The Bone House (14 page)

Slowly, keeping her eyes on the object, she began walking again. The lane curved as it followed the river, and gradually the light in Burleigh’s object faded. She kept walking until the last little glimmer of blue light died. She turned and retraced her steps. As she half expected, after a few steps the glow rekindled . . . a few more steps, and the glow grew brighter.

She marched a dozen swift paces along the lane, moving out from the shelter of the copse. The softly glowing blue light slowly faded once more, and the device cooled in her palm.

She stopped and, certain that she stood on the brink of discovery, made a slow about-face and moved once more into the copse. The deep indigo light returned, and this time she imagined she heard a small squeaking sound—almost like the chirp of a baby bird. Still walking slowly, she held the device to her ear and confirmed that yes, indeed, the thing was speaking to her. Instinctively, she put her finger to the tiny knurled nub on the surface of the device and gave it a twist: the peeping sound grew louder.

“’Hello!” she muttered to herself. “It’s a volume knob.”

Still walking slowly, she noted when the blue glow began to fade once more, then instead of waiting until it went out altogether, she spun on her heel and headed back the opposite way, still holding the instrument out in front of her. At the exact place where the light was brightest and the sound the loudest, she stopped.

Burleigh’s mechanism was obviously marking the place, but try as she might she could not see why. She stood perfectly still and gazed at the little woodland glade around her. What was different or special about this place? What was the gismo trying to tell her?

She cast her mind back to the first time she had made a leap. Something that Kit had said about lines etched on the landscape came drifting back into her consciousness, and she looked for anything that might resemble a line. Although it took a few moments, the realisation finally dawned on her that she was, in fact, staring right at it: a perfectly straight course through the beech copse, a thin trail with trees on either side and the merest trace of a path on the ground like that wild animals made—a fox run, perhaps—but straight as an arrow until losing itself in the deep shade of the little wood.

Wilhelmina swallowed and found that not only had her mouth gone dry, but her heart was beating very fast. “This is it,” she said to herself. “This is one of those leys.”

Her feet were already on the path before she had even decided what to do. Walking steadily into the grove, her eyes fixed on the stone-shaped instrument, she noted that the glowing light began to pulse gently with every step. The faint chirping sound did not grow louder, but the squeaks came faster; she stepped up her pace and the chirps came more quickly.

A breeze stirred the nearby leaves; the branches overhead moved with a sudden gust, and darkness descended over her—as if she had moved into the deep shade of a large tree. Just that. Nothing else. Three more steps carried her out from the shadow of the tree and into . . . a broad sunlit glade.

The beechy copse was gone. The curving riverbank was gone too, along with the surrounding fields and hills. Instead, she stood in a pool of bright sunlight at the bottom of a deep canyon. Behind her stretched a long incline etched into the cliff face leading to the grassy sward on which she stood. Towering over her on every side were high limestone cliffs, and directly below her a shallow river sloshed around the huge stones and boulders littering the valley floor. She heard a ragged screech and glanced up to see a hawk soaring through the cool, bright air.

“Mina, you’re not in Bohemia anymore,” she whispered, her voice falling softly in the silence of the glade.

The device in her hand still glowed softly but was no longer sounding.
What a clever little thing
, she thought; and then,
What shall I call you?
Ley lamp, she decided on a whim, and the name seemed to fit.

Curious about where she had landed, Wilhelmina proceeded to look around, taking care not to wander too far lest she lose her bearings. She tucked the ley lamp into her pocket and continued down the path to the bottom of the canyon. Around the next bend, the valley widened; the limestone walls receded. Someone had planted fields of corn on the rich flat ground either side of the river. A short distance ahead she could see a few stone and timber buildings, but there was no one about.

As Mina approached the buildings, the riverside trail became a twin-track road that ran through the tiny settlement and on, through the little farmyard and around another bend. Since no one seemed to be about, she paused to look inside one of the buildings as she passed; it was a simple animal shed with straw covering the floor and an empty manger below a squared hole in the wall, which served as a window. She moved on, following the road as it wound ’round the bend. In the heights above her another hawk had joined the first, and both soared in slow wheeling circles.

Just around the bend she saw that someone had made a dam of river rocks—a primitive construction of stones heaped one atop another across a narrow part of the river. The water pooled nicely behind this simple barrier, forming a wide, placid pond. On a rock ledge just above the pond stood a stout stone building, which on closer inspection turned out to be a ruin. The roof was gone, and two of the four walls had tumbled into rubble, but the remains of a great wooden wheel and several grindstones lay amongst the jumble of wreckage.

“A mill,” Mina surmised. The thing had long been derelict; weeds grew in the rubble and grass had seeded itself on the upper courses of stone and the ledges of what had been windowsills. But someone still used the pond, for she saw a rope tied to an iron ring in the wall overlooking the water, and on the end of the rope a wooden bucket.

She stood for a moment wondering where she was, and when. So far as she could tell, she could be anywhere at nearly any time; the things she saw around her certainly had an antique air about them, but little more than that. The surrounding landscape gave almost no clue to her whereabouts; it was nowhere she had ever been, but it could have been in any number of countries. Still, something about the construction, rude as it was, seemed European rather than, say, South American. Definitely not Asian.

What to do now?

She raised her eyes to the sky. The light had taken on the golden sheen of late afternoon, and the already faint warmth in the air was fading. The shadows of the canyon walls were lengthening and deepening towards evening. She did not care to be caught wandering around in the dark, so she turned and hurried back the way she had come.

Upon reaching the spot where she had entered the valley, Mina pulled the ley lamp from her smock and, holding it as before, started walking quickly up the long ramplike trail angled towards the top of the canyon walls. After a half-dozen steps, the bronze-cased instrument began to glow with its eerie indigo light . . . a few more steps and she heard the faint chirping sound. She kept walking. The path rose between two rock stacks, which stood as pillars on either hand. Wilhelmina passed through this crude gateway and into a shadow. For an instant, all was darkness and an absence of air. Her breath caught in her throat, and she stumbled forward and into the little beech wood with its narrow fox run of a trail.

She stood blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. The air was soft and warm, and sunlight streamed through the leaves in shafts, which dappled the grove around her.

She was home.

Halfway back to the city, it occurred to her to wonder if she had returned to the same time she had left. Was it still the seventeenth century? Was Rudolf still on the throne? Was the bakery still there? Would Etzel be waiting for her?

Her heart sank, and for a good few minutes she entertained a wild variety of frightening thoughts about all the things that could have gone wrong; she kicked herself for how stupid she had been. What, after all, did she really know about this ley line business?

But then she heard church bells. The sound rang out, filling the streets and echoing across the river and beyond. The familiar sound called her back to her senses, and somehow she knew that all was well. She quickened her steps as she passed through the city gates and hastened to the old town square. When she saw the good green-and-white facade of the Grand Imperial Kaffeehaus, she smiled.

Etzel was there in his flour-dusted apron, just as she had left him. He looked up as she came in, his round face beaming as she bustled into the shop. Although there were several patrons lingering over their afternoon coffees, she went up and gave the big baker a fat kiss on his smooth cheek. “Mina!” he exclaimed, cupping a floury hand to her face. “I thought you were going for a walk.”

“I did.”

He regarded her askance. “But you only left a moment ago.”

Mina shrugged. “I changed my mind. I would rather be here with you.”

“But you are with me all the time,” he pointed out.

“I know.” She kissed him again and went upstairs to her room. There, with the door closed, she removed the ley lamp from her pocket and crossed to the large chest where she kept her clothes and the few valuable things she owned. She unlocked the chest and wrapped the brass instrument in a stocking.

I wonder
, she thought as she tucked the bundle under her spare nightdress at the bottom of the chest,
what else can it do
.

CHAPTER 12
In Which Sheer, Bloody-Minded Persistence Is Rewarded

I
t would be a happier world where each child enjoyed the love and care of two devoted parents to supply a firm foundation on which to build a solid and productive adult life. But, sadly, that is not our world. And it is not the world into which Archibald Burley was born. Little Archie’s story is darker, more desperate, and yet drearily familiar. How not? We have heard it all before: a story old as time and repeated daily the world over; we can recite it by heart. For the plight of unwed mothers is too, too predictable, and Gemma Burley’s descent from prim and respectable Kensington to noisome, crowded Bethnal Green is almost too banal to report in detail. Still, that is the task before us if we are to understand all that flowed from that initial rejection of her and her son by the boy’s father, and all that was to come after . . .

“Archie!” moaned Gemma, her voice ragged and low. “Archie, come here, my darling, I need you.”

The boy crept to the doorway, slender shoulders hunching, already dreading the request he knew was coming.

“I’m out of medicine. You must run and get me some more.” She held out her hand. “Here is some money.”

“Aw, Mum,” he whined. “Do I have to?”

“Look at me, Archie!”

He raised his eyes to her ravaged face. Hair filthy and matted, her dress soiled, missing buttons, she no longer looked like the woman he knew.

“I’m sick and I
need
my medicine,” she insisted, strength coming to her voice. “Now. You come here and take this money.”

Moving slowly to the side of her bed, he regarded his mother. Her face haggard, dark circles under her dull eyes, her forehead pale, there was sweat on her upper lip and her flesh looked waxy. He had seen her this way before, and knew with a sinking heart that there would be no supper for him tonight. He held out his hand for the few coins she gave him.

“Now, you be a good boy and run along.”

Head down, the slender body turned and, feet dragging, the lad started away.

“Don’t dawdle, Archie. Promise me.”

“I won’t.”

“There’s a good boy. Off with you now, and hurry back. We’ll have bread and cheese for your tea. The sooner you come back, the sooner you can have your bread and cheese—we’ll toast it too. You like that, don’t you, Archie? You like your bread and cheese toasted, I know you do. That’s what we’ll have as soon as you get back. You run along now.” She sank back, exhausted. “There’s a good boy.”

Outside, Archie flitted down the cinder path behind the house he and his mother shared with other itinerant lodgers, his fist closed tight on the three coins she had given him—two farthings and a sixpence piece. Tucking the coins into his pocket, he darted down the alley, dodging puddles of standing water and fresh slops emptied from kitchen buckets and chamber pots. At the end of the alley, he picked up his speed—he’d have to hurry now to still have time enough once he’d got the medicine to make it back to the greengrocer and buy or steal another apple or two to sell on the bridge before the bakery closed. Then again, if luck smiled on him, there would be day-old bread out back and he could get that for free. And besides, stale bread was better for toasting anyway.