A Spectre in the Stones

by John Kitchen

  Lloyd and Rudi wanted to go to the library and find out about the Beaker folk and they also wanted to find out stuff in the local history section that might relate to the stones at Brookley.

  Brookley was only a few miles from Sarson Hall and it was a journey they made every day on the minibus. But travelling on public transport and getting right into town put everything in a different league. It was freedom. It was independent travel.

  The town was a strange place – a mixture of old and new. On the Sarson village side there were industrial and housing estates, crowding in on the centre, but the centre itself was old, a mixture of weathered eighteenth-century shops and houses, whose red bricks mingled with half-timbered buildings from Tudor times.

  There were precincts and narrow cobbled lanes and the central concourse ran down a gentle hill. It opened onto a large square with an ancient market hall. The hall had a heavy slate roof supported by columns.

  The library was at the back of the market hall in a narrow lane.

  In any other part of the country, Brookley would be something of a tourist attraction. It was picturesque, but it was under the same spell as Sarson Hall – dank streets, a canopy of gloom cast by brooding clouds and, even though the freedom of rubbing shoulders with the general populace energised Lloyd, the people here had the same sour expression and the same dour faces as those of Sarson village.

  They headed straight for the library.

  The librarian was a middle-aged woman with glasses. She was severely dressed in navy cardigan and skirt, and she called them over as soon as they came in. Her hair was combed back, pinned tightly behind her head, and wisps of grey escaped around her face. She looked grim.

  She didn’t mince her words either. “You boys are from Sarson Hall, aren’t you?” she snapped.

  Rudi nodded. “We want to look in the history section.”

  The way she sniffed irritated Lloyd, but he bit his lip. If he started something now, they’d be chucked out.

  “I don’t want you making any trouble,” she said. “We don’t get children from Sarson Hall in here often, and when we do it isn’t to search out history books. It’s to make trouble.”

  “That’s not what we’re here for,” Rudi said. “We want to find out about the Beaker folk.” He gave her a disarming smile and Lloyd reckoned there was a big opening for him in the diplomatic service. “We want to discover what links the Beaker folk with this area, especially Brookley Henge – and we’d like to find out something about the henge, too. I don’t suppose you could recommend any books?”

  The woman’s face didn’t crack, but she waddled out from behind her desk and made for a corner of the library. She gesticulated with her head for them to follow. “There’s a local history section and guide books, but you look at them where I can see you. No hiding behind bookshelves where you can make trouble,” she said.

  Under the influence of Rudi’s diplomatic charms, though, she actually searched out a couple of books. “They’re mostly local history,” she said. “We haven’t got a lot on the Beaker people – but there’s a bit about Brookley Henge.” She tottered back to a table near reception, still clutching the books, and she only dumped them when she got there. “Don’t you move from here,” she snapped and Rudi tried his charm offensive again.

  “Thanks ever so much. You’ve been really helpful.”

  But the charm was merely greeted with a “Humph.”

  There was very little about the Beaker folk, just a caption under a black and white photo and it simply stated that the original stone circle was probably built in the Bronze Age by a settlement of the Beaker tribe.

  The photo was of the henge, but it was puzzling. The so-called circle wasn’t anything like a circle. It was just a collection of stones, some upright and some lying on their side.

  The area seemed heavily abandoned and overgrown.

  Rudi found another page related to Brookley Henge in the other book and it was a type of plan. The layout of the stones here was much clearer. “It’s more like a crescent,” he said.

  By the plan was a street map and it showed a road running out of town, behind the market square, and the henge was only a little way up the road. Lloyd spanned it with his hand. “That don’t look far,” he said. “We should go up there. Check it out.”

  They took the books back to the librarian and Lloyd let Rudi do the talking. “Thank you so much for your help,” he said. “We’ve finished with these now.”

  The librarian snatched the books with another disingenuous grunt, and Lloyd could see, in Rudi’s eyes, that he wasn’t done with her. He looked straight into her face, with the most disarming smile, and he put his hand out. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “But I’ve just thought. Could we have that one back, just for a minute?”

  It was the book with the street map. He thumbed through for the page. “We thought we’d go up to the henge and take a look for ourselves,” he said. He pointed to the map, forcing her to engage. “It’s that road, don’t you think – the one behind the library? Could you possibly give us directions?”

  The contortions on the woman’s face nearly had Lloyd laughing out loud – but that would have ruined the effect. He turned away and stared at the door.

  “I hope you’re not planning to make mischief,” she snapped. “Those stones up there are historic monuments and they’re to be respected. Vandals have done enough damage up there already.”

  But the butter wouldn’t have melted in Rudi’s mouth and, from the corner of his eye, Lloyd saw the smile radiating at her again. “It’s all right. You mustn’t worry, ma’am, we’re only interested in it as a historical monument. We’ve got a friend, you see. He’s an archaeologist, and he’s got us interested in the stones.”

  The librarian grunted. Her facial muscles were in battle – prejudice versus Rudi’s charm – and neither side was winning. “Well. See you behave yourselves,” she said.

  “Yes, but how do we find the road?”

  “Go out and turn right down the alley by the side of the library. It takes you into ‘Back Row.’ Turn left and then take the first right – and any damage reported up there, and I’ll tell the police you were in here. The library’s covered by CCTV so it won’t take long to find you.”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Rudi said. “We’re just students of antiquities, and you’ve been most kind.”

  He handed the book back again and Lloyd dashed for the door.

  He couldn’t contain himself any longer. “You’re such a smooth operator, man,” he said. “She couldn’t handle that. It was awesome.”

  Rudi was grinning and his eyes sparkled, but he told Lloyd to hush his noise and they headed down the alley and up the hill, following a small side road. Almost immediately, they were out of town. There was a church and a low-walled cemetery and then they were between brackish fields and scrubland. The occasional skeletal tree prodded the sky, and it was bleak and raw.

  About half a mile up the hill the hedge thickened and there was a gap leading into what looked like a stretch of moorland. They pushed through and just inside was a weather-beaten sign saying that this was Brookley Henge.

  Their eyes swept across the desolation and it was as unloved and abandoned as anything they’d seen – but the stones were there, struggling out of the thicket – big, dark stones, just as they were in the photograph.

  Lloyd was surprised at how large some of them were. They loomed up towards the sky while others lay uprooted in the clumps of gorse and bracken, and there was a rash of moss and lichen creeping over them. There were only six or seven big stones. And the place was so bleak it sent a shiver through him. It had a feel of abandonment, as if its spirit had been sucked out, and the stones lay in ruins like the rotting stumps of a ship’s hull.

  “It’s like the place God forgot,” he said, staring at the brooding megaliths.

  “It’s scary,” said Rudi. “It’s like – all the bleakness of the world is radiating from this one place.”r />
  “That’s just what I was thinking, man. And it don’t make no circle neither.”

  They wandered to where the stones gave way to bracken, following the line of the crescent. They didn’t know what they were looking for but suddenly Lloyd stopped.

  Where he was standing, buried in the cluster of scrub, there seemed to be a pit like the indentation in someone’s gum where a tooth has been rooted out.

  “Do you think there used to be another stone here?” he said.

  “A stone what someone took away?”

  “If it is, there’s another one here,” Rudi said crouching behind a clump of gorse.

  “And these pits follow the line,” said Lloyd. “Like – it was a circle once and it’s been ransacked.”

  They pushed on until the scrubland grew impenetrable, but, at roughly regular intervals, following the circumference, they found indentations – wounds in the earth where great stones had once been.

  “Someone’s been and smashed this place up,” Lloyd said. He sat on a stump and he was thinking. “There’s a feel about it, too – like the earth’s grieving. It’s all around you.”

  Rudi nodded. “Is that what’s upsetting the ghost back at Sarson Hall, do you think?”

  Lloyd shrugged. “The guy built the place didn’t he? I mean, if I’d done all that and some moron had wrecked it, I’d be mad.” He stood up. “We got to tell Justin when he comes in tomorrow. But… if it’s this what’s upsetting the guy, why’s he down at Sarson Hall and not up here? And what are we meant to do about it – to calm him

  I mean. There isn’t no stones we can put back.”

  He took a few steps away. Whether this had anything to do with Sarson Hall or not, there was something forlorn about the place. It was getting to his gut and, what was worse it made him feel useless. If this was the ghost’s gripe, there was nothing he could do about it. “It’s getting to me, man – this place. I don’t see no point in hanging around,” he said.

  Rudi didn’t argue, and neither of them said much on their way back to town.

  That night, after the normal stormy period of fending off dysfunctional kids and enduring the ineffectual rantings of Dave and Marion, Lloyd was almost glad to get to bed. But there was an undercurrent of anxiety. The North Wing seemed poised. It was pulsing with potential disruption and the activities of the poltergeists were threatening just below the surface. And there was Caitlin. Although the ghost hadn’t been hostile to Lloyd, he couldn’t get out of his head the blind, terrorising fury it had shown to her. If it turned that kind of thing onto him, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  He knew he mustn’t sleep, so he moved out into the corridor as soon as the final door had slammed in the main wing. He’d decided that balancing on two feet in a freezing passage was about the best way to guarantee staying awake – but the fury of pent-up rage burst onto the North Wing early, with all the usual manifestations of wind and weather. The house shook, the floorboards groaned. Hail and wind lashed at windows and the weird moonlight shone through with intimidating intensity.

  Caitlin came out of her room, but the elemental wrath had made him nervous and he didn’t have a clue what would happen when he tried to manoeuvre her back to bed.

  He crept towards her quickly, aiming to get there before she reached the stairs and gently he put a hand on her shoulder. He made sure his grip was firm, and he eased her around, terrified he’d wake her, but as she reversed her course, there was no indication that he had. He didn’t speak. He just propelled her down the corridor.

  When he eased her back onto her bed, her eyes did open – not with the violent eruption of someone who’d been roughly woken, but with the half-closed look of subconsciousness, as if her mind and her limbs were still sedated.

  The expression he saw under the hooded eyelids though, ripped through him. It was an unguarded look of gratitude, and there was a quiver of a smile on her lips. It made him catch his breath, because he wasn’t expecting it.

  Then he hurried to the stairs. He was frightened the cellar door would slam before he got there. He also wanted to get through, so the door would shut before Caitlin could follow him.

  The door was swinging, but, as he descended, he heard it slam and that jarred in his heart, because now it was just him and the elemental fury. He’d taken a chance on the ghost being okay, but he couldn’t be certain, and there were other things. Justin thought it might want to tell him something. But how would it communicate? It spoke this strange language that meant nothing to Lloyd.

  He was really stepping into the unknown and he was nervous.

  The ambient light from the forty-watt bulb was already shining on the walls, and, immediately as he reached the bottom of the stairs, the bulb started to spit.

  Flicks of twisters began rising in the corner and he watched as they grew, darting in a random dance, searching out the centre point and merging, dissolving back into the wall. And all the time his body was urging them on, impatient to get the ghost out into the open, so he could know what kind of mood it was in.

  Slowly the mirage took form and he saw it, crouched there in iridescent green, wearing the long robe and the woollen helmet he’d seen on the computer screen.

  For a moment it didn’t move, but, when it did, there was none of the demented dancing that it had shown to Caitlin. It just remained there, making a steady scan of the cellar until it saw that Lloyd was alone.

  Then it pulled itself out of its foetal crouch and took a step towards him.

  He couldn’t help himself. He stepped back, but the spectre just shook its head and raised its hand to beckon him. The hoarse whispering that had sent shivers through him last time was there again, and it struggled in its throat to speak. But still, the words meant nothing.

  When Lloyd had convinced himself there wasn’t any danger, he took a few steps towards it, but, as he got nearer, his lungs filled with the reek of decaying earth. He struggled with his stomach, concentrating all his senses – and then the ghost did the strangest thing.

  It lowered itself and drew a shape on the cellar floor. The shape was only there for a few seconds. Then it dissolved like a ripple in water.

  But it was important because, immediately after it had drawn the shape, it straightened itself and pointed at Lloyd. Then it pointed at the drawing, and all the time it was nodding its head.

  The shape was made of three lines forming a letter Y – the two open lines pointing at him and the single line pointing towards the ghost, and, each time it faded, it drew it again.

  “What’s it mean?” Lloyd said. “I don’t get it. Is that a letter you’re drawing? Have I got to do something that begins with the letter Y?”

  It whispered a hoarse, guttural hiss, but Lloyd still couldn’t understand.

  It was clear it wanted him to know the Y thing was important though because it repeated the drawing so many times, each time pointing to it, then to Lloyd, and all the time its head was nodding.

  Lloyd wanted to know more, but the apparition suddenly started retreating into the stones. It adopted the crouched stance, and the green luminosity faded. Then… it was a tornado of dust, swirling, shrinking and dying back into the cellar floor.

  Above Lloyd’s head the light returned to full strength while a stifling chill filled the air.

  He didn’t move. He had no idea what the ghost was telling him and all the time he was asking himself why a spectre would drag itself back through the ages of time to show an Afro-Caribbean kid the letter Y.

  He knew that until he understood this, he wouldn’t get any further, but he wasn’t confident even Justin would have the answer to this one.

  When he got back to his room, the poltergeist had been at work again, and that brought even more confusion because, this time, there wasn’t any malice in its action.

  His travel case was on the bed and it had succeeded in opening it.

  His first instinct was to find his letters and photos, but not only was the bundle of papers still neatly stacked
in the corner of the case, the case had been packed with clothes. There were a couple of pairs of socks, a neatly folded shirt, a pair of jeans, his toilet bag and a white T-shirt, all stowed more tidily than if he’d packed them himself.

  The room was relatively calm too, and he was getting so used to these supernatural happenings that, after the initial shock, he was more curious than frightened.

  There was still a cloying dankness filling the air and this bedroom certainly wasn’t the kind of place to chill out in, but, as he sat on his bed, his mouth broadened into a grin.

  Something had changed.

  What had previously been the fury from hell was becoming friendlier, and he began to feel that, while the ghost had been trying to give him a message in the cellar, here, in his bedroom, the poltergeist had been doing something that might have been rated as a good deed… if he’d been planning a journey.

  Chapter 9

  It wasn’t easy to get to sleep. His brain was in overdrive and the very act of closing his eyes was a struggle.

  He tried the slow, deep breathing and the controlled relaxation, but still his brain was racing.

  There were fragments of a pattern forming in his head.

  He’d nailed down the ghost and he’d begun to sense the cause of all the trouble. His impetus had been given a massive boost by what had just happened, with the ghost and the poltergeist seeming to be so positive, and he was excited.

  But he was confused.

  It looked as if the reason for all the disruption was something that had happened way back in time, and he had this feeling about the stones at Brookley Henge. It was likely the ghost had been involved in building the henge and now it was eaten up with fury… but nothing was straightforward. He couldn’t understand the Y shape – or the fact that the poltergeist had packed his travel case, or why the ghost’s fury was directed at Caitlin.

  He thought more about Caitlin, and then he stopped thinking about Caitlin because it was messing with his brain. He thought about the henge – being up there with Rudi. He thought about the bleak desolation, the devastation that had been left up there. He thought about the grim-faced librarian and the books. He visualised the travel case, packed, at the foot of his bed – and that blew his mind. He couldn’t unpack the case though. There had to be a reason. He pictured the ghost crouching – drawing the signs in the dust – and he heard the unearthly whisper of its voice echoing in his head.