Demelza stood at one side, appearing very pleased with herself. Miss Tregarthur sat a little further away with her back against another rock. In her hand the metal box with the crystal. The final push to reach the stones might have exhausted her but she gathered strength.
‘Now you will die,’ she howled. ‘You will die out here with nothing. Can you feel the poison? She put it in your drink.’ Miss Tregarthur pointed to Demelza. That explained the awful tea we had drunk in the inn. The awful dizziness. Probably explained the missing money, you could buy anything, even the landlady.
‘It won’t be long now,’ Miss Tregarthur gave her awful shriek of laughter. ‘Soon you will be dead and then I will have you, soon you will be at my mercy, now we have the crystal.’ She turned to Demelza. ‘Give me the metal bar.’
Demelza handed it over. She must have found it in Paris and hidden it from us. Miss Tregarthur snarled and with one strike broke the tiny padlock.
‘What?’ she gasped as her hand came out of the box, not holding the crystal but one very large potato which fell from her hand and rolled on the grass. Seeing the empty box seemed to drain all her strength. She lay back panting and cursing.
‘You don’t have it,’ Jenna cried, wincing as she held her stomach.
Were we both going to die from this poison? Jenna scrabbled in her sack and brought out another shape – the crystal. I didn’t know how long it had been out of the lead box. Had the radiation restored the colours, brought it back to life? I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t think there was anything to see, but it was impossible to be certain.
Jenna had said she would bring the crystal back to the tunnel. Was it useless now, nothing that the tunnel would want? It would not help us now. I could feel myself slipping away. Had we been poisoned twice – by radiation and by Demelza? We were not going to make it home. It had all failed. At least you couldn’t die twice.
Miss Tregarthur had started crawling towards us but Demelza got there first, wrenching the crystal from Jenna’s hand. We hadn’t the strength to stop her. She took the iron bar from Miss Tregarthur and returned to the Hanging Stones.
Demelza stood with the crystal in one hand and the iron bar in the other. Her hair blowing out behind her as the wind grew stronger, as wild and crazy as Miss Tregarthur had once looked.
‘This is my time. I will defeat you all.’ Demelza gave a shriek as she brought the bar down on the crystal.
Nothing, no noise from the tunnel.
Again and again she hit the stone.
The only sound was the storm coming.
Demelza smashed the crystal with all her strength, breaking it into fragments in her hand.
‘Stop, stop,’ cried Miss Tregarthur. ‘I can feel it, it hurts me so,’ she wept.
What did that mean? Had the crystal done something?
Demelza chucked the pieces of stone and the iron bar on the ground. ‘No good, is it? Oh, and by the way it was her poison so I thought she should have some as well.’ She pointed at Miss Tregarthur, who had crawled into a ball and was gently rocking. ‘You are all going to die. I might as well go and find HG.’
Too weak to move, I looked at the face of Miss Tregarthur. She had crawled to the Hanging Stones and sat beside them. Perhaps her radiation sickness had been partly faked, but the poison had worked.
The sky was as dark as night. A fork of lightning flashed across the sky with the roar of thunder. Another lightning streak and another. My hair felt as though it stood on end, I could feel the electricity in the air. The battle in the sky raged on but brought no rain. All rain and wind stopped. Between the thunder crashes, the moor became silent. Waiting.
I saw Miss Tregarthur reach up to grasp the Hanging Stones but slide down in failure. She tried again. This time her whole body slipped under the strange rock shape, that looked like two balanced lumps of granite but in reality was this only one unmovable stone? She lay still and didn’t move again. I heard one last choked gasp and after that there was nothing.
Miss Tregarthur had died.
The storm broke. The wind screamed into a gale again hurling itself across the moor, whipping up mud and stones in its path, hail burst out of the storm clouds. A massive bolt of lightning streaked through the sky, smashing down on to the Hanging Stones.
‘The stones.’ Jenna lifted a trembling hand and pointed.
The stones had been torn apart, at last becoming two and opening like a giant pincer. A pincer reaching down to take the fallen body of Miss Tregarthur, lifting her into the air. The mist of the time tunnel rose from the ground, so many colours until it faded to a black smoke.
New noises grew louder around us, the sound of great stones moving, sounds coming from deep down in the earth below. Miss Tregarthur’s body rose up from the smoke before it seemed to melt into the rock. As her body disappeared a rumbling groan came from the ground. With a last dazzling flash of lightning the storm blew itself away. The Hanging Stones snapped back together. The three of us were left on the hill. Were we alone?
Jenna’s face told me that Demelza’s poison was doing its work. As I lay back, waiting for the end, the face of a man in his white robe stared down at me. Had he been here all the time?
In his hand a new crystal and the iron bar which he must have taken from Demelza. He lifted his hand and smacked down hard on his stone. That terrible tormented screech came again. The noise the tunnel had made before, when the crystal had been hit. The sound the tunnel made when part of it was hurt, when the stone from its heart was damaged. But this was not the same screech that we had heard before. This was a sound I knew. This was Miss Tregarthur’s screech of pain.
I realised what awful thing had happened. Miss Tregarthur in death had been taken by the moor. Had she been taken to become the time tunnel?
I closed my eyes.
‘Drink this.’ The man held a flask to my mouth.
I drank, little point in refusing – I’d been poisoned anyway. Whatever it was he gave me made my head spin, made the whole world spin when I tried to open my eyes again. I don’t remember a lot after that, some shouting, some horses and I think I heard Demelza saying it wasn’t her fault.
The Family
-20-
I was on a bed and I hurt. It wasn’t a feather bed with crisp white sheets, even though that might have been in my dreams. This was a hard wooden bed on a thin mattress and lumpy pillow in what had to be yet one more cave, lit only by faint green light. Not one I had been in before, but similar.
The light snapped me awake, green light and radiation. Where was I? I looked around. It was more like a normal room but still in a cave, with pieces of furniture, none of them new.
Jenna was sitting up on another bed and rubbing her eyes.
‘Where, what … how,’ I muttered. Jenna just shook her head.
Why weren’t we dead? Stupid questions circled in my muddled mind.
The door opened. A cave with a door? And it was a massive wooden door with iron studs, the sort of thing that would keep people out or keep them in, a rusty creak as it opened.
A woman stepped in. Behind her I could see a corridor, not a cave but an ordinary house, ordinary except there were all sorts of paintings of people and ancient ornaments.
‘Hello, Alvin,’ she said. ‘It’s been so long.’ She stood looking at me.
I stared back – cave, door, and another person knowing my name. I tried to stand, the dizziness returned.
She came towards me. ‘Steady.’ She placed her hand on my shoulder and her touch didn’t feel so strange. I guess she was about as old as my mother – as old as my mother would have been if she hadn’t been killed by Neanderthals. She had a sort of old hippy appearance, wearing a long patterned green dress, strings of wooden beads around her neck, and her fair hair in ringlets. Why did she seem familiar, what she’d said made it sound as though we’d met before?
‘Who are you?’ Jenna stood up from her bed, staggered and sat down again.
‘Anna, I’m Anna and …’
She turned to the door. ‘This is Peter. And he’s brought you food and drink.’
Peter entered with a tray. He must have been a bit older than me. Dressed in the sort of working smock we’d seen before, we’d worn before.
‘Hi.’ Peter smiled and set the tray down on a wooden box in our cave, before leaving.
‘What’s …’ I started.
‘Wait.’ Anna held up the palm of her hand to stop me. ‘Eat and rest and after that we can talk.’
I could see Jenna wasn’t happy with this plan, but we were both too weak to argue.
‘I will return in a little while,’ Anna said in her soft voice as she made for the door. ‘There are more clothes,’ she pointed to a wooden cupboard standing at one side of the cave. Then she was gone. Did I hear a lock turn in the door?
There was a large jug of some juice, a reddish yellow colour. It tasted sweet and we drank it all. Whatever happened had left us parched. Rolls of bread, butter and cheese made up the food.
‘This still isn’t food from our own time.’ Jenna ate as she sat on her bed. ‘This cave is a bit like …’ She paused. ‘It’s a bit like somewhere we’ve been before.’
I understood Jenna’s confusion. This cave, what had happened at the Hanging Stones, Anna and Peter ... everything felt slightly blurred.
‘That green light,’ I pointed to the cave roof. ‘Something to do with radiation. Is it dangerous?’ I ate another roll.
‘Did Anna lock the door?’ Jenna looked around. ‘There could be another way out, down there.’ She pointed into the darkness of the cave where I could just make out the start of a passage.
‘Do we run for it?’ I said, even though I knew we weren’t up to running anywhere.
Jenna shook her head. ‘Have to see what happens here. We have to find out what’s been going on.’
Finishing the food and drink we felt a little stronger and checked out the clothes in the wooden cupboard. There were all sorts of things, not just clothes: a shovel, a rucksack like the ones we had taken on our first walk with Miss Tregarthur, a length of rope, a box of old instruments, clothes which weren’t really better than what we had been wearing and an ancient hunting knife.
‘Do I keep this with me?’ I weighed the knife in my hand.
‘No, but maybe keep it somewhere close in case we need it,’ Jenna said.
I put the knife under the lumpy pillow. The effort of searching had exhausted us and both of us lay back on the beds. I think we must have slept. We were woken again by Anna.
‘Time to meet the others.’ Anna stood by the open door. ‘Come.’
‘What happened to Demelza?’ Jenna stopped at the door.
‘She’s fine,’ Anna replied.
‘I don’t want to know she’s fine,’ Jenna cut across Anna’s singsong voice. ‘I want to know she’s locked up and not poisoning people.’
Anna turned. ‘You don’t need to worry about her, she can’t get out. Come with me and all will be explained.’
I really doubted about the ‘all’ that would be explained. If this was anything to do with Miss Tregarthur I felt sure that ‘all’ would leave some things out, usually the important things.
Anna held the door open. The hallway stretched out in front of us, dark, wood panelled, a worn carpet and all of this looked old.
We followed Anna down the hall hung with paintings on each side – pictures of old ancient people in red robes lined with fur, pictures of animals hunting, below the pictures were huge dusty jars and pots. A suit of armour stood in an alcove. Further down the hall a row of pegs hung with coats … I stopped and stared. Coats of all types – fur, wool, tweed, and jackets with modern names I recognised. A mixture of clothes across time.
Anna gave a quiet laugh and led us on. Another door.
We entered. Light from two tall windows flooded the room. Through these windows a wild landscape stretched out in front of us. Black rocks of a tor visible in the distance. A bleak vision and it meant we were still somewhere on the moor. Looking out across the brown countryside I could see dots of purple heather. Heather? I knew that name from someone, didn’t I? Someone had told me it was heather. I shook my head, my mind still felt blurred as it had done since we woke up. Was that the poison? The white robed man had given me something, how had he known what to do? Maybe Miss Tregarthur had poisoned other people before. Maybe they all used the same poison.
It was raining. A loud cough made me turn from the window.
In the middle of the room stood a long polished wooden table. There were ten or eleven chairs. Each one was occupied. Each person so different. A picture of different times; Anna with her hippy look, a woman in an army khaki uniform, another woman dressed as a nurse, another man in a suit, all were at ease even though none of them seemed to match. None of them matched the same period of time.
At the head of the table sat the man in his white robe, smiling. ‘Welcome back, Alvin. Welcome too, Jenna. Sit. My name, if you don’t remember, is Baylock, Baylock Tregarthur.’
Was this the same robed man? Surely not the ancient man who had saved us during the earthquake. If not him, it could be the same man who’d given me something for the poison. Whoever he was, he still he had the look of a Tregarthur.
It was a good job there were vacant seats because I was ready to pass out. I felt hands guide me down to sit. Jenna and I flicked glances at each other and at the door.
‘Run,’ I tried to say but I had no strength to stand, we were at their mercy. Even if we got away we had no idea where we were or when in time we had arrived at this house. But another Tregarthur, that meant real danger.
‘Stay calm, there is no danger for you here,’ Baylock said, his voice just ramped up my fear.
‘Calm,’ said Anna, as she laid her hand on my arm.
‘I wanted you to meet the others,’ Baylock waved his arm at the people around the table. ‘They have to return to their work, the good that they do, but you will meet them again, I’m sure. You have met some of them before. They are all family, of sorts.’
There were nods around the table. I wasn’t sure but they felt familiar, almost as though I was part of this family, how could that be true? Were all of them Tregarthurs? Did it mean I was a Tregarthur? Had Jenna been right? Was Miss Tregarthur really my aunt? I didn’t resemble any of them, did I?
‘Some stay here and some leave forever,’ Baylock slowed each word, a haunting speech. ‘Not all those passing through do so for the good. Masterson, Brigitte – you met her in France – we know them all. They are our failures. They leave but they will never escape. We can find them – Alice knew where to find them.’
His words filled me with their awful truth. This was a terrible network. A mafia of dangerous time travelling individuals. No wonder Miss Tregarthur had found Masterson – he was part of this. They all were.
‘What about Miss Tregarthur?’ Jenna said. ‘Another one of those failures?’
‘All in good time,’ Baylock said, and it was going to be as I had expected, we would never be told everything.
The chairs pushed back and the others left, only Baylock and Anna remained.
‘Come closer.’ Anna pointed to empty chairs nearer to their end of the table. We hesitated. Did we want to move closer to them?
Baylock laughed, ‘It is alright, you are safe here.’
I didn’t feel safe but we still moved nearer to him.
‘Your mother brought you here,’ Baylock said, and looked at me for a response.
My vacant expression must have explained a lot.
‘She never told you?’ Anna said, as though she didn’t believe that could have happened.
I shook my head. Baylock shot a glance at Anna before turning back at me. ‘Then there is so much for you to learn.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Jenna butted in. ‘This is all weird and wonderful and feels like some family gathering, but I’m not sure I believe we are safe. For a start where is Demelza? And what happened to Miss Tregarthur?’
&nb
sp; ‘So many questions,’ Baylock sighed.
We were not going to get all the answers at all, just bits they wanted us to hear.
‘We are the guardians …,’ Baylock said, in a deep loud serious voice.
‘Not doing a very good job of it,’ Jenna interrupted before whispering to me. ‘Sounds like a silly old fart to me.’
I nodded. Baylock’s face twisted and his eyes flared. I don’t expect he was used to being challenged. Or being called an old fart. But he quickly changed back to the bland smile he’d had before. The face he’d hidden had looked even more like that of Miss Tregarthur.
‘Alice was a problem, she always has been difficult and she always will be.’ Baylock gave another of his sighs. He was trying to show us the weight of all the problems he had to sort out. Another alarm went off in my head at the ‘always will be’. I thought she was dead but we were dealing with time travel. Dead might not be really dead.
That made me think about my mum, she must have left out many things in my life – like this place and these people. Maybe I couldn’t trust her even if we could go back in time and save her.
‘Why do you say my mother brought me here?’ I said.
‘She did and more than that.’ Anna would have gone on. Baylock motioned her to stop and took over.
‘As I said we are the guardians of the moor and the travel in time.’ Baylock checked that Jenna wasn’t going to interrupt.
But it was me that butted in, ‘You said you couldn’t control the time tunnel?’
‘Tunnel? Ah yes, I see what you mean, but it isn’t always a tunnel.’ Baylock was talking down to me. I didn’t like it.
Tregarthur's Crystal: Book 4 (The Tregarthur's Series) Page 18