The Digger's Rest (33 page)

Malcolm ran over and grabbed the rope with
his brother. “Heave!” Mitch started calling out rhythmically.
“Heave! Heave! Heave.” They were almost there. As Mitch was
grunting and pulling, he had a funny thought; it reminded him of
what the ancient Egyptians must have gone through to raise the
obelisks. “Almost there, guys,” he grunted and pulled. “One last
good one and we should have it.

“
HEAVE!” and the great stone cross
tipped upright on its base, towering at least eight feet above
them, and casting its shadow directly over Simon. He looked up at
it, his eyes wide, dwarfed by not only the size of it, but also by
its symbolism. His first inclination was to kneel before it and
cross himself; he was a child of Holy Family, after all. But he
resisted.
Science is no place for
religion,
he thought to himself, then again,
…or is it?

Once it was standing, Deck and Lady Madeline
pressed enough soil and clumps of heavy mud around the base to keep
it securely upright. Simon started clicking and filming away. Mitch
just stood back to look at it, taking stock of what it was, what it
meant, and…what it was doing there. “Jack is gonna love this,” he
said out loud as they all gathered around the cross so Simon could
take pictures and film them smiling proudly, chests out with their
first significant find.

Malcolm backed away from it slowly. He was
about twenty feet away when he thought he heard the call of the owl
again and looked over to the trees in the area where he’d been
working. There it was on the lowest branch, sitting there. Staring
at him with its huge yellow eyes, it called again and he walked
over to his pit. “Dr. Bramson,” Malcolm called to him. “I really
think you should take a look at this.”

Mitch went over and looked into the pit. The
first things he noticed were several large, oblong clumps, black
and still partially covered in mud. He jumped into the pit and
picked one up, wiping it on his shirt. “It’s a piece of wood,
burnt. The black is the charred outside.” He picked up another one,
and another one; between ten and twelve inched long and five or six
inches wide with squared edges along the sides, jagged at the ends
as if they’d been broken off.

“
Definitely man-made,” Lady Madeline
said, standing next to the pit behind Mitch. He handed her the
largest piece. “Furniture,” she said confidently. “…maybe a table
leg. Or a chair leg. Look around it, Mitchell, see if you can see a
layer of soot and where it might be in relation to the floor if you
can.” Mitch got down on his hands and knees, gently using the spade
to carve out a square of packed clay near where he’d picked up one
of the pieces. He handed the square to Lady Madeline.

She turned and held it in the palm of her
hand toward the light. “What was beneath this, Mitchell?” she asked
still surveying the square.

“
I pulled it directly up off the floor
surface,” he said.

“
Then the castle was burned while it
still stood,” she said. “There’s a thin layer of carbon at the
bottom of this clump and you say there’s nothing but the floor
beneath it? The castle was burned,” she repeated.

Malcolm looked up into the tree again. The
owl was gone and the sun was getting low in the sky.

The day was done, and what a day it had been,
not bad for the first day out. “Good job,” Mitch said, patting
Malcolm on the back as they headed down the path towards the
SUV.

“
Thank you, Dr. Bramson. It has been a
rather exciting day, and for my part, I could really use a pint
when we get back.” Mal said, feeling full with a sense of
accomplishment he never expected he would get when he signed onto
the project, making him not sorry he had.

***

When they got back to the inn, Ivy was at the
podium, having taken on the additional duty since her brothers were
going to be gone most days on the project. No sooner had she hit
the door, Lady Madeline went toward the hallway leading to the
cottage to check on Sandrine. Just as she was about to go through
the door to the courtyard, Jed came through from the opposite
direction. “How is she?” Lady Madeline asked, feeling a rush of
guilt for having left her for the day.

“
She’s well,” Jed said smiling
slightly. “She still can’t bear to look at anything close to a
bright light and the medication seems to make her sleepy, but
otherwise she’s fine. She ate well, and I’ve been reading to her
most of the day. She’s just gone off to sleep again now, so I
thought I would come out and see if there was something I could do
out here.” Relieved, Lady Madeline went straight to her own room to
freshen up thinking,
Quite frankly, I could
use a pint or two myself.

Back at the podium, Mitch stood behind the
others, trying to avoid any objects the redhead might send flying
his way. He let Deck go on telling Ivy what an exciting day he’d
had while Malcolm resumed his innkeeper posture before going
upstairs to clean up for his evening shift. While Ivy was occupied
with her brothers, Mitch slid away behind Deck using Simon as a
shield to slip past her unobserved into the hallway towards the
cottage.

Later that evening, Mitch was grateful to
find that Fi would be serving their celebration dinner, relieved
that he’d managed a whole day without an encounter with that woman.
From there they all agreed it was a good night for pubbing and a
few drinks wouldn’t be out of line. Once again grateful to see
Malcolm behind the bar instead of that woman, Mitch ordered a round
of drinks for all of them, Malcolm, Deck and Jed, too. He’d done
his part that morning by taking care of Sandrine so that Lady
Madeline could come out with them.

For the first two rounds, all Mitch had to
deal with from that woman was the sound of her voice calling out
through the kitchen doors to Fi or Deck that dinners were ready for
pick up.

By the third round, Malcolm began looking
flushed and tired; his forehead beaded with sweat. It had been a
long day after all, and Mitch found himself hoping that the
double-duty shift work wasn’t going to prove too much for him. Then
his luck ran out.

Ivy Farthing came out through the kitchen
door and went behind the bar, standing next to Mal to pour herself
a pint. She looked at Mal as she took a long sip, noticing the
flushed, tired look on his face. She put down her glass and reached
out to put her hand on his forehead. “You have a fever, Mal,” she
said, loving devotion and concern replacing the usual anger and
bitterness in her eyes. “I think you’re coming down with
something.”

“
I’m fine, Ivy,” he said, brushing it
off and wiping his forehead with a bar towel.

“
You’re not fine. I’ve seen you with
everything from the flu to the trots, and I know!” she said
stubbornly. “I’ll take over. You go take some aspirin and go to
bed,” she ordered.

“
Oh, Ivy, please. I’m just having fun,”
he whined reverting to his childhood role; she being the older
sibling and he the younger.

“
Oh, Ivy, please nothing,” she said,
standing her ground and pushing him gently back towards the
kitchen. “If you don’t get some rest, you won’t be able to go out
and play with your friends again tomorrow,” she said sarcastically,
shooting daggers at Mitch with her eyes.

“
Oh, alright,” Mal said with a sigh,
giving in to her and waving back at his friends as he went through
the door.

By the time Ivy had come back to the
bar, Mitch was gone, moved over to a small table with Simon and
Lady Madeline. They hadn’t been seated for more than a few minutes
when Simon started to get that feeling again, the one that told him
that he wasn’t alone. He looked over to the window by the front of
the pub and saw the old man sitting there.
They found it, did they not?
the soundless voice
asked him.

“
Yes,” Simon said out loud, forgetting
to use his own soundless voice.

“
What?” Mitch asked him.

“
Oh, nothing,” Simon said. “I was just
thinking out loud,” He looked back toward the window. The old man
was smiling and raising his beer to him.
Thou art a good boy, Holly,
the soundless voice
said to him. Simon blushed and went back to the audible
conversation that was going on in front of him at the table,
sketching the Celtic cross they’d found on the paper
placemat.

***

Lady Madeline left the table about an hour
later, feeling the fatigue of the day and anxious to get into her
comfortable flannel nightgown and relax. When she got to her room,
she noticed something she hadn’t seen before in her rush to get
cleaned up to meet the others for dinner, a large cardboard box in
the corner next to the dressing table, filled with bubble wrap.
Then it dawned on her. Tim Ransom had promised that he would have
her purchases sent over that day.

She went over to the box, found an envelope
on the top and opened it. It was an invoice for only her purchases,
with a note from Ransom saying what a pleasure it was to meet her
and that she should come back anytime she pleased.

She took the note and went over to her
dressing table.
What a nice
gentleman,
she mused, as she put on her nightgown then
sat down again at the dressing table to go through her nightly
youth enhancing regimen of creams and masques, combing her hair
back in the mirror and putting on her headband before she got
started. After she put on her first preparation, which was to be
left on for fifteen minutes before removing it, she looked over at
the box thinking that with all that had gone on she really couldn’t
remember all that she bought. “Well, I might as well take another
look,” she said to herself and went over to the box.

She picked up the item on the very top first.
She couldn’t imagine what it was. She didn’t remember buying
anything square. She took the bubble-wrapped square and went back
over to sit by the light of the dressing table to open it. When she
undid the taped bubble wrap, she saw it was a box, a small,
antique, mahogany box with a brass label on the top, “Gilberts
& Sons, London, 1861.”

“
This must be some sort of mistake,”
she said to herself out loud as she sat the box down on the
dressing table. Pausing only for a moment to admire the fine
woodworking and quality finish, she opened it. It was a glass ball
the size of a man’s fist. By then it was time for her to remove her
first masque and apply the second, a moisturizer. After she applied
her moisturizer, she looked back at the crystal ball in the
box.

The play of light from the table lamp seemed
to give the appearance of movement inside. She leaned over to look
at it more closely. There was movement. It can’t be, she told
herself as she picked up the ball and held it to the light. There
was movement, but she couldn’t make it out without her reading
glasses. She put them on then looked again; it was a man, in a
wheel chair, Neville. He was falling out of the chair, convulsing
violently; having another stroke. There was a flash of blue light
and she saw he was on the floor, crawling with one good arm,
calling out to her, his mouth contorted grotesquely, “Maddie, I’m
dying. I need you. Please, Maddie, I don’t want to die without
you,” he called to her. His face came up closer in the ball,
distorted like she was seeing him in a fun house mirror.

A noise came from the room next door and she
jumped. When she opened her eyes she was staring straight into the
mirror, the ball still in its box. She got up in a panic and went
to the telephone, dialing Cotswold Manor. It was busy. She dialed
again and again, it was still busy. Frustrated she sat back down at
the dressing table, waiting until she could try again, worry
swirling through her mind. She looked at the ball again and saw
more movement inside.

She picked it up again and looked. He was
there again, calling to her. “Maddie, please. I’m dying.” Half his
face was drooping like melted wax, one eye closed. He was having
another stroke…a bad one. She dropped the ball on the floor. It
rolled away from her, toward the bed. She got up and went after it,
then went back the dressing table to look into it again in the
light. She had to know what was happening. When she did, Neville
lying on the floor, he was completely still, dead; then a flash of
blue light. She screamed, “Neville!” and passed out, hitting her
head on the hardwood edge of the dressing table as she went
down.

When she woke up close to morning, she packed
her bags as quickly as she could and left, out of the inn, without
a word to anyone. All she could hear was the sound of Neville’s
voice calling to her and the look on his face, pleading with her to
come to him. She had to get there. She drove at top speed the
entire ride. She had no time to waste.

Chapter XIV

MALCOLM

Boy: Yes! Yes! On a hot summer night would
you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

Girl: Yes!

Boy: I bet you say that to all the boys.

It was a hot summer night and the beach
was

burning There was a fog crawling over the
sand, When I listen to your heart I hear the whole world

turning. I see the shooting stars falling
through your trembling hands.

You Took the Words right Out of My
Mouth,

………
As performed by Meatloaf

The next morning when they gathered at
breakfast getting ready to go back out to the site, Lady Madeline
was conspicuously absent. Always the first to arrive, it didn’t
dawn on anyone that there might be something wrong until after
they’d done eating and Mitch looked at his watch. It was 8:30 and
still no sign of Lady Madeline.
Maybe she
overslept
, he thought, wondering how to delicately
approach the situation, deciding it was probably best if he went up
himself.