Mary let out her third scream.
Now I was swinging faster towards the rock face. My shoulder about to hit again, no chance I could hold on again if that happened. I heaved on the creeper and threw myself upwards; nothing left if this didn’t work. My fingers clasped the edge. It was not enough. My strength was failing as a terrible weakness crept up my arms, my fingers started to slip.
‘Save him! Keep my promise!’
The strange words seemed to come from behind me. The words burnt into me, turning my weakness into fury.
‘I’m saving myself,’ I yelled at the rock. ‘Myself.’ And I hauled, screaming ‘Myself!’ with each pull before I lay on the path, panting hard and fast.
‘Alvin?’ came Mary’s quieter voice.
‘I thought ... you ... promised ... not ... to scream,’ I panted the words out.
‘Sorry, but didn’t you scream too?’
I heard Mary’s half laugh, half sob. I lay still but what next? Should I persuade Mary to go back or could I get her around the rock?
‘I’m not going back,’ Mary said before I had time to think.
Her voice came from above me. Holding several of the creepers, she had climbed up to the top of the rock blocking the path. Lighter than me, she grabbed another bunch and abseiled down to join me.
‘You alright?’
‘That looked easier,’ I muttered. ‘Wish I’d thought of that.’
‘You didn’t ask me,’ Mary smiled.
‘You still screamed,’ I said rubbing my shoulder.
‘Let me look,’ Mary said as she crouched over me and pulled back the remains of my blood-soaked shirt. ‘Looks mostly grazed. Can you move it?’
I winced as she lifted my arm. ‘Seems to work. Any other advice Nurse Mary.’
‘I hate that name.’
‘Don’t you want to be a nurse then?’
‘I did once and because I kept saying it I suppose I haven’t much choice now.’
‘Certainly no choice if we don’t get out of here.’ I struggled to my feet and took a swig from the water bottle that Mary offered me. ‘Let’s go on.’ I plodded off along the path. We still had a lot further to climb but no more rocks barred our way.
Eventually we neared the top and as the path became less steep I speeded up, then ran, we both ran, almost leaping over the top of the rim, and stood, squinting, in the sunlight.
‘There’s nothing here,’ Mary said as she collapsed on to the grass.
I sat with my head in my hands, staring at the path that snaked into the gloom far below. There was no sign of rescue here, no sign of anything at all and, worse, I knew we would have to make the trip back down the path. That rock again. I didn’t think Mary’s route was an option on the way back.
‘Can’t see why anyone made the path.’ I looked up.
‘How’s the shoulder?’
‘Just a graze, fine, no problem.’
‘Let’s look around a bit anyway.’ Mary poked me into action and we got to our feet.
‘It looks like ... er ... the top of a cake.’ I tried to describe the shape of the landscape, but with food on my mind. The grass covered land sloped gently away from us and up to the top.
‘More like a muffin,’ suggested Mary, looking at the cracks and ridges. ‘A stone muffin.’
‘Whatever it is we can’t eat it.’ My stomach rumbled.
It didn’t take long for us to discover we were standing on a massive solitary mound, bigger than a hill. Almost circular, with vertical cliffs falling from the domed top where we stood. It really was a bit like a muffin. We wandered around the edge.
‘Can’t eat it but we could fall off quite easily.’ Mary stepped back.
We walked on carefully. Below us the land was a mixture of forests and grassland. Nothing to suggest there were people anywhere.
‘Can’t see any other way down,’ I said peering over the side.
‘What are those?’ Mary gasped and pointed a finger at something moving in the trees below.
‘Elephants?’ I saw the shapes at the bottom of the cliff, they looked large even from where we stood.
‘Not with curved tusks like that,’ said Mary.
‘Mammoths!’ we shouted together.
‘Then this is some sort of Lost World.’ I remembered Sam’s words.
We stared at the huge woolly shapes.
‘It’s just not possible,’ Mary whispered.
The lumbering beasts moved further into the trees, out of sight, leaving a trampled empty space.
‘Earthquakes, death and disaster, mammoths – what next?’ Mary said as we moved further round the cliff edge. A little later I was looking down and pointed. ‘I think that’s Matt. We must be above our cave.’
From this height we could see how the river curved from the waterfall, marking out a tongue of land. We were stuck. Water on one side and the cliff face of the muffin-mound on the other. Over the river the trees soon gave out to a wide green empty plain but I couldn’t see any way to get across.
‘That means we’re probably safe from other animals as long as nothing can swim the river,’ Mary said, looking at me as though she hoped I would agree.
‘Safe and trapped,’ I replied, but I still thought there were a lot of trees on our side and we didn’t know what might live amongst them. Some of the scuttling sounds we heard at night might mean larger animals were nearby. And I had heard that noise down by the river, what made that?
‘At least the mammoths are on the other side.’
‘Good, unless we wanted to eat one.’
Mary looked at me as though I had gone crazy.
Wandering around the hill and watching the mammoths had taken time. The sun started to go down in the sky making it cooler. A little further ahead we saw two huge black stones, much larger than anything else, with one stone balanced on top of the other. We were going towards them without any real sense of purpose.
‘I suppose we’d better go back down,’ I said looking at the sky.
Mary stopped, staring at the stone shapes. ‘They remind me of something.’
‘What?’
‘When Miss Tregarthur was going on about the moor she kept pointing to the top of the hill where she was heading. She called it ‘Hanging Stone Hill’; there were two stones balanced one on top of the other. She had planned to take us to them on the walk. She seemed quite frantic to make sure we got there.’
‘Did you hear her call out when we went into the tunnel?’ I’d only shared this with Jenna.
‘No, I was too scared. What did she say?’ Mary was looking at the stones and didn’t really seem to be listening. I stopped and wondered if I should tell her.
‘Go on,’ Mary said turning back.
‘Dunno really. I might have imagined it. Perhaps she said something completely different. Jumbled her words in the wind.’ I knew I sounded embarrassed.
‘Just tell me,’ Mary said loudly.
‘I thought she said something about keeping her promise and about saving someone.’
‘Saving who? One of us?’
‘Yeah probably. Maybe she meant Jack. Maybe she knew he’d lag behind.’
‘That’s rubbish. She couldn’t have known that. And you’re sure she said something about keeping her promise?’
‘No, I’m not sure,’ I said with a harder note in my voice. She was grilling me and I didn’t like it. ‘I’m not sure of anything. Have you got any ideas?’ I wasn’t going to tell her that I thought I’d heard the same words on the climb just now.
‘Yes. Let’s check out the stones.’ She pointed at the rocks up ahead. ‘These stones are much bigger but they’re the same sort of shape as the ones on the hill we were going to. Miss Tregarthur said they were important and th
at people left messages for each other under them ... in old times. Maybe she left some clue for us.’ Mary ran to the stones. ‘There must be something.’ She started searching.
I joined her, but there was nothing to find. ‘Useless. Let’s go.’ I was worried about the fading light.
‘Please, let me look under here, help me move this boulder.’ Mary tugged at a large stone which must have broken off from one of the rocks.
‘Ok ...’ I didn’t think there was any point but Mary obviously thought it important.
‘There is something.’ Mary scrabbled in the dirt and pulled out a small rusty tin. Sitting on the grass with the tin between us, Mary bent and prized it open with her fingers. Inside we saw the decayed remains of a thin, hand written, notebook. As the light shone onto the yellowed pages they started to disintegrate. She had only a few seconds to read aloud the words written on the inside of the back cover:
Dad is really sick. I think he's going to die. I'll have to go back on my own. I have to finish this. I promised him. Then I have to save David. I promised.
We saw the name ‘Alice’ at the bottom of the page before the paper fell apart and revealed no more secrets. The tin turned to dust in her hands.
‘We know who Alice was,’ Mary said with a stony voice.
‘Who?’
‘Alice Tregarthur. That’s her name. She’s been here before. You didn’t imagine the words about her promise – or saving someone.’
‘It still doesn’t tell us anything useful.’ I looked at the pile of dust. It was already blowing away in the breeze.
‘She must have been leading us here. She must have had a reason. This promise. Then her dad. It’s just more confusing. And where is she now?’ Mary looked around her.
‘I saw her get hit during the earthquake. Pinned down by a boulder. I guess we should have gone back and helped her. I should have gone back and helped her.’
Mary gave me a weird look. ‘Alvin going back to help someone?’
‘Yeah, well, maybe if I had we wouldn’t be in this mess.’
‘If you’d gone back we’d never have got out of that earthquake. We’d all have died.’
I was embarrassed again by her words so I said, ‘Probably we’ll still all die.’
Mary said quickly, ‘If Miss Tregarthur was here, then she did get back somehow. We’ve just got to find out how.’
‘Not sure we’ll ever know,’ I yawned. I was tired, hungry and defeated. ‘I’m not sure we can make it down now. It’s getting dark. I don’t suppose you have anything to eat in your pack?’ I gave her backpack a hopeful look.
‘Sorry, just water.’
‘I wish you hadn’t mentioned muffins.’
‘Perhaps there’s something else under the stone.’ Mary started scrabbling again in the soil near to where she had found the rusty tin. I stretched out on the grass. We couldn’t make it down the path in the dark; we’d have to wait for morning. I dozed off thinking that would take some explaining to Jenna.
A little later Mary shook me, hitting me with her next find:
‘It’s food,’ she said and brushed off the dirt from a large rusty can. As she brushed, the remains of the label became faintly visible. She peered at it and gave a miserable groan.
‘What?’ I lunged for the tin.
‘Dog food.’ She handed it over. ‘It’s dog food – that teacher must have been crazy, why did she bring dog food?’
‘Can you eat dog food?’ I didn’t care how crazy she might have been if we could eat whatever was in the tin.
‘Doubt it. No idea. Anyway it’s probably gone off.’
‘Well I’m going to try.’ I hammered at it with a piece of rock until the lid gave in. The thick brown gravy didn’t smell too bad. I stuck my fingers into the gloopy mess and dragged out some lumps and stuck them in my mouth.
‘Better than chuckern,’ I mumbled with my mouth full. ‘Want some?’ I held the tin for Mary.
She looked doubtful, but as she watched me dip my fingers in for more she couldn’t resist. We cleaned out the tin and then watched the sun as it started to fall behind the mountain peaks in the distance – exhausted, but at least a little less hungry.
‘What now?’ Mary pulled on her jacket as the breeze strengthened and clouds gathered.
‘I suppose we should go back to the path. At least we might get a bit of shelter if we go down a little way.’ I didn’t like the look of the sky.
‘I think we’ll have to – and fast.’ Mary jumped up, watching the clouds.
The weather changed with an eerie suddenness, from the earlier summery breeze to a gale. We ran towards the path, scared of being caught in the wind when we were so high up. Within seconds the rain began, lashing us as we slithered over the rim onto the path.
‘We need to go further down,’ I shouted, wanting to escape the weather.
In near darkness, we fingered our way along, keeping close to the rock wall, peering at the drop on the other side of the path. The wind blew a weird loud howl like someone blowing over the neck of a bottle. Then we came to the jagged rock.
‘I don’t know if we can get around or over this, even in the light,’ I shouted again. I couldn’t hear Mary’s reply.
Crouching down we tried to get some shelter under Mary’s waterproof jacket. Despite the wind and the rain we drifted into brief periods of sleep, too tired to resist.
In the deep night, a trickle of small pebbles and sand fell on the back of my neck. Sleepily I brushed them away. Then a larger stone struck my injured shoulder.
‘Run!’ I shook Mary awake and dragged her to her feet.
A shower of stones fell past us and the ground shook as we ran back up the path with no time to feel for the safety of the rock wall, terrified of being shaken into the void by another earthquake. We reached the rim, but the gale hammered rain down on us, forcing us back to crouch on a ledge.
‘Hold on!’ I screamed, trying to make my voice heard above the wind as I wrapped my arms around a rock.
Mary was holding – mostly on to me. And we waited. Each time we thought about moving, another tremor rocked the ground.
‘What do we do?’ Mary said after a while.
‘No idea. Wait. Wait and hope.’
‘Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?’
We couldn’t sleep and I thought Mary was just saying things that came into her head. I didn’t reply.
We spent more minutes not speaking until Mary started again. ‘Jenna said you’ve got trouble at home?’
‘I’ve always got trouble at home.’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about this.
‘Jenna said this time it’s much worse.’
‘She’s right there.’ Another tremor hit us and I held on more tightly while we waited for it to stop.
‘Well?’ Mary tried again.
‘You want me to tell you all about it?’ I snapped.
‘Might as well. Pass the time.’
‘Oh, so my life story is only worth hearing to stop you being bored?’
Now it was Mary’s turn not to answer.
But she’d started me off, taking my mind away from this place, taking me back to the mess that I’d left. In the end I just blurted it out: ‘Dad’s in jail – again – along with my brother. Mum’s gone off with some bloke. They left me with my aunt. She’s had enough of me and says I’ve got to get out when I’m 16. That enough for you?’
‘Sorry,’ Mary said slowly and that was the end of any conversation. But it didn’t end my thoughts about home and Mum and Dad. Mum had been the only one I felt was on my side. Then she just vanished, left me with no one. How could she do that?
Finally as the thin light of dawn appeared the tremors stopped and the weather calmed. I let go of the rock and climbed back out on
to the wet grass; Mary followed.
‘It’s over,’ I said not knowing whether that was true.
We finished the rest of the water.
‘That tremor might have re-opened the tunnel back to the moor,’ Mary wondered aloud.
‘We need to get down and see.’ I yawned and looked at the path.
‘What about the rock in the way?’
‘No point in worrying about it now. We’ll find out when we get to it.’ I was too tired to deal with more questions.
We set off, making slow progress in the half-light.
‘It’s gone,’ said Mary after we had been walking, sliding and slipping down the path. ‘The rock’s gone. The tremor must have moved it.’
Stones and grassy lumps littered the way, but no rock blocked the track. We found it at the bottom.
‘Wouldn’t like to have been under that when it fell.’ Mary stared at the jagged mass.
‘Come on.’ I made for the passage. If the tremor had destroyed the tunnel then we were completely stuck. But only a few stones had fallen from the tunnel roof, which bruised us as we crawled in the pitch black, too early for any sunlight to show us the way.
‘Look.’ Mary pointed as we came out into the cave at the end.
The huge stone slice had fallen and closed off the cavern with the bones. I’d crawled under the stone on the previous day.
‘You could have –’ she started to say.
‘Been crushed?’ I finished her words before saying, ‘Might be a better end than food poisoning,’ and we walked on.
Exhausted and weary, bruised and battered, we headed for the cave. It had been very early when we started down the zigzag track and when we arrived back only Jack, still trying to keep the fire burning, saw us return. I motioned to him to keep quiet, as I made my way past the other sleepers and slumped down behind a rock. As I went to sleep I heard Mary holding a whispered conversation with Jack.
Tregarthur's Promise Page 6