by Jan Siegel
‘I don’t like this,’ she said.
‘They won’t come too close to the iron.’
‘I really don’t like this.’ She was pale, clutching the scruff of Hoover’s neck, not to restrain him but for reassurance.
Nathan returned to scraping at the soil. It seemed to take ages. Human hands, he concluded, were not designed for digging. Hazel kept saying: ‘Hurry,’ and Hoover’s muted growl persisted, and the gnomons circled and whispered, a menace seen only as a shiver in the air, a shudder in the leaves. To the right of the barred window Nathan found something which he thought might be a door, a very small door under a crumbling lintel. The wood was blackened and rotten: he could thrust his hand through it. As he had suspected, there was a space beyond, a cell perhaps, a long-forgotten dungeon buried for centuries under earth and root, exposed now by the fall of a tree and his own excavations. In his excitement, he could almost ignore the threat of the gnomons. He tried to clear the soil even faster, wrenching at the dead wood.
‘There’s something here,’ he said to Hazel. ‘Some kind of prison cell …’
The pervasive whisper surged abruptly, so that for a minute he hesitated – and in that minute he heard another sound. A scraping, pounding, wood-tearing sound. Even as he had dug down to get in, someone inside the cell was digging to get out – someone or something. Nathan drew back, and the spinning gnomons wheeled away from the iron about his neck. He climbed back up the drop to Hazel and Hoover: the dog turned its attention to whatever was emerging from underground. He barked twice, in a quick, imperative way. Nathan was remembering what Woody had told him about hearing a thumping from under the earth. ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,’ he said.
There was a sudden explosion of loose soil and wood-flakes, and a shape shot out of the hollow beneath. They saw it only briefly, but it looked human, or nearly so, about four feet high, covered with bristling hair, or perhaps some of that was its clothes. The head swivelled for a second to look at them, and Nathan glimpsed a face so smothered in beard and whiskers that little skin was exposed. The eyes were squeezed to dark slots against the impact of daylight. Then the figure turned and bolted with extraordinary speed into the depths of the wood. The gnomons gathered themselves together and streamed after it.
‘That can’t have happened,’ Hazel said at last. ‘I mean, no one could be buried there, and still be alive. It just isn’t possible.’
‘I hope he’ll be all right,’ Nathan said. ‘Whoever – or whatever – he is.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘Go home, I suppose.’ After the excitement, there was a sense of anticlimax. Their breathing had shortened with the tension, but now they relaxed. Hoover flopped one ear and cocked the other, waiting for orders.
‘Home is good,’ Hazel said.
SIX
Iron and Water
Nathan and Hazel went back to his house for tea and talked things over in the Den. It was only when she got home Hazel realized she had left the horseshoes behind. It can’t matter, she told herself; Great-grandma won’t notice. She could go back but she had homework to do: Annie was the sort of person who insisted weekend homework should be done on Friday night or Saturday morning, but Lily Bagot, though loving, was less particular, and now she no longer had Nathan’s encouragement Hazel usually left it till Sunday night.
She was sitting at her desk, her back to the door, writing – or trying to write – a history essay, with her CD Walkman on and earphones pumping Lemonjelly direct to her brain, so she never heard the sound of an entrance. Then a hand seized the nape of her neck, and someone ripped the earphones away. She was twisted round in her chair, and Effie Carlow’s face was thrust close to hers. At that range it seemed to be all hooked nose and wicked eyes. Hazel’s start of fright and surprise subsided, leaving just the fright.
‘Thief!’ said her great-grandmother. ‘Where are they? What have you done with them?’
‘We just borrowed them,’ Hazel gasped, abandoning any idea of pleading ignorance. ‘I was going to put them back, honestly. I forgot. I’m sorry …’
‘What did you want them for?’
‘We needed iron,’ Hazel said. Her heart was thumping uncomfortably, even more than it had that afternoon. ‘For – for protection.’
‘Against what?’
‘Things.’ Hazel tried to think of a satisfactory lie, and couldn’t. She had always found it all but impossible to lie to her great-grandmother. ‘Sort of – ghosts. At least, not ghosts exactly, but … Nathan says they’re called gnomons. They come from …’
‘From another world?’ The menace of the face withdrew a little; a thin smile slid across Effie’s mouth. ‘Well, well. Young Nathan has been careless, hasn’t he? I warned him about that. I need to know more. You’ll have to get me some more tokens, from his mother and from him. I’ve used the last of Annie’s hairs.’
‘It was you, wasn’t it? Nathan said she fainted, in London. You did that!’
‘It was an error. Anyway, you did it. You brought me the hair. Clever girl.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Hazel protested, almost beseeching. ‘The bracelet – it got caught, it was an accident – and you took it. I didn’t know what you were going to do.’
‘Well, you know now,’ Effie snapped. ‘Get me some more. You can take them from her hairbrush, when you go over there. And something from the boy. No more excuses. It’s important. Ask him to cut you off a lock. I need a strong connection.’
‘Why should I ask him that?’ Hazel demanded. ‘It’s silly.’
‘Say you want to wear it next to your heart,’ Effie mocked.
‘I couldn’t possibly. We’re friends. He’d think –’
‘Never mind what he thinks. Just do it.’
‘I shan’t see him till next weekend,’ Hazel pointed out desperately.
‘Go round there tomorrow – get something from his room. A shoe – no, a sock – something worn next to the skin. Something good for a charm.’
‘I don’t believe in magic.’
‘Then it won’t matter, will it?’ The old woman sat down on the bed, watching her. Her great-granddaughter found her suddenly terrible: the strength in her thin body, the grip of that gnarled hand, the soul-piercing stare of those black eyes under their hooded folds. She dominated the room, indifferent to teenage clutter, making it no longer Hazel’s private lair but a dubious retreat, easily invaded and taken over. Since she moved in her dark, sly personality seemed to pervade the whole house, filling it with new shadows and subtle fears. It was better with Dad, Hazel thought; at least she knew where she was with him. It would be best if they both went away …
‘Magic exists in this other world of Nathan’s, doesn’t it? He visits it by magic – brings magical creatures back here. You believe that?’
‘I suppose so. It’s different.’ She remembered what Nathan had told her about Eric. ‘Magic is a – a force there, like electricity. It’s real. Magic here is just – superstition.’ For all her terrors, her mouth set obstinately.
Effie laughed, showing uneven teeth. ‘Superstition! Oh yes, superstition has its uses: I’ve used it often and often. But magic is real here too, my child. Our world has its own werecreatures, its own dimensions of the imagination. And some of us are born with the power – the Gift – to do things that others cannot, to live out a longer lifespan. Do you know how old I am?’ She leaned forward, her expression both taunting and threatening. ‘You call me great-grandmother, but so did your mother when she was a girl, and her mother, and another before her. People forget, you see. I make them forget. A word – a spell – and I am just old Effie Carlow, no one knows quite how old but it doesn’t matter, because “old” covers everything. If I were young they would suspect, but the old are always with you. Who notices or cares how long they go on?’
‘I don’t want to hear!’ Hazel put her hands over her ears but the crone plucked them away effortlessly with her dreadful wiry strength. ‘I don’t believe you! I d
on’t want to know!’
‘You have no choice. The Gift is in your blood. One day you’ll be an old woman like me, clutching at power, mazing each generation of your family and neighbours so they won’t recall quite how long you’ve been around. One day … You see, magic here has always been a furtive, hole-in-the-corner business. Even Josevius Grimthorn – he was a Roman to begin with, so they say, or at any rate, he came with the Romans, built his house down in the valley, Roman-fashion, before the Darkwood came – he had great power, great skill, he lived nearly seven hundred years, but he had to hide his true nature in a muddle of myths and conflicting stories. He was my ancestor, and yours. But this world of Nathan’s – I know it. I know it in my water. Magic is everywhere there, you say. As common as electricity. If I could reach that power-source, draw on it …’ Her face sharpened, glittered with inner fire. ‘Don’t you see? I might be young again. No more playing at old age, no more muttered charms in locked attics while the shadow of the Gate draws ever closer. I could be forever renewed, like the moon, and live a thousand years … I must learn more. Get me the tokens. Tomorrow. And bring back my horseshoes. I too require protection. Iron is a safeguard against many things.’
‘I – I’ll try,’ Hazel found herself saying. ‘I can’t promise …’
Effie’s hand shot out again, grasping her face, crushing flesh against bone. ‘You will succeed,’ she said. ‘For both of us.’
Hazel played truant from her last lesson the following afternoon and went round to the bookshop, awaiting a moment when Annie was busy to let herself into the house. ‘I left something behind,’ she called out. Annie relayed an acknowledgement and Hazel raced up to her bedroom, finding her hairbrush on the dressing table, pulling out a snarl of hair and stuffing it into her pocket. It wasn’t very much hair – Annie’s curls were short and fine and rarely needed the attentions of a brush – but she told herself it would have to do. Then she went to Nathan’s room, looking round in confusion for an item that would meet Effie’s requirements, settling on an old sweatshirt of his which she had borrowed once or twice. When Annie came in she was so flustered she forgot about the horseshoes, mumbled an excuse and ran off. Annie stared after her, reflecting sadly that teenageitis appeared to be afflicting not only her son but his friends as well.
Back at her own home, Hazel went upstairs and tapped on the attic door. When nobody answered she knocked again, waited a moment, then tried the handle. It wasn’t locked – Effie must have left in a hurry, she decided. Cautiously, she pushed it open and went in.
It was the first time she had been there since her great-grandmother moved in, and she saw immediately that storage boxes and rubbish had been piled up on the side and a space cleared for use, with a table and chair, the camping gas, bottles, dried herbs, a porcelain basin. She went to place the hank of hair in the middle of the table, with the sweatshirt, which she folded carefully as though trying to make it appear more presentable. (She hadn’t noticed it was straight out of the wash, rinsed of any trace of its wearer, and would therefore be useless for spy-charms.) Then she began to examine the other objects, picking up the bunches of herbs, unscrewing the tops from the bottles and sniffing the contents, wrinkling her nose at the results. The basin was half full of water – rather murky water, with green specks floating in it which might have been algae, the corpse of a tiny insect, and a thin brownish deposit on the bottom like sand or mud. Hazel wondered if it had come from the river. It seemed very strange that her great-grandmother should have a basin of river-water in the attic; she guessed it must be for some kind of charm, but what kind she couldn’t imagine. (In her mind, she always preferred to say charm, not spell, since a charm was somehow less magical, more whimsical, something that could be attributed to the quirky behaviour of a half-mad old woman, an act with no real power, no serious implications.) She glanced around for clues, uncertain, having no idea what to look for, finding nothing. Then she was drawn back to the basin, peering down at it. She felt a tingle crawl down her spine. The water had begun to move, rippled as though by a current; the residue on the bottom was stirred, clouding it over. Perhaps that was why the basin appeared suddenly much deeper. The cloudiness darkened, changing to water-shadows shot with green: a pale shape gleamed through it. An oval shape, like a face. It emerged slowly, with shifting features, constantly remoulding itself. For a few seconds she thought it looked like that actress, Michael Addison’s wife, with the funny name – Rianna, Rianna Sardou. But it altered again, becoming the white bloodless face of the drowned, its lips notched with tooth-points, huge eyes bulging against closed lids. Hazel was shaking all over. She tried to draw back, but the eyes opened – eyes with no whites, dark as midnight, deep as the ocean. Hazel was caught and held.
‘Who are you?’ The lips didn’t move; the voice was inside her head. A voice with surges in it, like wave-rhythms, cold as the sea.
‘Hazel.’
‘The old woman sent you to me?’
‘N-no. I came in here to leave something for her. Then I saw the basin …’
‘So you called me.’
‘No!’
‘Then perhaps … you responded to a call. There is power in you, unawakened, a coral-bud closed tight, waiting for the tide to change. You are very young. The woman is old, old and stale: her heart has rotted. Cunning has twisted her mind into strange byways. Your mind is clear and clean. I would see you more closely.’
The water swirled and churned; some splashed over the rim of the basin. Hazel saw the head was rising – the curve of the crown loomed out of the wave-ring – wet hair clung like weed to the scalp. But in the upheaval the mesmeric stare was broken. Hazel jerked backwards, upsetting a bottle, knocking against the corner of a box. The sharp edge stabbed into her thigh with a pain that did much to clear her thoughts. She stumbled towards the door, falling over her own feet, slamming it behind her as she escaped. She ran down to her room and shut herself in, wedging a chair under the door-handle, huddling on the bed to recover. But the alien presence was in her house, and she could not feel safe.
In the attic the head rose out of the basin and the water-swirl subsided, lapping about its neck. It turned this way and that, surveying the empty room. Then its gaze came to rest on the door, and it smiled.
Annie found herself something of a local heroine after the discovery of the injunction. The regional newspapers had started to latch on to the story, producing scrappy and largely inaccurate histories of the cup focusing strongly on its association with Grail legend. The Crowford Gazette and the Mid-Sussex Times sent reporters to Eade, both of whom showed up in due course at the bookshop, followed by a freelancer affiliated to the Independent, on the trail of a possible feature. Rowena, courting publicity as part of her campaign, arrived to join the party, and Annie made coffee for all and sundry and posed for photographs at her side. The injunction had been lodged with a lawyer but Rowena had thoughtfully provided herself with a photocopy for the two of them to flourish at the cameras. ‘Quite a little adventure for you,’ commented the Londoner from the Indy. ‘I expect it’s pretty quiet down here most of the time. Or do you have elegant village murders for the local oldladyhood to solve?’
Annie’s mind glanced off towards Rianna Sardou, and what she had lately learnt about Bartlemy. ‘A body a day,’ she said.
Rowena gave a bark of laughter. ‘Miss Marple knew her stuff,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised what goes on in a village.’
Annie was thinking of this exchange the next day when the stranger came in. Village life not being what it was in Miss Marple’s day, strangers were not unusual in Eade: tourists on the antiques trail, city-dwellers ruralizing with ex-London friends, people from neighbouring towns in search of a picnic spot by the river. But this man was definitely a stranger with a capital S. He was seven feet tall and his eyes gleamed purple in the alien contours of his face. Annie guessed at once who he must be but it was Eric who spoke first, placing his hands on her work table and staring intently at her. ‘You
are mother of Nathan Ward,’ he said. It sounded like an accusation, and for a moment she was afraid Nathan had upset his visitor after all.
‘I’m sorry if you didn’t want to talk to him. He really didn’t mean to bother anyone.’
‘Bother? Is no bother. I like to talk to him. He is fine boy.’
‘Thank you,’ Annie said, pleased but disconcerted.
‘He not look like you. I think – child must look like parent, yes? Or – is different here?’
‘Children don’t always look like their parents,’ Annie said, puzzled by the last comment. ‘Nathan must be … a throwback. How do you mean, it’s different here? Different from Mali?’
‘Many things different here,’ Eric said. ‘Nathan tell about me?’
‘A little. He didn’t mention your name.’
‘I am Eric Rhindon. You –?’
‘Annie. Pull up a chair. Would you like some coffee?’ She wasn’t an inveterate coffee-drinker herself, but it had become a reflex with any guest.
‘Is good coffee or bad coffee? In Maali, we drink kharva, always taste same. In your world, coffee never same.’
My world? Annie thought. My world? She said: ‘It’s good coffee. I promise.’
She went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. When she returned with the cafetière, Eric was studying the books. Studying, she felt, was the right term. He frowned at the words in a collection of poetry with burning concentration. ‘Why do lines stop before edge of page?’ he inquired. ‘I not understand. I not read your language well.’
‘I gather you spoke no English at all when you arrived,’ Annie said. ‘I think you’ve made the most incredible progress. You’re always hearing of some genius who’s learned a language in six weeks, but I never before met anyone who really did. These are poems, that’s all.’ And, seeing his baffled expression: ‘Like songs, but without music.’ The word poem must be one he had not come across before.