China Garden

by Liz Berry

  Clouds of hissing steam rose from the stone in the pool.

  Clare stumbled back to him through the vapour, sobbing, frantic with terror and horror. There was a high sound like a rusty screech, continuous, which only afterwards she recognized as her own voice.

  Some still-sane part of her mind told her that she must try to get him into the pool. She knew it was the way to treat burns, to exclude the air and reduce the heat, but he had staggered and fallen his length away from the water.

  Close up, with the steam thinning now, she could see the full extent of his injuries. Everywhere the stone had touched his body had burned—his arms, shoulders, chest, stomach, thighs—the skin was blackened and peeling, cracked like ancient leather gaping open redly.

  Gagging, she spat away the bile in her throat. Panic clawed at her. She wanted to run, leave this charred horror.

  The women have to be strong—stronger than the men.

  She couldn’t leave him. Sobbing for breath she began to push and tug him nearer to the pool. She was frightened of pulling at his arms in case they came away from his body, they were so badly burned. He was bigger and heavier than she had realized, a dead weight, and she could move him only inch by inch.

  When he was near enough, she waded into the pool, pulling his feet, and managed to drag him down the slope of the smooth flowstone into the clear green-gold water, so that only his head rested on the higher slope above the water. Then she collapsed in the water beside him, bathing his face with her hands. There was no sign of breath.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath, and began to breathe into his mouth, giving him the kiss of life she had learned in a first aid class. But she knew already it would do no good. His injuries were too great. He was dead.

  She went on trying for a long time, unable to accept the truth. Then she lay there next to him in the water, exhausted, unable to cry, unable to move. There was a deep unearthly silence. All the screaming sounds had died away. The springs in the pool lifted gently, bubbled and died away.

  At last she sat up shaking, and cupping her hands drank deeply. The water tasted—strange. Colder and clearer and fresher than any water she had ever tasted. It was faintly golden in her cupped hands, prickling on her tongue with tiny bubbles. She drank again. Her mouth was parched.

  She didn’t look at Mark. It was all over. She knew he was dead. She had done her best and it was not enough. She felt empty of emotion.

  She dragged herself wearily out of the pool and propped herself against the base of a great stalagmite. Soon she would get up and make the long journey back through the caves and tunnels. Bring help to take his body home. There was no other way. For the first time in uncounted centuries the sacred chamber would be exposed. She would have to betray the Trust.

  She understood now that flash of fear she had seen in Mr Aylward’s eyes, and why just the memory of this place had brought on an attack. She understood too why his Caroline had committed suicide. Not because she was in love with her solicitor, but because she could not face the terror of this sacred chamber.

  It must be nearly sixty years since Mr Aylward had been here. No good to come alone. It needed both Guardians. But how had he and the other Guardians escaped alive? What had gone wrong?

  Sixty years since the stone had been taken to the water. Too long. Too many Guardians had failed the Trust. At least she and Mark had tried.

  She sat on, reluctant to leave him. Now, when it was too late, she knew how deeply she loved him. He was the other part of herself. Why had she been so frightened to admit it? Why hadn’t she told him she loved him?

  There was nothing left. She felt hollow, blank. She closed her eyes and sat on and on. Strangely, although she was soaked through she wasn’t cold. The cave was not cold, and now she became aware of a gently glowing warmth on her skin, as though she were sitting in a chair in the garden on a sunny day.

  The warmth increased and she realized it was coming from inside her, flowing through her veins and arteries, covering her entire body. Her jeans and shirt were steaming gently. Indeed it seemed suddenly that she was in a golden stream of sunlight flowing up and over and around her. The stream was carrying away all the blackness within her. All the pain and fear. She felt the darkness streaming out from her head, flowing from every part of her like a sooty liquid smoke.

  She let it all go. The pain from her knee, the despair in her heart, it all flowed away into the brilliant light until she was clear and translucent, like the light itself. She was part of the light, flowing upwards in the stream, flowing upwards to a greater white light which fused with the gold and expanded, scintillating and glistening.

  She was flooded with a powerful energy revitalizing her mind and spirit. She opened her eyes. Her body felt incredibly strong and well. She stood up, taller and straighter, stretched, and felt her muscles moving together in a way she had never dreamed possible. It was a dream. It must be a dream. But her eyes were open and she could feel the flowstone under her feet.

  It was obscene to feel so marvellous when Mark was there, lying dead. Before she left she must move him out of the water. It would do him no good now.

  She put her hands under his shoulders and pulled him up the slope, out of the water. It was easy now with her newfound strength. She laid him down carefully and knelt to wipe his poor white face with her shirt, and then suddenly she sat back on her ankles her body shuddering from head to foot, dragging in each breath.

  All the blackened skin had gone. The gaping wounds closed. Where the burned flesh had been there was clear perfect skin and muscle, unscarred. Only the tattered remains of burned jeans remained to give testimony that she had not dreamed the whole dreadful experience.

  Tentatively, incredulous, she put out her hand and touched his chest where the deepest burns had been. She could feel his heart pulsing strongly beneath the sculptured muscles. His naked body was firm and beautiful.

  He groaned and opened his eyes, staring around. His head fell back and he groaned again.

  “Water?” he croaked.

  Clare quickly got him a scoop of water from the pool with her hands. He drank greedily.“More.”

  It seemed as if his thirst could never be satisfied. She brought him scoop after scoop and still he drank.

  After a while he pulled himself up and put his head in his hands.“What happened?”

  “You were dead,” Clare said evenly.“Burned to death by the stone. I dragged you into the water and it healed you.”

  He shuddered and she saw it was all coming back to him.

  “I remember the pain. Some of it. And then I passed out.”

  “You were shouting something in another language.”

  “Words that came into my head. It was like holding a woman.”

  “You can hold me, instead,” Clare said, shaking with nervous reaction. She put her arms around him.“You were dead. You were dead, Mark. I love you so much.” The tears ran down her cheeks.“I never realized how much until you were dead.”

  He hugged her.“What took you so long? I knew as soon as I saw you. You saved my life, Clare.”

  “It’s the water. We’ve found the Benison, the Blessing, after all. Not a chalice or a treasure or even the Mother. We might have known it was something more important. People guarding something for thousands of years with their lives.”

  “Did I get the stone into the springs?”

  “You heaved it into the centre. I don’t know how you carried it. It’s huge.”

  “Look,” he said, pointing, his hand shaking.

  The stone had landed on its side in the full flow of the centre of the springs, washed by the golden green waters. It had changed too. Once it had been matt and dull, like lead, but now it was wonderful. A huge, transparent crystal, glittering in the golden flashlight, plane upon plane of light inside it throwing off rainbows.

  Clare said,“The crystal has been healed too.”

  He stretched.“I feel marvellous. I’ve never felt like this.” Clare swallowed
and said gruffly,“You really are all right? No pain or anything?”

  He caught her hands in his and pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. She hid her face against him.

  “I’m fine, Rosie, my darling. I feel great, fantastic, stupendous ...” And then he was kissing her.

  “I thought I’d lost you forever, Mark.”

  “Instead you’ve got me forever.” He laughed, and they were rolling over and over down the flowstone into the shallow water of the sacred springs, kissing and loving in a wild celebration of life and the great spirit, while the crystal shone incandescent and threw its rainbows into the golden water.

  Chapter 30

  It was near dawn when they closed the great blocking stone, climbed back through the underhill labyrinth, and up the stairs into the temple. To their astonishment they found that Demeter’s waterfall had begun to flow again, bringing the healing spring waters from underground up into the Raven, where it would spread, diluted, through the whole valley and out into the surrounding countryside.

  Outside it was dark. Hours had passed. They had been below ground all night. Mark put his arm around her shoulders and they walked slowly, unhurriedly, down the steps, breathing in the fresh earth smell, not speaking, glad to be alive under the stars.

  Clare looked at her watch, but it had stopped long ago when the energies had screamed around their heads.

  She had given Mark her jeans, which he had managed to get into by slashing the leg seams with his penknife, and she was wearing his big shirt, which came down to her knees.

  Before leaving the caves they had taken the great crystal from the water and carried it back to its base. There was no danger; the burning, the radiation, had gone. It felt cool to the touch, and weighed much less. It stood upright, flashing and scintillating with breathtaking beauty.

  On the ground in front of the carved base they found offerings; ancient pottery bowls that might have once held food, a crystal skull like the one in Mr Aylward’s study and three clay figures joined together - a slender young woman with a pure face, a mother with a swollen belly holding her breasts, and, strangest of all, an old woman with a serene face, with one of her arms turning into a bird’s wing. At the side of the skull was a large gold chalice, marvellously decorated with the figures of dancing women. The last Abbess-Elect had got it back from King Henry’s men after all.

  The moon had gone and there was that strange hush before the sky lightens into dawn. There was an eerie white mist shifting over the ground waist high. Hand in hand they drifted like long-ago ghosts across the Elysium Bridge; and up through the trees to the China Garden.

  They sat on the steps of the Pavilion waiting for the dawn, exhausted.

  A small grey shadow, Tabitha, joined them, purring delightedly, weaving patterns of eight around their legs before curling up on Mark’s knees. He stroked her ears gently. Clare said quietly,“How often do we have to go back?”

  “Every year.”

  There was a long silence. She said at last,“I can’t do it, Mark. I can’t go through that again and again.” She gagged.“I can’t. It’s too hard.”

  He said, bleakly,“We’re the Guardians. We have no choice. Maybe it won’t be so bad next time. There was a tremendous build-up of power and energy in that cave. I’ve been thinking that if the crystal is carried to the water every year there won’t be so much danger. The spring dispersed the energy somehow.”

  “It will build up again,” Clare said.

  “But don’t you understand? Look, when was the crystal moved last? It’s supposed to be done every year, Grandfather said. When did he do it last? My guess is nineteen twenty-eight when Caroline committed suicide. And what about the Guardian before him? He was eighty-six, holding on so he could hand over to his grandson. I bet he didn’t go heaving rocks around.”

  “How could he? His wife died young too. There was nobody to do the Maze Dance. He couldn’t find his way through the tunnels. Could you find your way through the tunnels, Mark?”

  She felt the involuntary shudder that ran through him.“You see, you need the two Guardians. Two ways of thinking.”

  “No wonder the whole place was jumping. It’s been closed nearly seventy years, and sixty or so years before that.”

  “Mr Aylward must have been burned too,” Clare said, realizing.“He was frightened. He knew what he was sending you to do. What sort of energy can turn a crystal black?”

  Mark shrugged.“Who knows? Some sort of electromagnetic radiation? An energy natural to that particular cave?”

  “Perhaps somebody put the crystal there as an accumulator or earthing material.”

  “There are quartzite stones on the hill above the chamber as well, remember. They could be collecting the energy maybe. Channelling it down.”

  “What energy? I don’t understand.”

  “Join the club.”

  “Crystals are funny things. Mysterious. They conduct electricity. Didn’t they use them in the old radio sets? You can disintegrate things with sound vibration.” Clare shuddered.

  “We could have been killed by the sound alone in that cave. Never mind the radiation.”

  “1 just wonder what would have happened eventually if we hadn’t found it. It might have blown the hill apart. Or worse. That must be why Mr Aylward was so frantic. He must have been worrying about it for years. Waiting for something to happen.”

  “Maybe the whole cave is a giant crystal resonating to the wavelength of the smaller crystal. There’s a theory that the whole Earth may be a crystal.”

  Clare said inconsequentially,“Did you know that the oldest tombs were built with a facing of white quartz crystal? And there was Atlantis. They were supposed to have destroyed their continent with crystals.”

  “But who put it there? Who knew…?”

  The mist grew thicker. Clare shivered. They would never understand the ancient, awe-inspiring power in the cave under Barrow Beacon Hill.

  She said, reluctantly,“Mark…the pool…those springs ...”

  There was a long silence before he answered.“It sounds crazy.”

  “Maybe the energy the crystal discharges in the water alters its composition. Gives it ...” She hesitated.

  “Go on, say it: life-giving qualities.”

  They looked at each other.

  Clare said desperately,“I really don’t believe what happened to us. It could have been some sort of hallucination.”

  He shook his head.“You know it wasn’t. Believe it, Rosie. Every single thing. It wasn’t imagination. Look at it honestly. Don’t run. You think I wouldn’t like to push it away too? It happened and we’ve got to accept it. We’re responsible for it for the rest of our lives.”

  She was silent, watching the trailing mist.

  “We drank the water, Clare. Lay in it. Soaked in it. Say it straight: If you drink the water you go on living. It’s the water of life. Raven’s mere. The water of rebirth. That’s what we’ve been guarding here for thirty thousand years. The Great Blessing. The Benison.”

  “But I don’t want to live for ever, Mark,” Clare wailed. Panic swept over her.“It’ll be awful. We’ll be freaks. Everybody we know will be dead, all our children and friends. We’ll be alone and worn out like Mr Aylward ...”

  He pulled her close and held her head against his chest.“Maybe you have to keep drinking the water.”

  “Mr Aylward hasn’t been near the place for years but he hasn’t died has he?”

  “The others did.”

  “They got killed accidentally. Or they refused the Trust ...”

  “You can choose,” Mark said.“There must be some way.”

  “The Seventh Gate!” Clare closed her eyes, and took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling her heart rate slow down.“I’d forgotten. Mr Aylward said he’d tried to go through the Seventh Gate and they wouldn’t let him.”

  They looked across the mist shrouded Garden. The Seventh Moon Gate was solid, built as part of the wall, with its outline traced in dark ma
rble, and its inscription marking the place.

  “It was all here,” Clare said, exasperated.“So many clues and we missed them all. All the garden is one big clue to the Benison. All the statues are about healing or going into the earth or about being reborn and healed. Apollo, Aesclepius. All the names. The Raven symbol. The triple spirals. Even the church window, The Waters of Paradise. We just didn’t understand.

  “Mark, what are we going to do about the Benison? Do we just hide it and guard it for another hundred years? What’s the point of guarding selfishly something that only the Aylwards and the Kenwards can use?”

  “What do you want us to do then? Tell everybody? Get the scientists in?”

  The vision came spontaneously. The devastated Earth, the frantic grabbing people, the greedy companies siphoning away the water into great tankers, the hedgerows broken down, great earth dredgers scooping away Barrow Beacon Hill to get at the water first. The breaking down of the great cave, so at last there would be no healing water for anyone at all. Greediness killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Again.

  Clare said,“No. No, of course, that’s no good. We have to find our own way to share it. That’s the problem all the Guardians have had to solve. It was all right when it was an Abbey. People came and were healed miraculously from the Holy Well, and nobody questioned it.

  “And clever old James Edward and his son Edmund, they dammed the Raven to make the lake to dilute the spring water, and then landscaped it so the water flowed out into the countryside to make it fertile. No wonder the people here have always lived a long time.”

  “Mangelwurzels,” said Mark.“I knew that crop was extraordinary. I bet the other crops were marvellous too. Now the springs have started to flow again. We can clear out the passage. Make sure it flows into the Raven again, so the animals and fields get the benefit.”

  “And rebuild the Holy Well in the China Garden.” Clare was following her own train of thought.“The women all used the Holy Well water for their remedies. And Clarissa Kenward made her Herb and Physick Garden. I bet she used the spring water to grow them and make her medicines. And there’s Rosamond who treated the smallpox.