The Watchers (13 page)

Tom went first. It was his discover
y
so it was he who should lead the way. Everyone agreed that was fair. Besides, no one else wanted to go first, through what they were now calling ‘the tree door’. Tom took up his position against the giant oak and with a cocky wink to Mia before he left, he sidled one step, and then another, until his whole body disappeared from view. Tom had vanished. Just like that!

Mia’s head was spinning. The whole event of arriving at the clearing, finding the well and then travelling through a tree was suddenly too much to deal with. None of them knew what to expect on the other side. For all they knew they were going to walk to their deaths.

After Keri went next into the tree, Mia carried Charlie in her arms as Jesus went last. There was no reluctance
on her part, not after she’d resigned herself to the notion that if they were walking to their deaths, better that than dying in some boring hospital bed. She lined herself up against the trunk and stepped sideways, all the time praying she’d enter the world of the Watchers and see Uriel again. This was what she’d been waiting for…hadn’t she?

The tree door was even more curious than their invisible, spiritual transportation from the Henge. When she'd taken her first glance, it had appeared as if only her hand would slot between the layers, but now, as she sidled in, even with Charlie in her arms, there was plenty of room for her body side-on. It was an incredible optical illusion, made more wondrous when she found herself fully inside its wooden walls, where she placed her free hand on the bark. It was just like the outer layer, rough and brittle as if the tree had turned in on itself. Perhaps this was the spiral, Jesus had mentioned. She reminded herself to ask him later.

Moving further in, Charlie scrambled up to her shoulder and perched there like a baby hanging onto his mother. The walls became more of a blur of brown and black, roughly textured and smelling of damp soil and oaky mushrooms. She kept going, like a knife cutting through the skin of an apple. She was becoming disorientated, as if she was walking through a maze, unable to find the next avenue. She saw a beige colour amongst the darkness of the bark. It was Keri’s sweater. Mia reached out her hand and touched the wool and suddenly she was on solid ground again, in a place that was literally out of this world.

Behind her, Jesus stepped out of the spiral layers, and like Mia, he too had lost his bearings and was now focusing on the place they all found themselves in. There was a hush as all four stood in what could only be described as a chamber, like an anti-space. It gave Mia the impression of standing inside a human heart with the openings of rounded valves leading from it. She could feel air coming through the tunnels as if the heart was pumping oxygen for them to breathe, and there was light, somehow…somewhere. It wasn’t a light any of them could distinguish. It was just there, like a light of life inside the tree.

Mia watched Keri hesitate. She was looking behind her at the layers of bark they had just walked through. “I think I’ll go back. I really don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t understand any of this.”

Tom swung about and faced her. "No, don't go back. Please. None of us understands any of this either, but as long as we all stick together." He gave her an encouraging smile which served to validate his constant support whilst she was in his company. She nodded her agreement of his unspoken terms. "Right! I suppose we take one of the tunnels," Tom announced. They all put their trust in Tom's instincts, as he opted for the largest valve out of the chamber. No one disputed his choice. As far as they were all concerned, it was a good a tunnel as any. They had to stoop to go through, even Mia, who was the shortest. One after the other they proceeded, in the same sequence they'd formed when they had come through the tree door; Tom first, then Keri, Mia holding Charlie and Jesus at the flank.

A few meters along the tunnel, they were able to stand upright, even Jesus, the tallest of the group. The tunnel had offshoots, smaller than the main one. Mia recalled the story of Alice chasing the rabbit, as she was shrunk to a minute size in order to fit through the door. Mia was Alice now, chasing the white rabbit through a tree to a place she could never have imagined.

After a few minutes, they came upon a chamber like the first, but instead of being lined with bark and roots, the walls were formed of grey stone, like a cave. The ground was scattered with sprigs of purple heather and over the walls, vivid green ivy climbed in neat spirals, as if it had been tamed and used to decorate the blandness of the rock. It was beautiful and strange and as they touched the swirls they all smiled at the uniqueness of it.

From there, two more tunnels branched off. As one went into darkness to their left, there was another, on the right, which seemed to connect to a chamber that glowed pink. That was the tunnel they took.

Keri Rains had resisted the urg
e
to turn around and go back. Despite her better judgment, which she normally based on sound logic, she was now putting all her trust into the boy walking ahead of her, a young girl with a dog in her arms who was coming up her flank and behind
her
, an ageing hippie who called himself Jesus. She wondered how she would explain it to Harry if in fact, she had to explain it all, and the way she was feeling at that moment, she couldn't care less what he thought.

When she walked through the tree door, it felt as if it was the most natural thing to do, but all the while, as she made her way along the layers, she couldn’t help wondering if she was dreaming and that in fact, it was probably the nervous breakdown she’d been waiting for? For all she knew, she could be lying in a hospital bed, in a coma, brought on by severe depression. God knows how many times she’d felt like retreating to that place of lifelessness after her sweet girl had been taken from her.

But now, despite a lack of intellectual reasoning, Keri couldn’t help feeling that somehow her future lay there in that magical tree, in the Watchers world.

No
, she thought, there was no turning back now. She was going to see it through to the end.

What else did she have any more?

Jesus
kept looking straight ahea
d
. The whole experience was what he’d been striving towards, ever since he’d lost his beloved Shanna. He knew that place was where he would find the answers to the eternal questions that had kept him wondering for years and years; what life was all for without his wife and their unborn baby?

He’d begun his life in Bristol, in poverty, living among souls who would kill for the want of a bite of an apple. He always remembered his mother as one who spent every waking hour cleaning the red slate step outside their front door, despite the inside of the small terrace house falling apart around their heads. His father was an alcoholic. He worked down the boat yard every day, but by night, after he’d bathed in the tin bath next to the fire and donned his tie, he’d go off down the pub where he would spend his hard earned cash on beer and whisky.

Once known as Charles Basset, when he was fourteen he ran away to the navy, but after he got a taste of being at sea, he soon realised it wasn't the life for him. He decided he was more of an earth man, not water. He spent the next five years trying to get out and eventually, when the ship he was sailing on docked in Bristol harbour, he made a run for it and got out of the navy for good. He never went back to see his parents, instead taking to the road after buying a nice little second hand Morris Minor, using it as a house and home for the next ten years.

As far back as he could remember, from the day he’d learned of the Watcher’s existence, he’d wanted more than anything to be with them. He felt compelled to adopt their beliefs and their ethos, even though he could never be a proper Angel.

Yes, Jesus pondered, this was it. Below, the tree in the Watcher’s world was where he would find his answers. That would be his life.

What else did he have any more?

Tom entered the next chambe
r
before the others. It was he who saw the wondrous vision first. He, who had gasped in awe of its loveliness, and it was he who’d fallen to his knees and thanked God for giving him the gift of sight. And Tom
never
prayed!

Unlike the previous two chambers, the third was a cave of quartz. The walls were lined with the semi-precious stone, more pure and precious than any cut diamond set in a band of gold. Rough textures blended with smooth, some parts clear and some opaque with luminous hues, mingled with veins of red, like bloodlines running through marble. The cavern was aglow with back-lighting, not from the sun or from a flame or from a common bulb. The light was natural; simply there, as shimmering golden pinks of the quartz dazzled the beholder.

Tom was still alone as he breathed in the wonder of the quartz. The light made a kaleidoscope of patterns in his eyes and the glow of the stone made his skin seem unblemished, as the pinks covered his skin like a dappling of powder from a woman’s bejewelled compact.

With one knee on the stone floor, Tom pulled out his camera from the faded green bag once slung across his back and now sitting in front of him on the ground. He had taken some shots in the other chambers, but his flash hadn’t worked for some reason. He didn’t know why, but in that luminous space, he didn’t need any artificial lighting to bring his images to life. It was already there; as natural as day.

Tom leaned forward as he adjusted the lens and focused on some quartz protruding from the floor, like a cluster of randomly shaped prisms of different sizes and depths. He did a test shot. It was perfect. The pictures would fetch a king’s ransom.

After all, what else did he have any more?

Jay Pullman had just spent the pas
t
thirty-six hours trying to track down Fran and he was getting nowhere, fast. After he'd dropped Tom at Stonehenge, he'd continued his drive to Glastonbury via the country roads and frankly, despite his mood, he'd enjoyed the silence. He would have preferred the kid to have stayed with him, but after ten minutes of no talking, cruising along the English country roads with Aaron Neville playing on the radio, he thought, good riddance!

When he arrived at the strange looking town of Glastonbury, lined with odd curiosity shops and row upon row of old terraced houses, he checked into a hotel already reserved by the holiday company. It was an old inn, as opposed to the modern travel lodges on the outskirts of town. They were once for the tourists, although now they housed the homeless by order of the English government. It was a nice gesture, but the weathered motels were places to avoid at all cost now.

After recovering from his jet lag, he wondered around the town checking most of the hotels for any news of Fran. His only tip-off came from a waiter in one of the restaurants he'd dined at one evening. As he'd served dessert, Jay had shown him a magazine layout of Fran posing in black lace lingerie. After he'd taken some time gazing at her features, he said he may have seen someone who looked like her. Jay snatched back the magazine as the guy poured cream over homemade apple pie, which was nothing like the pie he could get in New York. "Yeah, I think I remember her." The waiter had said. "She was with a group from some fashion thing."

"That's great," Jay said pushing away his plate. "So, if you can give me any clues...you know, where I might find her?"

“Nah, sorry. I don’t know nothing else.” And that was the end of that!

Jay had attempted to call Tom for the fiftieth time, but as usual, it went to message, just like the others. "Hey, kid. Why can't I reach you? Message me back."

Now Jay was beginning to wonder if he should just give up and go home. He couldn’t even get a decent signal on his cell. “The
United
Kingdom!? Not!" he muttered before he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

Days later and for the third tim
e
since he'd arrived, Jay sat on the grass at the top of the Glastonbury Tor looking out over panoramic views of Somerset, Wiltshire and parts of Wales. According to the brochure, the Tor was supposed to be a remarkable mystical place with close association to Arthurian legend. Jay had learned that the hill dated back to Neolithic times, around the same time as Stonehenge was constructed. The conical shaped Tor had been formed naturally on the Somerset levels, but the spiral terraces that led to the top were formed by man. At its peak were the ruins of a church, a Grade I listed monument called St Michael's tower.

After following
a
few leads, he’d traced Fran back to a small hotel near the outskirts of town. It was a quaint English hostelry with rooms boasting four-poster beds, a restaurant with white linen covered tables and a bar with a moose’s head above a fireplace one could sit in and drink warm beer from glass jugs. Jay was starting to appreciate the English ways. New York was in such a state, as were the other cities around America, he could get used to living this. In peace.

But it was expensive. The cost of living in the UK was so high, he wasn’t surprised that not many tourists were checking out the tourist town of Glastonbury. Most of the bespoke shops closed at midday, every day, as the owners reeled at their lack of sales.

Two days ago Jay had discovered that Fran’s party had left Glastonbury, but that she had remained. She’d met someone - he guessed-and one day after leaving all her clothes and her belongings in the room she’d occupied, she’d left, disappearing suddenly without a trace.

Amongst her things, which Jay had claimed, he found postcards and souvenirs of the Glastonbury Tor. Handfuls of pictures and leaflets, over and above what any normal tourist would collect. It was a cache of such abundance that Jay had to store them in a suitcase of their own. He’d scrutinised every piece, turning every crystal and every stone, reading every booklet, and scanning all receipts for pagan amulets, jewellery made with local semi-precious stones, pendants and charms, dream catchers, wind chimes, and a crystal ball set on its own carved wooden stand. It was a veritable feast of pagan paraphernalia and he had no idea what to do with it all.

Now at the top of the Tor, alone, looking out across the fields and valleys below, he felt the sun beating down on him as he said what he always said when he went up there. “Where are you, Fran? Where the hell are you?”

End of Part Two