A Spectre in the Stones

by John Kitchen

  Justin was laughing. “Let’s hope I can help some then,” he said. “But, if I can’t, we can always talk it over with my professor in London next weekend.”

  Lloyd’s eyes widened. “We going to London next weekend?” he said.

  “I emailed the professor and he phoned me last night. I told him what was going on and he’s dead keen to meet you. I’ve got to get Dave’s permission, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Lloyd looked slightly abashed. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said. “I just been winding the guy up and he don’t like me a lot.”

  “He’ll be okay,” Justin said. “When I tell him Professor Appleyard at the Institute of Education wants to see you, he’ll be really pleased. I’ll say you’ve got an interest in archaeology and you’ve been doing things up at Brookley Henge.”

  “Is that what the guy’s called? Appleyard?” said Lloyd.

  “Yes, James Appleyard. He’s great. You’ll like him.”

  They walked across to the boundary wall and Justin found an old tree stump where they sat. “Now, tell me about Brookley Henge,” he said.

  “It’s a wreck up there, man,” said Lloyd. “If the ghost guy did build it, no wonder he’s mad. There isn’t no proper stone circle no more. It’s just a kind of crescent and half the stones have been knocked over. It was a stone circle once though. We followed the line and there was – like – dents in the ground where the stones used to be. We couldn’t get all the way round because it was too overgrown but there was a circle there once, definite. Someone’s been up there and messed it all up.”

  “Recently, do you think?” Justin said, and Lloyd shook his head.

  “Them dents is old. They been there for years, isn’t that right, Rudi?”

  Rudi nodded. “Could be hundreds of years,” he said.

  “Were the stones left lying around in other places?”

  “That’s the weird thing,” said Lloyd. “We looked for them, but there wasn’t no sign of them. Someone’s been up and took the lot.”

  Justin thought for a moment. “We need to talk to Professor Appleyard before we come to any big conclusions,” he said, and suddenly Lloyd’s eyes lit up.

  “I know what that poltergeist was doing, now. You’re right about us having to go to see this professor guy. That’s what the poltergeist was telling me. I told you it had been messing with my stuff. Well, what it done was, it packed my travel bag – shirts, socks, everything, all folded away neater than I could do.”

  Rudi breathed in sharply. “And is that right, Justin. Would we need to take clothes? Are we staying overnight?”

  Even Justin looked taken aback. “At the Appleyards’?” he said. “Yes. They did suggest it. They thought you’d like to see something of London while you were up there. Jenny Appleyard, the professor’s wife, suggested that.”

  “We got to do it.” Lloyd said. “You been to London haven’t you, Rudi?”

  Rudi shook his head.

  “There’s great places up there. I been – two or three times.”

  “I’ll see Dave tomorrow,” Justin said. “Then I’ll get back to the Appleyards.” He glanced at Lloyd and grinned. “And I think you should give baiting Dave a miss for the time-being. If you get on the wrong side of him again, he isn’t likely to let you go.”

  Lloyd laughed. “I got the message. I’ll give the guy a quiet time, till after next week.”

  “That’s fixed then,” said Justin. “Now, tell me what happened with Caitlin, and down the cellar with the ghost.”

  Lloyd told him how he’d steered Caitlin back to bed and then about the ghost and the symbol he kept writing in the dust.

  “It was like a Y shape,” he said. “And it must be important. I mean, he kept writing it down and every time it faded he done it again, and he was pointing to me, like I had to go with this thing. But I don’t get it. I mean, the letter Y. Is it the start of a word or what?”

  “I don’t see how it could be,” Justin said. “The Bronze Age people didn’t do writing, certainly not using the Roman alphabet. That didn’t come in for years.” He leaned over and grabbed a small twig, drawing the shape in the ground. “Was the symbol like this?”

  “That’s the thing,” Lloyd said. “Only – the ghost kept drawing it the other way round, like the single line was pointing to him.”

  Justin redrew the symbol and frowned. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I suppose it could be some sort of map, indicating three places – Sarson Hall – the henge – and some other place, but… it could be one of a hundred things.” He drew the shape again, staring at it. “It could be a symbol; something significant to the Beaker folk, or – if we could link it with all the stuff we know – the Beaker history, the stones, things we use to understand the culture of the henges…” He stopped suddenly and looked at Lloyd. “He drew the two prongs pointing at you?” he said, and Lloyd nodded.

  “Every time. And he pointed at me, like I had to do something with the Y thing.”

  “An arrow – pointing you forward? But forward to where?”

  “This sounds a bit weird, but, it was more like he wanted me to kind of use the Y,” Lloyd said.

  Justin looked at the drawing in the ground again, and under his breath he muttered, “A divining rod?”

  “A what?” said Lloyd.

  “A divining rod. There are things called ley lines that are linked with stone circles. They can be detected with something called a divining rod.”

  “Ley lines?”

  Justin grinned. “They’re amazing things. They run underground – like magnetic rivers and they’re all over the world, going from one ancient monument to the next. People like the Aborigines and the Japanese knew about them way back. The Japanese called them ‘Dragon Currents.’ It could be the Beaker folk knew about them too, because these ley lines link up with all the stone circles and megaliths across Europe. The Y thing could be a divining rod. Ley lines might be important to the ghost.”

  “Can they do anything, these ley lines?” Lloyd said.

  “You bet they can. In Ireland they say if you build a house on a ley line, it will destroy it or at least put a curse on it forever. They’re like – channels for supernatural forces and mystical currents.”

  “That’s awesome, man,” Lloyd said. “And they’re really there, under the ground and they can be detected by this divining rod thing?”

  Justin nodded.

  “But what is a divining rod?” said Rudi.

  “There are people – dowsers – who have the ability to sense where there’s stuff hidden underground. They do it with divining rods – if there’s water or oil, they can sense it. That’s what they’re used for, mainly, but some dowsers can detect ley lines.” He looked at Lloyd and Rudi again. “Some of the divining rods look like a letter Y. These days they’re often made of metal – but they can be made out of wood.” He got up and scoured the ground. “Like this,” he said, picking up a twig. “This is hazel. That’s the type of wood they use for divining.”

  “How does it work then?” said Lloyd.

  Justin gave a sheepish grin. “There’s no way I can do it, but I’ll mime for you. It goes something like this.”

  He held the two prongs of the twig in his hands and stretched his arms out so the probing single prong was horizontal to the ground. “If there’s water – or some other mineral or force under the ground, then the rod will bend – a bit like this.”

  He manipulated it with his fingers and the rod nosed gently towards the ground.

  “You’re doing that with your fingers,” Lloyd laughed. “That’s a con.”

  “I told you I couldn’t do it,” said Justin. “Not many people can.”

  Lloyd grabbed at the stick. “Let’s have a go. Like this, you mean?”

  He walked slowly around, moving away from the hedge towards a mound in the scrub where the ground seemed to form a hillock. He was holding the twig loosely as he’d seen Justin do, with his thumbs keeping it l
evel and, as he got near the mound, it twisted downwards and Justin started laughing.

  “That’s even better than I did,” he said.

  But Lloyd’s eyes were wide. There were sensations in his arms, and a tingling that carried right through to his hands and the tips of his fingers. “It isn’t me what’s doing it, man,” he whispered. “That’s the twig. It’s doing it on its own. Look, I’m hardly touching it.”

  They stared.

  “It’s just lying in my hand.”

  The hazel twig pivoted gently, nosing towards the ground. He passed it over the hill several times and each time, it bowed, quivering.

  It was as if there were forces under the earth operating through him. As if he was a conduit, guiding them through to the divining rod and it was the forces that were making the rod bend.

  He could hardly believe what was happening.

  Chapter 10

  No one moved, and Lloyd could feel the excitement bubbling inside him.

  Justin was looking at him and his eyes were probing. “You can dowse,” he said.

  He looked at the hazel twig. “Looks like it, don’t it?”

  “And the ghost knew that,” said Rudi. “That’s why he was showing you the Y sign.”

  “And if he wanted you to dowse, there has to be a reason.” Justin said. He came across to the hillock where Lloyd was standing and Lloyd looked at the hump of earth.

  “What’s in there, then?” he said. “What’s made the twig bend like that?”

  “It could be some archaeological remains. It could be water.”

  “That’s weird,” said Lloyd. “What about them ley lines you said about? Could it be some of them?”

  But Justin shook his head. “I don’t think so. Ley lines run in set paths across the country. You don’t get random bits of ley line. It’s more likely to be a well or something.”

  “I don’t see why the ghost would want me to dowse for a well,” Lloyd said. “Wells haven’t got nothing to do with it.”

  “I don’t know that much about dowsing,” said Justin. “We’ll have to ask the professor.” He grinned. “He’ll be really impressed you can dowse.”

  Lloyd liked that. This Professor Appleyard was top man at a university. Impressing someone like him was good. He looked at the dowsing rod and laughed. “I reckon I’m really impressed myself, to be honest.”

  They tried again and watched the rod bend as Lloyd stood over the hillock. Then they moved around the trees and the bare patches of waste, but everywhere except the hillock seemed barren until they got close to the North Wing. Then the rod started moving again – just twitching to begin with, but, as they got nearer, he could feel the power in his arms, and the twig bent itself in his hand. It was almost brutal and his instinct was to hold the two prongs so the rod wouldn’t fly out of his grip.

  “See that, man?” he whispered. “Whatever I’m picking up here, there’s loads of it – and it’s got to have something to do with the ghost if it’s doing it around here.”

  “Say we went down the cellar,” Rudi said. “That’s where the ghost is. If all this is linked with him, there should be more forces down there.”

  They made their way down the dimly lit stairwell and it didn’t matter how many times Lloyd went down there, it always sent a shudder through him. The place had an atmosphere and it could be cut like cheese. Even now he could sense the spirits waiting, and the whole feel of the place stunned him to silence.

  “Are you going to try with that twig?” Rudi whispered, and Lloyd walked across to the wall. He had the hazel branch in his hand – and, already, he could feel it moving. There were vibrations tingling in his fingertips and, when he looked at it, it was writhing like a snake. There could be no doubt. The forces buried around the cellar were massive.

  But there was no continuous line, apart from along the wall.

  When they were back outside they tried to piece it all together.

  “We’ve got so many bits of information,” Justin said. “There is definitely something down in the cellar that can be detected by dowsing. It could be anything though, water, even badly insulated electric cables, and then there’s that mound in the garden, and forces coming from the wall.”

  “And I bet it’s just the North Wing,” Lloyd said suddenly. “If we tried the main building, I bet we don’t find nothing.”

  “Why?” said Rudi.

  “Because the North Wing is where all the aggro is. There isn’t so much going on in the main wing. That’s more like a kind of echo. It’s like bangs and creaks and grumpy kids. There’s a bit of poltergeist activity, but it don’t blow your head like it does in the North Wing.”

  They headed for the main Georgian building and Lloyd held out the dowsing rod again. There were quivers, and spasmodic twitches, but, compared to what had gone on around the Tudor wing, this was more like nervous ticks.

  “It’s like I said, all the ghost’s grief and that is in the old building. I could sense that the first time I seen it.” They sat on the wooden bench by the wall and looked out across the bleak grounds. Then he said, “Shouldn’t we try it up the henge? I mean, we figured this stuff could be connected with Brookley Henge and if it’s connected with them ley lines you said are up there then we ought to test it out.

  I mean, rivers of force underground, that’s awesome, man and, if the ghost wants me to dowse, it’s got to be for ley lines. The guy isn’t going to be interested in no wells and stuff and, like you said, it could be the ley lines what’s giving him grief.”

  “We could go up there tomorrow when you get back from school,” said Justin. “I’ll clear it with Dave when I tell him about the professor and him wanting us up in London.”

  Lloyd grinned. “If Dave’s going to give us the go-ahead for London and Brookley Henge,” he said, “I got to be a saint for the rest of the week. And I don’t know I got the kind of goodness in me. I mean, it’s hard, sucking up to morons.”

  Justin laughed. “You’ve got plenty of goodness in you, Lloyd Lewis, and sucking up to morons isn’t goodness. That’s expediency. What you’ve got to develop is diplomacy. You’ve got plenty of goodness.”

  Lloyd looked up at him. “Do you reckon?” he said. “I never thought of me having no goodness. No one ever said so – but, this expediency stuff – I got to give that a try.” He glanced at a grinning Rudi and then back to Justin. “Is that how Rudi goes? Because that guy’s got diplomacy coming out of his ears.”

  Justin nodded. “Yep, that’s how Rudi goes – diplomacy and charm – and really that’s the only thing that separates you two. You’re both really decent kids, but Rudi manages to keep his feet out of his mouth, while you spend most of the time with yours stuffed right in it.”

  Lloyd laughed. “That’s true, man,” he said. “That’s exactly what I do and I got to give this diplomacy a go. I mean, it’s amazing. I seen Rudi do it. You should have seen him with that crabby librarian down in Brookley. He had her so charmed up…”

  “It would keep you out of a lot of trouble,” Justin said.

  It was going to take more than diplomacy, though. Lloyd knew that. He had to keep Caitlin away from the cellar and he had to get down there himself – not such a problem from his bedroom in the North Wing, but serious grief if he was going to be operating from Rudi and Martin’s room.

  Then there was Craig Donovan. Something had to be done about him but, at the moment, he didn’t know what, and, what with discovering he was a dowser and the trip to London and everything…

  It was his last night in the North Wing too.

  Marion dug out his suitcase so he could pack and, later, he managed to steer Caitlin away from the cellar.

  He went down there on his own, but he wasn’t sure the ghost was going to show. For ages there was just the ice-cold atmosphere and a thick silence. Then he saw the spirals.

  They wandered aimlessly to start with and they weren’t moving towards any specific point but then they came back, forming a pattern of movement
s towards the centre of the wall and, slowly, the crouching spectre appeared. Tonight it was cross-gartered, with the bare chest and baggy breeches, but it didn’t move. It stayed crouched, gripping its axe, and staring out of fiery eyes.

  There were hissing sighs, and they tore the air like dead breath. But the creature never spoke.

  Lloyd tried talking to it, but, with the rank air and the stagnation all around him, nothing came out except a stifled croak, and the smell of decay was so strong, taking in breath to talk was enough to make him want to gag.

  He wasn’t sure why the ghost was there and, eventually, with a hollow sigh, the creature lifted its hand and then faded back into the wall.

  Next morning, having deposited his cases back in the main wing, Lloyd’s prime concern was losing Rudi so he could meet up with Craig Donovan.

  He decided to tackle the matter head on.

  “I got a bit of business to sort out,” he said. “And I got to be on my own. The guy I’m dealing with don’t want no one else around.”

  Rudi looked anxious. “It isn’t going to get you into trouble, is it?” he said.

  Lloyd wasn’t comfortable. He screwed his face up. “I tell you what,” he said. “The minute there’s trouble, I’ll get it sorted, right? It’s just a bit personal, that’s all. I got to do something for this guy, and I got to do stuff for him tomorrow too. I’ll catch up with you real quick after – just five minutes it’ll take. Then I got to tell you about last night.”

  Rudi wandered off, but Lloyd could see he wasn’t happy and he didn’t like that. Rudi was top man and he didn’t want to give him grief.

  It wasn’t so easy finding Craig either, not with the masses conglomerating around the grounds, but strategic thinking led him to the bicycle racks. Somehow, all the dodgy kids assembled there and, if they weren’t there, they’d be at the back of the boiler house.

  Craig was by the bicycle racks. He was away from the rest and he nodded when he saw Lloyd.