Magus of Stonewylde Book One (38 page)

Jackdaw took him into his caravan, threw an old blanket onto the filthy floor by his bed, and told him to sit there. Yul was then given a large plateful of food which he had to eat sitting on the floor. It was horrible but he wolfed it down while Jackdaw sat on his unmade bed smoking. The caravan smelled disgusting.

‘That’s where you sleep, on the floor right next to me where I can see you. Any trouble and you won’t live to tell the tale, boy. You think you’ll be free to go in two weeks. But if you ain’t satisfied me I’ll keep you for longer. Magus won’t care. He don’t give a toss about you. Understand, boy?’

He shoved Yul hard with his boot and the boy nodded vigorously, keeping his head down.

‘If you don’t look out for yourself, you won’t survive the two weeks anyway. Quarries are dangerous at the best o’ times, and we don’t do things by the book here. Magus wants the stone as cheap as he can get it, and so he shall have it. Corners are being cut, I can tell you. You and those miserable sodding foreigners out there are nothing to me or Magus. Your lives ain’t worth shit. Just remember that, boy.’

And so, as Mother Heggy had predicted, began Yul’s torment and suffering in the place of bones and death. Yul worked from sunrise until sunset; coming up to the Solstice this was a long time. He worked twice as hard as everyone else. Jackdaw was constantly on his back and kept him busy every second of the day. The other labourers had come from abroad and were working illegally. They soon realised that Yul had even less status than they did, and could be bullied into doing many of their jobs too.

The quarry work was hard and dangerous. The great digger lurched around moving stone, and the dumper trucks scooted all over the place clearing debris. Using picks and mallets, rock had to be prised away from the faces. Jackdaw and another man, a dour Portland quarryman who’d been drafted in for his expertise, were investigating the whole quarry and planning the future areas to work.

Despite the dumper trucks, much of the rock had to be shifted
by hand and Yul moved far more than his fair share. He thought at times his back would break from the sheer effort of carrying or dragging the stone. There was no sympathy from anyone; nobody telling him to be careful or take a rest. His hair and skin were soon white from the stone dust and stayed that way. His fingers, sensitive and used to working with wood, were raw and bleeding from contact with the unyielding rock. He used to enjoy stone-carving but this was different. This was like smashing up the very bones of the earth; an act of destruction rather than creation.

Labouring in the quarry was only a part of Yul’s work. He also had innumerable duties around the caravans doing all sorts of unpleasant jobs. He must empty the chemical toilets, clean the caravans after the men, wash up, help with food preparation, serve the men, bag up the dirty clothes and generally be everyone’s dogsbody, at their constant beck and call. He was permanently exhausted. Sleeping on the floor by Jackdaw’s bed wasn’t such a hardship for he was asleep before he hit the ground.

But sleep held its own torture. Yul’s initial dread of the quarry remained even when he became accustomed to the place; if anything it increased. He couldn’t understand what it was that filled him with such terror. It was intangible and illogical. But he sensed evil all around them, not from Jackdaw or the men, but from the very quarry itself. He felt it stalking, always just around the corner. He tried never to be alone but to work within sight of others, even though it meant tolerating their abuse. On the occasions when he was by himself, the feeling of something malevolent creeping up on him was overwhelming.

At night he was tormented with terrible nightmares. In his dreams he felt the evil rising up from the ground and seeping through the floor of the caravan where he slept. It enveloped his body and began to drag him down, swallowing him into the maw of the quarry bed. He frequently awoke shaking and sweating in terror, and his shouts and screams earned him a good kicking from Jackdaw. As the endless days and nights rolled into each
other, Yul began to give up and allow the bleak despair to engulf him.

Sylvie took a while to recover from her illness, and all the time she was cooped up in the house she pestered her mother about Yul’s whereabouts. Miranda knew nothing, but Sylvie hoped that she in turn would bother Magus and find out where Yul had been taken. Her plan didn’t work and Sylvie became increasingly worried. She knew he was suffering. She was haunted by flashes of despair and terror, snapshot images that disappeared as soon as they’d entered her mind. She felt his exhaustion and humiliation. The bright darkness that was Yul in her soul dimmed, becoming dusty and weak. She had to get to him, had to save him. The need was becoming desperate as she sensed his despair and his loss of the will to fight.

When Magus called at Woodland Cottage to check on her recovery, she confronted him. Her concern for Yul over-rode any natural caution or deference.

‘Please, Magus, just tell me where he is.’

‘No, Sylvie, you must let him go. You’re making me very angry with this persistent interest in a Village boy. He’s beneath you and you will not continue this liaison.’

‘You’re not my father! You can’t tell me who I see and who I don’t!’ she retorted, to Miranda’s dismay.

‘I am the magus and what I say goes,’ he said quietly.

‘Why? Why should you dictate everything? That’s what you are – a dictator! Like Hitler or Stalin.’

‘SYLVIE! How dare you speak to Magus like that! You apologise now or—’

‘It’s alright,’ he said, although Sylvie noticed a muscle in his cheek twitching tightly. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s saying.’

‘Yes I do! I want to know what you’ve done to Yul. Where is he? Why are you punishing him like this? You can’t go around acting like God!’

‘I can, actually,’ he murmured.

‘Mum! How can you even listen to this rubbish? What’s
happened to you? You used to believe in equality and justice, yet you stand by while an innocent boy is punished just for being my friend! You’re brainwashed!’

‘I’m sorry, Magus, she’s not herself,’ gabbled Miranda, horribly embarrassed by her daughter’s passionate outburst.

‘I think she should go to her room,’ said Magus coldly. ‘We don’t tolerate children speaking to adults like this at Stonewylde. If she doesn’t like the order of things here, she’s free to leave. If she wishes to stay, she’ll do as she’s told. And she’s being told to forget the Village boy.’

With that he stalked out of the cottage, and Miranda had the most blazing row with her wilful daughter.

But Sylvie didn’t forget the Village boy. She couldn’t. She was haunted by visions and dreams which pursued her even in daylight. She began to have nightmares about a strange and terrifying place. It was made of stone, littered with boulders and the bones of ancient creatures. In this place of bones and rock lurked evil; a malevolence so monstrous it made her quake. It had been sleeping, lying dormant, but now it had awoken and was yawning and flexing. She knew that soon it would go in for the kill. Yul was in terrible danger. She must find him and help him escape.

As soon as she was well enough Sylvie began to go out walking again, determined to regain her health and vitality. It was different in the woods knowing Yul wasn’t there; that he wouldn’t materialise from behind a tree, grinning at her with twigs and leaves in his hair and a smudge of lichen on his cheek. One day she heard men’s voices and came across Greenbough with a couple of the woodsmen. Sylvie thought that maybe he’d know what had happened to Yul, but he shook his head sadly.

‘Sorry, miss. I know he were taken up to the Hall and that brute of a father gave him a terrible whipping. Every night down the pub he talks o’ nothing else. Right proud of himself, he is. That man’s the one who should be whipped, the bloody great porker! Yul’s a good lad and we miss him in the woods. I hope ‘tisn’t too long afore he’s back with us again.’

Sylvie’s face crumpled at the thought of Yul’s suffering and the old man patted her arm kindly.

‘You could try Tom up at the stables, miss. He might’ve heard something.’

But Tom didn’t know any more than Greenbough. He still felt guilty that he’d stood by and let the cruelty to Yul go unchallenged. He’d never forget the shocking and pitiful sight of the boy stumbling out of the byre after his five day ordeal and being made to wash in the yard. He too shook his head, trying to banish the awful image of that battered, almost unrecognisable figure from his mind.

‘All I know is Magus took him off in the Land Rover and he weren’t away for that long, so I don’t reckon he’s gone far. Somewhere on the estate I’m sure.’

‘I do hope so,’ she said. ‘This punishment is for being my friend, and it’s so wrong!’

‘Aye, miss, I’ve always respected Magus but this ain’t right. That boy didn’t deserve what they done to him. If you find out anything of his whereabouts, do let me know. I want to help him, like I should’ve done when I had the chance. I’ll not forgive myself for that.’

Sylvie’s worry was that Magus had taken Yul to the main gates and handed him over to someone waiting there. But somehow she thought she’d have known if he’d left Stonewylde. She was sure her nightmares were a clue to his whereabouts. In the end it was gossip in the Dining Hall that led her to find him. She overheard some older Hallfolk talking one lunch time.

‘Did you know? Magus has opened up Quarrycleave! He spoke about it this morning.’

‘Opened Quarrycleave? Well I never! I thought the place was closed for good after what happened there – that terrible accident.’

‘Magus said it’s all perfectly safe now with the modern technology we have today.’

‘Why’s he opened it up?’

‘He needs stone for his building projects. And the first phase,
he said, is a new Village school to cope with all the children. But I heard other talk too. Apparently he’s going to build some new accommodation for Hallfolk – holiday homes for the visitors.’

‘Well, he’s got to do something about the squash. There’s barely room now with all the extra visitors for the Solstice, and there’re more coming next week. We’re too crowded.’

‘I know – trust Magus to come up with such a good idea. Mind you, if he hasn’t even got the stone out of the ground yet, we’re in for a bit of a wait.’

Sylvie thought about it and realised that the place of her nightmares, with its massive boulders and cliffs, could well be a quarry. But how to find out if Yul was there? She would just have to ask Magus directly. She was scared of him, but she also felt a dangerous thrill of excitement in defying him. He was far too used to everyone jumping to obey him. And despite his implied threats, she didn’t think he’d make her leave the community. She went straight to his office.

‘For goodness sake, Sylvie,’ he said irritably, annoyed when he realised the purpose of her intrusion. ‘What is it you don’t understand? He’s a Villager, you’re Hallfolk and you don’t mix. It’s very simple.’

‘I just want to know where he is and if he’s alright. Is he at the quarry? I can’t stop worrying until I know.’

‘But it’s not your place to worry about him! He’s nothing to you. He’s just a Village boy who’s got himself into trouble through his bad behaviour. He’s being knocked back down to size and it’s really none of your business.’

‘It is my business. He’s my friend.’

He groaned, shaking his head and glaring at her in exasperation, infuriated by her stubbornness.

‘Listen, you stupid girl! He can never be your friend. He isn’t good enough for you.’

‘Yes he is!’

‘No he isn’t! You should be mixing with the Hallfolk. There are plenty of attractive boys up here.’

‘It’s not the fact that he’s a boy.’

‘Oh I think it is, Sylvie. Don’t kid yourself that this is anything other than pure animal attraction. He’s a good-looking boy, I’ll give him that, but he’s also an ignorant lout. You’re far too well-educated for a yokel like him.’

‘And whose fault is it if he’s ignorant and un-educated? Who was it decided that Villagers should finish their education at thirteen? And even when they’re in school, they’re not taught to read and write. If I was in charge here, I’d make sure everyone had an equal, proper education.’

‘Fortunately you’re not in charge,’ he replied coldly. ‘And never will be. Anyway, he was given a chance of a better education, along with every other child at Stonewylde, but he proved unworthy.’

‘Hah! That’s just where you’re wrong! He deliberately failed the tests, all of them.’

‘He would say that, wouldn’t he?’

‘Not if he was really stupid. He could’ve passed the tests but he didn’t want to leave his family.’

‘Then he can’t have wanted a proper education very much, can he?’

‘That’s not true! It was because of his father. Yul was scared of what Alwyn would do to them if he wasn’t there to take the worst of it.’

‘Pathos as well. He’s very cunning.’

Sylvie glared at him, seething at his intractability. She refused to back down. Her chest rose and fell fast as her fury at the injustice mounted, her voice becoming shrill.

‘Where is he, Magus? What have you done with him? I won’t give up until you’ve told me the truth!’

And now he became angry too. His velvety black eyes glittered dangerously as he stared down at the defiant girl facing him.

‘You
will
give up if you care for the boy like you say you do. I forbid any kind of liaison between you and him. Absolutely forbid it. You can rant and rave as much as you want but that’s the bottom line. I am the law here whether you like it or not.
Accept my authority or leave the community – it’s as simple as that.’