The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (11 page)

L
es flew in front of Gabriel and Daisy as they crossed the dark wasteland. He felt light-headed, and everything was very distant.

When Les had insisted on going on the mission with Gabriel and Daisy, Brunholm had brought him to Jamshid, the apothecary.

“Do something with this damn boy,” he’d growled, “give him something for energy. He needs to fly a long way tonight.”

Jamshid looked at Les dubiously.

“Not much muscle mass. If I put too much strain on the heart …”

“Then it’s not much loss,” Brunholm said. “Get on with it!” Jamshid shrugged and turned to a chest of drawers. He took out two vials of clear fluid and poured
both into a test tube. The mixture immediately turned a violent blue.

“Stop!” A girl’s tremulous voice rang out. It was Vandra. “What are you giving him?” She snatched the vials from the apothecary’s hands. “Lirmodium sulfate and salgisium tartar! You could kill a Messenger with these.”

“They used to give them to Messengers in the old days,” Jamshid said, “if a communication would not wait. They knew the risks!”

“But Les doesn’t.”

“It’s my choice, Vandra,” Les said. “I’m going to do it.”

“Fair enough,” Vandra said, her normally pale face flushed. “I want to get Dixie back as much as you do, but these two can’t go around shoving stuff down your neck without telling you what it is.”

“Thanks, Vandra,” Les said, touching her arm lightly, then taking the test tube from Jamshid and downing the contents with a grimace.

That had been three hours ago, and now Les felt as if he was floating through the skies. Gabriel and Daisy had trouble keeping up with him. They crossed the dark wasteland quickly. As Gabriel flew, old knowledge came back: what altitude to maintain in order to catch wind currents, how to use thermals to gain height instead of stressing tired wings. Finally they looked down and saw car headlights moving along roads, the glow of distant towns on the horizon.

“When we get close we’ll have to watch out for their flying machines,” Daisy said.

“We’ll fly at treetop level, that’s the way to do it,” Gabriel said. Les felt light spots of rain on his face.

“The rain will help conceal us,” Gabriel said. On they flew, into the rain, confident that no one could see them. They had never heard of radar. They had no way of knowing that three dots were now being tracked across a radar screen, nor that the scream of jet engines was shattering the night calm fifty miles away.

D
anny remained frozen in the beam of the powerful torch. He couldn’t see who was standing behind it, but the hand was steady. He had to do something. Carefully he slipped his left hand under the belly of the dog he held in his right. If he could reach the pistol in his coat … A sudden pain seared through his hand. He slipped and almost fell back into the drain. The dog, freed, leapt from his arms and ran into the darkness.

“Good boy, Fionn,” a strangely accented girl’s voice said. Danny looked down at his hand.

“The mutt bit me,” he said in disbelief. “I rescued it.”

“You salved your own conscience. That doesn’t buy you even a dog’s loyalty,” the girl said. Her voice was hoarse but there was a rough music to it. “But I thank you nonetheless. They said that the dog was gone. That I was to bow my head to my fate. But I did not. I searched for it and I am rewarded.”

“Can I get out of here now?” Danny asked.

“Who’s stopping you?”

Danny painfully eased himself out of the drain. The
dog darted forward, snarling. It was an ugly little terrier with stumpy legs, a head that was too big for its body and patches of color on its face that made it look as if it were perpetually snarling.

“Do you mind taking the torch off my face?” Danny’s eyes were smarting from the glare.

“It’s you.” The voice was wondering.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” How was he going to get away from this girl? “Can I see your face, since you can see mine?”

In answer the torch was lowered to the ground and a small girl walked into the beam and squatted down. She had blue eyes and bushy blond hair and wore a pink top and white jeans.

“Who are you?” Danny asked.

“My name is Beth. And I know your face.”

“They’re looking for me, then?”

“Who?” She seemed confused.

“People. Because of the base.”

“Why would they be looking for you because of that?”

“Never mind. Where did you see my face?”

“I’ll tell you if you come with me.”

Danny hesitated. He didn’t know anything about the girl. “Come with you to where?”

“To our camp. It’s down the road a ways.”

“Camp?”

“We’re travelers. Gypsies to you.” The little dog darted forward and snapped at Danny’s trouser leg before running back and hiding behind Beth’s legs.

“It would be the better part of you to come with me,” Beth said. “I can see you’re foundered with the cold, and if you’re on the run from the peelers, they’ll spot you in a crowd—you’re covered in mud. Make up your mind.”

Beth stood up and walked away. Danny thought quickly. He was alone and he needed a friend. Perhaps he could use her to get away and then dump her. As if the dog sensed what he was thinking, it snarled at him.

“Leave him be, Fionn,” Beth said.

“I’ll come,” Danny said.

“Let’s go, then.”

Beth’s camp was a collection of caravans strung out along a canal bank. Washing hung from scrubby bushes, and there were piles of scrap on the towpath, but the caravans themselves were new and modern. Two piebald ponies were tied to a tree, looking downcast in the rain.

Danny slipped and slid on the muddy ground, but Beth picked her way through the muck without getting so much as a spot of dirt on her white trousers. She led him to the newest of the caravans and ran up the steps. Fionn darted underneath and bared his teeth at Danny.

“Come on,” Beth called over her shoulder. With a wary eye for Fionn, Danny followed Beth into the caravan.

The caravan site might have been dirty and muddy, but the interior was completely different, spotless and well lit, if rather cluttered with brightly colored trinkets and gleaming china. An old lady sat on a small floral-patterned sofa, carefully positioned in front of a large, gleaming television set. Her skin was wrinkled, but her
brown eyes were shining and alert, and they immediately fixed on Danny.

“You have brought us a guest, Beth,” she said. Her voice was low and musical.

“I found him down a ditch, Nana,” Beth said with a laugh. “I didn’t know what to do with him. Then I saw the face on him.”

“Step closer, young lad,” Nana said. Danny moved nearer. As he did he realized that there was a theme to the collection of china, to the decorative plates on the walls, to the brightly colored stuffed cushions scattered over the sofa.

Each item was adorned with a picture of a raven.

“The blue and the brown,” Nana said, wonder in her voice. “The ravens spoke of it.”

“The ravens.” Danny glanced nervously toward the door, but Fionn stood there, a growl in his throat.

“They speak to me,” Nana said, “of other lands, dream places, perhaps. They said there would be a sundering. That evil would come wandering. There would be a boy with eyes like yours who does not know if he is the future of the world or the ending of it.”

“What else did they say?” Danny asked.

“Nothing that is fit for your ears,” Nana said sharply. “But they did give instruction about you.”

“What was that?”

“That we must look after you and hide you, for you are to be hunted like a dog, and those hunting you do not come to offer you their mercy. That you are a knife which
might turn in its wielder’s hand, a grief bringer, full of treachery, but we must help you all the more for that.”

“He doesn’t look all that treacherous to me,” Beth remarked with a sniff.

“And yet betrayal wells up in him,” Nana said. Her words were harsh, but her expression was full of compassion.

“Maybe if we feed him, he won’t be as treacherous,” Beth said, grinning. In a few minutes she had stew in a pot in the compact kitchen. When it was ready, Danny tucked in. Nana looked on in approval.

“When all is done,” she murmured, “a hungry boy is a hungry boy.”

There was a firm knock on the door. Beth opened it. Danny heard a brief, angry conversation; then a man pushed past Beth into the caravan. He was tall and thin, with a straggly beard and inquisitive darting eyes. He stopped dead when he saw Danny.

“What stranger is in the camp without me knowing?”

“A stranger who gets a welcome in my caravan whether you know about it or not, Sye.”

“These are bad times, Nana. Outsiders bring trouble, and there’s trouble enough without them.”

“Be that as it may, I will do as I am bid by the ravens.”

“Ravens! What do they want? Ravens interfere.”

Nana got to her feet and moved stiffly across the caravan until she was standing directly in front of the man. She was shorter than he, but such was her authority that Danny thought she looked at least a foot taller. The man took a step back.

“If you want to tell the ravens how much trouble they bring, then do,” Nana told him. “If you want to lie awake at night listening to ghost voices whispering, then I will cede all these things to you. Do you want to listen to the ghosts?”

Nana cocked her head to one side as though listening. For the first time Sye looked uncertain.

“They are coming,” Nana said.

“No!” Sye said. “Stop. We will keep the boy. I don’t want to listen to the dead!”

Danny could see that Sye was genuinely frightened.

“I’m not afraid,” Danny said. “I’ve talked with the dead lots of times.”

This was too much for Sye. His eyes rolled in his head and he started muttering very fast, backing out of the caravan and bowing in the direction of Nana and Danny. Within seconds the caravan door slammed and he was gone.

“What was he saying under his breath?” Danny said.

“Prayers and invocations against evil. Powerful enough in their own way, but not as powerful as a well-told lie.”

“A lie?”

“Of course. I cannot summon the dead like that. They come and go as they choose.”

“I see.” Danny turned at the noise of a distant siren.

“There was an explosion the other night,” Nana said slowly, looking at Danny, “and now they are hunting hill and dale for someone. You?”

“Did the ravens tell you about the explosion, Nana?” Beth asked.

“No, silly,” Nana said, “I saw it on the television. But they were telling lies about it.”

“What lies?”

“They said that many people were killed.” Danny looked at her, stricken.

“No, son, don’t look at me like that. No one was killed. I would have heard them. When the living are bidden suddenly around here, I hear their laments as they make their way toward the river.”

“The river?”

“The dark stream that carries the dead to their final destination.”

Danny felt a shiver run down his spine. Another siren sounded, closer this time.

“Peelers, peelers!” The cry went up all over the camp. Danny looked out the window. A police van with flashing blue lights blocked the entrance to the gypsies’ encampment. The travelers gathered at their caravan doors, watching sullenly as policemen in riot gear emerged from the back of the van. An important-looking policeman with braid on his cap got out of the passenger seat. Sye approached in a curious, hunched-over, wheedling manner.

“You’ll not get nothing here, Inspector, sir. Nothing, sir. We’re only poor travelers trying to make our way in the world.”

“I know what you are,” the inspector said brusquely. “Thieves and liars. Out of my way.”

The policemen spread through the encampment. They seemed to take delight in breaking things, throwing
washing on the ground and trampling it, kicking over cooking pans and teapots.

“They’ve no right to do that!” Danny said indignantly.

“They do what they like with us ones,” Beth said.

The inspector stood in the middle of the camp.

“Attention!” he shouted. “According to records, there should be seven males between the ages of ten and twenty in this encampment. I want them all here now.”

Slowly, children and teenagers started to emerge from the caravans. As each reached the policeman, he put his hand under their chin, tilted their head upward and examined their eyes. When he had examined the last one, he turned to his men.

“Go through the caravans! Search every last corner.”

Drawing batons, the men stormed into the little caravans. There was the sound of breaking crockery. Bedding and clothing were thrown out the doors into the mud. They went methodically through each caravan, arriving last at Nana’s. A policeman threw the door open. Nana met them. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She tried to speak, then turned away, making a choking noise. A red-eyed and red-nosed Beth put her arm around her.

“What’s wrong with her?” one of the policemen said roughly.

“My sister,” Beth sobbed. “She fell into a drain. She is lost to us.”

A figure in a dress lay on the sofa. The face was muddy and the eyes were covered with two coins.

“What’s with the coins?” one of the policemen whispered.

“Gypsy traditions,” another whispered back. “They’re to pay the ferryman to cross the river of death.”

“What’s going on here?” The inspector burst in. “Why aren’t you searching?”

One of the searchers pointed wordlessly toward the corpse. The inspector went over.

“What’s all this? Looks dead, all right, but it could be a trick.” He motioned to Beth.

“Take those coins off!” he said. Nana sobbed. “Quiet. Do as you’re told. I’ll see those eyes!”

Beth went over to the body, glaring reproachfully at the policemen. She gently lifted the coins from the eyes. The inspector leaned over eagerly, then stepped back in revulsion. The sockets where the eyes should have been were bloody and suppurating.

“The rats got to the body before we did,” Beth said, replacing the coins carefully and smoothing back the corpse’s hair.

“Leave them,” the superintendent spat. With looks of disgust on their faces, the policemen backed out. A few minutes later the van started. Danny sat up.