The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall

by William Corlett

  ‘You stay with her.’ William said, starting to run down the track. ‘Did either of you bring any money?’ he shouted.

  But neither of them had.

  ‘There’s a ’phone box near the Jenkins’ farm. I’ll get through to emergency. If only Cinnabar was here . . .’ and then he stopped talking and saved his breath for the journey ahead.

  Meg was half conscious now. She seemed to be in great pain and kept groaning.

  ‘Should we get some water?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mary said, sounding desperate with frustration because she didn’t know what was the best thing to do.

  ‘I’ll go and get some water,’ Alice repeated, fighting back her own anxiety. She got up from kneeling beside Meg and hurried back towards the house to collect a mug.

  ‘Bring a bowl and a towel as well, Al,’ Mary called. ‘Maybe we should bathe her face. Will you be able to manage? You’ll have to get fresh water from the well.’

  ‘It’s all right, I know,’ Alice shouted and she started to run, glad to be doing something useful.

  Mary knelt beside Meg and held one of her hands. The old woman didn’t respond at first, then Mary felt the grip on her hand tighten. She looked down at Meg’s face and saw that her eyes were open.

  ‘Rats!’ the old woman whispered.

  ‘What?’ Mary said, leaning her ear close to the old woman’s lips.

  ‘A plague of rats,’ Meg whispered and, as she spoke, her hand started to tremble. ‘They were everywhere. The dogs chased them off.’ Then she became more agitated. ‘The animals . . .’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s all right. They’re all safe,’ Mary told her. ‘Where does it hurt, Meg?’

  ‘Leg mostly,’ the old woman replied. ‘And the head . . .’ Then she smiled. ‘I hurt everywhere to tell you the truth!’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ Mary said, gently mopping her brow with her hand. ‘William’s gone to get help and Alice is bringing you some water’.

  The smell of paraffin was terribly strong. Alice crossed the kitchen, squeezing round the cluttered furniture and reached the crowded dresser. She collected a china bowl, a mug and a large jug. Then she looked round for a towel. Seeing one hanging on a peg by the sink, she pushed her way across the room, tripping over a wellington boot that was hidden under a pile of old papers and almost breaking the jug as she fell. As she was getting up again, she saw, in a corner beside the sink, an old blue can with a tap on the side. Paraffin was dripping from the tap on to the carpet beneath it. Alice tightened the tap and quickly washed her fingers in a bowl full of water in the sink. Then she grabbed the towel and ran towards the hall.

  The rat watched her from the top of the dresser where he had climbed as he heard her enter the house. He waited until he was sure she had gone out of the front door, then he dropped down on to the ground and started to forage round the fireplace.

  Once outside the house, Alice hurried to the well, and filled her jug with water from the bucket.

  William had almost reached the Moor Road when he heard a motor approaching. A moment later Spot appeared, limping up the road, with a Land-Rover following behind him.

  ‘What’s up, d’you know, William?’ Mr Jenkins, the farmer asked, leaning out of the Land-Rover. ‘Dog seemed in a great lather.’

  ‘It’s Meg – there’s been an accident. We’ll need an ambulance, I think.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Mr Jenkins asked as William and Spot climbed into the Land-Rover.

  ‘Just further up the track,’ William said, gasping for breath.

  ‘I’ve dreaded this happening,’ Mr Jenkins said, crashing the gears and driving off at speed. ‘I’ll just take a look at her, then I’ll go for help. It’ll be the end for her, I’m afraid. There’s only so long an old woman can survive on her own . . .’

  Once Mr Jenkins had seen Meg’s state he got back into the Land-Rover.

  ‘I don’t like to move her myself,’ he explained. ‘You never know how much damage she might have done. Looks like a broken leg and a bit of a bash on the head – but I’m no doctor. You kids stay with her. I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he called through the window, as he drove off.

  Spot lay down at the side of the track and licked his feet. Alice sat beside him and put a comforting hand on the back of his neck.

  ‘What happened, Spot?’ William said, as soon as the farmer had left.

  ‘Meg said something about rats,’ Mary told them.

  ‘Yes. There were rats. Hundreds of them,’ Spot said. ‘I don’t know where Jasper was. That bird’s never there when you need him. But, to be fair, we’re all a bit lost at the moment. The Master isn’t ever here,’ he grumbled, ‘and you lot don’t seem to know what to do for the best.’

  ‘Just tell us what happened, Spot,’ William said, feeling the dog’s reproof.

  ‘Well, it started when that woman was telling you about that book she’d brought. I was having a nice sleep. One thing, when the Master isn’t about, you have time for a nap! I didn’t notice the rat for a bit. In fact the first thing I smelt, to be honest, was the Assistant . . . and then one smell led to another. I chased it off, but it gave me a good run and I didn’t manage to catch it, more’s the pity. Then I got distracted by the scent of a rabbit and I didn’t think much more about it, fool that I am! Because, of course, it’d heard all it needed to, hadn’t it?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ William asked.

  ‘Well – that woman said she’d heard that Meg wasn’t going to sell Four Fields. That’s what this is all about. If Meg won’t sell – then they’ll need to get rid of her another way.’

  ‘Mr Jenkins says she’ll have to move now anyway,’ William said.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Spot said. ‘She can be a stubborn old woman!’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ Meg whispered.

  ‘Sssh! It’s all right, Meg. Mr Jenkins has been here. He’s gone to get help.’

  ‘What a nuisance I’m being. The cows will need milking . . .’

  ‘Oh, fishcakes!’ Alice murmured. ‘I hope we’re not expected to do it. I can’t get the hang of milking.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ William told Meg. ‘Mr Jenkins is coming straight back. He’ll see to everything.’

  The rat found a box of matches on the mantelshelf. Gripping it in his teeth, he jumped down on to the draining board and from the draining board to the floor. Once there, it was an easy job pushing the box open. He’d watched humans do it a thousand times. Taking a match, delicately clenched between his big front teeth, he stood the box on its side, and ran the match across the rough surface.

  A tiny spurt of flame crackled into life and then died.

  The third match fell on to the paraffin-soaked carpet.

  One of the cats came, shaking and terrified. Spot was immediately on his guard. He rose from the ground, the hair on the back of his neck bristling.

  ‘What is it?’ he yelped.

  They saw the smoke as they were running across the field.

  Mary stayed behind with Meg and so once again, she thought, she was missing all the adventure.

  ‘Stay back!’ William yelled, as yellow and red flames appeared through the ivy that covered a downstairs window.

  ‘The cows and sheep, William!’ Alice shouted.

  They ran together and opened the make-shift gate in the wire corral. The cows were terrified and ran quickly away across the meadow. But the sheep were confused and went round and round in a circle.

  ‘Blooming sheep!’ Spot barked and he snapped at their heels, making them move away from the house.

  Then they stood, Alice and William shielding their faces with their hands to ward off the intense heat that issued from the burning building, and watched as all Meg Lewis’s worldly possessions were destroyed by the fire.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Meg muttered, twisting her hands, nervously.

  ‘Sssh! It’s all right. It’s nothing,’ Mary told her, but, as she spoke, she saw a plum
e of smoke rising above the forest trees and she smelt the fire on the hot summer air.

  Meg was taken into the emergency ward at the county hospital.

  Mr Jenkins rounded up the sheep and cattle and Meg’s four hens and said he’d look after them.

  The children collected together the dogs and, with each of them carrying a trembling, frightened cat, they returned to Golden House before lunchtime.

  Phoebe was surprised to see them and Jack, when he heard what had happened said he would drive in to the hospital that afternoon to see how Meg was.

  When they were all sitting round the kitchen table, Phoebe suddenly said:

  ‘It’s almost too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? The Crawdens have got all that they want now. I mean there isn’t anywhere for Meg to live. She’ll have to take their money now to buy a place.’ Then, surprisingly, she sobbed. ‘I can’t bear to think of Four Fields destroyed. Where will she go, Jack?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, quietly, ‘She’ll be devastated when she knows what’s happened. Four Fields was her home.’

  ‘What about the badgers?’ Alice said, quietly. ‘She’s got to be near her badgers.’

  ‘With the house burnt down, she’ll not have much choice, will she?’ Jack said. ‘She’ll have to look for somewhere in the town, I suppose.’

  ‘But she’ll hate it away from the badgers.’ Alice cried. ‘They’re her family. She loves them better than humans. She said so.’

  ‘She can’t live in a tent, Alice!’ Jack said. ‘There is nowhere else.’

  Then Mary said quietly:

  ‘Except here, of course. She’d still be near the badgers if she came and lived here at Golden House.’

  22

  The Place of Dreams

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, soon after breakfast, the children went back up to the lake.

  Meg’s dogs had spent the night in the outhouse across the yard from the kitchen door and the cats had slept in the hall some of the time, though they spent most of the night prowling round the house and by the time Phoebe came down they had established their territory and were all fast asleep, curled up in front of the kitchen range.

  Phoebe had been a bit reluctant to admit so many animals to the house and Jack was unrepentant in his resolve not to let any of the dogs sleep inside.

  ‘One dog in a house is quite enough,’ he said, when Alice suggested that they could all sleep in her room if he was going to be mean about it.

  Spot, however, seemed to agree with Jack and when one of his brothers tried to slip in through the kitchen door, while Phoebe was taking rubbish to the compost heap before going to bed, he had run barking and snarling at the poor creature, and driven him, squealing, into the night.

  ‘Spot!’ Alice had exclaimed. ‘I didn’t think you’d be so beastly! They are your family, you know.’

  ‘They’re outdoor dogs,’ he growled. ‘Besides, this is my place.’

  They had all gone in to see Meg in hospital during the afternoon. But she was dazed and sleepy and they hadn’t stayed long with her.

  Since Mary’s suggestion about her coming to live at Golden House no more had been said on the subject and the children didn’t know whether the idea had been well received or not by Jack and Phoebe.

  It was William who decided that they should go back to the original plan of exploring the tunnel. He’d slept very little and was up soon after dawn. He sat on Mary’s bed, having woken both his sisters from deep sleep, and the three of them talked in low whispers.

  ‘It’s all our fault, that’s what’s so awful,’ he said, referring to Meg’s accident and the fire at the house. ‘We made her say she’d help us. That’s probably why she wrote the letter to the solicitor saying she wasn’t going to sell Four Fields. She did it for us. If she hadn’t, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘But we didn’t do it on purpose, William,’ Mary said, her voice still sleepy. It was a bit early in the morning for deep discussions.

  ‘What’ll we do, Will?’ Alice asked. She was kneeling on the end of her bed from where she had a good view out of the window. The morning was bright and already warm. A soft breeze stirred the curtains and the sound of birdsong filtering in from the distant forest should have made her happy. But Alice sighed, feeling depressed when she remembered all that had happened on the day before. ‘We’ve as good as lost now, haven’t we?’

  ‘No, we have not,’ William replied, firmly. ‘I’m not giving up. I’m more determined than ever to beat Morden. I’ve thought about nothing else all night. We’re going to try to prove that land doesn’t belong to the Crawdens. Miss Prewett was right – if we can only do that, then they’ll go away and leave us alone.’

  ‘But then they won’t need to buy Meg’s land either,’ Mary said. ‘And now she needs the money more than ever. Maybe it’d be better if we let them go ahead. I mean – even if Meg comes and lives here – what will she live on? Jack can’t keep her.’

  ‘Why can’t he?’ Alice asked. ‘I’m sure she won’t be very expensive.’

  ‘He’s hardly got enough money to keep himself and Phoebe and Stephanie,’ Mary said. ‘And Meg must be terribly poor – look at the state of the house she lived in. She didn’t even own a proper armchair. Why must money always be so important? But it is. I can understand Jonas Lewis wanting to make some gold when he was broke. It’s all right for the Magician. I bet he was really rich, living in a big house like this. But Jack’s not – that’s why he’s taking so long to finish the house. And as for Meg – she’s lost everything now, hasn’t she?’

  ‘She’s only lost her house, Mary,’ William said. ‘And it wasn’t much of a place. She’s still got her animals . . .’

  ‘Wasn’t much of a place?’ Alice exclaimed. ‘I thought it was the best place in the whole world.’

  ‘And another thing, if she comes and lives here,’ Mary added, ‘what will happen to her cows and sheep? She can’t keep those here. There isn’t room.’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ William said. ‘First we’ve got to stop the Crawdens. Then we’ll worry about everything else.’

  So, as soon as breakfast was finished, the children set off for Goldenwater. This time they carried backpacks containing a picnic, torches and useful things like string, penknives, elastoplast and William’s compass.

  ‘You never know what we’re going to need,’ William said.

  Spot came with them, but he shooed the other dogs away and left them sitting in a row in the yard, greedily watching Dan and Arthur, the builders, who were in their van, eating breakfast sandwiches.

  When they reached the lake, William didn’t pause at the standing stone. He was in too much of a hurry to get to the tunnel behind the waterfall. He walked so fast that Alice had to run to keep up with him. Mary scanned the surface of the lake as they passed by, hoping for a sign of Lutra, but the only wildlife that they saw were some crows, wheeling in the air above the fir forest on the far side of the lake and a race of starlings, who sped across the sky like maniacs, chattering and laughing.

  ‘Hateful birds,’ Mary murmured and she hurried to catch up with William and Alice because she didn’t want to be on her own.

  Goldenspring flashed and sparkled in the sunlight. By the time they reached the ledge they were breathless and their hearts were pounding.

  ‘It isn’t a race, William,’ Mary yelled, as she pulled herself up the steep slope and leant against a boulder, breathing heavily.

  But William was flushed and determined still. He only hesitated for a moment before he started to edge his way out towards the falls.

  ‘Come on,’ he called. ‘The sooner we’re out of sight the better,’ and, as he spoke he glanced up at the sky, where several crows were wheeling threateningly.

  The dark closed round them almost at once. But they each had a torch and were able to see their way. The tunnel was no more than a narrow cleft through the rock, only wide enough for them to walk in single file. They came to the place where it broaden
ed out. Here some daylight filtered in from an opening high up above.

  ‘This is where the Magician had his meeting,’ William whispered. ‘The last time we saw him. I wonder why he chose here?’ As he spoke, he shone his torch round the smooth rock walls that enclosed them.

  ‘Is it a dead end?’ Mary asked, disappointed. ‘I thought it was going to lead somewhere.’

  ‘So did I,’ William agreed. ‘Why did he choose this place to see us all?’

  Spot whined quietly, sitting on the floor of the cave, looking up at William eagerly, as if trying to understand his words.

  William walked slowly round the cave, shining his torch into every nook and cranny.

  ‘This place is on a direct line with the standing stone and the yew tree, we know that,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘And the yew tree is in line with the dovecote and the windows in the secret room,’ Mary added.

  ‘So we’re on the hidden, centre line. Now, as we’re talking, we’re on it. What did he call it? An energy line . . .’

  William walked slowly away from them, pointing his torch.

  ‘What is this place?’ he whispered. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The place of dreams,’ a voice said and, a moment later, Stephen Tyler emerged from the dark shadows and stood in front of them, leaning on his silver staff, and carrying a lantern in which the yellow light of a candle flickered.

  ‘Oh!’ William sighed, relieved and overjoyed to see the Magician again. ‘I thought you were never going to come back.’

  ‘You had to think that, William. You had to get here on your own,’ the old man told him, talking gently.

  ‘But where are we?’ William asked.

  ‘In reality – or in magic?’ the Magician asked. ‘In reality this is a cave of great antiquity. In ancient times perhaps primitive people used it as a place of worship. See,’ and, as he spoke, he lifted his lantern to reveal vague lines on the smooth rock.

  ‘It’s a sort of horse,’ Alice gasped. ‘A drawing of a horse.’

  They crowded round, staring up at the rough simple drawing on the rock. As well as the horse, there was a hand print and another collection of lines that made no sense.