The Midnight Gate (19 page)

She dragged herself from bed and went down to breakfast, feeling as if she hadn't slept at all. The Proctors, on the other hand, were extremely cheery, joking with each other about the length of time the building was taking but that it would all be done soon and wouldn't that be nice. For the first time, Belladonna realized that they weren't really talking about the building at all.

She finished her breakfast as quickly as she could, then grabbed her bag and headed off for town and the train station. With every step, she half expected Mr. Proctor to pull up in his car and ask her why she was heading in the opposite direction to Dullworth's, so when she saw the old station and the entrance to the waiting room, she dashed inside. She was far too early, of course, but there wasn't anywhere else to go and the station was comfortingly crowded. She stood back for a while and watched the commuters anxiously checking their watches or chatting eagerly on cell phones while they waited for the trains to take them to work.

As soon as there was a seat available, she settled down to watch the waiting room television and wait for Steve.

As it turned out, he was early too.

“Oh, you're here!” he said, as he marched through the door, leaning slightly to one side with the weight of his bag. “Whoa, you look awful! Did you drink the hot chocolate again?”

“No, but I think they put it in something else. I thought you'd sleep in.”

“Huh! You must be joking! We watched TV all last night, then this morning my Dad found the mat in my bag and had it spread out on the sitting room floor, so she was right there again, wasn't she? And … honestly, Belladonna, I like cartoons as much as anyone, but it's
all
she wanted to watch.”

“What did your Dad say about the mat?”

“Nothing much. He didn't know it belonged to the school or anything, he just thought it was odd.”

“Which it is.”

“I told him it was something to do with an art project.”

Belladonna never failed to be impressed by how good Steve was at thinking on his feet. If it had been her in the same situation, she knew she would have ummed and urred and then she'd have got that look on her face, the one that she could always feel whenever she was about to lie. The one that she was sure telegraphed to anyone looking at her that she was not to be believed.

“Did he believe you?”

“Yeah.” He dropped his bag on the floor and sat down next to her. “Actually, he's not really bothered that much anymore. Since Mum went, it's like he can't really concentrate.”

Belladonna smiled. What she really wanted to do, of course, was tell him her suspicions about his mother, but common sense told her that it wouldn't go down well, so she pretended to watch the waiting room TV instead.

The crowds of commuters slowly thinned as train after train arrived and departed, taking them to offices and businesses all over the region. Then, after what felt like hours, the train for Fenchurch finally arrived, and they clambered on and found some seats in an empty carriage. The train heaved out of the station and picked up speed as it whizzed past office buildings, schools, and row upon countless row of houses. Then it was out in the countryside and past an endless patchwork of wintry fields punctuated by drystone walls and skeletal bushes and trees.

The conductor came by and they flashed their passes. Belladonna was ready to try to explain why she had someone else's train pass, but the conductor barely glanced at them before he continued on into the next carriage. Steve waited until he had gone, then leaned forward across the table.

“It's usually better if you don't act so surprised.”

“Sorry. I've never done anything like this before.”

She'd certainly never been this far away from home by herself and couldn't believe that no one was surprised to see two twelve-year-olds traveling alone. And she couldn't shake the anxiety over what exactly they were going to do if they did get caught—neither of them had any money to speak of and certainly not enough to buy two train tickets.

Steve clearly had no such worries. Instead, he shrugged off his coat, reached for his bag, and produced two large books.

“Look,” he said, pushing them across the table to Belladonna, “they're books about stone circles. I thought if you looked at some of the pictures, you might see the one in your dream.”

“Where did you get these?” asked Belladonna. They looked really expensive and she suddenly had an awful image of Steve stealing books from shops.

“I told you—they were my Mum's. She has loads. She was really interested in stone circles, but she left them behind when she went.”

Belladonna nodded and opened the first book, trying to hide her look of surprise. His mother had been researching stone circles. Could it be a coincidence? Or was she just seeing meaning in the mundane?

She turned the pages slowly—both books had beautiful, glossy, full-page photographs of stone circles from all over Britain, from massive structures like Stonehenge and Avebury, down to the smallest ring of broken boulders, but none of them looked anything like the one in Belladonna's dreams.

“It's not like any of these,” she said. “It's … I don't know … kind of new-looking, I suppose.”

“Maybe you're dreaming about what one of them looked like when it was first built,” suggested Steve. “Are any of the shapes similar?”

Belladonna went through the books again more slowly, but nothing seemed familiar.

“No. Sorry.”

“That's okay. According to the books, only ten percent of Britain's stone circles are still standing. Your circle could be one of the ones that vanished.”

“Why did they disappear?”

“Sometimes farmers moved them because they were in the way of tractors, early Christians destroyed them or used them for building materials, and some were buried.”

“Buried?”

“That's what the books say.”

Belladonna stared at the pictures in the books. Most of the stones in the circles were huge; she couldn't imagine trying to bury
one,
let alone the whole circle.

“Are any of them near here?”

“Just one.” Steve took one of the books and flipped to a page showing a double circle of small stones overlooking the sea. “That's Sanctuary Stones. It's near Helmsea, just up the coast. According to the books, most of the earliest circles were built near the sea.”

“But there weren't any in town?”

“No, but like I said, ninety percent of them have vanished, so there could have been.”

Belladonna stared at the picture of the Sanctuary Stones, perched on a moorland hill, high above the village of Helmsea. In the picture, all you could see was the top of the church steeple far below, and beyond, nothing but the gray sea and stormy clouds.

“Does anyone know what they were used for?”

“Not really. Most of the surviving ones are sort of positioned for sunrises and sunsets at midsummer and midwinter and things like that, so some people think they were built for pagan ceremonies, but the books say they probably had lots of different uses over time.”

“Did you just find all this out or did your Mum tell you?” asked Belladonna, impressed by Steve's knowledge on the subject.

“I told you, I read the books last night.”

“You read them? Both of them? All the way through?”

“Yeah.”

“But … if you can read that quickly, why don't you ever do your homework?”

“It's boring.” He shrugged, then leaned forward again. “There's another thing. Have you got the rhyme with you?”

“Of course.” Belladonna fished her Geography exercise book out of her bag and turned to the page where she'd copied down both of the parchment's hidden clues.

Steve read it and nodded, pointing to the first line.

“Yes, I thought so. It says ‘
Thrice times three the cromlechs be
/
And thrice times three the charm
.' Well, according to the books,
cromlech
is another name for a standing stone.”

“It is? Then that means…”

“Your dreams and the parchment are connected, like I said. There are nine stones and nine … whatever they turn out to be. Lancaster! Time to change.”

The train eased into the station as Steve packed the books away. Belladonna followed him onto the platform where they checked for the Fenchurch train on the screen in the waiting room before making their way to platform three.

Belladonna found herself sneaking looks at Steve while they waited. For some reason it had never really occurred to her that he might actually be clever. Admittedly, he was pretty quick-witted in class whenever he was caught doing something he shouldn't, but he almost never gave in any of his homework on time and had yet to raise a hand in answer to a single question. On the other hand, it made perfect sense—a stupid Paladin probably wouldn't be much use at all, and neither would the kind of boy who always did what he was told.

“Here it is!”

The Fenchurch train clanked up to the platform. It was much smaller and quite a bit older than the first one, and even fewer passengers seemed to be climbing on board. They found another set of seats with a table near the front of the train and settled down again.

“Are you going to get the mat out?” asked Belladonna as the train pulled away.

“Errr … I suppose.” Steve was clearly not at all keen on the idea.

“She really wanted to be here for the train ride. I think it might be a bit much to expect her to help us if we don't let her materialize here.”

“Okay,” said Steve, pulling the rolled-up mat from his bag.

“I mean,” continued Belladonna, “how would you feel if you hadn't been able to leave the school for nearly a hundred years?”

“Good point. But she can sit next to you.”

He handed the mat across the table to Belladonna, who moved to the next seat, leaving an empty one by the window. She unrolled the rug lengthwise on the vacant seat, leaving half of it extending up the back and the rest flopping over the edge. They stared at it for a moment.

“Do we have to call her or something?” asked Belladonna.

“Oh, don't worry, she'll be here.”

There were a few more moments of silence as the train clicked by wet fields full of depressed-looking sheep staring at the passing train with the resignation of commuters who have missed the 8:45 and will be late for work again.

“Oh, gosh! Corking!”

Elsie's voice rang through the carriage as clear as a bell, but she still hadn't appeared. Belladonna looked questioningly at Steve.

“Watch,” he said. “It's really weird.”

She turned back to the mat where, instead of suddenly appearing as she usually did, Elsie just sort of slowly materialized, starting with the parts of her that were actually in contact with the mat and ending with the tip of her nose.

“It's a bit like the Cheshire Cat, isn't it?” said Steve.

“I suppose it gets slower the further she is from the school.”

“Look! Sheep! Oh, this is amazing! And fast! How fast do you think we're going? Our trains never went this fast. Is it safe, d'you think? It doesn't matter for me, of course, but I was thinking about you. Do trains crash very often? This really is fast. What a shame it isn't spring yet; it would have been nice to see some lambs.”

Steve sighed heavily, but Belladonna was enjoying Elsie's excitement. It made her feel as if she were seeing everything for the first time and the fields and livestock that had seemed tedious a few moments earlier were suddenly fascinating, and it really
was
a shame that there were no lambs yet.

The train sped north through ever wilder-looking countryside, as the number of fields ploughed for crops decreased and the population of sheep grew steadily. Elsie talked almost nonstop, pausing only to gaze, awestruck, at the occasional glimpses of the sea.

“I used to love going to the seaside! Though, of course, Mother would only let me paddle. She didn't think swimming was very ladylike.”

Finally, the train slowed and a sign reading A
BBEY
H
ALT
eased past the window.

“This is us,” said Steve. “Make yourself scarce, Elsie. I need to put the rug away.”

“This is so exciting!” said Elsie, disappearing.

Belladonna rolled the rug up and handed it to Steve, then they both picked up their bags and left the train.

“She was like that
all
last night,” said Steve.

“Well, she doesn't get out much, does she? And it's kind of fun to see someone who's so excited about ordinary things. How fast do you think the train
was
going?”

“Oh, don't you start.”

They made their way out of the tiny station and followed the signs to the abbey a short distance up the road. The car park was empty except for two buses and two different bunches of schoolchildren who had obviously just finished their visit and were being counted onto the buses by frazzled-looking teachers. Belladonna and Steve marched past and made their way to the front door of the visitor center.

Belladonna was just about to open the door when Steve stopped her.

“Look,” he said, pointing to a notice on the door, “d'you have any money?”

Belladonna looked at the sign; the admission fee was much higher than she'd expected.

“Not that much.”

“Oh, rats and ferrets,” he grumbled. “Well, I suppose we'll just have to walk down the road a bit and climb over the wall.”

Belladonna sighed, then glanced back at the two buses. “No,” she said, “I've got an idea. Come on.”

She opened the door and walked in. Steve followed dubiously, but she ignored him and marched up to the ticket counter.

“Excuse me,” she said.

The elderly woman behind the counter looked up from a book she was reading.