Holly moved her hand towards the empty centrepiece, but the stone was almost drawn out of her fingers as she approached the necklace. It popped itself into place like a cork popping back into a bottle.
“Oh,” exhaled Holly, a little surprised, realising it was now fully secure despite there being no clasps or other fixings.
Savannah smiled, somewhat knowingly.
Gradually, the radiance of the Moonstone spread to the rest of the necklace, like ink on blotting paper, until the whole piece glowed fabulously.
She handed the completed necklace to her sister, where it seemed to want to go.
After admiring it around Savannah’s slender neck for a minute or so, Holly then turned her attention to the ring.
This was an altogether different affair. There seemed nothing special about the stone from which it was sculpted and the raven on the wing appeared relatively crudely carved.
But, when she placed it on her finger, something unexpected happened.
The jet-black bird seemed to fold its wings around her flesh and the ring tightened in a way that made her panic and quickly whip it off, like it was burning.
“Ugh!” she cried. “Something about that made me feel all peculiar.”
Then a voice came from behind them.
“Well, the Ravenring isn’t for little girls to play with,” said the unmistakable voice of Madame Rebecca, who had been watching from the doorway. “Unlike the other potent relics and touch stones from your family, the ring can only really be worn by its bonded owner until they pass and hand it on.
“You see, the raven is the bridge between the underworld and this world, between light and dark, life and…”
“The other,” said Nanna Jo, bursting in with a tray full of cookies and hot chocolate. “There will be plenty of time for that dark stuff when we arrive. In the meantime, you girls need to keep your strength up.
“Mug for you too, Savannah. Anything’s got to be better than that seaweed and sea cucumber juice you were telling me about earlier.”
All laughed out loud at that comment.
Yet, while they sipped and nibbled and chatted nervously, none could help but notice that having three of the Trelgathwin treasures back together created a more optimistic atmosphere in the group. It also seemed to bathe the cabin in a faintly mystical, golden glow.
Up on the deck, Nelson had sent scouts ahead to ensure that they weren’t sailing into some sort of trap.
He was becoming increasingly concerned at the orange glow on the horizon, which was lighting up more of the night sky ahead with every passing mile.
Several of the men had also reported a series of strange rustlings in the tree line and hedgerows that flanked them on both sides of the canal system.
Sure, more creatures come out at night than simple folk see. But there was something heavier than expected about the cracking of the branches and crunching of the leaf litter than could be dismissed as a badger or fox or even otter.
After all, that sort of nocturnal creature would have come out to greet them as they passed.
Yet they saw disturbingly few friendly faces.
Even the enchanted pulling ponies were starting to show their nervousness. And they were the bravest of beasts, said to have borne knights of old into battle.
“Well,” said Nelson quietly to Ziggy, his voice hushed but ever confident. “Looks like we ’ave company. We canz but be ready for whatever fate may throw at us next, as we canz hardly turn around now, dear friend.”
Without having to be told, Ziggy slipped off to warn the warriors up and down the quiet convoy to keep their wits about them, their weapons clean and their companions close.
Berkhamsted Castle is famous the world over for being the former home of the infamous Black Prince, a malevolent knight.
It is a handsome ruin, in the main. But it still sits proudly at the heart of the village, if you know where the true heart is, that is.
The castle’s ancient and mystical, all-seeing towers, despite being many centuries old, are still raised on steep grassy hills and banks, encircled by a shallow moat.
The canal meanders lazily by to the east, while Ashridge Forest, its closest neighbour to the north and west, is just a short march away.
It is said that the castle was built using ancient timbers cut from the ancestor trees in that sacred forest.
It is also rumoured that, despite the attentions of armies past and the ravages of many hundreds of years, within the castle’s remaining flint walls quartz and other magical crystals are still buried.
But the families camped out there this evening had little thought or concern for magic. They were too busy listening to the music of the natural world, the serenades of the bullfrogs, toads and bats that abounded there, though they knew not what they were saying, given that most of us have forgotten that ancient language of nature.
The group were also enthralled by the supernatural, the ghosts, ghouls and terrifying monsters starring in the fireside stories expertly performed by the mums and their dads camping with them.
And, while their parents took turns to titillate and terrify them, the youngsters huddled together, baking bananas with chocolate buttons and roasting marshmallows on long reeds or sticks.
All of Holly and Lucy’s best friends were here, including Niamh, Reanna and Alex, back from the beach too, as well as Philly (and sisters), Max, Zack, Grace and Ellie.
Lucy recalled that, for as long as she could remember, Holly had organised this annual camp-out to mark the end of their summer holidays.
“How annoyed she will be to be missing this one now,” she thought, just as Niamh’s father pulled his face back and snarled, pretending to be a beast of some sort. Jack’s snarl in response made them all giggle.
Her own dad was a bit more distracted than usual and wasn’t leading the spooky stories as he so often did. He was clearly preoccupied with something he had not yet shared with his daughter.
But he took his turn when the other dads teased him into it and did a great job of imitating a rampant, multi-armed octo-beast on the hunt, although his beastie was more of a tickling machine than a child-eating one.
When they finally called it a night and slipped into their tents and then sleeping bags, Lucy didn’t want to press her dad too hard on whether Holly and Nanna would be back tomorrow.
They had been in touch, of course, to say that all was well and they were on their way. But a small part of her secretly liked the fact she was getting some one-on-one time with her Pops.
With that warm and comforting thought and Jack snuggled in her lap, she was soon fast asleep, even before they turned out their lamp.
Her father, however, was obviously a lot less settled, with a heavy weight on his mind. He carefully unzipped his covers when he eventually heard his daughter’s gentle breath settle into the rhythmic pattern that told him she was asleep.
He calmly and quietly pulled on his shoes. Then, after muttering what would have appeared, to those in the know about supernatural matters, to be a powerful guarding spell, he slid noiselessly from the tent and was swallowed up by the pitch black of the night.
The first attack came, unexpectedly, from the air.
One of the pirates at the rear reported seeing a large cloud, moving faster than the wind implied, blocking out what little moonlight there was.
Locking as many people as they could spare in the cabins and battening down the hatches just in time, the boats were soon swarming with millions of ferociously angry wasps and hornets.
Some of the men took to the water to avoid their myriad stings. The braver, or more foolhardy, quickly covered hands with gloves or clothing, faces with neckerchiefs or scarves and heads with hats or hoods and scrabbled for the flaming torches.
Even the tiniest angry insects are formidable in force, but the flames and smoke deterred them
for long enough to make it into a small road tunnel, thanks to the swift thinking of the piebald ponies. Interestingly, however, none of the bugs targeted them.
Nelson and a couple of men then set up barriers of fire at the entrance, while compatriots on the rear boat did the same at the back.
They could still hear the angry wall of buzzing wings and had to deal with those they had carried through.
But, with everyone springing to action once under cover and the help of aerosols and the busy attention of wet towels and soaked coverings, they eventually contained the flying menace.
“Vicious mini beasts,” exclaimed Ziggy.
“Something has clearly wound them up and pointed them in our direction,” replied Nanna Jo, now dabbing ointment that Madame Rebecca had prepared from a bunch of herbs hanging in the galley area on the exposed raw spots of the growing number of casualties lined up for her attention.
“I’m not sure how long these barriers are going to hold,” shouted Nelson, lighting another torch and throwing it to one of the female crew members.
As they all busied themselves with blocking or stomping the mini-beast peril, there was suddenly a flash of light and a purple, pink and red stream of stars flew through the flame barrier, heading outward.
The noise from the insects rose to a crescendo at this point and the wasps and hornets regrouped as a giant cloud promising overwhelming pain.
The cloud then started to climb high into the night sky: a long, vertical climb, straight up above the bridge.
The ponies, as if wanting to see the conclusion to the battle, towed the barges forward in time for everyone to witness what happened next.
Holly, in faerie guise, was leading the insects upward in a vertical climb.
She outpaced and outlasted the vicious horde.
Flying straight up, she knew that the altitude or height would eventually take its toll. And it did, in spectacular fashion, as, after a few minutes, they heard a soft boom.
The sky soon lit up with gold and purple stars, like the best firework on bonfire night. It then started to rain insects, torrents of stunned insects dropping and hitting the water behind them like hail stones.
Not all of them met the same fate: some clever queens must have seen sense, judging by a large cloud from the rear of the swarm that pulled out, broke up and dispersed in all directions.
But it was clear that some clever thinking, fast acting and bravery had brought this battle to a swift conclusion.
What lay ahead, however, was anyone’s guess. But, based on this incident, it was most likely the stuff of nightmares.
Alice watched her mother with a growing sense of disbelief and denial.
“How could she have…?”
The scene below them threw up so many questions she just wasn’t going to find answers for here and now.
Her companions waited in respectful silence.
Sylvane in particular was feeling the heavy weight of her friend’s discovery as if it were her own.
They had all been carrying the great burden of the news since the night of the attack on their glade, when Helice had warned them about reports that had passed to the elders from Hearne.
Part of the reason for visiting him was for him to see Alice for himself and confirm the link.
Dianah took the initiative and broke the shocked silence.
“Alice, you know that this does not mean that you…”
“What?” snapped Alice. “Doesn’t mean that I’m a were-creature, a traitor, because my mother is the werewytch?”
Her face was contorted with pain and her eyes were brimming with angry tears.
“Well, that’s such a relief, such comfort,” she cried, storming off, unable to face her friends right now, still coming to terms with the fact that they clearly knew something about her own mother, her own family, before she did. She also felt such a fool that her mother had lied to and tricked them for so long.
So many questions now raced through her head in a few seconds. Most started with “what about”: her brother, their friends, their home, their father, their loyalty, their safety?
She was so very upset, so very confused and so very afraid.
It was like everything she had ever known had just been placed on a rug next to her, then a giant, cruel, invisible hand had pulled it all from under her at once, breaking most things and alienating her from everything she had believed true.
It was then that she felt Sylvie’s arm wrap gently around her shoulders.
Alice almost shrugged her arm off in her hurt temper, but she then changed her mind and surrendered to the love of her friend.
Sylvie always had a way with words and these were some of her best.
“Things may look bleak now, Alice. But things aren’t always what they seem. We all make mistakes in life. But still the good you have flowing from every part of you must be in your mother too.
“For, after all, it was her and your father that together, made you. And, who knows, he may be searching for you too.”
Then the tears really came.
Yet, sadly, as is the way in tough times, fate waits for no-one, no matter how hard the going gets.
So, even as the woodland nymph gang shared in the heavy sadness of their friend as if to carry some for her, the very object of their pain, the werewytch, was on the move once more.
Her dark conference with the creatures of the pit was clearly over as they were now being dispatched in various directions.
A large, mixed tribe of lycanthropes was heading off along the forest fringes for speed.
An evil air force of winged furies including buzzards, hungry land gulls and certain bats, ridden by what appeared to be hobgoblins, took to the air.
“I don’t see any emberhawks,” said Dianah, under her breath.
While those large groups set off, the bulk of the hideous army, now numbering thousands, clearly came under the werewytch’s command and briefly gathered around her in a huge chattering, slavering, moaning mass.
To the surprise of the friends, she then signalled for them to follow and they made their way into the mouth of the quarry pit, the abandoned factory doors swallowing them greedily.
All went with her with the exception of the werebeast they had earlier seen by the werewytch’s side. It turned at the last and broke away.
“Why would the largest group head back to cover? It looks and smells like hell on fire in there,” asked Sylvie, giving voice to the question they thought at once.
“It may be that they draw some sort of poisonous power from there. Or perhaps the old factory is a wretched portal of some kind,” said Dianah with a worried look on her face. “If it is a bewitched doorway leading to somewhere they want to get to – fast – it is going to be nigh on impossible to track them.”
Just then they caught a flash of light behind them and their hearts filled with instant joy at seeing the round, smiling face of Nimbus, beaming and panting, dragging a black sack behind him.
“Larks alive, am I tickled pink to see this jolly crew!”
Nimbus dumped the sack on the ground in the middle of them just before three sets of arms mobbed him.
He then set about, as sensitively as he could, very much aware of Alice’s feelings, relaying the recent events in the cabin.
First, making sure that they were well shielded beneath the Sentinel Tree, he then concluded by reversing the shrinking spell.
Suddenly the iron cauldron and black book bearing the title The Legend of the Lost both appeared, before shocked faces.
“I don’t know how, exactly, but I have a feeling that these magical items are going to have quite a part to play in the fate of our forest.”
He scratched the thick brown hair beneath his fawn cap as he spoke as if to echo his and their frustration with this terrible puzzle, on an epic scale.
When they left the outer clutches of inner London, a few of the watchmen had reported strange disturbances in the water.
At first they had put this down to particularly hungry nocturnal carp or barbell fish hunting by moonlight. But then it became clear that the ripples in the water were multiplying, and they appeared to be following them.
The first attack came as they entered a particularly shallow patch where the bank had clearly ruptured slightly, leaking a little.
They had just passed the clear water outlet from a sewage treatment plant and it was known that many a strange beast was to be found in those parts.
The helmsman of the rear boat heard a strange, plopping noise and then several more. Then, to his horror, the deck of his barge came alive with what appeared to be snakes, as thick as black cables.
They were trying to get into the engine compartment until several of the Sea Gypsies attacked them with brooms and sticks, forcing them back into the water.
“Eels; fowsans of ’em,” he shouted, rousing more of his companions.
They doubled and then redoubled their efforts to get rid of the wriggling abominations. But there were just so many and, having burst through the doors to the engine bay, they threatened to choke up the drive machinery of the boats.
All appeared lost when the engines of the lead barges stalled, plunging them into darkness and leaving them drifting towards a grumbling weir, which would almost certainly have overturned the flat-bottomed boats had the ponies not pulled harder.
Then, suddenly, a golden glow started in the main cabin of The Changeling. It swelled steadily until, like a wave crashing on rocks, it burst over the barges and their passengers, both the real ones and the unwelcome boarders.
Almost instantly, the snake-like eels literally turned tail and vanished back into the oily water.
Legend of the Lost Page 10