Tregarthur's Crystal: Book 4 (The Tregarthur's Series)

by Alex Mellanby

  ‘Then what is it?’ I snapped.

  ‘Each new circle of travel starts in a different way, starting inside the rock, fighting to find its way out. That was the tunnel you found, one that took so many years to find the way. She had to fight so hard. She fought until the end.’

  ‘You say ‘she’, but the last sound I heard on the moor was Miss Tregarthur’s screech.’

  ‘One cycle leaves when there is another to take their place. Alice became that person with her death. When Alice died she was taken into the moor, she has become the voice of the moor, she has become the way to travel time. If you like, Alice Tregarthur has become the new time tunnel.’ Baylock stopped.

  I felt a cold shiver as his words sank into my head. The Miss Tregarthur we had seen disappearing into the ground, she had become the time tunnel. She wasn’t dead at all. That was the end for us, she would never take us to any place or any time.

  ‘What happened to the old tunnel, whoever SHE was?’ My voice shook as I spoke.

  ‘You felt her true and final death,’ Anna broke in. ‘That last storm was the end for her.’

  I had so many questions but there was no time to ask. With a crash and the splintering of glass, a rock smashed through the window and skidded across the long table. Another followed.

  Baylock’s words, the shattering noise, I wanted to run but felt frozen to my chair. Through the window was a sight I had never wanted to see again. Outside a band of men ready to throw more stones, ready to attack. Men in furs holding great clubs. The cavemen were here.

  ‘GO, RUN,’ Baylock shouted to Anna. ‘Get the others.’ Then, to us: ‘You must get to the cave room. This is our fight, ours alone. We will fight them. RUN.’ More rocks crashed through the broken window.

  ‘GO, GO!’ His words finally broke through. I had to move.

  The cavemen screamed and charged.

  ‘The key’ Baylock called out.

  Anna threw a key to us as she left.

  ‘Lock yourselves in, fix the bar and wait for us. Do not leave. Wait for us. But go NOW.’ Baylock dodged a flying rock.

  We tried to run but only staggered along the hall with shouts coming from behind us, Baylock was gathering the others to him. We pushed through the heavy door into the cave room.

  ‘Bar,’ cried Jenna.

  A heavy iron bar stood at one side. Picking it up I slid it across the door, it was held in place by two iron hoops. This door was made to protect.

  As we slid the bar into place and turned the lock we could hear the noise of fighting in the hallway. Baylock had been right to get us out of the way. Even if we had been saved from a poison death, it had taken our strength and we collapsed on to the beds.

  ‘How did cavemen get here?’ I groaned. ‘I thought they couldn’t travel in the tunnel.’ Last time when we had been chased by cavemen they had stopped at the entrance to the tunnel, unable to go further, and that had happened to anyone from their own time trying to follow us.

  ‘Can it be true? What Baylock said happened to Miss Tregarthur?’ As Jenna said that we heard hammering on the other side of the door.

  ‘Help, help, let me in,’ came Demelza’s frantic shouts.

  ‘Do we?’ I looked at Jenna.

  Jenna shrugged and went to move the iron bar and open the door.

  ‘Quick.’ Demelza pushed through. ‘They’re coming.’ She looked over her shoulder and we could see a group of the cavemen running towards us, more rocks in their hands.

  We slammed the door, locked it and slid the iron bar across. Rocks thudded into the wood outside and I could hear the cavemen crashing their clubs to break down the door. For the moment it held. Would it stand this sort of attack? Had it been made for this?

  We had to hope that the cavemen would give up and take the fight to the others in the house – unless everyone was dead already.

  Jenna stood at the cupboard and threw me the length of rope. ‘Tie her up. We don’t want a battle with her as well as that lot outside. She’s probably still got a load of poison ready to use.’

  Demelza squealed but I still roped her arms and tied her to the metal hoops on the door. ‘If they break in they can have her first,’ I said, and turned away from her squeals.

  Shouldn’t we have left her to die? Demelza was dangerous. But perhaps we did need to keep her and to get her home if the time tunnel would ever work again.

  It had been so long ago that my mother had said this would never stop unless we took everyone home. She said that just before she died. We had left several dead people across time. Did we have to get them home as well? Did leaving Demelza to die make any difference? We’d done it now, let her in with us. I supposed there was a chance we could use her as a diversion for the cavemen if we had to. Except Jenna would never let that happen.

  A Battle in Time.

  -21-

  It wasn’t long before Demelza tried her usual tricks. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s going on?’ she said.

  ‘Of course we do, but I doubt you know anything,’ I said, and waited for more.

  ‘I overheard them talking.’ Demelza was trying to sound convincing.

  ‘So we untie you and you tell us everything?’ Jenna gave a sarcastic laugh.

  ‘Of course.’ Demelza didn’t seem to get the sarcasm.

  ‘How about you tell us what you know or we untie you and push you back outside.’ Jenna looked away.

  ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’ Demelza returned to squealing as another rock thudded against the door.

  ‘Actually, why don’t we push her back outside anyway,’ I said, standing up from my bed. ‘At least that would stop her going on.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Jenna nodded.

  ‘NO, NO, please.’ Demelza slid down to the ground on her knees, her hands still held by the rope. She obviously believed that we would carry out the threat because that was what she would have done.

  ‘Then start talking.’ Jenna made it sound as though that was her only option.

  ‘Ok, ok.’ Demelza waited for me to sit back on my bed. ‘The time tunnel isn’t a tunnel at all, it’s alive.’

  ‘We know that already, I’ve heard enough from you,’ I said, as the crashing at the door grew even louder.

  Demelza tried to pull away and stuttered, ‘B-b-but you don’t know what’s happened.’

  ‘Go on,’ Jenna prompted.

  ‘Miss Tregarthur has become the tunnel. It’s what happens when they die. But it doesn’t last forever. That’s why Miss Tregarthur wanted …’ She stopped.

  ‘Wanted what?’ I realised that she had said more than she intended.

  ‘Nothing,’ Demelza said, but she knew it was too late.

  ‘The door Alvin,’ Jenna pointed and I started to get up again.

  ‘NO.’ Demelza held up her tied hands.

  I walked towards her.

  ‘She wanted you dead,’ she muttered.

  ‘Why?’ Jenna sounded puzzled.

  ‘Alvin is one of them,’ Demelza replied to Jenna: ‘It’s something to do with this cave, this house, the moor. His mother,’ she nodded at me, ‘she came here when she was pregnant.’ Demelza turned to me. ‘Alvin, you were born here. You are part of it all.’

  I was too bewildered to ask anything. All sorts of thoughts buzzed in my brain, from the beginning there had been a connection between my mum and the Tregarthurs.

  Demelza went on: ‘It seems that if you’re born here, with that green light thing,’ she pointed to the roof of the cave, ‘It makes you one of them, the moor will get you in the end, when you die.’

  ‘Doesn’t explain why Miss Tregarthur wanted Alvin dead,’ Jenna said.

  Demelza went on: ‘If Alvin died before her then he would have been next. You heard that awful sound when she hit the crystal, well it’s like that a lot of the time for the tunnel. If Alvin died before her, she wouldn’t have had to do it, she was expecting to carry on moving through time and getting away with it.’

  ‘And you learnt all thi
s from overhearing their conversation?’ I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to hear. Did Miss Tregarthur mean me to be the one screaming whenever she hit the crystal, wanting to be taken through time?

  Jenna jumped up. ‘Miss Tregarthur told you all about it. You knew all about this each time you and Zach tried to kill us. Now tell us the rest.’

  ‘That’s about it.’ Demelza tried to shy away.

  ‘No it’s not,’ Jenna shouted and moved closer. ‘Why Alvin? Why didn’t she just kill one of the others here?’

  ‘I told you, you have to be born here. Most of them weren’t.’ Demelza was pushing herself back against the door, more scared of Jenna than the cavemen.

  ‘Why didn’t she just do it herself, just kill me. There were lots of times she could have done that?’ I asked but I thought I knew the answer.

  ‘Well … she … she couldn’t,’ Demelza stammered again.

  Jenna clenched her fists as she shouted, ‘That’s why you had to kill him, isn’t it? She needed someone else to kill him? Couldn’t have the blood on her own hands or it wouldn’t work. If she killed Alvin herself, it wouldn’t save her.’

  Demelza gave a miserable nod.

  ‘Me or her?’ I asked and she nodded again. ‘I still don’t see why it had to be me? What made her go after me in the first place? There must be someone here who she could have used instead. What about Baylock?’

  ‘Don’t know about him, she never talked about him,’ Demelza said.

  ‘But why me?’

  ‘She had trouble with your mum,’ Demelza added. ‘Trouble with her brother, you, your dad, all of you. I don’t know exactly why she hated all of you.’

  Was that the only reason? I could understand how we might not have been one happy family but was that enough reason to pursue me over thousands of years?

  Demelza seemed to give up keeping things from us. ‘Alvin, you were the youngest. The younger a person is the more powerful the tunnel becomes. If she could get you killed, she believed she could go back to the time of the cavemen and complete her promise.’

  ‘Instead she brought the cavemen here,’ I said, and listened, but the fighting had quietened down outside, we still heard shouts in the distance. ‘How has she brought them here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Demelza said, and that sounded as though it might actually be true.

  ‘Who was the person in the last tunnel? The one we’ve been using,’ Jenna said, in a cold quiet voice. ‘Baylock seemed to know her.’

  Demelza hung her head before telling us. ‘It was Miss Tregarthur’s sister. Her baby sister. Her mother was much much younger than her dad and she died giving birth. The baby, her sister, lived for only a little while. But she had been born here so was next in line.’

  The awfulness of that piece of news took time to hit my brain. Miss Tregarthur used her dead sister to travel time, to bring down that awful pain on her when she struck the crystal. ‘How could she do that?’

  ‘She felt her sister had killed her mother when she was born,’ Demelza said.

  I didn’t want to hear anymore and I didn’t have a chance. There was a massive shout, the sound of stamping feet running towards us and the door almost exploded with splintering wood. It held, but a gap opened and we could see straight through into the wrecked hallway. A group of cavemen, carrying a huge tree trunk, had battered the door. We could see their snarling faces. One put his hand through the hole and started pulling at the wood.

  Demelza turned and sunk her teeth into the caveman’s arm before shouting at me, ‘UNTIE ME, LET ME GO,’ and pulling at the rope holding her to the door, while she screamed. The men were preparing to charge again with their battering ram.

  Without thinking, I grabbed the knife from under my pillow and slashed through Demelza’s ropes just as they hit the door again. The metal bar rattled and bent. Would the door stand another charge? The hunting knife wouldn’t be a lot of use if we had to fight them all.

  ‘We run,’ cried Jenna pointing to the darkness at the end of the cave. And we did. Behind us, another crash as the cavemen tried again to break through. It wouldn’t be long before they were after us.

  The only escape was through the passage we had seen at the end of our cave. We had no idea where it went. It was just wide enough for us to pass along one at a time, a dim green light radiated from the stone. Not long before we came to a fork.

  ‘Which way?’ I panted.

  ‘Upwards,’ Demelza pointed to the left hand fork.

  The grunting screams were behind us – the cavemen had broken through the door. On we ran. They were closing on us. The passage opened up into a wider lighter space.

  I stopped, still holding the knife. I might have a chance to hold them up for a while in the narrow space behind me but not in this wider passage. There were too many. I wouldn’t hold them for long and had to hope it would be enough time for the others to get away.

  Jenna just grabbed my arm and dragged me on, no argument, at least we could run faster in the wider space. We were still weak from the poison. The way grew steeper, taking us higher, taking all our strength. Ahead the light was stronger. We could see the end of the passage, something whizzed through the air.

  Demelza yelled and tumbled to the floor as a rock hit her. I dragged her to her feet. On we ran, more rocks fizzed behind us. We reached daylight and tumbled out through bushes. We were back on the moor. Not far in front of us stood the Hanging Stones. Baylock stood near them. He was alone. Not far behind came the screaming, howling cavemen.

  Baylock’s robe blew out in the wind, the wild Tregarthur look on his face. ‘Onwards,’ he pointed to the stones and we ran forward.

  He turned with an ancient rifle in his hands. As the cavemen appeared from the passage he pulled the trigger. With an enormous roar and flash one of the cavemen fell to the ground. The others fled back into the passage with grunts and screams.

  ‘Won’t stop them for long.’ Baylock reloaded and called to me. ‘Alice has had her vengeance. I would not let her travel in time to make money and destroy the world, neither her nor her father with his dangerous ideas.’

  I could see that Baylock had been injured, blood oozing from a wound on his leg and from one on his chest.

  ‘Alice has broken time, opened the way for this attack, brought back the people from the time she has travelled. All the bad and evil will soon be upon us.’

  If he meant all the evil, then cavemen could be the least of the problems, what about all those villagers with the Black Death?

  ‘You must take your chance.’ He handed me a sack. Inside a new crystal and the iron bar Miss Tregarthur had used to call the time tunnel.

  ‘Go now,’ he said, raising the gun as the cavemen started to come forward again. ‘Nothing will be the same, my family is destroyed, there will be no guardians any more. You must find your own path.’

  Should we stay and help or head for home?

  ‘Come on,’ shouted Demelza.

  We had tried. Helped when everything seemed so bad. It was time to leave. We went to the stones. I called to the tunnel. I called to Miss Tregarthur since Baylock said she had the power of time travel. From the stones came her wild tormenting laugh.

  ‘Hit the crystal,’ Demelza tried to wrestle the iron bar from me. ‘Hit the crystal.’

  Jenna pushed Demelza to the ground, took the bar and smashed it down onto the shimmering stone.

  We had heard the awful wail before but this time it was far worse. It came from the voice we knew, Miss Tregarthur’s voice. Jenna struck again and again. Behind us the cavemen retreated, this time it was the sound that made them slink away with their hands over their ears.

  I could see where they hid. Baylock was right, nothing would stop them in the end. Was this attack planned in their minds thousands of years before?

  The colours of the time travel mist appeared below the Hanging Stones. I had no faith in Miss Tregarthur taking us to our own time and to our homes. I told Jenna to keep threatening to
hit the crystal. It was what Miss Tregarthur deserved.

  Strangely her voice echoed out across the moor.

  ‘I will send you to your own time, to your own homes, that is what you deserve.’

  What did she mean? Deserve? We stepped forward into the mist, the blue colour appearing – the colour which told us we were going home. I held Jenna’s hand. Demelza was in front and running. The mist swirled around us, sucking us in, moving the world and time around us. We came down hard, hitting the stones. Miss Tregarthur made sure we had a painful journey.

  We were through. Back on to the moor. But in the distance I could hear the noises of cars and planes. Noises we would never have heard in earlier times.

  ‘We’re back,’ Jenna sobbed.

  ‘Back?’ I said, remembering I would have so many more problems at home.

  ‘Duck,’ shouted Demelza as a fighter jet screamed towards us, blasting the moor with exploding bullets.

  Yes, we were back, but Miss Tregarthur had changed time.

  About The Author

  This is Alex Mellanby’s fourth novel in the Tregarthur Series. His writing has finally driven him over the edge of sense and he now exists in a shadowy realm of fiction. Whether he can save Alvin and Jenna remains uncertain and the future is much worse than the past.

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  Table of Contents

  Tregarthur’s Series

  Prologue

  The Search Begins

  Train

  Necklace

  London

  Lost Girl