I’d been the school freak before, but disappearing like I’d done had only made my reputation worse. There was a sense of anticipation in the way people looked at me, as though they were waiting to see what crazy thing I would do next. It seemed most of them thought it was only a matter of time. To be honest I agreed with them.
The clapped out Beatle was already idling by the gates when I got out to the car park and I jogged over to it.
No one spoke much on the car ride to the small local park where we’d taken to hanging out and as soon as we got there we made our way over to the small wooden bench under an overhanging Weeping Willow we’d claimed as our own. We liked it there, it was hidden from the other people in the park and we could talk without being overheard. With the weather staying so cold the park was almost deserted, only a few stray dog walkers circled the perimeter. Luckily the rain had stopped, though the grass was still slick with water.
The park wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t like we could go back to mine. Not after the last time my father had seen Wyn. He and Percy had dropped me home after the night at Stonehenge. Dad had taken one look at my bruised face, and the blood on my clothes and gone after Wyn with his face white with rage. Only the combined efforts of me and Percy had been able to stop Dad trying to kill him. Dad was convinced Wyn was the one I’d run away with, and that Wyn was the one who had inflicted the bruises. No amount of arguing would convince him otherwise.
With Merlin, and his mysterious supply of money, gone, Wyn and Percy had taken to sleeping in an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of town. I’d never been there. I had the feeling Wyn and Percy wanted any excuse to get out of the place. I didn’t exactly blame them; it must have been driving them crazy being cooped up there all day with nothing to do when I was at school.
“All right,” Wyn said when we reached the bench. “What exactly did Lance say to you?”
Percy sprawled on the ground, propped on one elbow looking up at me expectantly.
I relayed everything Lance had said, which admittedly wasn’t very much.
“So, he didn’t tell you what it was?” Wyn said when I’d finished.
I shook my head. “I think he was going to say more, but I woke up.” I chewed on my thumb nail. “But it sounded bad – like something I really didn’t want to face.”
We lapsed into silence. The truth was we’d faced a fair few horrors out of Avalon; it was hard to know what could be the worst.
I thought back to that night on the hilltop at Stonehenge, when the whole of Avalon threatened to break through, when all the old magic had been ready to come flooding back. It had been a terrifying moment, with the magic whipping around us like a storm and Morgana waiting to unleash a kind of hell on earth. Back in King Arthur’s time the world had been full of the old, wild magic, but the world had changed. The old magic had no place here now. I’d known I couldn’t let it come back, but stopping Morgana had almost cost Lance his life.
“There was something there,” I said suddenly as the memory came back.
“Huh?” Both Wyn and Percy looked at me blankly.
“After we destroyed the wraiths, just before the Fair Folks’ pets arrived. There was something, in the darkness. One of the stones toppled.”
I could remember it clearly now. The last wraith had been defeated, destroyed by the magic of Arthur’s old blade, Excalibur, and we had thought for a moment we were safe. But something had moved in the shadows, toppling one of the great stones. I hadn’t been able to see anything; I’d caught only a faint metallic gleam.
Wyn’s forehead creased for a moment then he nodded. “I remember, but there was so much going on-“
The idea was there, and as I met Wyn’s eyes I knew he was thinking the same thing. But I didn’t voice it. I couldn’t. I could only hope and pray I was wrong.
“Can’t the Fair Folk do anything, though?” Percy asked from the ground. “Can’t they reopen the gateways? Can you ask Merlin now you can speak to him again?”
It was a question we’d been asking ourselves a lot over the past few weeks, but we’d never had an answer until now.
I shrugged. “It seems not. Whatever spell it is, it’s beyond even their power to break. And according to Lance they think I’m the one who sealed them into Avalon.”
Wyn scoffed. “Like you have the power to do something like that.”
I hit him almost absentmindedly. After all, he wasn’t wrong, I just could have used a little more support right then.
“So what do we do?”
It was quite frightening how long we sat in silence. The truth was, with Merlin gone we’d lost our go to source for all things magical. As much as I loved Wyn and Percy, and they weren’t exactly stupid, their strength lay in, well, their physical strength, not in their brain power.
“Can’t you just dream about talking to Merlin and ask him?” Percy asked finally.
I made a face at him. “It doesn’t exactly work like that. I don’t get to choose my dreams.” And that was true enough. I’d dreamt about Lance almost every night since Stonehenge, but it hadn’t been until last night that the dream had actually been real.
Wyn threw his hands in the air in defeat. “I think we’d better start paying attention to the news. If there’s something here from Avalon, there’ll be signs, if we know what we’re looking for. In fact we may not need to go looking for it. It may well come to us. Magic attracts magic after all.”
Somehow I didn’t find that idea particularly soothing.
Chapter Three
That night I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes I was back in the circle of Stonehenge, watching the huge shadows and waiting. Waiting for something to happen. But nothing ever did. The shadows remained unmoving, but somehow still menacing. Even the wind was still, as though the whole world was holding its breath, just like that night.
The third time I woke sweating, with every muscle in my body tensed, faint light was creeping around the edges of my curtains.
I lay staring at the ceiling, trying to get my breathing back under control. It took me a moment to notice the faint smell in the room. The smell of metal and armour polish.
My blankets caught around my legs as I shot up in bed. The shadows in my room were empty, and my excitement faded. Of course he wasn’t there. It was just a lingering effect of the dream. As time passed it seemed less and less likely he would ever be there, but it never stopped me hoping.
My stomach clenched into a little knot, but I forced back the tears. I had cried too much over the past weeks. I didn’t want to be that girl. The girl who cared about nothing but a boy. I had bigger problems. But it was hard – hard to forget how he made me feel, to forget the feel of his arms, the touch of his lips.
I had to stop. I had to stop thinking about him. It only made me sad.
I got dressed for school on autopilot, and barely registered the surprise on Dad’s face when I came down to the kitchen early. We didn’t speak; he gave me a little nod and turned back to his cereal. I wished I knew what to say to him to make things go back to the way they were. Dad and I had always had a complicated relationship because of Mum. When I’d been younger I had blamed him for her ending up in hospital. It wasn’t until I was older that I’d come to understand how ill she’d been. Despite that we’d been close in our own way. Now he felt so far away. Something had broken between us and I didn’t know how to mend it.
I knew Wyn and Percy wouldn’t be outside – it was too early – but I wanted to walk. I needed to clear my head. I was praying that the fresh air would blow away the smell of armour – the smell of Lance.
The route to school was familiar enough that I walked with my head down, chin tucked into the collar of my jacket, barely looking where I was going.
“Cara?”
I jumped at the sound of my name and looked up.
Samantha stood on the street corner ahead of me, wrapped in a thick jacket, an expensive checked scarf wrapped around her throat. She was alone, which was strange, but
even stranger she wasn’t looking at me with the usual mixture derision and spite. In fact she looked nervous. She gripped the strap of her bag so tightly that the skin on her fingers turned white.
I stopped walking but didn’t speak, just watching her, wondering what cruel joke she was planning with Anderson and Rebecca.
“Please don’t look at me like that, Cara,” She said in a low voice, stepping towards me. “Although I probably deserve it.”
I snorted.
“Ok, I definitely deserve it.” She twisted her scarf through her fingers and swallowed hard. “I’ve been trying to catch you on your own for ages, but those – guys – always drop you off at school and-“
“Why did you want me on my own?” I cut her off belligerently. I simply wasn’t in the mood for her games.
“We used to be best friends,” she mumbled.
I didn’t need reminding. Samantha and I had always been the closest of our former group. We’d known each other since kindergarten. She’d lived next door for years until her dad came into a big inheritance and they moved to the pricier part of town. It had made her betrayal that much harder to take. She’d been the one person I’d expected to stand by me when Anderson started spreading nasty rumours about me, but she’d laughed along with the rest.
“Your point is?” I snapped back at her.
She took a deep breath. “When – when you disappeared – the police came to talk to us all. Asking lots of questions. They asked if there was any possibility that you might – you might have done something – done something to yourself.”
I gaped at her for a minute. Of course I shouldn’t really have been surprised. I’d been a loner, teased and mocked at school, with a home life that must have looked pretty horrible to outside observers. Suicide wouldn’t have been that big of a conclusion to jump to. I felt a knot of guilt clench in my stomach as I thought of Dad going through that. No wonder he wouldn’t forgive me.
“I felt terrible,” Samantha continued in a low voice when I continued to stare at her. “I always felt guilty about what we did to you, but I never really thought about how much it must have hurt you. You always seemed so calm and aloof. Like nothing really got to you.”
I laughed then, I couldn’t help it. “Like I was really going to let you see me cry.”
Her cheeks flushed, her eyes fixed on her feet. “I just – I wanted to say sorry, Ok? You may not have noticed, but I don’t hang out with those guys anymore.”
The truth was I hadn’t noticed, but now I thought back on it, it was true. She never sat with them at lunch anymore, and I’d rarely seen her near them in class. Anderson was still surrounded by his usual crowd of sycophants, but Samantha wasn’t one of them.
“I bet they love that.”
She glowered at me. “I don’t care what they think. Becca is a bitch. She always has been. All she cares about it getting Anderson to pay attention to her. And you’re not the only one Anderson’s hurt. He told everyone that I’d slept with him at his birthday party last year, when what I’d actually done was laughed at him and told him to get over himself.”
I folded my arms across my chest. I’d heard the same rumour and it didn’t surprise me that Anderson had spread it himself. “So why hang around with them? If you hate them so much?”
She shrugged, looking almost ashamed. “Because I was scared. Our school isn’t exactly the biggest, and if Anderson hates you, everyone hates you.”
“I’d noticed,” I replied, but some of the bite had gone out of my voice. Sam really did look different. The heavy make-up was gone, and her hair was tugged back into a loose ponytail. But it was more than that. The cold, hard expression had gone from her face; the almost constant sneer. She looked prettier for it.
“The thing is, when I thought you’d maybe done something – horrible – I realised how stupid it all is. God, after all, it’s only school. Another year and I’ll probably never see Becca or Anderson again. What do I really care what they think of me?” She brushed away the slight wetness under her eyes with gloved fingers. “So I wanted to say sorry. For everything. For being a shitty friend when your mum went into hospital, for not believing you over Anderson when he started spreading lies about you – “ She trailed off, her eyes shifting from me to just over my shoulder.
I frowned and glanced back. Percy leant out of the Beatle window, his normally boyish face set in a frown as he looked at Sam.
“Are you all right, Cara?” he asked, pushing open the door and stepping out onto the pavement. It was quite a sight, the way his huge frame unfolded from the tiny car. It was hard to imagine how he fit in it, without having to sit with his knees up around his ears.
I turned back to Sam. She was eyeing Percy with a strange mixture of apprehension and admiration. Her eyes skimmed over the corded muscles on his bare forearms, and I could almost see her noting the way the sleeves of his t-shirt strained around his biceps. Of the two, Percy was easily the less threatening, but he was big enough to make Sam nervous.
“We were just talking,” I said when Percy continued to gaze at Sam.
“Right.” He didn’t sound convinced. I’d told him far too many stories about the ‘twins’ and Anderson. “Do you want a lift the rest of the way to school?”
I nodded and shot Sam an almost apologetic grin. She returned it slowly, her eyes still flicking rapidly back to Percy.
“See you at school.”
Chapter Four
A dark 4x4 idled just outside the school gates after school, the engine rumbling as the exhaust belched out black smoke. It was old, the paintwork scratched and flaking, but the windows were tinted and people kept shooting it curious glances as they walked by.
I didn’t spare it a glance until I was just about to pass it and one of the windows rolled down.
“Need a ride?”
Percy’s boyish smile always brought out one of my own, I couldn’t help it. Even when I was hopelessly confused.
“What happened to the Beatle?” I had a soft spot for the car, even if it was hugely impractical for two huge men like Wyn and Percy. That beaten up old car had gotten Wyn and me to Stonehenge in time to stop Lance facing Morgana alone. I owed that ugly, little car.
Wyn laughed from over in the driver’s seat. “It attracted a little unwanted attention.”
Not surprising. It was stolen after all. Then again, so was this one most likely. I didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much they could do. It wasn’t like either of them could go out and get jobs. They weren’t supposed to exist. I tried to picture Wyn in a suit behind a desk and it just didn’t work. Besides, as far as they were both concerned, they had jobs. Being my knights.
I opened the back door and was about to climb in when Sam came out of the gates behind me. She was slightly out of breath, as though she’d been running to catch me.
“Cara?”
When she’d seen me that morning I’d been getting into a completely different car with two strange men. I could hardly blame her for the worried, suspicious look on her face. With the tinted windows it was impossible to tell who was inside.
“Is everything all right?”
I nodded my hand still on the car door.
She took a step closer, trying to peer through the tinted windows. “Are you sure? You’re not in any kind of trouble are you?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Cara, we have to go,” Wyn said, revving the engine.
That morning they’d told me about stories of something terrorising the local farms. No one knew what it was, but we had a suspicion. We didn’t know if this was the creature Lance had warned me about, but we still had to check it out. If it was something else from Avalon we still had to deal with it. We were the only ones who could.
I shot Sam an apologetic shrug. This was what I’d been craving. Action of some description. I was bored sitting around waiting for something to happen. I was starting to understand Percy’s frustration a little better. I slung my bag across the seat and sc
rambled in after it. Just as I slammed the door closed the opposite one opened and Sam clambered in, struggling in her ridiculously short skirt.
“What are you doing?”
Wyn twisted in his seat, eyes narrowed. “Get the hell out of the car.”
“No.” Sam was trembling but her voice held firm.
“Sam – “
She shook one finger at me. “No way, Cara. For all I know this is you about to do another disappearing act and I’m not going to let that happen. You didn’t see the state your dad was in, or anyone else for that matter.” She slammed the door. “If you’re going somewhere, then I’m coming too.”
I stared at her with a mixture of frustration and admiration. I’d never realised Sam was so brave. She glowered back at me.
Wyn watched her in the rear view mirror, and then he and Percy exchanged long suffering glances.
“Fine,” Wyn said finally, a hint of amusement in his voice. “You can come along for the ride, but don’t – well, don’t blame us later.”
Sam started to look as though she was regretting her decision. The car shot away from the curb in Wyn’s usual reckless manner and she yelped, grabbing for her seat belt.
In the front seat Wyn grinned.
We headed straight out of town, almost immediately hitting the winding back roads. All around us rolled the moors dotted with grazing sheep.
Something had been killing them, although the authorities had been at a loss to explain what. Wyn and Percy were certain it was something that had come through the barriers before I’d been able to close them. I was inclined to agree with them. There were no natural predators in Yorkshire big enough to take down a full grown ram and almost completely devour it, leaving only bones and a few scraps of fleece.
“Where are we going?” Sam hissed at me as we sped further and further out into the moors. Her face was pinched with fear and I wondered what was going through her mind. What could she possibly be thinking we were going to do? A drug deal maybe? Or maybe something a lot worse? I couldn’t help thinking she was surprisingly brave; she had no reason to trust Wyn and Percy, or even me for that matter.
The Forever Queen (Pendragon Book 2) Page 2