The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall

by William Corlett

  ‘Sir Henry,’ William called, hurrying after them.

  ‘What now?’ the old man asked.

  ‘What was the name of the wizard?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? Stupid of me. It was a name not unlike our own, really,’ the old man told him, ‘we didn’t change it much. The wizard in our family was called Morden. Matthew Morden – God rest his soul!’

  15

  The Entrance to the Tunnel

  THE CHILDREN WATCHED silently as the Crawdens and Martin Marsh disappeared through the trees, heading in the direction of the Forestry Commission land lying above Four Fields.

  Spot, who had settled on the ground at Alice’s feet while Charles Crawden had been describing his plans, sat up and scratched his neck below one ear. Alice crouched down beside him and put an arm round him. She felt depressed and couldn’t explain why.

  ‘Matthew Morden,’ William whispered. ‘They’re related to Morden.’

  ‘At first I thought he was talking about Stephen Tyler when he mentioned a wizard . . .’ Mary exclaimed.

  ‘And I did, Mare,’ Alice agreed.

  William walked away from them, deep in thought. He was remembering the man in the red doublet and hose that he’d seen running towards the beech woods that had crowded down to the edge of the lake on their left where now only sombre firs stood in stiff straight lines. He shook his head. It was all so confusing now that time had passed and the event was only a memory and no longer a clear experience. ‘It couldn’t have happened,’ his mind told him. ‘It isn’t possible. There must be some other, reasonable explanation. Think, William; think!’ his mind whispered. ‘Work it out, William. You know you can. Make some sense out of it all . . .’

  ‘NO!’ he shouted out loud, shaking his head from side to side and punching the fist of one hand into the palm of the other.

  ‘What, Will?’ Mary asked, running to him, alarmed. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing!’ her brother answered, tersely. ‘There’s nothing the matter.’ Then quietly and calmly, after taking a couple of deep, steadying breaths, he started to tell them what had happened when he had looked through the eyes of the crow.

  Mary and Alice listened in silence and even Spot sat at his feet and cocked his head on one side, staring up at him. When he had finished recounting all that he’d seen up to the point where he’d emerged from behind the standing stone and been discovered by Sir Henry and the others, William shivered, as if he were cold. Then he clasped his arms round his body and stared moodily at the ground, waiting for his sisters to respond.

  Alice frowned and sniffed, then she scratched her cheek, thinking deeply.

  ‘You mean – you time travelled? Like the Magician does?’ Mary asked.

  ‘No. I don’t think so,’ William replied. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Whatever happened,’ Alice said, ‘we couldn’t see you.’

  ‘Couldn’t see me?’ William asked, surprised.

  ‘No,’ Alice told him.

  ‘But . . . what happened to me?’

  ‘You hid,’ his youngest sister replied.

  ‘Hid?’

  ‘Yes. I came running to tell you both that I’d seen those men coming, pushing the pram thing – and as I did . . . you ran behind the stone. He did, didn’t he, Mary?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mary agreed with a nod. ‘I thought it was rather a funny thing to do. I mean – I thought you were scared or something.’

  ‘Did you actually see me run?’ William asked.

  ‘Urn . . . No,’ Mary said at last. ‘But you must have done – because one moment you were standing beside me and the next you weren’t. I heard Alice calling, looked round, and when I looked back – you’d disappeared.’

  ‘Alice?’ William asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you see me run behind the stone?’

  ‘No. I’d looked back over my shoulder, pointing out where the men were coming from. But that’s what must have happened – because that’s where you came from when old Sir Thingey called you.’

  ‘So, you neither of you saw me from the moment that I started seeing through the eyes of the crow,’ William continued, thoughtfully.

  ‘Oh William! We’ve all done that,’ Alice groaned.

  ‘Yes, I know. But usually it happens by chance. I made it happen.’

  ‘All right,’ Mary said, grudgingly. ‘Maybe you think you did. So – did you also make yourself see back into the past?’

  ‘No,’ William agreed with a sigh. ‘I don’t know how that came about . . . except . . . Oh! Why is the Magician never here when we need him?’

  ‘Of course!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘The spider. I’d forgotten about the spider! We have to go to Goldenspring. He said he’d meet us there,’ and, as she spoke she started to hurry along the shore of the lake in the direction of the distant high ground.

  Spot bounded away in front of her, barking, glad to be on the move.

  The sound of falling water grew steadily closer. The earth underfoot became spongy and wet. Boulders jutted out of the turf and pools of water reflected the sky. The ground began to rise more steeply until they were scrambling up the side of a hill, through sparse trees and great clumps of gorse that scratched their bare legs and arms.

  Eventually they reached the side of a fast flowing stream. The water bubbled and slid over stones and through narrow channels as it careered down towards the lake. Above them now the sound of falling water was almost deafening.

  ‘Higher up, I think,’ William yelled, pointing.

  Mary turned and led the way again, scrambling up the steep grass and, in places, having to crawl on all fours up an almost vertical cliff. Above them a ridge of rock blocked out the view. But when they had pulled themselves up and over this edge they found another summit waiting just ahead of them.

  After half an hour of strenuous climbing they reached the top of yet another jagged cliff. In front of them now they discovered a solid wall of rock over which the stream fell in a roaring sheet of glittering water. The power of the falls was so strong that it caused gusts of cold wind to blow at them and a fine spray filled the air and soaked through their clothes to their skins.

  ‘Goldenspring!’ William said, having to shout in order to be heard above the din of the water.

  ‘We can’t go any further, I don’t think,’ Mary called, scanning the cliff face for any sign of a path leading upwards.

  ‘So – where is he?’ Alice asked. ‘You said Mr Tyler would be here, Mary. Where is he?’

  Mary shrugged.

  ‘Don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Maybe we have to wait. He definitely said to meet him at Goldenspring.’

  ‘If it was him,’ William said.

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ Mary called. ‘Who else would it have been?’

  ‘It could have been Morden,’ William observed.

  ‘No!’ Mary said, defiantly. ‘I know it was the Magician. I just know it was.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to hang around,’ William called. ‘I’m getting soaked.’

  ‘Which way, then?’ Alice yelled.

  ‘Back down,’ William replied, making for the path up which they’d climbed.

  ‘Come on, Spot!’ Alice shouted, following her brother.

  But Spot’s barking made her stop and look round. The dog had followed some invisible track right up to the edge of the stream halfway up the sheer side of the waterfall and was now standing, with his back to them, his tail wagging, barking excitedly.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ William asked, looking back.

  ‘Come on, Spot!’ Alice called.

  But the dog ignored her command and continued to bark and to claw at the earth as if he had discovered something very important.

  ‘I think he wants us,’ Mary shouted, retracing her steps.

  William and Alice followed and, as they grew closer, so William pulled ahead of the other two, frowning slightly as he climbed up the steep ground towards the waterfall.

  ‘What is it,
boy?’ he asked, when he reached Spot. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Spot whined excitedly and jumped up and down, barking.

  ‘Tell me, then!’ William commanded. Then, when the dog continued to whimper and bark, he turned his back on him and stared at the waterfall.

  At first all he could see was the solid sheet of falling water. Then he noticed a ledge of rock that projected from where they were standing and, clinging to the sheer cliff, disappeared from view behind the water.

  ‘I say,’ he called to the others, ‘there’s a sort of path here.’ And, as he spoke, he started to edge sideways along the ledge, with his back pressed against the cliff.

  ‘Be careful, William!’ Alice called. ‘If you fall in, you’ll be swept all the way down to the lake.’

  Spot was now following William out along the ledge.

  ‘Come on,’ Mary said, grabbing Alice’s hand. ‘I don’t want to be left behind.’

  As she spoke, William disappeared again.

  ‘Oh!’ Alice squealed. ‘He’s gone behind the waterfall!’

  ‘Don’t look down!’ Mary told her, making Alice immediately do just that. For a moment she felt giddy and almost lost her footing, but Mary grabbed her hand again and held her back.

  ‘I said not to, you idiot!’ she hissed in her sister’s ear.

  ‘Yes. All right!’ Alice snapped, nervously.

  Side by side they edged along the ledge until the water was so close to them that they could touch it just by stretching out a hand. But, at the last moment, when it seemed that they would be sucked into its swirling midst, the rock face behind them veered away from the fall and they found themselves in a low passage with the water completely blocking the view in front of them.

  ‘We’re behind it!’ Alice exclaimed.

  The air was cold and damp and the noise extreme.

  ‘Mary!’ she shouted in her sister’s ear. ‘We’re behind the waterfall!’

  ‘But where’s William?’ Mary yelled.

  ‘And Spot?’ Alice called, looking round Mary to where the ledge seemed to peter out against the face of the cliff.

  A moment later William appeared in front of them, as if from nowhere.

  ‘Oh!’ Mary exclaimed with a start. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘Look!’ William called and, as he did so, the girls saw that beside where he was standing there was a narrow opening slanting sideways into the rock.

  ‘It’s a tunnel,’ William yelled. ‘It seems to go quite a long way in.’

  16

  The Company of Friends

  ‘I’M NOT GOING in there,’ Alice whispered, peering over Mary’s shoulder into the dark opening.

  ‘What d’you think, Will?’ Mary asked. ‘Is it safe?’

  William shrugged.

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ he said and, as he spoke, he squeezed between the rocks and disappeared from their view.

  ‘Oh, Will – do we have to?’ Mary groaned. There was something maddening about William when he was trying to be macho. But as she spoke, Spot, who had been sitting at her feet, looked up at her, tail wagging. Then he turned and sprang through the cleft in the rock, following William.

  ‘Come on, Mare,’ Alice whispered. ‘Spot seems to think it’s all right.’ And, grasping each other firmly by the hand, they walked together into the cave.

  As soon as they passed through the entrance the sound of the waterfall faded until it was no more than a distant roar. They were in a narrow passage that seemed to have been cut through the solid rock. The floor, walls and roof overhead were all smooth hard stone. The small amount of light that filtered through the curtain of water behind them was scarcely able to reach more than a short distance and soon they were feeling their way in the dark.

  ‘Will?’ Mary called, nervously.

  ‘I’m here,’ her brother answered, his voice coming from somewhere just ahead of them.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be more sensible to go back to the house and bring a torch?’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ he called and, a moment later, the girls heard him gasp.

  ‘What is it?’ Alice whispered, nervously, but then, before anyone had a chance to give her an answer, she was able to see for herself as she and Mary stepped out of the dark tunnel into a strange and eerie half-light. At once they could see William standing in front of them, with Spot at his side.

  The place they had entered was no more than a broader, more spacious piece of the same tunnel through which they had just been stumbling. But here the roof was much higher and thin rays of light filtered down from a distant crack, somewhere up above them, which filled the space with a soft, green-tinged luminosity.

  It took Mary and Alice a moment to adjust to this new light. Then, gradually, the gloom ahead of them sorted itself out into innumerable shapes and objects. The space was crowded with animals and birds. They sat on the floor and stood on boulders. They clung to the walls and perched on outcrops of rock.

  Cinnabar, the fox, looked at them with burning, amber eyes. Bawson, the badger, was near him and Jasper, the owl, was clinging to a spur of rock. A blackbird flew down from somewhere and alighted on Alice’s shoulder.

  ‘Merula?’ she whispered, recognizing the bird with whom she had travelled up the Dark and Dreadful Path on the way to the badger baiting during the spring. But Merula didn’t reply. He merely stared into her eyes for a moment, then turned and faced in the direction that all the creatures were looking.

  Now, as their eyes grew increasingly accustomed to the light, the children could make out more of the details of their surroundings. The walls of the cave were lined with birds. They clung to every available cranny and were squashed together on the few ledges. There were swallows and swifts, blue tits and chaffinches, speckled thrushes and the tiny wren. A big black and white magpie stared down with baleful eyes and a green woodpecker looked sideways at them from a nearby perch. The brilliant blue of a kingfisher gleamed in a dark corner and a mallard duck shifted his weight from foot to foot on the floor not far from where they were standing.

  A kestrel, seeing them arrive, called once – ‘Kee Kee’ – a long, sad, haunted cry.

  ‘It’s Falco,’ Mary whispered. ‘You remember, Alice. You called him Kee Kee . . .’

  ‘Yous took your times,’ a voice lisped and, turning, they saw Lutra, the otter, standing up on his hind legs near to an unfamiliar squirrel.

  ‘Sssh!’ Jasper hissed, glaring down from his perch.

  ‘What’s going on, Jasper?’ William whispered. But Jasper only blinked severely and made no answer.

  ‘Wait!’ Spot replied, putting a paw on William’s arm, and, as he spoke, he turned and looked towards the centre of the cave, in the same direction as all the other creatures.

  A thin beam of light cut from the unseen opening up above and ended, like a spotlight, on the rough rock floor round which the company was gathered. William, Mary and Alice, standing side by side with Spot, turned their gaze in this direction.

  For a long time – or perhaps it took no time at all for time itself seemed not to matter or even to exist – nothing happened. Then, falling from the heights above them, stealthily, mysteriously, a tiny spider appeared, suspended on a gossamer thread. The silence in the cave was immense. The watching, intense. Every living, breathing creature was attending only to this smallest of beings.

  The spider hung for a moment a few feet above the ground, slowly turning on its silver thread. Then, with a sudden, unexpected haste, it dropped from their sight and the silver thread was instantly replaced by a silver staff, surmounted by an emblem of twisting dragons and the sun and moon and, even as this familiar emblem flashed in the gloom before them, Stephen Tyler appeared, standing in their midst, leaning heavily on the staff, with his other arm in a sling.

  ‘So,’ he said after a long moment, speaking quietly, ‘you are all met.’ He looked slowly round at the gathered throng. ‘A full company, I think.’ Then, turning his eyes on the owl, he said in a light,
conversational tone. ‘Jasper, my bird, what’s to do?’

  ‘To do . . .’ the owl repeated, a reedy whistle.

  ‘Speak for us, Jasper,’ Bawson, the badger, growled.

  ‘What has happened, Master?’ Jasper said, in a soulful voice. ‘We’re all afraid. Things are not as they usually are. Why have you called us all to this place? Tell us what has happened?’

  ‘Happened?’ the Magician repeated. ‘Life has happened. I am an old man, Jasper, and I have been pretending otherwise for too long. Old!’ He said the word with fierce disgust, then he shook his head and smiled sadly. ‘The old forget – they forget how to fight; they even forget that they have grown old! But there, I admit it now. I am a foolish . . . old man.’ He sighed. ‘Children, come here,’ he said, beckoning William and Mary and Alice into the centre of the floor. ‘Listen to me. There is no magic that can counter greed. Morden will win. I cannot stop him . . .’

  ‘What?’ William gasped. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he is younger and fitter and I found you too late,’ Stephen Tyler replied.

  . ‘But you did find us!’ Alice exclaimed. ‘We can’t give up now.’

  ‘They stopped the men with the dogs from killing my people,’ Bawson, the badger, protested.

  ‘When Morden tried to prevent the baby,’ Jasper hooted, ‘we won. The baby was born.’

  ‘Yes, yes. All true,’ Stephen Tyler nodded. ‘But now I’m tired – and this confounded arm hurts. And I do not have the strength . . .’

  ‘Then give us the strength,’ William cut in.

  ‘Ah, William,’ the old man shook his head. ‘That’s what Jonas Lewis said to me. What happened? He made gold for himself. He thought to use the magic for his own gain. And so he lost . . . everything. From that moment I should have seen where this endeavour would lead. Jonas Lewis forfeited the estate to the Crawdens. And because of him we find ourselves in the state that we are in now.’ The Magician paused, deep in thought. Then he shook his head and sighed once more. ‘Yet I cannot find it in my heart to blame Jonas. It was I who gave him the power.’

  ‘But it’s different with us,’ William pleaded. ‘There are three of us for one thing, so we won’t do things just for ourselves. And, besides, we don’t want to make gold, do we?’ he added, looking desperately at his sisters.