,
you’re going out with the intention of walking off a cliff in the…”

He was interrupted by a distant roll of thunder.

“And listen to that,” he added. “It’s been getting closer all
evening. You’ll be looking for a phantom city in the middle of a thunderstorm.”

“I know. Corny, eh?” Jan smiled. “Look, the worst thing that
can happen to me is that I get very, very wet.”

“I’m not so sure.” Hal frowned. “From what Dad was saying, I
reckon Margaret had leprosy.”

“Yes, so do I,” Jan agreed, “but she certainly didn’t have it
the day before the storm – she didn’t have a mark on her face when I saw
her at the monastery.”

“So she must have caught it after that,” Hal said
thoughtfully. “Which means she must have survived the storm.”

A frown of puzzlement creased his brow.

“So what on earth is she expecting you to do? It’s not as
though you can take a cure or some medicine back in time with you, can you?”

“No. I wouldn’t know what to take anyway,” Jan began to
answer Hal’s questions, “but perhaps I can prevent her from
catching
it in the first place.”

“How? And why you?”

“I don’t know.” Jan sounded despondent. “Perhaps she caught
it from whatever it was that was in the sea.”

“What?” Hal retorted sceptically. “And she wants you to go
there tonight and catch it instead of her?”

For the first time since she had entered her cousin’s room
Jan looked unsure of herself. She bit her lip, then shook her head. Finally,
she let out a quiet laugh that failed to sound light-hearted.

“No, don’t be stupid,” she said, by way of reassurance
– presumably for Hal. “I wouldn’t catch leprosy. I can’t. There’s no such
thing as a phantom germ. In any case, if things look bad you can always turn
off your computer.”

“But how will I know if things look bad? All I can tell from
your icon on the screen is
where
you
are, not the situation that you’re in.”

“Don’t worry,” Jan said soothingly, her confidence returning.
“If things get really bad I can always take my ring off – that’ll also
break the spell.”

“Will it? I didn’t know that.” Hal’s surprise turned to
suspicion. “Are you sure?”

“Well, I’m not absolutely certain. I haven’t actually tried
it out, but I’m sure that that’s the case.”

“Let’s give it a go.” Hal turned to face his computer and
quickly scrolled down the map until his bedroom and Jan’s icon were at the
centre. As he did so Jan slipped Margaret’s ring off her finger. Her icon
vanished from the screen. Hal zoomed out. The entire map of medieval Wickwich
had disappeared.

Jan slipped the ring back on again. The map was instantly
restored. Hal zoomed in. There was Jan’s icon in the centre of the screen.

“You were right,” Hal exclaimed.

“Shhhhh!” Jan hissed, “you’ll wake your parents up.”

“Sorry,” whispered Hal, then frowned. “Although that proves
that you can clear the images off my screen it doesn’t follow that you can make
the Wickwich you can touch out there,” he pointed in the general direction of
the window, “disappear as well. You may not have broken
that
spell.”

“Hmmm, maybe.” Jan felt her confidence waver once more. “But
I can try it again when I’m outside and see whether my sense of touch vanishes
when I take off the ring.”

“Make sure do, at the chapel,” Hal insisted, “before you go
any further with this stupid expedition.”

The sky was alight for an instant. In a flash,
all was darkness again. Jan counted the seconds. When she reached seventeen the
clouds drummed in the distance, somewhere out over the sea.

Hal was right. She was mad. This was stupid
– setting out in a storm to rendezvous with a supernatural city at
midnight. She could be fast asleep, in bed, not out here stumbling down a
narrow lane by torchlight.

But would being in bed have been any better, she asked
herself. On the previous two nights, to be fast asleep was to rendezvous with
the ghost of Old Wickwich. She was convinced that the nightmare would haunt her
forever if she didn’t exorcise it tonight. That was why she was doing this, wasn’t
it?

Wasn’t it?

Jan shivered as she realised that she could not
answer her own question. A sudden breeze disturbed the heavy boughs above her
head. Dark currents rippled through their shoals of leaves. Jan looked up, just
as she walked out from beneath the canopy of trees. The sky was wide above her.

Sheet lightning startled the horizon again. Fifteen
seconds later, thunder clapped.