Kingsholt (12 page)

Tyler went off and Sam and Aidan dug in front of the flagstones of the porch. Here the ground was lightly sprinkled with gravel and was easily dug. They worked quietly, piling up the black earth into a tumbling mound.

By now the sun was climbing the sky and they were about to abandon the project when Sam’s spade struck something hard.

‘A flint,’ he said, but he wasn’t sure. It didn’t sound like a flint. Aidan loosened the soil and a black metal edge upended onto his spade. He prised the edge and lifted out a small metal box. ‘Fill in the earth,’ he said, ‘as quickly as possible.’

They were just finishing when Tyler hooted like an owl and then again, urgently.

‘Come on,’ said Aidan softly.

They went inside and clambered upstairs to the library.

‘What about Tyler?’ said Sam.

‘He’ll be all right. ‘He’ll act as a decoy, leading Nimbus away. That’s what he did last time.’

In the library, Aidan spread out some newspaper on the oak table and rubbed the earth off the box. It was an old sweet tin marked with the legend:
Suppliers to King George VI.
Inside was a leather package, protecting a piece of off-cut vellum. It was a map decorated with anchor crosses and old words in an ancient script.

‘We’ve done it,’ said Sam jubilantly. ‘Nimbus’ll never win.’

‘Never is a big word,’ said Aidan but Sam hardly heard him. The word ‘never’ kept going through his mind. Never. Never. It was a powerful word, a barrier against Nimbus, against his spells, his murderous intentions. It was a barrier he could put round Chloe to keep her safe, to stop her from ever returning to the pest house on the hill.

‘Back to bed,’ said Aidan. ‘We must have some sleep.’ In the morning Aidan took out a pencil and began to copy the old map, putting all the information into straightforward English. Sam watched him closely, especially when Aidan pointed at two marks. ‘You know, Sam, I don’t remember any anchor crosses on the other copy. But here’s a cross near Leela’s cottage and here’s one by Blackburr Fort. They might indicate ways into the underground mines.’

Sam yawned. ‘I think I need breakfast.’

Aidan ignored him. ‘One thing is certain. This
is
a ninth century map of the stone mines showing the position of an underground chapel. I can date it from the script. So at least there’s something in the legend.’

‘Mum’s got an anchor cross,’ said a sleepy voice. Tyler was standing by the door with tousled hair and clothes crumpled. Judy was beside him sniffing the air.

Aidan smiled. ‘Did you get
any
sleep?’

‘Four hours,’ said Tyler.

Aidan locked the precious piece of vellum in a drawer of the desk, then gave his copy to Sam.

‘Study this. The thing is, we have to act fairly quickly if we’re going to find the chapel and bring back anything that might be
there. I’ve marked the route in red but we may have to use our initiative.’

‘I’m not going underground without Judy,’ said Tyler.

Aidan nodded and opened his haversack. ‘Keep my copy of the map in here, Sam, and take the haversack with you. I’ve put in a pencil and a piece of chalk. You never know, they might come in useful.’ He looked up. ‘Okay boys, breakfast time.’

They sat round the table while Aidan cooked eggs and bacon and made coffee. They ate in silence.

‘I feel better now,’ said Sam, wiping his mouth with a piece of kitchen towel. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. ‘Right,’ he said, shouldering the haversack. ‘Let’s get sorted.’

Chloe leaned on the windowsill, looking out at the field. It was past noon and the air was heavy with sunshine. She opened the small top window and breathed in the garden scents, watching the brown, meadow butterflies dart past as if they, like her, had nowhere particular to go. ‘How long was I asleep?’

Leela put her hands on Chloe’s shoulders. ‘It wasn’t all sleep my dear. The first night and the first day you were in some sort of trance. I don’t suppose you remember much about it. But last night you slept well and now you look so much better, especially since you had breakfast.’

‘What’s the time, Leela?’

‘About ten o’clock. I promised Aidan to look in at Kingsholt, to make sure that all is well. But I won’t be long, Chloe and there’s no need for you to get dressed.’ Leela smiled. ‘You may even want to go to sleep again.’

‘I like sitting here, looking out.’ Chloe patted the lacy gown that Leela had given her to wear. It was very old, Leela said, there was no counting the years. She had found it when she was decorating. It was in a bag, hanging on a door concealed behind wallpaper, that lead down to the cellar.

‘You’re the first one to wear the dress,’ she said. ‘And it’s not the only thing I found. Look at this.’

Leela hung a silver pendant round Chloe’s neck.

‘It’s very old, based on a Roman sign. The anchor cross is what they call it. You keep it with you now.’

When Leela had gone, Chloe looked at herself in the long mirror that hung on the wall beside the window. The touch of lace on the voluminous, white linen gown made her look like someone from another age. She took it off, washed and dressed in her clean jeans and tee-shirt, then lay back on the bed with her arms behind her head, trying hard to remember what had
happened before she was brought here. But nothing came to her except a vague sense of a dim place and the sudden sight of Sam. She sidled down the bed and drifted back into an uneasy sleep. Once again she was inside the hidden half of her life, the secret place that spellbound and overshadowed her. Nimbus was running through Bones Wood, calling her name, leading her on and on. She was following, tripping up, trying to catch him up, so that when she opened her eyes and saw him at the window, softly calling her, she thought it was part of her dream. He pointed impatiently to the window catch but she turned away. When she looked back he was up on the windowsill, his hand pushing through the top opening, probing the latch of the larger window below.

Chloe froze. A crack in her imagination took her to the dark stone tunnel. Panicking, she leapt out of bed and ran downstairs to the front door. Desperately, she tugged at it but Leela had double locked it. She ran into the kitchen – and stopped, seeing through the window the bottom rungs of the ladder Nimbus had pushed against the wall. The metal struts were like a cage. She remembered how she had once trusted him. What had happened to make her so afraid?

She went back upstairs to her bedroom and found him opening the window, leaping lightly into the room. He stood absolutely still, his eyes on hers. ‘I want you to follow me, Chloe. You’re one of our tribe. We want you to be with us.’

With a flash of insight into how she had once felt, Chloe said, ‘I’ve changed.’

Nimbus pulled her roughly towards him. ‘Nothing can make you change,’ he said.

There was something in his voice, something so compelling, that she almost lost herself again. She managed to ease herself away from him. ‘I’m staying here.’

She pushed at Nimbus but he had the anchor cross in his hands. He twisted it, pulling it tightly round the front of her
neck. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, and then the chain snapped and she fell crying to the floor. He stood over her, staring down.

‘Looking for you all night,’ he said, as if he could read her thoughts. With the palms of his hands towards her he made round movements in the air. He swayed his arms from side to side as if he was orchestrating her feelings, drawing her back and back to the other world where she once belonged. His voice was deep, hoarse. ‘We haven’t long. You’ll follow me now, Chloe. We’ll go up the hill together. From now on you’ll only listen to me.’

His voice had become slow and hypnotic. He began to count from ten down and each number fell like a bell on her ears. Chloe tried to replace the hypnotic numbers with the sound of church bells. She pictured a great bell going up and down, up and down, and when the numbers grew more insistent she made the church bells ring louder.

Nimbus tied her arm to his with a thin leather belt and forced her out of the bedroom and down to the kitchen. He unlatched a window and pulled her through. In the open air, Chloe’s strength was reinforced by the flowers that held her in a ring of colour and perfume. In a flash she saw her mother, her father, Sam, the old house, her old school friends, Aidan, Leela, all of them holding hands to protect her. She felt a sense of sharp regret as Nimbus trampled over the garden, pulling her roughly over the crushed plants.

‘I don’t need to be tied to you, Nimbus,’ she said in a soft, wheedling voice. ‘My arm’s hurting and we’ll go more quickly side by side.’

‘Time,’ said Nimbus grimly. ‘You’ll soon forget the meaning of time.’

‘We’ll run up the hill together,’ said Chloe, putting on a dazed voice. Nimbus seemed to believe her and he started to undo the leather belt, pulling at her arm as if she had no feeling. He
loosened the knot and she thought: I must wait for the right moment. As if on a whim, he folded the belt and held it in his hand.

They entered the wood and followed the trail to the Nimbus Tree. Reaching it, Nimbus stopped and Chloe sank to the ground as if to recover her strength. He put his fingers on the gnarled trunk and followed the letters he had carved:

Nimbus looked hard at Chloe. “There’s not a mark on this tree that don’t remind me of my Rosie. And you remind me of her too. You’ll die – as George Penfold died, to pay the price of my Rosie’s death. When they find you dead as this tree that was struck by lightning in the great storm, they’ll never again question my strength and power. That is,’ he looked at her cunningly, ‘unless you tell me more about the map and lead me to the treasure. Like that I’ll get out of here a rich man and go away with Tammy who’s all that’s left me.’

He’s mad, thought Chloe fearfully, why didn’t I see this before? Her fear gave her strength and she climbed slowly to her feet, nodding vaguely at Nimbus as if she was in a trance. She walked towards him, doing her best to seem weak and ill but when she was close enough, she let fly, kicking his bad leg as hard as she could. Nimbus lost his balance and fell, and Chloe kicked him again. And then she ran away, heart in her mouth, sprinting from bush to bush, stumbling in the undergrowth, hiding behind trees.

She caught a glimpse of him standing at the edge of the pit but she didn’t slow down. Trying to keep to the plantation of firs where the ground was soft and silent, she pushed on. When at last she reached the tree that Aidan had cleared, she was unaccountably strengthened. She stopped, breathing raggedly, listening for footsteps, but another sound filled her head. The
singing of the psalms rose up from the ancient chapel that had once stood here. Standing there, Chloe thought she heard the muffled beat of galloping, but it was no longer Dark Time, it was the King himself. She experienced all this in a second and then ran on. She heard shouts from the wood and saw the buzzard fly up and away. By now she was prepared to break cover. She raced out of the shelter of the trees and across to the first gate that led to Kingsholt. Down in the valley, she could see the path that wandered towards Leela’s cottage. She longed to run back there but she dared not. Instead she climbed the gate and ran up the drive away from Kingsholt. It took her some time to reach the next gate, the one that gave onto the road. Blackburr Fort was almost opposite on the other side and one or two people were climbing the ditches and grassy walls.

Chloe made for the phone box. Her hands were shaking as she dialled 999.

Just as Aidan was packing his haversack, Leela came in. Sam offered to make her coffee.

‘Yes please,’ Leela said. ‘And I can tell you that all’s fine. Chloe has slept and eaten very well. She’s almost her old self.’

‘It would be cool to see her like that,’ said Sam. ‘I can’t remember the last time.’

Aidan smiled. ‘We have very good news too, Leela. Unbelievable news.’ He watched her sit down and place her hands round her mug. ‘We’ve found the original map! It was Sam who made it happen – he discovered a puppet box in the attic and inside there was a piece of very old paper, with some strange clues that Emily Penfold had written down. Sam was a real slave driver and made us work them out! We’ve been up digging all night, or nearly all night.’

‘No!’

‘Yes, Leela, it’s true. Now drink up, and we’ll all go out together.’ Aidan turned to Sam. ‘We’ll call in on Chloe briefly before we go up to the wood.’

‘She’d very much like that,’ said Leela. ‘I think she’s beginning to miss you all.’

Judy led the way, exploring all the smells in the thickly growing weeds that lined the track. They rounded a bend and took the short grassy path down to the cottage.

‘What’s happened?’ Leela stopped and pointed. ‘What’s happened to the flowers?’

‘Some wild —’ began Sam.

‘Maybe a fox?’ said Tyler.

Leela shook her head in disbelief. ‘Marigolds, poppies, heart-sease charlock – all trampled into the ground. It’s a sacrilege.’

She ran across the garden and put the key in the lock.

‘Chloe, Chloe!’

There was no reply. The kitchen and bedroom windows were open and the house was silent.

‘The bastard,’ shouted Sam. He ran out of the door, up the field and into Bones Wood. Not far ahead he thought he saw a downy white shadow crossing the trees. The vision gave him a moment of comfort but it soon vanished and when the birds flew up, wing to wing, his anger and panic returned. What was that madman doing to Chloe? He reached the Nimbus Tree and touched the dead bark, feeling the word ROSIE beneath his fingers. At last he began to calm down and for a brief moment he even understood the obsession that drove Nimbus to mark a tree with the name of the daughter he loved. Sam drew strength from his understanding. He could fight an enemy he knew.

By the time Aidan and Tyler caught up with him, his harsh breathing had subsided and he felt, behind his sense of emptiness, something else, strengthening him, knitting him back together, something he did not understand. He looked up at Aidan.

‘I didn’t mean —’