Perhaps she would take it with her after all.
It might not be treasure, but it could be the beginning of her collection, couldn’t it?
She pushed it into her jeans pocket and stood up.
And above her, the April sky grew suddenly dark.
“This is ridiculous,” said Rose. “Just look at the state of our hands! They’re all blistered and scratched.” She got to her feet, blinking the sleet out of her eyes. “I’m going back to the house to find something to dig with. There might be a spade in the shed.”
Phoenix looked up at her and shrugged. “Suit yourself. But I’m staying here. We haven’t got much time.”
He glanced across at the silhouette, then forced his gaze away and watched as Rose disappeared down the side of the mound.
They’d been scrabbling away for nearly twenty minutes now and had made very little headway. The hole wasn’t very deep at all, and their fingers were red-raw where they had snagged against stones and twigs hidden beneath the sandy soil.
He clawed his hand once more into the earth, Mr Riley’s words reverberating inside his head.
There’s some say there’s treasure buried beneath the mound…
Was that really what his mother had been hoping to find?
If so, what had happened to her over here? And how could it possibly have had anything to do with Lorenzo’s disappearance?
Phoenix swallowed.
Just the thought of the little boy’s name made his blood run cold. His mother had had a brother, and he had never known. Perhaps Dad hadn’t known either.
He sighed, then caught his breath as his fingers scuffed against a hard, narrow ridge buried inside the earth.
Freeing it from the soil, he stared down at the jagged lump of metal in his hand.
For a moment confusion mingled with the sour taste of disappointment.
So much for treasure. It seemed he had uncovered nothing more exciting than the remains of a trowel, its wooden handle rotten and wasted.
And then it dawned on him.
Was it possible that he had truly struck lucky … that his mother really had dug into the mound right here … and that this rusty old bit of metal was the tool she had been digging with?
Phoenix plunged the blade of the trowel into the earth, a shiver coursing through him.
In which case, what was it doing buried beneath the earth?
Horizontal sheets of rain lashed against the attic window, rattling the glass in its casement.
Elvira twisted and turned on the crumpled sheets.
Tomorrow wouldn’t be much fun, would it?
Not if she and Lorenzo were going to be stuck inside the house all day while Mum carried on with the unpacking. No trips out till it was done, she’d said. Not even to the village.
It looked like there’d been a power cut too. The light had suddenly gone out when she’d been reading before bedtime, and when she’d checked, the switch down by her tape deck wasn’t working either. At this rate they wouldn’t even have the television for company in the morning.
Shivering, she pulled the quilt up round her shoulders.
And on top of her chest of drawers, the rusty iron bolt she had brought back with her from the mound began to glow.
Since finding the trowel, Phoenix had made swift progress. The hole was now so deep he was going to have to get right inside it in order to reach the bottom.
He began to climb in – then scrambled out again, his pulse quickening at the prospect of crouching in the narrow shaft below.
He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Not after his experience trapped in the burrow the previous night. He would have to wait until Rose got back. If she’d managed to find a spade in the shed then they could carry on digging from the surface. If not, his cousin would have to get inside the pit and take a turn at scooping out the earth herself. In the meantime, he would make things easier by widening the hole as best as he could from up here.
Phoenix bent back over the edge and scraped another trowelful of earth towards him, then gasped as a tiny bronze-coloured disc skittered down the side of the pit and landed with a clink at the bottom.
Sticking the trowel-stub into the soil behind him, he gazed into the hole, his eyes smarting at the blast of heat that had risen to greet him.
It was hard to see anything clearly in such a dark and confined space, but if he screwed up his eyes he could just make out a battered old coin, and beside it, a bright speck of blue.
Phoenix leaned forward and began to blow away the covering of hot dry soil, his heart thudding against his chest.
Clear of its dusty veil, the blue speck grew to the size of his fingernail before giving way to another speck, red this time.
Then came another … and another … a pattern of tiny blue and red stones, arranged in a perfect spiral and set into what appeared to be a thin plate of yellowish metal.
Now the plate was curving downwards … and Phoenix was straining towards it, gripping the side of the pit and blinking at what lay before him.
It was a shield, its centre studded with precious stones – real sapphires, real rubies – and set into nothing less than pure gold.
His fingertips brushed the sumptuous spiral of jewels.
And that was when he heard it.
A voice – little more than a whisper, yet impossible to ignore. A voice that seemed to be coming from inside the earth itself.
Elvira lined up the last of her brother’s toy soldiers on the drawing-room floor and stood up.
“There you are,” she said. “That’s the whole army set up, Lorenzo. All ready for you to play with.”
She dropped a kiss on top of his head. “I’ll be back in a bit, OK? Then we can have a game of hide-and-seek before lunch.”
Out in the hallway, she glanced into the kitchen. Mum was standing at the table with her back turned, surrounded by cardboard boxes and pieces of crumpled-up newspaper, humming to herself as she unpacked countless pieces of china.
Elvira tiptoed on towards the front door and opened it a crack.
It was pretty wild out there, and there was certainly no sign that the weather was about to improve. But it was only wind and rain – and it smelt wonderful, as if the whole earth had suddenly come alive.
She reached up and grabbed her anorak off the peg.
No one was likely to notice if she went out for a while, were they?
Stand up, boy, whispered the voice. Stand up and look towards the river.
Phoenix hauled himself back from the edge of the pit and got to his feet, the shield and coin already forgotten.
Exactly who was speaking to him and why didn’t seem to matter. All he knew was that he had to obey the command.
He turned towards the river. Nearby he could see the silhouette hovering above the surface of the mound, its shimmering form suddenly restless and agitated … but now there was something else too. Something quite different. Burning through the sleet, a pillar of hazy light had appeared as if from nowhere and was shining down just in front of him.
The voice inside the earth whispered to him once more.
What can you see, boy? What can you see on the river?
Phoenix screwed up his eyes in an effort to catch a glimpse of the water far below, but the brightness had all but blinded him.
Come down, boy. Come down and see the riches of the past…
The light began to move off, dragging across the grass like a giant searchlight and drawing him with it down the side of the mound towards the river.
At the crest of the embankment it halted – and Phoenix with it.
He blinked back the brightness as the pillar of light set off once more and came to rest over the water.
Now he could hear the beating of drums … the clamour of voices … now he could see at last what he had been called to witness.
He scrambled down the embankment, hungry for what lay before him.
But even as he waded into the wild water and felt it sweep him from his feet,
the pillar of light began to fade … and the magnificent spectre on the river vanished to nothing.
“Wait for me, Elvira! Wait for me!”
Elvira twisted round on the tree-trunk bridge, gusts of wind ruffling her short black hair.
Her brother was stumbling through the undergrowth towards her, dressed in only a thin blue cotton shirt and shorts and clutching his toy boat.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “You’re supposed to be in the drawing room playing with your soldiers!”
“I don’t want to play with my stupid soldiers!” Lorenzo shouted back. “I want to play with my boat. Daddy said we could go and sail it.”
“He didn’t mean today! Not with the river practically bursting its banks! He meant on a nice sunny day. And with him there to help you!”
Elvira narrowed her eyes at her little brother. “How did you know where to find me, anyway? You’ve not been over here before, have you?”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“I saw you digging on that hill thing yesterday,” he said. “I watched you from your bedroom window. And then I saw you going outside just now and I thought you might be going back there.”
“You saw me on the mound? You went into my room without my permission?”
“I just wanted to play with you.”
He looked at her proudly.
“I found my way through the forest all by myself. I followed the path you’d made. I ran and ran to catch up with you.”
Elvira sighed.
“Well, you’re just going to have to run and run all the way back again then, aren’t you?” she said. “You can’t come over here. It’s far too dangerous.”
“I don’t care,” said Lorenzo. “I’m not going back to the house. It’s boring there.”
He gazed across the river at his sister.
“I want to come with you. Are you digging for treasure?”
“You heard what I said, Lorenzo! Go back to the house this minute!”
“I’ll tell on you if you don’t let me come. I’ll tell Mum where you’ve been.”
“You wouldn’t dare…”
“Yes I would.”
Elvira stared at her brother for a moment.
“Fine,” she said at last. “If that’s what you want. Stay right there, OK?”
She began to shimmy back along the upturned pine.
Lorenzo waited until his sister was safely across, then darted forward and pressed something into her hand.
“Hold on to my angel for me,” he said. “I don’t want to drop it in the water.”
Elvira groaned.
“Do you really have to carry that thing around with you everywhere you go?” she said.
“Yes,” replied Lorenzo. “Gran gave it to me. It’s my most favourite present in the world. She says it reminded her of me.”
“Some angel you are!” grunted Elvira. “Gran doesn’t know you at all!”
She pushed the silver angel into her pocket, then helped her brother on to the huge pine and circled his waist with one arm.
“OK, you little pest, let’s go. I’ll be behind you all the way.”
Rose burst out of the forest and hurried through the wind and sleet towards the tree-trunk bridge.
She had found nothing they could dig with in the shed – and quite honestly, she was glad. The moment she got back to the mound she was going to persuade Phoenix to see sense. It was time to stop messing about with something they didn’t understand.
What did her cousin expect to gain by stirring up the past like this, anyway?
He was never going to find out exactly what had happened here thirty years ago. The only two people who knew that were both dead. And nothing he did now was going to change that.
In any case, her uncle would be back from the village soon and they needed to start packing. The last thing she wanted to do was get herself into a load of trouble.
Rose clambered on to the massive pine and began to shuffle towards the opposite bank.
Halfway across she stopped.
On the other side of the river, a little way downstream, a dark head was bobbing about in the racing water…
“Phoenix!” she screamed. “Phoenix! What d’you think you’re doing?”
The head twisted round and a pair of terrified eyes stared briefly back at her before disappearing beneath the foamy scum of the river.
A few seconds later her cousin resurfaced, but even further downstream now, towed ever seaward by some vicious, invisible current.
Rose cast about her wildly for something she could throw him … something she could use to pull him out of the water. A rope would do it … a rope was what she needed, and she’d seen one only a few minutes ago in the shed. But there was no time to go back to the house now. Phoenix wasn’t going to last that long.
She kicked out against one of the remaining side branches of the pine as it chaffed against her leg, then bent down and grabbed hold of it.
Wrenching it free from the trunk, she hauled herself along the bridge, one hand clinging to the slippery bark, the other wielding the shorn-off branch.
“Hang on in there, Phoenix! Hang on in there! I’m coming!”
She jumped down on to the bank and blundered through the undergrowth.
“Get a hold of this!” she shouted. She sprawled on the ground and thrust the branch over the furious river. “Grab it and I’ll pull you out!”
Phoenix floundered towards it, his skin blue with cold.
Twice he nearly grasped it – and twice the water flung him back, eddying and swirling around him in a grey-green maelstrom of froth and spume.
Rose clung to the edge of the bank.
Something lodged inside it was digging into her palm, but she ignored the pain, stretching further and further over the river in an effort to reach her cousin.
Once again he lunged for the branch – and this time his fingers grazed its tip.
“That’s it, Phoenix! Just a little bit further…”
One final lurch and he had it in his grip, relief flooding his face.
Prising her hand from the bank, Rose fed the branch back towards her, sensing the weight of her cousin against the pull of the river.
When at last he was close enough, she reached down and dragged him out of the water.
“What were you playing at?” she cried. “I leave you alone for five minutes and come back to find you drowning in the river…”
Phoenix said nothing.
He lay there in the undergrowth, shivering and panting…and it was only then, glancing down at her throbbing hand, that Rose saw the marks in her skin.
Whatever was wedged into the bank had punctured her flesh in several places: three holes had been pierced at regular intervals across her palm.
She wiped away the blood and leaned back over the side of the river to see what had caused such deep wounds.
Something was poking out of the mud … something crafted from wood and studded all over with tiny, rusted nails.
Working it free, Rose pulled it out.
In her hand, caked in mud but still perfectly recognizable, was a small toy boat.
12.
THE NAIL HEADS
“I don’t like it here,” said Lorenzo. He glanced up at the blackening sky. “I want to go home. I feel all cold and shivery.”
Elvira twisted round from the hole she was digging in the centre of the mound.
“I’m not surprised you’re cold,” she said. “You’ve hardly done any digging, have you? And I thought you wanted to help.”
Lorenzo scuffed at the ground with his shoes.
“That’s because there’s nothing to find,” he grumbled. “It’s just a stupid hump of earth, that’s all.”
His sister sighed. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “But until we’ve dug a bit deeper we won’t know for certain, will we? Who knows – we might be really close to discovering some priceless piece of treasure.”
She peeled off her anorak and threw it to
her brother.
“Here. Put this on. It should keep off some of the rain, at least.”
Lorenzo struggled into the anorak and for a few moments there was silence, save for the buffeting of the wind and the rain and the soft scrape of metal against earth.
“Elvira?”
“What is it now?”
“Can we go and sail my boat on the river? I’m sure we can find a bit that isn’t too deep.”
“No!” snapped Elvira. “We can’t! I’ve told you, it’s far too dangerous down there.” She sank her trowel once more into the sandy soil. “You’ve got to be a big boy and keep your side of the bargain, OK? You’ve got to wait until I’m done.”
“But—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lorenzo! Leave me alone and stop whingeing, will you? You’re driving me mad!”
Lorenzo scowled.
He snatched up his toy boat and started to walk away, dodging a trowelful of earth that his sister had just flung over her shoulder.
As it landed on the growing pile beside the hole, something caught his eye. In amongst the soil and stones was a small circle of bronze-coloured metal, not much bigger than a thumbnail.
Bending down, he picked it up and polished it on his shorts.
It looked like money. A bit different from the coins he kept in his piggy bank – smaller and thinner and sort of wobbly round the edges – but money all the same. It was strange, though. The object in his hand felt warm, almost as if it were alive.
He opened his mouth to call to his sister – then stopped.
A column of milky light had appeared in front of him, and a whispered voice was calling to him from inside the earth … a voice he had never heard before.
Lorenzo looked up into the light, listening to what the voice was telling him and smiling at the unexpected warmth on his upturned face.
The coin slid from his grasp back on to the heap of discarded soil.
And still clutching his toy boat, he began to walk towards the river.
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