by Bill Bennett
‘If they do have it Freddie, then it’s my fault and it’ll be my job to get it back,’ Lily said, quietly emphatic. ‘I’m not going to feel guilty about what happened in that cave. We all did what we had to do, the best we could. I see that now. But for me not to feel guilty I’ve got to set things right and that’s what I intend to do.’
She looked around the table. ‘I think I know where my mom is.’
Lily had forgotten what it was like to eat. She’d fasted for so long in the cave, as part of her cleansing for her initiation, that it seemed like her body had shut down the need for food. Maddy had prepared soft warm tortillas and gently spiced refried beans, and an avocado guacamole that was so smooth and flavoursome it seemed to melt in her mouth.
As she ate, slowly, carefully, she tried to describe to them the out-of-body experience that she’d had after the initiation ceremony, when she communicated with her mother.
‘It was weird. I felt like I was flying, through clouds then over woods for a long time. Mom was crying out to me, and I was following her cry. And then I came to this …’ She wracked back through her memory. ‘There was this big black pile of rock, and two boarded-up doors. Mom was somewhere behind the doors, and, like … underneath.’
‘Underneath?’ Gummi asked.
She looked up to see that he was videoing her with his phone. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said. ‘I’m getting this down in case you forget any of it later. Could come in handy. So what do you mean, “underneath”?’
‘Like she was underground,’ Lily said. ‘Not buried, but underground, in a shelter or something. Then I got pushed away by this kind of … it felt like a wave of evil. It was scary. Like, I mean, really terrifying. I’ve never felt anything like it. And then that’s all I remember.’
Gummi looked at her over the top of his phone. ‘That’s it?’
She nodded. He stopped recording.
Freddie looked up from the notes he’d taken. ‘We might be able to do something with this, Lils. It’s a tremendous help. For a start, it tells us that your mother’s alive and she’s wanting to make contact with you. That’s fantastic news. And it also shows that you two can make a connection.’
‘I’ve got to find this place. I can see it, Freddie. I can see it so clearly. It must be possible to find …’
‘You want to go back?’ Freddie asked.
Lily looked at him quizzically. ‘You bet!’ she said.
Freddie opened the massive doors of the village’s church, and invited Lily to step inside. Immediately she smelt burning wax. Large thick candles lit the interior, casting a flickering show of shadows around the rough textured walls and exposed wooden beams. There was a simple altar up the far end with two candles in the centre. It was an altar built for function, not for show. Lily looked around the vast cavernous space. There were no beautiful leadlight windows in this church, nor any ornate religious decorations other than hand-carved wooden Stations of the Cross, which hung at regular intervals around the stark walls. Somewhere high in the rafters, pigeons fluttered and cooed.
Freddie walked up the aisle to the front pew facing the altar and sat down. Lily followed and sat beside him. Joe stayed back and took up his position by the front doors. The candles by the altar, fat dripping things, suddenly stilled, as if they were holding their breath in expectation. Their flames became static, looking like they were painted onto their wicks.
‘What are we doing here, Freddie?’ Lily whispered impatiently. ‘Why have we come? Praying isn’t going to help.’
‘We need some quiet to do what I’m about to do, Lils,’ Freddie said. ‘And some privacy.’ He reached into a pocket in his jacket and pulled out a wand. Lily’s eyes widened, surprised. She’d never seen him with a wand before. It was made of dark wood, rich in colour from age. Each end was capped with tarnished pewter inlaid with ancient runes. He looked at it affectionately. ‘Old Betsy. Got me out of a jam more than once, I can tell you. Now, I want you to take hold of one end.’
‘Why?’
‘To get back to that place you went before, you’ll need to travel, but you don’t yet have the power to travel on your own. So you’ll have to piggyback on me, if you like. That’s where the wand comes in.’
His wand wasn’t as regal-looking as the one Luna had presented to her at the cave and which she’d left at Maddy’s house – but it had a certain workmanlike dignity to it, as though it were a tool that Freddie used quite often. Lily held one end. It felt smooth and cool.
‘Before we start,’ Freddie said, ‘I should warn you that this is quite dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘Yes. We’re going to be travelling inter-dimensionally, so you have to stick with me. We can’t get separated, because if you lose me you won’t be able to get back. Ever. I mean for all eternity. And believe me, you don’t want to get stuck in the astrals. That’s where true evil resides.’
‘The astrals?’ Lily asked.
‘A lower level of the fourth dimension. Not a pretty place.’
Lily didn’t like the thought of being stuck in a place where true evil lived, not for a moment, much less for all eternity. But her mom’s life was at stake. And surely these astrals couldn’t be any scarier than a giant scorpion, and she’d dealt with them.
‘Are you okay with this?’ Freddie asked.
‘Sure. Of course. Can we get on with it?’
‘Okay then, here we go,’ Freddie said, holding the wand at one end, offering her the other. ‘And remember, don’t get separated from me. Stay with me.’
Lily nodded and grabbed the other end of the wand, and as she tightened her grip she felt it come alive, as though it had just been plugged into a power grid.
‘Now close your eyes, Lils, and concentrate on your mom. And I want you, in your mind, to call out to her. Tell her you love her. Tell her you’re coming for her. While you do that, I’m going to say a little spell, and away we’ll go.’
Lily immediately thought of that last Saturday morning in the farmhouse before they left for the markets, her mom in the kitchen making breakfast, laughing – so happy.
I love you, Mom, she thought. I love you and I miss you, and I’m coming to get you.
Freddie began to intone a spell – strange words in a strange tongue – and then the wand became warm to Lily’s touch. Very warm. Almost hot. She felt herself separating out of her body, rising up into the rafters of the church. She looked down and saw herself and Freddie sitting motionless on the pew, still holding the wand.
Then she went through the roof, Freddie behind her, each still holding the wand, and suddenly they were high above the Needle looking down at the pillar of rock, as though it was a crusty hand reaching up to try and snatch them back. She rose even further and began to feel light, as though she was made of air, as though she was made of nothing. She glanced behind. Freddie was clutching the wand, determined not to let go.
They whisked through cloud, the ground a blur beneath them. Lily could barely see, yet she was aware of the sting of cold rain on her face, and of Freddie hanging on, being buffeted by the winds. He was being dragged along behind her like a bunch of tin cans behind a wedding car.
And then she became aware of her mother’s tremulous voice, somewhere within the wind, wavering and disappearing and coming back again. Lily tenaciously tried to keep her focus, like a drowning swimmer trying to clutch onto a life-buoy that had been thrown to her but was bobbing in and out of reach.
The clouds cleared and it was dark and cold, and her mother’s voice was now stronger. Lily was getting closer. She could feel a rhythmic pulsing, like a heartbeat. Insistent and defiant.
That’s her, Lily thought. That’s Mom. She hasn’t given up. She’s fighting!
And then Lily and Freddie were hurtling down, through darkness and mist. Below Lily was the place she’d been before; the abandoned mine. From above she could see a gigantic subsidence in the ground and in the centre was the entrance to what looked to be the main shaft. She dr
opped down fast, until she was standing once again outside the two boarded-up doors that blocked the entrance. Her mother’s cry was coming from behind the doors but it was distant, and coming from below, as though she were deep underground.
Lily wanted desperately to go down into the mine and find her, but something more than the doors was barring her way. She felt an energetic barrier, a foul force through which she couldn’t pass.
She pushed out a thought, a message: I’m here, Mom. I’ve come for you. I’m outside. Very close now. Don’t give up hope. I love you.
There was a hesitation in the heartbeat – a flutter. And her mother’s cry came back muffled, as though she was sobbing with joy.
Lily turned and saw that Freddie was beside her, looking around, trying to figure out where they were. His long white hair was ruffled and his cheeks were flushed, like he’d been out driving with the top down. She tried to speak to him but it was as if she were in a dream and everything was slow and nothing was real.
She suddenly felt uneasy.
As if a malevolent energy was approaching.
She heard a dry scuffling behind her, like the walking of the dead. She turned quickly and her heart froze. Because standing there was a lamb with glowing red eyes, its furry tongue lolled loose, spittled foam flecking the corners of its salmon-pink mouth. It opened its grey-lipped mouth and uttered a bone-chilling cry.
Freddie grabbed Lily’s hand, pulled her away and they bolted fast, half running, half flying away from the mine shaft, dodging rusted machinery and stacks of bricks and timber. They soared over rotting fences and bounded effortlessly across potholes filled with rancid rainwater. It was very dark, with hardly any moonlight from the thumbnail moon, and Lily was worried she might fall.
And then she realised that she’d lost Freddie. She wasn’t holding onto his wand any longer. She pulled up and looked around for him but all she could see were vague shapes in the darkness – abandoned mining gear and rusted junk.
She felt a presence behind her, coming closer; an evil that had the power to engulf and consume her. She looked around for Freddie. She couldn’t see him anywhere. She could feel the malevolence getting closer, creeping up on her from within the dark. This wasn’t the lamb, this was something else. Something far more evil. It was the same evil that had so powerfully rebuffed her on her previous visit.
Ahead was the outline of a small building – a shack of some kind. She rushed over, opened a door and raced inside. She groped her way through total darkness to the back of the shack, stumbling and bumping into what must have been crates and piles of stores, and came to a wall. She could go no further. She turned and waited, and quieted her rapid breathing.
Where had Freddie gone? How could she possibly find him in the dark? And if she couldn’t find him, what then? Would she be stuck here forever? How could she possibly get back without him? Would she end up in the astrals?
She felt the evil outside the shack now, searching for her, slowly, arrogantly, as if it knew there was no reason to hurry because there was no way for her to escape. She sensed that it was gloating. Enjoying this moment. Savouring the delicious abhorrence that was soon to come.
And then the door opened.
Lily could see a shape against the outline of the doorway. It emanated a cold green shimmering glow. The foul energy hit her like a sledgehammer, almost hurtling her back into the wall of boxes. She could barely stand, her knees were shaking so violently.
The evil stepped into the shack, surrounded by its green glow-worm aura. Lily could see that it was a man, some kind of man, but not of this world. Whatever it was, it was making her powerless. It was sapping every ounce of fight out of her. She was like a flapping moth in a web, helplessly watching a big black spider delicately pick its way towards her.
Evil breathes fear. The words came into her mind clearly. Was it Luna? Was she trying to remind her what she’d learnt in the cave? How do you deal with fear? Fear is just a lower vibrational energy. It’s darkness. And the best way to get rid of darkness is with light. Lily took a deep breath, closed her eyes and thought of the magic spring in the cave, and the sparkling water. She focused on that water, the phosphorescent light, the tinkling sound as it tumbled over rocks, the tiny bubbles as it cascaded into the small pool. She remembered the light in the pool and she took that light into herself, she felt it seep into every cell in her body. And then she thrust it out at the evil approaching her – like a shield.
The creature stopped. As though it had come up against a resistance. An invisible barrier. My shield of light? Lily wondered.
She felt a sudden rush of cold air at her back.
A door behind her had opened. She turned. Someone grabbed her hand, pulled her into total darkness. She could just make out a shape against the doorway. Was it a man or was it a creature? Whatever it was hauled her outside, out of the shack, into the night. By starlight she could make out the tall lanky frame of Freddie. He shoved something at her. Instinctively, she took hold of it. It was the wand. Freddie held one end, she the other, and they bounded off again into the night, each of them holding onto the wand, like two athletes passing a baton, but neither letting go.
Lily saw Freddie’s lips move. He was obviously invoking a spell. She felt the wand turn warm, then hot, and then she was hurtling off the ground, above the mine, and they were heading back.
She closed her eyes against stinging pelting rain, and when she opened them again she was back in the church, sitting on the pew, as though nothing had happened and she’d never left.
Freddie was sitting beside her, frantically scribbling down notes in a small hospital-issue notepad. He looked up at her, distracted. ‘Are you okay, sugar pie?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, trying to find strength in her words. Being so close to her mother, hearing the sound of her strained and distressed voice, had been heart-wrenching.
‘I heard her, Freddie. I heard her. It was definitely her. Where was that? We have to find that place, because that’s where they’ve hidden her.’
‘Come,’ Freddie said, standing. ‘I now know where to start looking.’
They stood around Gummi as he booted up his computer. They were back in Maddy’s kitchen, Gummi sitting at the table near the fire. Skyhawk looked over at Lily but said nothing. He walked over and stood beside her, close, so that she felt his body warmth.
‘Okay,’ Gummi said, looking up at Freddie as the map of the USA appeared on his screen. Overlaid on the map was the myriad of intersecting Dragon Lines, with their pulsing dots. ‘So you’re saying it was some sort of mine, and there was a big pile of black rock. Do you think it was a coal mine?’
‘Try it,’ Freddie said. ‘Are there any mines situated on a Dragon Knot?’
‘We’ll find out,’ he said, as he typed in coal+mine into the search field. The map displayed several hits – coal mines that were situated on his red pulsing dots. He clicked on one in Virginia, pulled up Google Earth, and Freddie and Lily leaned in to take a look.
Lily shook her head. ‘No, that’s not it.’
‘Okay then,’ Gummi said and did another search. Lily sensed that Gummi was totally in his geeky element, but more than that, it was though he had somehow taken on a mantle of nobility, because he was helping her. He clicked on another Dragon Knot, in Ohio. Again they all looked at an aerial shot from Google Earth. Again, Freddie and Lily shook their heads.
‘No, that’s not it either. There’s no mountain of rock at the back of any buildings, and it’s an open-cut mine, not an underground one. It looked like it was sitting in a sinkhole.’
‘A sinkhole?’ Gummi asked. He typed into the search panel: sink+coal+mine. Immediately up came a large pulsing red dot in the far north-east corner of West Virginia, larger than all the others. Gummi whistled, impressed. ‘That’s one hell of a Dragon Knot,’ he said. ‘It’s a master node – like Grand Central Station, or O’Hare, except it’s full of bad energy, dudes. Like, I mean, seriously bad energy.’
&
nbsp; Gummi got the coordinates of the location, put them through Google, and up came the Deep Sink Mine, along with hundreds of photos taken by tourists.
Lily and Freddie stared. It was the place they’d just travelled to. Everything was exactly the same.
‘That’s it!’ Lily said, jumping up with excitement. ‘Freddie? That’s it! That’s where Mom is!’
Freddie nodded. He stared at the computer screen. In among the images of the mine and its buildings were several pictures of lambs. Curious, Gummi clicked on one. It was a line drawing, as if from an ancient manuscript. The creature had red blazing eyes and its mouth was open wide. It looked possessed. Gummi searched again, and up came dozens of stories about it and accounts of the calamities it was believed to have caused.
‘This place is cool!’ Gummi grinned. ‘I love this little critter.’
The picture of the lamb filled Lily with dread. She remembered the fear that had ripped through her when she saw it. It was the essence of pure evil.
‘Gummi,’ said Freddie, grabbing his shoulder and giving him an affectionate squeeze, ‘you are worth all the Krispy Kremes I’ve ever bought you.’
Gummi beamed.
Joe stepped inside and walked up. Freddie turned to him. ‘What is it, Joe?’
‘A car’s just pulled up down the bottom, doc. It’s those two cops that came to the house.’
‘Okay, thank you, Joe. Wait for them outside.’
He nodded, turned and left.
‘Freddie,’ Lily said, her thoughts racing, her voice trembling with excitement. ‘Here’s what we can do. Those cops are going to want to take us back for questioning, all that stuff. They might even arrest us. Whatever. It’s going to waste a huge amount of time and right now we don’t have a moment to waste. How about we take your car, Skyhawk and me? He can drive, we head out to this mine …’
‘I can give you the coordinates,’ Gummi chipped in.
‘Cool,’ said Skyhawk.
‘I can’t let you do that,’ Freddie said firmly.