by Thorne Moore
‘Thanks for arranging builders for the lodge. I’ll cancel the ones I called, shall I?’
‘Oh. Oh! Oh dear, had you found someone else? I thought you were having so much trouble getting anyone ‒ and there they were, ready to start.’
‘You checked their references, of course?’
‘Well, you know, Meg says they’re just wonderful. And aren’t they lovely? They have this wonderful idea of building a round house, you know, like an African hut, sort of thing, like they had in the Stone Age—’
‘Iron Age,’ amended Michael.
‘Al’s always wanted to try and this place is just perfect, so it’s working wonderfully for all of us. Can you just imagine? A thatched house up in the woods, with wattle and daub and hand-woven blankets and everyone round the fire eating wild boar. You know I had plans for wild boar, so we’d have a market on our doorstep.’
Michael laughed. ‘Sylvia, if you kept wild boar, you know perfectly well you’d never let anyone eat them. Remember the chickens?’
‘Oh but ‒ yes well. We did start off with some chickens,’ Sylvia explained. ‘Sweet little things. I only wanted them for eggs.’
‘So we didn’t eat them, the fox did,’ said Michael ‘It killed two, and Syl was beside herself, so I bought a shotgun.’
‘Ha!’ said Sylvia.
He drew her into a hug. ‘And then she wouldn’t speak to me for two days, because I shot at the fox.’
‘Butcher! It probably had cubs, poor thing.’
‘I missed! And then the poor little fox ate the rest of the poor little chickens.’
‘Oh dear.’ I laughed, cruelly.
Sylvia sighed, then added brightly, ‘Anyway, I’m sure Al’s people are all vegetarians. And now we’ll have the lodge ready, so everything’s wonderful, isn’t it?’
Chapter 5
‘Morning, Kate.’ Al appeared at the kitchen door as I washed up the breakfast things. ‘Michael asked me to take a look at the house. Extra work?’
‘As much as you want.’ I wiped my hands. ‘Come in and I’ll show you round.’
We examined the sagging plasterwork of a parlour and continued through to the dining room, with its pervasive perfume of damp.
‘It’s an incredible place.’ Al strolled to the window to look out across the terrace, over the deep blue of the valley to the sea-brightened sky. A faint whine of distant traffic and the chug and clank of a tractor in a field somewhere near, but otherwise silence. ‘The force is really strong here.’
Yes, I could see him as a Jedi knight. ‘I’m sure it is.’
Al glanced at me sidelong. ‘So you sense something else?’
‘Oh.’ I closed my eyes. ‘Dear Sylvia.’
‘Did she really get it wrong?’
‘You must realise she likes to colour things.’
‘Nothing wrong with that.’
‘But she wants me shocking pink and I’m really only beige.’
Al laughed, eying me up and down. ‘Beige you are not. So how is it? What do you feel?’
‘All right. I feel death. That’s what it seems to be. People dying, places where people have died, stuff that gets left behind when people have gone.’
Al stroked the back of his head.
‘You’re supposed to say I’m deranged.’
‘No, no. It makes sense.’
‘Does it? I wish it did to me. Why me? Do you have an answer? I’ll believe anything that offers some sort of explanation.’
‘Perhaps you’re simply more receptive. Like having an ear for music. You’re attuned to the life force. It’s there, whether we acknowledge it or not, around us and in us. We die but the force remains. It has to go somewhere.’
‘It isn’t life force I feel, though. It’s the negative stuff. The overwhelming emotions that scream out, they’re so violent. I feel people’s misery while they die and then they’re out of it, but I’m left with it, trapped, like radio waves that can’t get out, can’t just disperse on the ether, or whatever it is that radio waves do.’
‘They propagate.’
‘Well death horrors don’t. They stagnate. And I get them in the gut.’
‘And you’ve had to live with this, all your life?’ He winced. I wasn’t used to empathy.
I hesitated. I hadn’t lived with it all my life, not quite. ‘Ever since my father died. Which is as good as all. I was only four.’
Only four and I hadn’t felt him die, even though I’d been holding his hand. Very little makes sense at four, but I knew that Daddy lived in bed, and Mrs Coley, the horrible witch from next door came in to look after us while Mummy went out. I couldn’t remember my father refusing to wake up when I pulled and shook him, but I could remember Mrs Coley yanking me away, shouting ‘Stupid girl, let go of his hand. Can’t you see he’s dead?’
No, I couldn’t see that he was dead, but after that, I seemed to see death everywhere. I’d scream if I had to go into that room where my father died. The breathless fading blur of death was always there for me now.
‘It opened the door, triggered your native gift,’ said Al. A gift! So maybe not so empathetic. ‘It makes sense, when you think about it. All those electric impulses in our brains – they connect, they have to go somewhere, they get earthed into stuff, clinging on. We just need to learn to tune into them. Sometimes I think they get me too.’
My heart missed a beat.
‘Sometimes, in old places, you know, centuries of thoughts, feelings, dramas. There has to be something captured there.’
‘Vibes?’
He shrugged. ‘What would you call them?’
‘Shadows.’
‘Okay, shadows. All we have to do is open ourselves up.’
‘I don’t want to open! I want to close. They’re vile!’
‘That’s because you’re only attuned to the negative, Kate.’ He seemed excited by it. ‘But there’s the positive, too. Hundreds of years of positive emotions and energy, all around us.’ He patted the chimney breast as if to lap it up. ‘It’s here. You just need to learn to feel it.’
For a moment I was captivated. Of course there must be the positive too. I just needed to reverse my polarities. Sylvia could be my sonic screwdriver, and if there were someone with whom I could share at last... The end of solitary confinement.
I knew how to find out.
‘Building repairs first. Come on.’ I led him back through the service rooms: laundry, dairy, butler’s pantry, where we kept endless junk, a twin tub, the once-used shotgun in its locker, a moth-eaten stag’s head. Al examined tilting lintels and creaking timbers, brandishing a retractable steel rule like a wizard’s wand, thumping old plaster with an experienced fist.
‘There’s this too.’ I opened the last, unassuming door. ‘But we need permission to do anything in here, and it requires a bit more than painting and plastering.’ Studiously controlled, I stepped out into the Great Hall.
Al followed, and looked around hungrily. ‘Ah yes, the famous hall.’
I’d hoped to take him by surprise, but of course he’d known about it. all the time.
He strode to the centre and turned slowly, taking in the linenfold panelling, the mullioned windows, the gallery, the huge beams up in the cobwebs of the roof. ‘Okay.’ He crossed to the cavernous fireplace and looked up. ‘Got jackdaws.’ A muffled squawk, and ash twigs showered down on him.
He ducked back under the stone lintel and crouched down to examine the panelling. ‘Incredible survival.’
‘Michael’s working on some replacement panels. Do you think you’re up to any of the basics? If we are allowed to restore it, we’ll probably have to get experts in for the major work.’
Al shot me a sideways glance of sardonic amusement.
‘Unless you know anything about old restoration,’ I amended.
He stood up, brushing himself down. ‘You could say. I cut my teeth on a project like this, while I was at university.’
‘Seriously? Studying mediaeval building?’
>
‘Biochemistry. I took a labouring job in the vacation and worked on a moated manor in Leicestershire. That was when I decided craftsmanship was better for my soul.’
‘So our little hall is no problem.’
‘Mm.’ He grinned apologetically. ‘The moated manor belonged to a millionaire.’
‘Well, we don’t have limitless resources, but what with shares and divorce settlements and platinum handshakes, Sylvia and Mike aren’t paupers. Can you give us a vague idea of costs?’
‘I reckon I could. How much of it is there?’
‘This is about all that’s left of the old house. There are those two rooms at the end and a cellar below us; Sylvia thinks it’s a dungeon. The bit up on the gallery is in a really bad way. I’m not sure anything up there can be salvaged.’
Al bounded up the stone stairs. I watched him peer into the upper room. He winced back down at me. ‘Yip. Bad.’
‘I’m convinced it’s all going to crash down,’ I said, as explanation for hanging back. He descended, entered the buttery, testing the low ceiling, then vanished from view. A few moments later he emerged from the dark panelled doorway of the empty armoury, the doorway that, to me, swam with horror.
He stood beside me, looking around, chewing his lip, in calculation I assumed. Then he said, ‘There’s something here, isn’t there?’
I’d remained motionless, while he carried out his inspection.
‘I feel something,’ he continued. ‘You do too, don’t you?’
Go on, I thought, tell me. Prove to me you really feel it.
‘Definitely something not good,’ he added. ‘Has to have been a few bad things in a place this old.’
Oh yes, there was definitely ‘something not good.’ Since my arrival at Llys y Garn I’d been in the Great Hall several times, challenging myself to confront the demon in that low arch. Mostly I’d chickened out. Twice, I’d braced myself and gone through. The first time I’d managed one step before fleeing. The second time I’d stood there, trying to fight it, singing, shouting, determined to master it, emerging five minutes later drenched in sweat, to lunge for the garden door and throw up. Whatever had happened in that place, a hundred, a thousand years ago, it had been unspeakable and it was always going to conquer me.
This time, though, I’d stayed well clear, at the far end of the hall, and I was certain I’d done nothing to alert Al.
‘You do get it, don’t you?’ he insisted.
‘Maybe there’s a hint of something. But it’s been empty so long. The thing that really disturbs me is the thought of it all collapsing. Do you think you’d be able to make it safe?’
‘Oh sure. Do more than that. Bring in the right guys.’
‘Come and have a coffee then, while I tell Sylvia the good news.’
Sylvia was wild with joy. Naturally. How long would it be, I wondered, before I could absorb this ability to enthuse over everything? If I were negative, she was positive plus.
‘Kate’s been showing me some of the work needed in the house,’ Al explained.
‘An awful lot, isn’t there?’ said Sylvia, quite unperturbed. ‘But it’ll be wonderful if you really can restore the hall, when we get permission. You have no idea what complications there are.’
‘I have.’
‘And I was really hoping to have an Elizabethan Fayre there this summer.’
‘Okay,’ said Al.
Sylvia took it as a fairy-godfather promise. ‘Oh isn’t that wonderful? I know exactly what we’ll need.’
I met Al’s eyes while she reeled off costumes, crafts, recipes. Dour realism could wait.
‘So, any idea of the age of the house?’ asked Al, rocking back in his chair.
‘Mentioned in Owen and there are sixteenth century records,’ said Michael. He’d acknowledged Al’s expertise without surprise. ‘Almost certainly older though.’
‘Sure. At least fifteenth century I’d guess.’
‘Oh it must be older than that,’ added Sylvia eagerly. ‘Norman. Roman. Prehistoric! We have standing stones. Did you tell him about those, Kate?’
‘We have standing stones,’ I said.
‘Oh yes, up on the moors,’ burst in Sylvia. ‘Just above us. Neolithic—or was it Bronze Age? And all manner of lumps and bumps in the fields.’
‘How interested are you in lumps and bumps and standing stones?’ I asked.
‘Very interested,’ replied Al. ‘Care to show me some time?’
‘Now if you like.’
‘Oh yes, let’s all go,’ said Sylvia. ‘It’s lovely weather for a walk on the hills.’
Michael declined the offer, with work to do, but Sylvia was eagerly clambering into outdoor gear.
Of course I didn’t object. Her presence would shield me from complications I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. I needed space to think.
We followed a path through the woods, pausing for Al to admire one of Michael’s sculptures. A contorted inward-leaning knot, without beginning, without end.
‘I’ve found five so far.’ I’d concluded that this one was an image of depression, but I said, ‘This one’s Office Politics.’
‘Is it?’ said Sylvia, stroking it fondly. ‘I thought it was a snake.’
Al ran a craftsman’s fingers along the grain. ‘Same thing? I saw another, on the way up to our camp. The Mother Goddess?’
‘Hooded lady,’ I suggested.
Sylvia thought about it, frowning. ‘Oh! The whale. I thought that one was a whale. Don’t ask me why. Mike will never explain them. He says they should touch, not tell.’
‘I’m all for touching,’ said Al, glancing my way.
‘Here’s the track!’ Sylvia was always surprised when paths led where she’d hoped. ‘Farm track, really. Watch for the mud. Dewi brings his cows along here. And the tractor sometimes, so it’s a bit of a mess.’
We followed her along deep ruts, hopping from tussock to tussock, zigzagging up the steep hillside. Sylvia regaled us with gossip, questions, ideas and delight, monopolizing Al’s attention. No matter.
We emerged eventually onto open upland. To our left the trees marched on, but to our right a cluster of pocket-sized fields were cupped in a web of stone walls and high banks.
‘These are ours,’ said Sylvia, pausing by a gate. Lumps and bumps as Sylvia had promised, scattered rocks and mounds of turf. ‘These three fields. The ones beyond are Dewi’s. That’s his house down there: Hendre Hywel. He’s a darling.’
The sagging slates of an old farmhouse were just visible, tucked under a protective cluster of rowans. Our nearest neighbour.
‘We’ve been told this might be an old village or something,’ explained Sylvia.
Al scrambled up onto the stone wall and surveyed the field, his eyes shaded. ‘Could be round houses.’
‘And you are going to build one. How marvellous! Making the past come alive. Wait till you see the stones. Kate’s felt extraordinary things there.’
Oh God. What hogwash had I come up with? Warrior cries? Druidic fervour? The problem with a lifelong habit of lying was that I couldn’t always remember what I’d said.
We tramped over heathery moorland. The clouds billowed and sagged, then split apart in the sharp wind, shreds of blue peering through. We were free of the valley, the world vast and open around us. The sea was a white shimmer under a white horizon.
The stones stood by a ridge-top bridle track on an outlier of the long ragged parade of the Preselis. My first sight of them had been disappointing. No awesome monoliths in the Stonehenge mould, no tool marks that I could see, no miraculous balancing. A couple of the jagged rocks might be considered upright. One of them topped six feet, the other was shorter and a few more were tumbled and propped against each other, or flat, or just mounds of peaty turf. It could have been a mere outcrop, like the tors that pierced the adjoining hills.
‘Okay!’ said Al.
‘It’s a genuine ancient monument,’ explained Sylvia. ‘On the map. It’s called… oh, what’s it
called, Kate?’
‘Bedd y Blaidd?’ suggested Al.
‘That’s right,’ said Sylvia. ‘I can never remember. I was talking to Ronnie about it. Ronnie Pryce-Roberts, Fran Garrick’s brother. He’s a professor of archaeology and he was fascinated, quite certain it was enormously significant.’
‘Yes, there’s power here!’ Al sprang onto the pile of rocks and stroked the taller of the standing stones. Were there forces throbbing through the creeping lichen? He was silhouetted against the white sky, locks of his long hair whipping in the wind. Heathcliff. Mm. And didn’t he know it.
He looked down at me. ‘You feel it, don’t you? There’s something here.’
I smiled, touching the rock. Such wonderful, cleansing emptiness. There was no emotion trapped here. If the stones had some mysterious cosmic power, it was not to preserve but to wipe clean. A lightning rod, earthing all passion and turmoil, drawing it down, out of life and light into all-dissolving magma.
So what was it that Al felt? Something positive that evaded me?
‘It’s a good place,’ I agreed.
He jumped down. ‘It’s been a sacred place. Still is.’
Sylvia was delighted. ‘How lovely! Like a church. Our own chapel. Aren’t you glad you found a place to camp so near? Is it near? In the woods, down there, isn’t it? Can we see the yurt? Please?’
‘Sure.’ Al took one last look at the stones, then surveyed the hillside below us. ‘By the stream,’ he said.
Below us, the woods dipped where the rills and gullies of the rain-sodden hills accumulated. The resulting stream eventually gurgled under the road a few yards beyond our lodge.
Al pointed out a likely route. ‘That should take us in the right direction.’
We tramped down off the ridge and into the trees. Al stole a few glances back at me, but mostly he was occupied with Sylvia, helping her over steep rocks and reaching out a hand whenever the path turned slippery.
I shrugged. There would be other times.
Sweet Jesus!
It hit me, a black cloud of nausea.
How? This never happened in the open air. My nightmare required stifling walls to trap the horror. But that was what Nature had created here – an enclosed basin, backed by an overhanging crag of dripping rock. The steep slopes to either side were banked with trees, lowering, mossy, still bare, branches writhing and contorted – or was it just my revulsion that painted them so? The path descended into this pit and skirted a carpet of lurid green hummocks among black pools of glistening peat, to reach the rocky ravine where the stream escaped. The bleached branches of a fallen tree thrust out of the mire, sinking slowly into an opaque depth.