Ravensborough

by Christine Murray

  ‘Do you not want me around? Is that what this is about?’ I said bitterly, not able to take yet another twist and turn of the emotional rollercoaster that I seemed to be on tonight.

  Gethan sighed and leaned his head back, closing his eyes as if in pain. ‘That must be the impression I’m giving you, alright.’

  He turned and looked at me with a look that was intense and dark. The train pulled up against the platform and the doors slid open.

  ‘It’s not that. You’re fun, quirky. It’s nice to have you around. But I think that Aradia has led you to believe that you can walk the line, and have friends in both camps. And that’s just not possible. If your Rationalist friends find out that you hang out with Aradia and I, they will make the decision for you. They’ll avoid you, people in school won’t talk to you. You need to think about this properly Scarlett. You need to know exactly what you’re doing.’

  It was friendly advice, but it still hurt. ‘Thanks for the lift’, I said stiffly turning towards the train. ‘And the advice.’

  I barely made it on to the train before the doors slid closed behind me. I didn’t look out the window until I was safely out of the station.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Unfortunately, Mum was in the kitchen when I got home. I just wanted to go to bed and wallow. I wasn’t really in the mood for a chat, and I couldn’t exactly tell Mum why I was upset. Instead I fixed a happy expression on my face and hoped that it looked convincing.

  ‘Hi darling, how are you? Did you have a nice night out?’

  ‘Yeah it was good. My arms are so tired from all the digging I’ve done this week.’ I changed the subject quickly. I really didn’t want to show how upset I was. And, seeing as Mum wouldn’t approve of me seeing anyone from the Pagan area, let alone a guy who said that he had dark powers, I was extra anxious to avoid any questions.

  ‘Sam called while you were out,’ she continued, looking at me carefully in that way parents do when they want to gauge your reaction. ‘He asked you to give him a ring back. He wanted to know when your school breaks up for Christmas and if you were going to Ireland to visit him for a few days.’

  ‘Oh, ok.’ I poured myself a cup up coffee and sat down beside her.

  ‘Are you going to?’ asked Mum.

  I stirred my coffee thoughtfully – I still hadn’t gotten the whole mess straight in my head. ‘No,’ I said slowly ‘I don’t think I am. I think I’m better off staying around here for Christmas. I mean, my friends here will probably doing things, and I don’t want to miss out on that.’

  ‘It’s completely your decision, and I’d hate you to think that I’m trying to tell you what to do,’ she said. I suppressed a smile. When Mum started a conversation with that it meant she was going to tell you exactly what to do. ‘But, maybe you’re better off breaking things off with Sam, you know? You’re both only sixteen, and it’s hard having a long distance relationship, even if you’re planning on returning to Ireland eventually.’

  ‘I love him though,’ I protested. ‘I can’t just forget all my feelings for him because it’s more convenient that way.’

  ‘No, I know,’ she replied. ‘But you’re only going out with him a year.’

  ‘Yeah but you’re only going out with Rupert nine months,’ I protested. And you’ve made me move countries for him.’

  ‘Honey, that was...’

  ‘Different,’ I said harshly. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  I left the room and stomped up the stairs feeling frustrated and exhausted. Why did everyone want me to make big decisions?

  Later, as I tried to get to sleep, I mulled over what Mum had said. I still had feelings for Sam, but I couldn’t deny that I felt attracted to Gethan. Though that didn’t look like it was going to be a problem now, did it? He seemed to think that even being friends with me was a bad idea.

  Despite feeling drawn to Gethan, I still thought a lot about Sam. We’d met through Ally, a mutual friend. Despite me being incredibly plain, he’d found something interesting about me. Lindsay had often told me how lucky I was. And I agreed with her. Apart from being good looking, he was talented. He was the lead guitarist in a band that, well, weren’t as awful as some of the others I’d seen. He was always sunny and cheerful, and could always make me see the fun side of life. He was the polar opposite of Gethan, who was a lot more serious.

  The whole weekend, while I ostensibly worked on schoolwork that had been set for the midterm, my mind kept turning back to what Gethan had said about cutting contact with himself and Aradia. Though I’d initially been hurt by it, I had to admit that he kind of had a point. If Cat found out that I was hanging out with Aradia and Gethan, I was certain that she’d make life in school difficult. She was so militant on the whole Pagan issue that there was no way she’d still want to be my friend, and that would make school fairly awkward, to say the least. But while I liked Cat, I didn’t think that losing her as a friend would hurt that much. I could take that.

  But who was I kidding? If I was in Cat’s bad books, I’d probably lose Mei and Ben as friends. And I would miss them. They’d made life bearable in my first few lonely weeks in Avalonia, Mei was my closest Rationalist friend and Ben, behind the teasing, was really good to talk to. Not to mention the fact that I could have a major fall out with Rupert, which would without a doubt cause problems between himself and my mother. I had a lot to lose, and the logical decision seemed to be to cut all contact with Aradia and Gethan.

  But it wasn’t that simple. Life without Aradia and Gethan seemed like a life without colour. I didn’t care whether or not some of my friends practiced magic and some didn’t, surely there must be a way to keep Mei, Ben, Aradia and Gethan all in my life without annoying Mum and Rupert? But if there was a way, I certainly couldn’t think of it.

  By midday on Sunday, I felt like I was going crazy. I needed to talk to someone. Aradia was out. I hadn’t told her about my feelings for Gethan, and the pair of them were so close that I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I could ring Lindsay, but I doubted that I could make her understand the differences between Rationalists and Pagans. I didn’t even fully get it and it was my life that was tangled up in it. And she’d be shocked to think that I was even contemplating breaking up with Sam. Besides, while I loved her to bits, keeping secrets had never been her strong point. She might tell Sam about the whole dilemma, and that would only add to my problems.

  Just then the phone rang. Mum called up the stairs that it was for me. I ran downstairs taking the stairs two at a time.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked Mum as I walked into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s Nick’, she said as she held out the receiver to me.

  ‘Nick?’ I frowned. What could he want? I took the phone from Mum.

  ‘Hello,’ I said into the phone.

  ‘Hi, Scarlett. Sorry to ring you at the weekend, but I need to talk to you about that artefact you found the other day.’

  ‘The silver box?’ I asked, looking out the window. There were dozens of crows, or ravens, sitting on the lawn. Ravensborough certainly wasn’t misnamed.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. There’s a bit of a problem with it. It seems that the box is jammed shut. We can’t manage to get it to open in the finds room.’

  ‘Oh no, did I break it?!’ I said, panicking. That box was probably priceless. My first dig and I’d managed to damage an artefact. Way to go, Scarlett.

  ‘It’s ok, you can relax. I was there with you, remember? And you did nothing that would cause that kind of damage,’ he said soothingly.

  Well, that was a relief.

  ‘But, it just won’t open. The strange thing is that you managed to open it on site, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah I did’, I said, confused. ‘And it opened quite easily. When I pushed against the lid there was no resistance.’

  ‘That’s the strange part. Lots of us have tried in the university, and we just can’t get it to budge. I was wondering whether it would be alright if I dropped over to your house this afternoon, so you
could have another look at it. Maybe there’s some knack to it that we aren’t getting.’

  ‘Yep, that’s fine. I’d love to have another look at it.’ That wasn’t a lie. I’d thought of the box a lot since the dig – when I hadn’t being stressing about my feelings for a part good, part bad elf, that was. Still, I wasn’t quite sure how much help I would be. I was pretty sure I’d opened the box any which way, there hadn’t been a particular knack to it.

  ‘Thanks Scarlett, I really appreciate it. Can you put me on to Rupert? I’ll just run this by him.’

  ‘That’s great, see you later.’

  Around an hour later, Nick pulled up into the driveway. He hadn’t brought Aradia with him this time.

  ‘Hey Nick, how are you?’ my Mum greeted him.

  ‘I’m good, Judith. You look lovely.’

  And she did actually. I hadn’t noticed it until he said it, but Mum had started to relax a lot since we’d moved to Avalonia. Her clothes were brighter and younger, and she went around with an almost perpetual smile on her face. Life here suited her. She wasn’t as stressed here as she’d been back home in Ireland, despite the fact that her job here was pretty demanding.

  ‘Thank you! How are Lavendell and Aradia?’

  ‘They’re good. Lavendell has a bit of a cold, but that’s about it.’

  ‘Hey, can I have a look at the box now?’ I asked.

  Nick’s face creased into a huge grin. ‘You certainly have the impatience of an archaeologist! Yep, will we look at it in the dining room?’ He raised his eyebrows at Rupert as if to ask permission.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s the best place’, said Rupert.

  Mum and Rupert sat down at the table with us. Nick carefully took the box out of a bag and placed it on the table.

  It had been cleaned up since I saw it last. I could now see that the box was decorated with delicate filigree work, and the silver now sparkled in the soft light of the chandelier over head.

  ‘That’s beautiful’, Mum said admiringly. ‘How old is it?’

  ‘It dates from around the early nineteenth century we think. It has a stamp on the underside of it that would seem to indicate that it comes from the town of Ember, down in the south of the country.’

  ‘Early nineteenth century...that doesn’t make sense!’ I exclaimed. ‘The temple dates from the sixteenth century, and all the other objects at that level were from that period too. How would something from a later period have ended up so far down?’

  Nick smiled at me. ‘That’s very observant of you!’

  ‘Could it have sunk down from higher up?’ Mum asked.

  ‘It doesn’t look like that’s the case. If it had, it would have left a mark in the soil where that happened,’ Nick explained. ‘The box is from a later period than everything else around it. And there’s no sign that it was buried later than the late sixteenth century. It’s got all of us in the faculty baffled to be honest.’

  ‘And you think Scarlett can help you with this?’ asked Mum. She shot a small proud look across the table at me.

  ‘Well yes. Although Scarlett opened the box on site, nobody else has been able to open it since. We’re hoping that if she can open it, the contents will give us a clue as to how it got there in the first place.’

  ‘May I try to open it?’ Rupert asked cautiously.

  ‘By all means give it a go’, laughed Nick.

  Rupert took the box gently in his hand. Again I was getting the strange feeling that the box was mine, and I should protect it. I had a wild urge to take it from him, but I pushed it back. After all, it was only a box.

  Rupert gingerly tried to lift the lid with his thumb. The lid didn’t move. Rupert tried again, this time putting more force behind it. But the box stayed resolutely shut tight.

  ‘Did something happen to the box after Scarlett opened it?’ asked Rupert.

  Nick shook his head. ‘There’s no sign of damage to the box at all. Externally, it’s in perfect condition.’

  ‘Well, it’s all yours’, said Rupert, passing me the box.

  I marvelled again at the perfection of the box, the beautiful cold glint of its exterior, brighter now that it was free of the layers of soil and dirt. I reached down and pulled at the lid. It came up in one swift motion. Inside the box was upholstered in a purple silk. Inside was a bundle, hidden from view by heavy coarse fabric. My fingers itched to unwind the material and discover the contents of the bundle, but I resisted and looked up at Nick for my next instruction.

  ‘Ok, Scarlett can you close it now?’

  Confused, I nevertheless did what he asked. He took the box gently from my hands and tried to open it himself. He handed it to Rupert and asked him to try. Again he couldn’t open it. Mum also tried to open it with no success.

  ‘Ok Scarlett, can you open it again?’

  I tried the lid and again in opened easily.

  ‘That’s really strange’, said Mum, a confused look on her face. ‘Why do you think Scarlett can open the box and nobody else can?’

  ‘Well, as an archaeologist, I can’t say for sure,’ Nick admitted. He shot a sideways glance at Rupert. ‘But Lavendell believes that it means that this is her box; that it was put there for her to find.’

  ‘That’s ludicrous’ scoffed Rupert.

  ‘I do feel a huge pull towards it,’ I confessed. ‘I felt a connection with it when it was taken away at the dig, but I thought that was just because it was my first find.’

  ‘That might well be part of it,’ Nick agreed.

  ‘So, this box is somehow Scarlett’s?’ Mum asked incredulously.

  ‘Well, a lot of Pagans believe that objects can become enchanted. They can only be used by the person charged to look after them.’

  ‘That’s absurd’, said Rupert. ‘Scarlett’s not a Pagan, she’s not even Avalonian.’

  Nick shrugged. ‘I know it’s strange, but it has been shown to occur with particular objects. I can’t ever remember hearing of it happening to someone who wasn’t born here though.’

  ‘Well it’s open now’, I said ‘so what’s the problem?’

  Nick put a hand out to the box and gently pulled the fabric away from the bundle. All of a sudden the lid slammed closed on his hand and he yelled out in pain. When he pulled his hand away from the box there was an angry red welt on his skin.

  ‘That box isn’t safe’, Rupert said standing up. ‘I think you should take it away right now.’

  ‘No’, Mum said. Her face was white but she looked fairly determined. ‘I think Scarlett should see if she can manage to do it.’

  I looked at Mum incredulously. ‘Are you crazy?! Did you see what it did to Nick’s hand?’

  ‘I can totally understand if you don’t want to risk it Scarlett’, Nick said anxiously. ‘But if you could try, it might help us understand what the box is for.’

  I liked and admired Nick, and his praise of my fledgling attempts at archaeology had made me proud. I didn’t want to look like a coward in front of him. Even though the mark on his hand did look really painful.

  I steeled myself and opened the lid of the box. Putting my hand on the fabric, I eased the bundle out of the box and place it gently on the dining room table.

  ‘That’s it, this is dangerous.’ Rupert stood up abruptly and stormed out of the room. I looked at Mum to gauge her reaction, but she still looked intrigued.

  The fabric was actually a small drawstring bag. Inside it was a heavy silver locket. It had a swirling engraving of a raven on the front of it, surrounded by flowers. I turned its heavy weight over in my palm, and on the back were engraved the words, ‘With This Charm I Protect, All That I Am Charged to Protect’. I handed it over to my Mum, who instantly dropped the locket. It fell with a clatter on the wooden floor.

  ‘It’s ice cold’, she breathed. ‘I can’t touch it.’

  ‘Well, Scarlett, do you feel comfortable keeping it?’

  ‘But aren’t they artefacts? I mean, don’t they have to go to a museum or something?�
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  ‘They don’t work for anybody else; they want to belong to you. So they’re yours. It’s a Pagan site, so Pagan laws apply. Besides, as you noticed yourself, the box doesn’t match the rest of the site.’

  ‘But what is the locket for?’ I asked. It seemed strange to me that there would be such an elaborate plan for me to get the locket without it being important.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Pagan jewellery isn’t my area of expertise. Lavendell or Aradia may be able to give you a better idea. They know a lot more than I do about magic. We could go over to them now if you wanted?’

  I looked at Mum, who shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t know...Rupert probably wouldn’t think that it’s a good idea.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Nick conceded. ‘But now that we have the box open, Lavendell could probably give you an idea what the items inside are used for.’ He shrugged. ‘And you’ll probably meet her at some point anyway.’

  I could see that Mum was torn. She didn’t want to do something that Rupert would disapprove of, but she didn’t want to offend Nick by refusing to see his family. ‘I suppose just talking about it wouldn’t be that bad,’ she said warily.

  Rupert wasn’t exactly thrilled to find out where we were going, but he didn’t object.

  Lavendell’s apothecary shop was closed by the time we got there, which was a pity because I was curious to see what it was like. A small set of steps were squashed between two buildings. Nick led us halfway up the steps and, like Gethan’s house, a door led off them.

  The inside of the house was warm, and was decorated in a mixture of bright colours. The walls of the sitting room were lined with bookshelves. Tomes on archaeology, medicine and witchcraft jostled with books from the bestseller lists, all squashed together. The house was a fusion of the old, serious and mystical and the modern, frivolous and mainstream. It was lovely.

  Aradia came rushing in to the room. ‘Hello Judith’, she greeted Mum smiling warmly.

  ‘Scarlett, did you manage to open the box again?’ she asked me.

  I nodded.