by Linda Davies
She rode closer. The ground grew rougher beside the stream, lots of rocks and stones, so she dismounted and led Jacintha by a long loose rein, allowing her to pick her own way. They walked higher. The air cooled. The gurgling of the running water, the sharp calls of a curlew punctuated the rhythmic puffing of Merry and her pony.
The stream disappeared into a copse of trees. Merry reached into her backpack, took out a rope and tethered Jacintha to a tree on the edge of the copse.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said, patting the mare’s neck. Jacintha was warm from the effort of climbing. Merry didn’t want to leave her for long or she could get chilled.
She turned and pushed her way through the bushes. Thorns scratched her hands, drawing pinpricks of blood. A bird flew overhead and landed on a high branch. But Merry was looking down, and didn’t see the nightingale.
The ground sloped steeply to the unseen stream. She slipped and landed on her bottom, muddying her jeans. She got up, pushed on, emerged into a small clearing.
And there was the stream, pooling out before her, bordered by marshy, spongy grass. In which were spooling coils of colour. She’d seen these before; her father had told her what they were: petroleum seeps, where liquid or gas hydrocarbons escape the lower geological layers through fractures and fissures in the rock, then slowly ooze or bubble up to the surface. He’d told her how sometimes these could ignite, burning away in an eternal flame. Early peoples thought it was the work of magic; they were drawn to these places and terrified by them. Merry suddenly thought of the Mabinogion, of the tree that burnt on one side and was green leaf on the other. Maybe it was a petroleum seep, just like this one burning …
Her heart began to pound. She reached down, touched the coils of rainbow-coloured ooze, shimmering. She looked up, and off to the right, hidden from the hillside by the thicket, was a waterfall. A small one, only five feet or so, not enough to attract attention in a country with many more dazzling specimens, but the water fell perfectly straight, just like a veil.
There is a cave where the green turns blue, where the earth beside does shimmer. A veil of water guards it well, of its secrets not a glimmer.
She fell silent. She thought she felt something. A quickening of the air. Hands trembling, without thinking what she was doing, just following some sudden compulsion, she took off her boots, her muddy jeans, her helmet and eye patch, her jacket. Wearing just her T-shirt and underwear, she walked into the water.
The cold was like an assault. She forced herself on. Quickly the water deepened. And became colder still. She sank down to her chest, swam against the current to the waterfall. The water, the veil, was thick; it was hard to see anything beyond it. Heart racing, she dived and swam underneath the falling water. And came up into a cave.
It was dark. The water was a deep, midnight blue. Merry wished she had a head torch. She wished she had a wetsuit. She was chilled already. She knew she wasn’t prepared.
There is a hole in the stone of sand at the back in the gushing flow; follow it through to another land and all treasures will you know. Twenty strokes have many tried, turning them to blue, of those venturers many have died, only the strong pass through.
She paused, swam to stay still in the running water.
Two urges warred inside her: one, never to turn from a challenge, and two, to heed her father’s ruthless mantra – Proper Prior Planning Prevents Pitiful Performance – the creed of the SAS. She could not afford Pitiful Performance in the mountains with the sun going down.
But she had to find out if there was a hole in the back of the sandstone cave. There was nothing above the waterline. She sank back under the water, pushed forward in a powerful breaststroke. Her eye had adjusted and she could just about make out the back of the cave about fifteen feet away. She kicked on, fighting the current, which seemed to be getting stronger. Maybe she was getting weaker, she thought. Chilled and tired. She pushed on till she could touch the sandstone wall at the back of the cave. Rising up out of the water, she traced her hands over the rock, trying to grip on as the water gushed against her. No hole.
It had to be here. She felt sure. She dropped down, sucked in a deep breath, went under. Holding her arms in front of her, she kicked out as hard as she could, fingers tracking the wall all the way to the bottom. Then there was nothing – a gap. Her heart lurched. She’d found the hole.
She came up for air, sucked in another breath, pushed down again, kicked hard, hands out in front, protecting her head. She found the hole again, traced it down to just above the floor of the pool. It must have been around five feet high and six across. This was it, she knew with a blood-deep certainty. This was the riddle pool, leading to the other land, leading to treasures. But the current was pushing her back into the cave, away from the hole, and she needed to breathe. She let the current take her back, out from under the waterfall, to the other side. She rose into the frigid air, gasping, exultant.
She kicked something hard in the water, on the bed of the pool. Curious, she dropped down into the water, felt around for it. Her fingers closed around a long, smooth object. She drew it out of the water, gasped. Dropped it in horror. Many have died … She’d seen enough medical diagrams in her biology module to know the thigh bone she held in her hand belonged to a human.
That should have warned her, slowed her down, but Merry was on a high, exultant with her find and driven by her mother’s fears and the sense that time was running out. So many people knew about the book. Dr Philipps had done the translation himself. He would be bound to come searching, and send a younger, fitter person into this same pool, to make this same discovery. Merry had sold the book, but she felt overwhelmingly that the treasures it referred to were hers. Her family’s. If she found them, then maybe she could secure the future of their farm for ever. If she got to them in time …
She plunged back into the deeper water, swam under the waterfall, came up into the cave. She breathed deeply, trying to get in as much oxygen as possible. Then she dived underwater, pushed down. Into the hole.
Merry reached up and felt rock pressing down through the water: it was a tunnel. She swam on, staying deep, wary of bumping her head, the current pressing against her.
Twenty strokes have many tried, turning them to blue.
How many could she manage before she turned blue? She struck out in a powerful breaststroke. One, two, three. With every stroke the current seemed to grow stronger. Four, five, six. She had to fight harder. Seven, eight, nine. She was cold, she was tiring. Ten, eleven, twelve. The flickers of fear began. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Fear became terror. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen … Oxygen gone. Vision blurring, body spasming. Many have died … Decide or die!
She jackknifed, let the current spin her back around. It ran with her, pushing her along, but she still had to stay low or risk bashing her head on the rock ceiling. The current ran so fast it was like nothing she had ever felt. Where was the air? Couldn’t last much more. Dizzy, so dizzy … Was this what dying felt like?
James de Courcy stood in his room, looking out across the valley to Nanteos Farm. Black clouds gathered on the horizon. It would snow again soon, he reckoned.
He would not go to Bali. He would leave home, return to Manchester, find the cheapest bedsit he could. He’d saved up some birthday and Christmas money. He called it his slush fund. It wasn’t much, but it would see him through for a few weeks and that had to be enough. He would then turn sixteen, and if Man U signed him, and please, please God he prayed they would, then he could pay his own way.
His parents would rage against him. Might even disinherit him. But it was now or never. He could only be a footballer when he was young. This was not the path his parents wanted him to take, but it was his path, his life.
He took out his phone, rang Merry. Now he’d made up his mind, he had to tell her immediately, as if telling her had started it all. The phone rang and rang but Merry did not answer. The call went through to voicemail. James hung up, mystified and annoyed. He ra
ng again ten minutes later, but again the phone just rang and rang and then went straight to voicemail.
James chucked the phone on his bed, frustrated. Merry had promised she would keep her phone on her.
Don’t worry about me, she’d said. But he had then. And he did now. Even more so.
He strode to his window, looked out again. Great black clouds covered the sky, stealing the daylight. Ice stones pummelled down; he could see them far below ricocheting off the grass.
He rang Mary’s house line. Her mother answered.
‘Hi, Mrs Owen,’ he said, trying to keep his voice casual. ‘It’s James here. Could I speak to Merry, please?’
‘Sorry, James,’ replied Elinor. ‘She went out riding a few hours ago.’
‘In this?’ asked James, his fears suddenly growing.
‘Well, I don’t know where she went, or if she checked the forecast. She was in a bit of a mood, I must say,’ observed Elinor. ‘Blowing off steam, I think.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Owen,’ said James. He hung up. He had a sudden feeling he knew where Merry might have gone: legions marching, an emperor and queen … In a blast of shock, he knew. The Roman road.
There was no good reason why Merry wouldn’t answer her phone. Unless she was hurt, or injured. All his instincts told him something was very wrong.
He ran down the stairs to the boot room at the back of the castle where all the keys were kept and grabbed the keys to the Land Rover. He ran out, jumped in, started up the car and accelerated along the road across the de Courcy parkland.
The hail drummed on to the windscreen, cutting visibility. The tyres lost their bite on the tarmac. James felt as if he were coasting on a layer of ice. Crashing wouldn’t help Merry. Cursing, he eased off the accelerator. The headlights picked out the hedgerows enclosing the narrow road. Stunted trees bent in the wind. James swept his eyes back and forth, seeking, as he drove on, muscling the Land Rover over the rough ground as he left the tarmac and headed along the old Roman road. Looming through the darkness and the hail, he soon saw the standing stone gleaming in the wash of his headlights. Hailstones bounced off it. Something was moving through the darkness beyond it.
It was Merry. She was slumped over her pony, her soaked hair hanging down.
‘Merry!’ shouted James.
He screeched to a halt, leapt from the Land Rover, walked towards her and her pony. He wanted to run, but that would alarm Jacintha. He swallowed the sound in his throat, a half-cry.
‘Hey Merry, hey, Jac, I’ve come to take you home. Easy there, easy now,’ he crooned, taking Jacintha’s reins, leading her to the Land Rover. He let go of the pony and pulled Merry off.
She mumbled something in protest. ‘It’s OK, Merry. I’m going to get you inside the car, get you warm,’ he said. With one hand, he opened the rear passenger door, then clambered inside with Merry in his arms. He reached forwards, turned on the engine and the heated seats, ramped the heating up as high as it would go; then he just held Merry, rubbing her back, giving her the heat from his own body, willing her warm, fighting the hypothermia he knew could kill.
‘It’s all right, Merry,’ he said. ‘You’re safe now. I’ve got you.’
She tried to say something but could hardly move her lips. James gazed round frantically. He knew he should drive, should get her home, but he felt that if her let go of her he could lose her.
‘C’mon, Merry,’ he said, rubbing her back harder. ‘Stay awake, hang on in there.’
He grabbed his phone, rang her home.
Caradoc Owen answered.
‘Get your Land Rover!’ James said, trying not to shout. ‘Hitch the horse trailer. Merry’s in trouble. We’re near Maen Llia.’
‘I’m on my way,’ said Caradoc. He didn’t ask how James knew, or any other time-wasting questions. The fear in James’s voice told him all he needed to know.
Twenty minutes later, James saw a wash of headlights sweep over the car.
‘Your father’s here now,’ he said to Merry.
He watched Caradoc Owen pull up, leap from his car and sprint across to them. He threw open the door, glanced briefly at James.
‘Thank you,’ he said, then grabbed Merry. ‘I’ll take her now,’ he said. ‘Load Jacintha for me, will you.’
Her father’s voice was calm, but James could see the fear in his eyes. Her father was battle-trained, medically skilled, he was the best person to take Merry, but James still didn’t want to let her go.
‘You can come in the car with us,’ said Caradoc, rethinking. ‘You can hold her, keep her warm. Just turn off your engine, load Jacintha and get in,’ he said, then he hauled Merry out and ran with her through the hail to his own Land Rover.
James jumped out and caught hold of the pony, who’d stood outside the whole time, as if keeping vigil on her mistress.
‘C’mon, Jac,’ he said. He loaded her quickly, secured the trailer door, turned off the engine of his own car, ran back to the Owens’s Land Rover and jumped in the back seat beside Merry as Caradoc accelerated into the night.
They arrived at Nanteos Farm after a terrifying drive. James knew that much faster, or much slower, might have been equally lethal.
Caradoc ran into the farmhouse, Merry in his arms. James followed behind.
‘Upstairs,’ said Elinor, her face pinched and white. Seren Morgan was with her. James was glad. The healer was considered as good as most doctors for just about everything, save surgery. Caradoc took the stairs two at a time.
James, desperate for something to do, went back out into the hail, released Jacintha from her trailer and led her to the stables. He made sure she had food and water, then went back to the farmhouse.
He stood in the silent kitchen, glancing up at the ceiling as if he might see through the bricks and the mortar. He desperately wanted to go up but knew he’d be in the way, and might not even be welcome. He stayed where he was, suddenly shivering as if from a remnant of Merry’s chill.
At last he heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and Caradoc Owen appeared in the kitchen.
‘Between Seren and Elinor, Merry’s in good hands,’ he said. ‘They’re warming her up. She’s conscious still.’
James nodded, swallowed the lump in his throat.
Caradoc blew out a breath, ran his hands over his face in a rare display of emotion, then he studied James, his face hard and unreadable.
‘First of all,’ he said, moving closer to James, ‘I want to thank you.’ He put a hand on James’s arm, left it there. ‘Second of all, I’m going to make us some sweet tea, and you’re going to tell me what happened.’
James nodded. Suddenly exhausted, he sat down at the kitchen table. He took just one sip of tea before his own phone rang.
His mother. He took the call.
‘James!’ she yelled in his ear. ‘What the hell is going on? Dinner was served ten minutes ago. No sign of you. We asked Mrs B if she’d seen you and she finally let on that she’d seen you go tearing off in the Land Rover well over an hour ago. Where the hell are you? Please tell me you haven’t been driving on the public roads …’
‘Actually, Ma, I have. Merry was in trouble. I had to go and—’
His mother cut him off. ‘That wretched girl again! You’d risk a criminal prosecution, a criminal record, to go off on some wild goose chase to rescue her? Are you mad?’ she screamed.
James couldn’t listen to any more. He hung up, glanced at Caradoc, who’d clearly heard every word. He could see the muscles tense in the man’s jaw.
James got to his feet. ‘I’d better go.’
Caradoc nodded. ‘Let me check on Merry again, then I’ll drive you home.’
‘I need to get the Land Rover back.’
‘OK. I’ll drive you there instead. You can tell me on the way.’
Fourteen hours later, Merry awoke in her bed, the electric blanket hot beneath her, another electric blanket hot on top of her and what felt like a mountain of duvets pressing down on her. Sun streamed through her prim
rose-sprigged curtains. There was a stink of garlic. It seemed to be coming from her. With the smell came the memories: water, cold, Jacintha, James. She felt pretty certain he’d saved her life. She felt a swell of emotion wash over her. Gratitude, something else she couldn’t name, but also pure, ice-cold terror.
Despite the electric blankets and the duvets swaddling her, she felt like she’d never erase that memory of cold, of drowning, of being trapped underneath the mountain in that small, dark cave, water below and water above, in her nostrils, in her mouth, that awful current fighting her, then, at last, maybe saving her.
She pushed it from her mind. She couldn’t think about it, wouldn’t think about it. Would seek refuge in denial for as long as she could.
Seeking distraction, she turned on her phone.
Multiple texts from James, all on the same theme:
How are you? Text me as soon as you wake up.
She texted him back. She remembered Bali, wondered if he had gone.
I’m up. How am I ever going to thank you?
A text came straight back. So he couldn’t be on the plane to Bali. She smiled.
You’ll never need to.
She smiled again.
Maybe a lifetime’s supply of footballs?
Deal! Anything u need? Head-to-toe thermals? Padded cell? I can order online …
Ha v funny. So no Bali?
No Bali.
Merry hit call.
James picked up.
There was laughter in his voice, a kind of relieved delight. ‘Thought that might get you.’
‘James,’ said Merry, letting out a huge breath. ‘Joking aside, what can I say? Without you …’
There was a silence on the phone for a long, awkward moment.
‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ James finally said. ‘You’re OK, I take it? That’s all that matters.’