The Apparition Phase

by Will Maclean

  ‘May I keep hold of this?’

  ‘Of course!’ I said, unsure whether or not I was crossing a line. I didn’t want to be expelled from Yarlings.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Hattie Wells tapped her teeth with her pencil as she scanned the pages. I wondered what she was thinking. Despite the mess and clutter choking her tiny bookshop, I got the impression she knew exactly where everything was, where it came from, and what it was worth. I imagined she would be a terrible person to get on the wrong side of: she was currently being friendly to me, and that was almost too much to bear. I wondered, with a sudden, stabbing terror, if I had said too much. I wanted to ask for the pages back, but it was too late now.

  ‘Well, thank you for your help!’ I said, just as brightly as before. ‘I’d best be off.’

  Again, she skewered me with her gaze. I saw that her blue eyes were flecked with gold, like those of a bird of prey. ‘You sure you don’t want to look for anything now? I’m sure it wouldn’t take two minutes.’

  I held up the carrier bags and smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid not.’ I was going to lie about there being a block of ice cream in one of the bags, but I got the distinct feeling that if I deviated from the truth in any way, Hattie Wells would know. ‘I was sent to get supplies, and I’m already running late. But I’m staying for another week or so. I’ll be back.’

  Hattie Wells sniffed and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose again, reaching across the desk to a porcelain frog with several sun-yellowed business cards in its oversized mouth. ‘Well, we’re closed on Saturdays and Sundays, but apart from that we’re open ten a.m. to five-thirty p.m. weekdays, apart from Wednesday, of course, which is half-day closing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said enthusiastically, taking the card. Wide-eyed cheerfulness was becoming wearisome to maintain, and my face ached from smiling. ‘I’ll pop in during the week!’

  ‘Please do,’ said Hattie Wells. Her attention had been caught by a sheaf of receipts paper-clipped together on the desk. She started to go through them, and I took this to mean I was dismissed.

  The French bulldog watched me leave, her large black eyes regarding me mournfully, as the door jangled shut.

  32

  An hour or so later, we had all been drafted into making component parts of our picnic lunch. Juliet and Neil were charged with putting together cheese-and-tomato sandwiches, Sally and I were making coleslaw, and Polly and Graham were assembling a fruit salad. Several thermos flasks were filled with cold lemonade; there were bottles of ginger beer. Jokes about the Famous Five abounded. And, for the first time since I had been there, the atmosphere in the house felt free and happy. Into this jolly assembly line of food preparation marched Seb, fresh from outside, shirtless and smoking, still with his sunglasses on.

  ‘I’m not going,’ he said, instantly. ‘Have fun at the Right-old Stones, or whatever they’re called.’

  ‘What?’ said Juliet. ‘Of course you’re coming with us!’

  ‘Nope.’ Seb grinned round his cigarette. ‘I just looked at the road atlas in my car. The place is bloody miles away.’

  ‘That’s kind of the point,’ said Sally. ‘Get away from the house for a bit.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Seb, ‘but a two-hour drive to see some stones in a field followed by another two-hour drive back here sounds like my idea of total hell.’

  ‘Seb!’

  ‘I’ve made up my mind. If you lot want to cross Britain to gawp at rocks, that’s your lookout. I’m staying here.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Neil, perhaps a fraction of a second too soon.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ said Juliet coldly. ‘Well, you just have a good time without us, yes?’

  ‘I will,’ said Seb, eyes twinkling. He tried to grab Juliet round the waist, and she shoved him away.

  ‘Get off.’ He tried again, and she shoved him harder this time.

  ‘Ow!’ he said, his eyes suddenly ablaze.

  ‘Stop manhandling me, you pig!’ said Juliet. There was real anger in her voice. The kitchen went quiet. Behind them both, I could see Neil take a step forward, his expression utterly blank, but his eyes wide. I saw him tighten his grip on the knife he’d been using to cut the tomatoes, although he was probably unaware that he still held it.

  Even without Seb’s Stag, we still had two cars at our disposal, Graham’s brown Vauxhall Viva and Sally’s Rover. Graham’s car would go first, with me navigating from the front passenger seat with the road atlas. Juliet and Neil would travel with us on the back seat. Sally and Polly would follow in Sally’s car. This arrangement irked me for two reasons, which could be boiled down simply to spending time with Graham, and not spending time with Sally, but as it was only two hours or so, I felt I could bear it. And the day – already almost unbearably beautiful that morning – had become perhaps the best of the year so far, the blue sky brazenly cloudless, the fields urgently and passionately green, shouting the same secret over and over again.

  Upon leaving the clutches of the house, I had the same feeling of absolute ease and liberation I’d had that morning, as the desperate, needy atmosphere that clung to Yarlings fell away. I couldn’t speak for the others, but there seemed to be a palpable sense of relief as we headed into the web of B-roads that surrounded the house, and escaped.

  Escaped. There seemed to be no other word.

  Navigation was not a taxing affair; a straightforward string of A- and B-roads ran across the country almost to our destination. I was able to sit with the atlas covering my knees, my elbow out of the window, feeling the breeze ruffle my hair, and appreciate the sun, the sky and, eventually, even the beautiful bland ribbon of road ahead of us. After the drab interior of the house, the bright colours of the passing cars had an almost carnivalesque air.

  ‘Shall we sing?’ said Graham. ‘Come on, let’s sing.’ And so, improbably, we all sang ‘Lily the Pink’ whilst the motorway thundered along beneath us.

  The Rollright Stones turned out to be not in an isolated field, as I had supposed, but next to a B-road. In fact, the entire complex of monuments, comprising the Whispering Knights, the King Stone, and the King’s Men circle itself, was not merely next to a B-road, but cut in half by it, just as Graham said Avebury was. We parked at the roadside, next to another brown Vauxhall Viva, and got out, grateful to stretch our legs.

  The day remained glorious, the sky an endless blue vastness, unblemished by even the merest wisp of cloud. The countryside rolled down and away from us in all directions. And there were the stones themselves, weathered and pock-marked, lolling and stretching in the grass, frozen in curiously organic attitudes: large and small, squat and monstrously elegant. Individually, they were as grotesque as mandrake roots; collectively, they resembled a ring of jagged fangs, like the teeth of some primitive river-dwelling fish. They were stunning.

  Even Neil was impressed.

  ‘Good Lord,’ he said, probably unaware he was doing so. ‘Good Lord.’ Through the tall crescent of pines between the stones and the road, I could see the blue of Sally’s car arriving, and felt glad.

  Neil stretched out a hand and placed it on the nearest stone. Juliet followed suit, and then I did, too. It was almost impossible not to expect some mystic tingle of energy to flow through me, but instead there was just the sensation of touching ancient rock, older than England, still standing after thousands of years, warmed by the summer sun. And that, somehow, was more than enough.

  We spread out blankets and picnicked among the stones. There was a slow dribble of other people there – tourists and sightseers, Graham-like academics trailing bored-looking girlfriends – but by 2 p.m. or so, we had the circle to ourselves, another miracle on a day when miracles seemed commonplace. Adding to the air of a holiday, we all wore summer clothing – even Polly wore a summer dress with yellow flowers on it, although she wore her grey woollen cardigan over it almost defiantly.

  ‘Do you ever take that cardigan off, Pols?’ said Graham playfully, as we stretched out on various blankets.

&nbs
p; ‘Mind your own beeswax,’ said Polly. She laughed and stuck her tongue out at him. ‘I love this cardie.’

  ‘I read about the myths of this place somewhere,’ said Juliet, through most of a cheese-and-tomato sandwich. ‘How a witch used it to trick a king.’

  ‘If Long Compton thou canst see, King of England thou shalt be!’ said Graham, smiling.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ said Juliet. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘As Long Compton thou canst not see, Thou and thy men hoar stones shalt be!’ said Sally. Both she and Graham laughed.

  ‘All right,’ said Juliet, ‘how did you both know?’

  ‘We both studied comparative folklore,’ said Graham, loading his pipe with tobacco. ‘Which, in England, includes the myths and legends of places like this.’

  ‘Aren’t the stones supposed to be uncountable?’ I said. I knew that this was so, I just wanted both Graham and Sally to know that I was not ignorant of this kind of thing.

  ‘Very good, Tim,’ Graham said condescendingly. ‘Although the myth of the stones being uncountable applies to many, if not all, stone circles, in both Britain and France.’

  Thanks for that, Graham, I thought. ‘Didn’t there also used to be a barrow here? Associated with the witch?’

  ‘There was,’ said Sally. ‘The witch turned herself into a tree and grew from the barrow. Both tree and barrow were ploughed away years ago, sadly.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Polly. ‘Amazing that people could just do that back then. Scour away something ancient, which belonged to everyone.’

  ‘All too common, sadly,’ said Sally. ‘Even the stones aren’t what they were. It used to be customary for travellers to chip off a bit and take it with them. For luck.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Neil. ‘What’s funny, Jules?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Juliet, toying with a blade of grass. ‘It’s just – the witch turned the king and his men to stone and herself into a tree. And yet, she’s long gone, and the king and his men are still here. I mean … what a rubbish witch.’

  We all laughed. Neil smiled up at Juliet. Away from Yarlings – away, perhaps, from Seb – he seemed to be almost another person. His entire demeanour was different – he was much less stiff and awkward, much more relaxed. I wondered if he was in love with Juliet.

  Everyone else had been lulled to sleep, napping on the soft grass. Sally curled a finger at me, beckoning, and silently the two of us went walking in the blue and gold.

  ‘Do you like the stones, Tim?’

  ‘They’re … amazing,’ I said.

  ‘The stones are sacred.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To one who is mighty and all-powerful. To the Goddess. The landscape is a living thing, Tim, and the stones are a gathering point for the power of our mother, the earth.’

  We were approaching the Whispering Knights. Even on a perfect summer’s day, they leaned together tirelessly to conspire.

  ‘Tell me what’s happening,’ I said.

  She blanched a little. ‘What do you mean, what’s happening?’

  ‘In the house,’ I said. ‘Everyone else has a theory about what manner of – thing – we’ve conjured up.’

  ‘Not quite true. You haven’t, and neither has Polly.’

  ‘Touché,’ I said. The phrase sounded clumsy and old-fashioned, and I blushed a little.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘Oh, I’m supposed to tell you, but you won’t tell me?’

  ‘Oh!’ She shrugged and smiled slyly at me, her eyes large. ‘Show me yours and I’ll show you mine?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ I said, slightly surprised I could still speak.

  ‘All right. I think it’s a gestalt,’ she said. ‘Do you know what that is?’

  Of course I did. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘A group entity. A psychic thing composed of all of our energies, rolled together. We have given it life and being, and now we can communicate with it. Although we must be very careful. It’s very strong – wilful and undisciplined.’

  ‘What was it like? When you did the automatic writing?’

  ‘Terrifying,’ she said earnestly. ‘I don’t really want to do it again unless I have to. Now, since you don’t have a theory to share with me yet, tell me what’s going on with you.’ Her green eyes held me mischievously.

  ‘Wh-what do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve seen the way you look at me, Tim. It’s fairly obvious that you like me.’

  I blushed, hating myself for doing so. ‘And if I do?’

  ‘Well, that’s fine. But we’re at Yarlings for a reason, and I can’t let anything get in the way of our experiment.’

  ‘I can wait,’ I said. ‘I really do like you, you know.’

  ‘I like you, Tim.’

  ‘Can I kiss you?’ I couldn’t believe I was asking this.

  ‘Yes.’

  Polly held a hand over her eyes and squinted up at us. ‘Where have you two been all this time?’

  ‘Over to the Whispering Knights,’ I said. My heart was still thumping. Neil and Juliet were chatting idly, their backs to one of the taller stones. I heard Juliet laugh. Graham was still asleep, sprawled across a blanket like some gangling, long-limbed dog.

  ‘Did they divulge any secrets?’ Polly asked.

  ‘They weren’t very talkative,’ said Sally. ‘If they said anything, we couldn’t hear them.’

  We drove back to Yarlings in a jubilant mood. I made sure I was in Sally’s car on the way home, sitting next to her on the passenger seat.

  Sometimes, facts that are obvious have to scream at the top of their voice to be heard, to be noticed. We were all young. We were in hundreds of acres of unspoilt countryside. We were embarking upon an endeavour both unique and strange. The sun was shining so hard it might burst and the late afternoon was golden and infinitely pleasing. The mood at Rollright had been different too – everyone looked happy and relieved, not oppressed by each other’s company, or the house.

  Instead of singing campfire songs, Sally put in a Led Zeppelin cassette. It was the first time I’d ever heard ‘Stairway to Heaven’, a song now, years later, rendered as meaningless and bland as a brick wall by constant repetition, but then, to me, utterly new. The first part struck me as ridiculous, and still does, but the second part – when the joyful guitar solo rolls in and everything lifts, is, for better or worse, for ever fused with my memory of that journey, that day, that moment of pure, unadulterated bliss. At the start of the journey it was new to me; by the time the journey ended I could bellow every word.

  33

  I expected everyone to be as energised by the day as I was, but pretty soon everyone succumbed to exhaustion. Even Sally, I was disappointed to note, went to bed early, turning in shortly after Graham did. Soon afterwards, Juliet and Seb went to bed, Seb still trying to coax Juliet to talk to him, and then, some ten or so minutes later, Neil. Eventually, only Polly and I were left, holding mugs of tea and staring into the dead fireplace in the Great Hall. I looked up at the symbol carved into the hearth, the emblem of Tobias Salt’s coven, but it seemed no more comprehensible to me now than it had the first time I had seen it.

  Without getting out of her armchair, Polly scooted it closer to the empty grate, as if seeking warmth.

  ‘This place,’ she said, almost to herself, as she gathered her woollen cardigan around her, ‘gives the impression of being cold even when it’s warm.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to stay here in the winter,’ I said.

  A couple of awkward seconds passed. I expected one of us to concoct some further banality about the ambient temperature of Yarlings, but with a level, cool voice, Polly said:

  ‘You and Sally seem to be getting very close.’

  I felt myself blushing, I hoped not too spectacularly. ‘No!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Polly. ‘I mean, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing going on, so it’s everyone’s business really, isn’t it?’ I wondered if I al
ways sounded this unused to speaking in sentences.

  Polly shrugged. ‘You seemed to spend a lot of time with her today, that’s all.’

  ‘She has some interesting theories about this place.’

  ‘I bet she does.’ Polly was grinning as she sipped her tea.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Polly’s voice became practically a whisper, as if she didn’t want the house itself to overhear. ‘Call it intuition. But I think there’s more going on here than meets the eye.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Neil about this?’

  ‘What? No. Why would I?’

  ‘He thinks the same thing you do. That Graham and Sally are under pressure to get results and might be faking things, or encouraging us to act up.’

  ‘Does Neil really think that?’

  ‘He pretty much told me that, yes.’

  ‘Wow.’ Polly took another sip of tea. ‘Well, it’s nice to hear what Neil thinks, but I don’t think that at all.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. I think something genuinely … strange is going on here, but I don’t quite know what it is. Not yet. You must be able to feel it too. This house. It’s a place of … weird emotional textures.’

  ‘That’s an interesting way of describing it.’

  ‘That’s how it feels. You know I’m right.’

  She was right. Yarlings was a patchwork place, where the tectonic plates of different eras met and ground together unhappily. It wasn’t just the Victorian wing, attached to the Stuart house like a prosthetic limb. It was the sense of stone meeting stone, timber meeting timber, and none of it matching or fitting easily together. It felt like a place that didn’t want to be, that had been called into existence from chaos, as we all were, but resented the whole business.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Polly, looking into her mug. ‘You avoided the question. Do you like Sally?’

  ‘You mean, like a friend?’

  Polly made a face. ‘You know what I mean, Tim.’