by Ruth Eastham
‘Mayday, mayday!’ Jon called as the drone struggled away from the woods. ‘We’re going down! Emergency landing!’
The machine managed to clear the trees and fell ominously towards an adjacent field below the hill they were standing on. It pitched, then plunged, making ragged bounces along the ground as it fell, twisting over and over in the air. It came to a crunching stop, upside down.
‘Dronie!’ wailed Jon. ‘My beautiful dronie!’
Emmi turned away from the screen and looked at Aidan, eyes alight. She clasped his arm and he beamed back at her, knowing she must have seen it too …
Just before the drone had been pulled away from the trees …
Slap bang in the middle of Carrus Woods …
Jon looked at them, then sprang down to kneel in front of the laptop, hammering at the keyboard. ‘What did you see, guys? What did you see?’
The aerial video zipped backwards. The three friends pressed in close to watch as it played the last ten seconds.
Jon hit pause and stared, his mouth hanging open.
Aidan felt a ridiculous wave of hope. It might not mean anything, a nagging voice in his head said. Don’t build your hopes up too much. But he couldn’t help grinning stupidly all the same.
This was what they’d been searching for.
A sign.
Their one chance.
The frame on the computer screen showed a clearing, just visible in the fading light. It was the same clearing Aidan had passed through on his way to the demonstration; the place with that massive old horse chestnut tree with the twisting roots; the spot where he’d first seen that woman.
And there, where the summer heat had dried up the ground …
There was a circle.
A perfect circle where there shouldn’t be one.
A band of dark gold etched out in the parched earth.
Emmi grabbed Jon’s arms and danced about with him on the hilltop.
‘We’ll need to take torches, right?’ she said drawing to a breathless stop, the words tumbling from her mouth. ‘It’s getting dark so quickly with these clouds coming over. I’ll go back for some, and something to dig with too. I’ll tell Mum and Dad we’ll be out late; I’ll think of an excuse.’ The wind blew her hair, so there was a wild look about her. ‘We need to get out there before the rainstorm hits.’
She looked at Aidan, her face full of curiosity. ‘How did you know to look in Carrus Woods itself?’
‘I’ll explain on the way,’ said Aidan, quickly helping Jon pack the laptop and remote control into the canvas bag. ‘I’ll drop your stuff off at my house,’ he said, zipping up the bag and slinging it over his shoulder. ‘I’ve got to give the horses their last feed anyway – check on Centurion. Meet back at the stables everyone. Fast as possible!’
Jon gave a salute and headed down to retrieve the mangled drone. He turned back and punched a fist in the air. ‘Target identified!’ he shouted, and Aidan gave a laughing holler in reply:
‘Tonight’s the night we find Queen Boudicca’s tomb!’
All is screaming metal and splintering wood. The white gleam of bone through quivering skin; a horse’s lips drawn up against its teeth.
The woman’s sword is near her on the ground and she draws it from its sheath with an angry cry. She heaves herself across the ground with it, as the soldiers come closer. The leaping hare along its hilt sparks in the sunlight; its ruby eye flashes. She grips her royal daughters with bleeding hands, whispering urgently to them.
– CHAPTER 12 –
BY THE LAKE
Aidan patted Centurion and the big horse nuzzled against him in the gloomy stable. But the animal was agitated, moving away from him the next moment with a snort.
Fenland Queen and Firefly were acting strangely too, standing pressed together in the next stall, jittery and wide-eyed, stamping their front hooves. They slurped a bit of water from the bucket Aidan offered them, but then Firefly tipped it up. When Aidan offered them each a handful of their favourite oat mixture from the barrel, they tossed their heads at it, blowing the flakes back at him.
Aidan sighed, his worry swinging back to excitement as he thought about getting to the clearing.
The clearing!
Sweat prickled his skin. A brisk, humid breeze was blowing, the kind you get when a storm is on its way. The wind whined through the chinks in the stable roof, rattling hinges and window panes. Centurion’s ears were laid back flat, and he ground his teeth, looking towards the entrance as if he sensed something out there in the twilight.
‘It’s just the wind, Centurion.’
Was it though?
Torchlight flicked under the gap in the door, sending shadows scurrying up the walls.
Jon and Emmi? Aidan’s heart skipped a beat.
The door creaked open, and the shape of a figure loomed up the wall. A head appeared. Aidan gave a gasp as he saw the whites of a pair of eyes and a gaping mouth.
‘You ready Aide?’ said the mouth.
‘Jon?’
The face grinned and Jon gave the thumbs up. As well as a black balaclava, he was wearing a camouflage jacket complete with combat trousers and black gloves.
‘I like the gear, Jon-Boy,’ said Aidan.
‘Can you please take that thing off your head?’ said Emmi, coming into the stables. ‘You look like you’re going off to rob someone!’
Jon sighed and pulled off the balaclava so that his mop of hair stuck up in all directions. He’d painted combat stripes across his cheeks. ‘Just want to look the part, Em. Night manoeuvres and all that.’
Emmi opened the flap of the rucksack she was carrying and tossed both of them a head torch. ‘I’ve also got three super-strong trowels for digging.’
Aidan smiled at Emmi’s organisation. He fixed the torch on his head and twisted it on. ‘We need to get going.’
‘Straight across the meadow is the fastest way,’ said Jon, dazzling them with his lamp.
They set out, their lights jumping about as they hurried from the yard, strands of mist caught in the beams.
They passed the shed where the chariot was, and Aidan saw that the wind had blown the doors wide open. The Iceni costumes on their rail fluttered about like headless ghosts, and his eyes glanced at the chariot’s designs as he bolted the doors shut: Boudicca drawing back her bow, her daughters either side of her. Dead bodies lying twisted round the wheels of their chariot.
He had an image of Robbie, lying there in his hospital bed, and Aidan’s teeth clenched in anger. Who could have done that to him? How was the arm bracelet involved?
They got to the meadow. The mist was thicker here. The clumps of gorse bushes looked like hunched, scuttling creatures in the moving torchlight.
Aidan came to a sudden stop.
He angled his light beam at the ground and stared towards the lake. Emmi and Jon moved closer to him, so that all three of them were pressed up against each other. He heard Emmi’s fast breathing.
‘You can both see them this time, right?’ he whispered.
Jon gave a low whistle, then a shaky laugh. ‘So it wasn’t all just a figment of your warped imagination after all, Aidan!’
‘Will-o’-the-wisps!’ Emmi gasped.
‘The combustion of marsh gases,’ corrected Jon, but he didn’t sound at all sure any more.
Two blue flickering columns of fire rose from the lake, quivering and slowly twisting, moving to settle on the bank.
‘No way …’ said Jon. Because now, in place of the flames, lit by a blue glow, there were two figures.
Aidan stood there, mesmerised.
They were the same two girls he had seen there before, side by side, absolutely still, looking right in their direction.
‘Who are they?’ Emmi whispered by Aidan’s shoulder and he felt her shiver. ‘I don’t recognise them from the village. What are they doing just standing there like that?’
The worried snorts of the horses carried from the stables. ‘Let’s go and talk to them,’
said Aidan.
The others nodded shakily and the three of them slowly approached the figures.
The two girls still hadn’t moved. Now that they were nearer, Aidan could see that each of them had some kind of cloak wrapped round her; one with fur along the edge. The other had a long reddish plait coming down the front of her shoulder almost to her waist. They were both still looking right at them. At him?
Aidan felt their stares; a connection that he couldn’t understand.
‘They’re beautiful,’ Emmi murmured. ‘But they look so sad.’
Aidan felt a few spots of rain on the top of his head. ‘You two OK?’ he called, not really sure what to say. ‘You lost?’ he added falteringly.
Aidan got close and the girls continued to stare, their grey-green eyes wide; their skin very pale. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. They were mouthing words but no sounds seemed to be coming out. They lifted their hands.
‘They’re trying to tell us something,’ said Emmi. ‘Who are you?’ she called to them, managing to keep her voice steady.
A shower started; the surface of the lake became peppered with drops, ripples spreading over its surface. There was a sound like a hiss of breathing, then the rain started, pelting hard. Droplets slid down Aidan’s wind jacket and dripped off the hem as he hurriedly pulled up his hood.
Water poured over the dry surface of the meadow baked by weeks of sun, unable to seep into the hard ground, flowing towards the steep banks of the lake.
‘They’re not …’ Aidan heard the fear in Jon’s voice as he lifted a finger to point. ‘I know this sounds freaky, guys, but those two are not getting wet!’
Aidan gaped at the girls. It was true. While his, Jon’s and Emmi’s clothes were already virtually saturated, the two girls were unchanged by the teeming rain; as if the water was passing round them, through them.
‘That’s just not scientific,’ mumbled Jon, taking a step back.
Aidan shivered.
‘Who …’ began Emmi, her voice filled with an intense curiosity. ‘What are they?’
The answer hung in the air between the friends, but none of them wanted to voice it.
There was a lightning flash; a jolting thud of thunder and Jon gave a small cry.
The girls held out their arms in a sudden sweeping motion, and as their cloaks fell behind them, Aidan saw that each had a bracelet on her upper arm – a wide golden band.
Lightning flashed again, sparking off the metal.
Aidan felt an elbow in his side. ‘That jewellery,’ Jon hissed, ‘looks exactly like Robbie’s sketch!’
The girls pointed to the edge of the water, at the soggy earth the run-off was pouring over. They cupped their hands, their faces frowning. They made urgent gestures, their mouths moving silently.
In a moment, Emmi was on her knees, leaning forward to dig.
‘They want us to search the bank!’ she cried, pushing the wet hair out of her face. ‘That must be it! Come on you two!’
Aidan didn’t stop to wonder why. There was no time to ask questions. On impulse he sprang forward to join Emmi and scraped up handfuls of muddy soil.
‘The water level’s rising!’ he spluttered as the rain ran down his face and neck.
Whatever it was they were searching for, they only had minutes to find it, he realised. Soon the bank would be submerged under dark, silty water.
‘Here!’ cried Emmi, throwing open the flap of the rucksack and rummaging inside, then tossing them a trowel each. Aidan hacked at the soil.
Jon was by his side. ‘We need to dig faster!’
Aidan sliced into the compacted surface, again and again. The tool bent out of shape and he threw it down, resorted to using his hands. His fingers were already freezing. His fingernails were clogged up and his knuckles throbbed.
By their ghostly torchlight, the three of them gouged and dug as the rain pounded the bank, crumbling it into dense clods as parts of it eroded away in the rush of water.
Aidan swatted his eyes. It was getting even tougher to dig, and they’d found nothing. The slick mud of the bank became more viscous and difficult to shift.
The water rose higher.
‘There’s nothing here!’ Jon shouted over the lashing rain, and the wind and the thunder.
‘Keep looking!’ insisted Aidan.
He glanced back at the girls. Their bodies flickered strangely – transparent, blueish, as if they were made of flames. With a jolt, he realised that they were fading.
Time was running out.
Aidan could hardly feel his fingers any more, but he continued to grab at clods of earth with as much force as he could.
His head torch was virtually dead now, and he was working mostly by touch, his hands scooping at the flooded bank. The water level was up to his armpits as he reached downwards; the clay solidifying like cement.
‘It’s impossible, man!’ Jon shouted.
Aidan’s teeth chattered. Now the girls were little more than pale blue outlines, as if their energy was all spent, dying away to nothing. He felt himself slipping against the slick surface of the bank, about to tumble forward into the water. He made a desperate swipe …
And felt something solid against his numb fingertips.
Aidan caught his breath. He scraped at the edges of the object.
Whatever it was, was wedged. Stuck fast.
‘Help me!’ he grunted at Emmi and Jon.
All three of them crowded round the spot, prising and wrenching.
There was a movement. A slight shifting.
‘Again!’ shouted Aidan and they gave a frantic tug.
The hard object came free and they fell back on to the grass behind them in a splash of water.
Aidan was sodden and bone cold, but he lifted the object triumphantly, and his friends mouthed a cheer. It was covered in a thick layer of cloggy mud so there was no way to tell what it was.
All he knew was it was heavy. Unexpectedly heavy.
He looked around for the two girls, but they were gone.
‘Mission to extract the mud ball …’ Jon panted, rain teeming down his face, ‘accomplished.’
‘Let’s get to my house,’ Emmi said between gasps. ‘Clean it up.’
Aidan nodded, and the three of them hurried away through the storm.
– CHAPTER 13 –
THE PAST UNEARTHED
‘Ah,’ Emmi’s dad said mildly, looking up from his laptop as the three of them tumbled into the warm kitchen. ‘You’re a bit mucked up,’ which Aidan considered the understatement of the millennium.
Jon sneezed. His face was so covered in mud he looked like he had his balaclava on. ‘Might need to get a bit of a wash, yes,’ he blinked.
Aidan stared at his own dirt-splattered face in a mirror. He was still in an excited daze. He thought back to the two girls and the mysterious object cradled in his bulging anorak pocket. He eased the coat off and wrapped the nylon material into a bundle.
‘What’ve you got there?’ said Emmi’s dad, giving the soggy parcel a prod.
‘Er … we got caught in the storm, Dad,’ said Emmi quickly, ignoring his question and easing herself between her dad and Aidan. She pulled off her jacket and dumped it on the mat. ‘OK to sort this out later?’ She nudged Aidan and Jon towards the stairs. ‘You know the boys are staying tonight? We’re pretty hungry actually.’
‘Excellent!’ Emmi’s dad rubbed his hands together then unhooked a pan from a nail on the wall. ‘For supper we have duck pâté and ravioli with spinach and ricotta, then marmalade roll and custard …’
Aidan’s mouth watered. He realised he was ravenous.
‘Yes count us in for all of that!’ called Emmi. ‘We’ll clean up.
‘I’ll let the boys borrow some of my clothes,’ she added, getting a horrified look from Jon.
They rushed upstairs and locked themselves in the bathroom, Aidan quickly unwrapping the muddy mass from his anorak and laying it in the sink.
Emmi and Jon crowde
d round to see.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
Aidan heard the rain drumming on the window. He took a breath. ‘Right.’ His hand trembled a bit as he reached for the tap. ‘Here goes.’
‘Not too hot!’ Emmi warned. ‘We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, or how delicate it is.’
Aidan turned on the water and began to rub gently at the layers of sludge. Brown water filled the basin as the dirt fell away.
‘Guys,’ Emmi said after a while, as she watched Aidan work. ‘What just happened out there?’
Jon gave a nervous laugh. ‘Don’t ask me!’ He dipped his fingers under the tap and rubbed at his face. ‘I’m still recovering from the idea of having to wear your clothes.’
‘They were ghosts, weren’t they?’ said Emmi in a hushed voice. ‘We saw ghosts!’
‘Those two girls were pretty … out there,’ Jon said shakily. ‘Pretty weird. They could have been … or maybe …’ His shoulders slumped.
‘Ghosts,’ he said helplessly. ‘Definitely ghosts.’ He gave a weak grin. ‘Think of the hits we could have had on YouTube if we’d got video footage.’
Aidan smoothed away more mud. ‘But why would ghosts appear to us?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Emmi, her eyes wide. ‘They’re not at peace –’
‘Or maybe they just get a kick out of scaring people to death,’ said Jon. ‘Not that I was petrified out of my skin, or anything,’ he added quickly.
‘You think we should tell my mum and dad?’ said Emmi. ‘They might have ideas about what all this means –’
‘No way!’ interrupted Jon.
Aidan shook his head. Under his fingertips he could feel the hard surface of the object as the silky mud got washed away.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I agree with Jon. We can’t tell anyone else, Emmi. We have to keep this between just the three of us for now. We don’t even know what we’ve found yet.’
Aidan thought about the girls as he cleaned up the object, the intense way they’d fixed him with their stares. ‘I’ve no idea why, and I know all this is crazy … but those girls chose us. They’re trying to tell us something.’