Trespass: A Tale of Mystery and Suspense Across Time (The Darkeningstone Book 1) (19 page)

2010

I COUGHED
.
After the dash up to the ledge, the cigarette smoke burned my throat and scoured my lungs. Matt spluttered. We looked each other in the eye, poker-faced.
I’m not going to be first to admit defeat
, I thought. But Matt probably felt the same. Then, at exactly the same moment, we burst out laughing. Matt threw his cigarette onto the grass by his feet and squashed it under his heel. I quickly copied him. It was good to be back on the same wavelength. No secrets—for a while at least.

“So,” Matt asked, “smoking—what’s all that about then?”

“God knows,” I laughed. “Do people really do that every day?”

Matt grinned. The double act was definitely back in action. “Yeah,” he replied, “but the thing you’ve got to remember about cigarettes is, they’re just a nipple substitute.”

“If you think that,” I said. “You must’ve been going out with the wrong kind of girl.”

Matt had a glint in his eye. “That might explain why their bras always catch fire,” he said.

I suppressed a laugh. “Either that, or you’re moving too fast.”

Matt chuckled. “Is that fact or friction?” he said, and we both cracked up laughing. Fantastic. A real belly laugh. I didn’t want it to stop, even when my sides started aching. But after a while, we had to draw breath.

Matt wiped his eyes and gave me a friendly punch on the arm. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s have a look around.” He jumped to his feet. I was still giggling as Matt wandered along the ledge. Then suddenly he stopped, stood stock still. There was a pause, then he said, “Hey, what’re these? Are they yours?”

I stopped giggling. What had he seen? I rubbed a tear away from the corner of my eye. Did he mean the stone platform? Then why did he say “these”? I jumped up. I was suddenly very serious. “What do you mean?” I said. Had someone else been up on the ledge—the Brewers perhaps? I went to Matt’s side.

He was by the platform, but that wasn’t what had caught his attention. He had something in his hands. “These,” he said. He held them out to show me, and asked again, “Are they yours?”

In his right hand, he was holding a large hammer. It looked like a miniature version of a sledgehammer. In his left hand he had some kind of heavy, broad chisel.

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “They’re not mine. Where did you find them?”

Matt pointed to the platform. “Just there,” he said. “They were just lying on the top.” He handed me the hammer. “Here,” he said. I took it. It was very heavy, very solid, very real. There was no way I could’ve missed seeing it the last time I was there. Someone must’ve been there in the meantime. Cally? Her college friends? I turned the hammer over in my hands. It seemed old-fashioned somehow, like the rusty old tools at car-boot sales. But this one certainly wasn’t rusty. It was well-worn, but it gleamed. It was smooth, almost polished. The chisel Matt held was in the same condition.

Without thinking I said, “They weren’t here the other day.”

Matt looked sharply at me. He frowned. “Are you sure?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I had a pretty good look around. I’m sure.”

“So someone’s definitely been up here,” he said. He nodded grimly. “They’ll come back for these.”

“Maybe,” I said. I took a deep breath. “There was…someone here.”

Matt shot me a look. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. You know, on like a field trip or something.”

“You’re blushing,” he said.

“No. I’m not. It’s the cigarette—made me a bit red.”

“Bloody hell,” Matt said. “It was a girl, wasn’t it? You’ve been in here with a girl.”

“Well…sort of,” I said. “I wasn’t exactly…”

Matt grabbed my sleeve. “Was it Imogen?” he said. “No, she’s way out of your league. Was it Sarah? Was it, erm, who was it? Come on. Tell me.”

I shook my head and smiled. “Sarah?” I said. “Give me some credit.”

“I’ll give you slap in a minute if you don’t tell me who it was.”

“All right,” I said. “But it isn’t anyone you know, and it wasn’t like that. I didn’t bring her in here—I met her in here.”

“What?” Matt said.

“She’s older than us—she’s in the sixth form somewhere. A bunch of them were in here with some students doing some kind of dig, and she got lost. I tried to help.”

“A sixth former, eh! Wow. What was she like? Was she nice?”

I shook my head. “No, not nice,” I said. Then, as Matt’s face fell I said, “She was gorgeous.”

“Aw, man,” Matt said. “What happened?”

“Well, she…I don’t know really. We were getting on really well, and then…”

“Go on,” Matt said.

“She just sort of…disappeared.”

Matt stood back, looked me in the eye. “Are you winding me up?” he said.

“No,” I said. “She was right here. I talked to her for ages.”

“What was her name then?” Matt said.

“Cally” I said. “Short for Callisto—like the moon.”

Matt pulled a face. “Callisto?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Oh,” Matt said. “Shame.”

“What is?” I said.

“I thought maybe these were her initials,” he said. He turned the chisel to show me the handle. Clearly stamped into the metal were three letters. “Check the hammer,” he said. Sure enough, the same letters were neatly carved into the hammer’s wooden handle. “Hey, maybe we can find this girl,” Matt said. “All we need to work out is what they stand for.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But what has the initials VCC?”

1939

THE PAIN
RIPS THROUGH
Vincent’s hands. It slashes the skin from his fingers, tears the flesh from his arms. It seethes through his body, shrieks into his mind and slices into his heart. The whole world is white-hot.

The explosion throws him backward. He thumps into the ground, flat on his back, but he doesn’t feel the impact. He lies in the wet grass, his eyes wide open, dazzled. For a second, he is stock still, then his chest shakes, and his breath returns, shallow and far too fast. The pain soaks away into the cold ground. The colour returns to the leaves that sway and drip above him.

Vincent groaned. Slowly, he lifted his hands to see his wounds. The scorched skin will be blackened and blistering. But no. Nothing—not a mark on him. He blinked, turned his hands around, flexed his fingers. They didn’t even hurt.
Thank god for that
, he thought.

He forced himself to take a deeper breath. “Come on, lad,” he said. “Get yourself up.” He rolled onto his side. His arms shook as he pushed his body from the ground. Slowly he stood and brushed himself down. He was wet through and muddy, but apart from that he was all right. “What the bloody hell…?” he said. He looked toward the stone slab and shook his head. He’d get no answers there.
Whatever happened
, he thought,
I’m still in one piece—that’s the main thing
. Now, he had to get out of there and get back down to the quarry before they came looking for him. He was a bit wobbly, but that wouldn’t show, would it? He looked a mess, but he could explain that, say he slipped in the mud. “Now then,” he muttered. “Where have I dropped my tools?” He scanned the ground, turned around and tried to picture where they might have landed. “Dammit. Where are they?”

It was useless. He couldn’t see them anywhere. But what could he do about it now? His mind whirled. He felt giddy, light headed. He gritted his teeth. “Think,” he said. He ran a hand over his face. Maybe it didn’t matter. Easier to get new tools than a new job. And in a way, losing the tools made sense. He’d told everyone he’d lost them, and now he really had. It all tied in. He wouldn’t even have to lie about it. He just had to dash back down, then he could walk out across the quarry with his head held high.

He’d keep quiet about the whole thing. He needn’t mention the ledge or what might’ve happened. There was no need to say anything about it. Not to anyone. Not ever.

2010

I HANDED
THE HAMMER
back to Matt. “Could the CC stand for community college?” I said.

Matt shrugged. “Then what’s the V for, Vulcan?” It wasn’t a bad joke, but neither of us felt like laughing.

“This is what they were working on,” I said. “Cally called it the Black Stone of Scaderstone.”

Matt gave me a sideways look. “Oh yeah?”

I shrugged. “Yeah—it’s all a mystery about what it is and why it’s up here and stuff.”

Matt snorted. “Well I can tell you that for a start,” he said. “For one thing, it’s a gravestone, and for another, it’s in a quarry—as in, a place where stone comes from.”

“No,” I said. “I thought that at first, but Cally said –”

“Ooh,” Matt cut in. “Cally says this, Cally says that.”

I scowled at him. “Oh yeah?” I said. “So where’s the name and stuff?”

Matt just smirked and carried on. “It’s obvious. It’s been here a long time, hasn’t it? Look at how the grass has grown up all around it.”

“So what?” I said.

“Well, years ago, rich people used have those huge tombs built, didn’t they? You know, for the whole family.”

“A vault?” I said. “But they’re underground, not stuck up on a ledge.”

“No. Don’t be an idiot. A mozzer-whatsit.”

I pulled a face. “What are you on about?”

“You know, like Lenin’s got one—sounds like museum.”

“Er, a goatee beard, a bald head, bad breath?”

Matt punched my arm. “You moron,” he said.

And then it clicked. “Oh, a mausoleum.”

“That’s it,” Matt said. “Maybe you’re not a moron after all.”

“Er, thanks,” I said. “But this isn’t a mausoleum.”

“I know it isn’t the whole thing, it’s just a part of it—a wall or a panel or something.”

“Yeah, but Cally said it goes right down into –”

“Cally says, Cally says,” Matt chanted. “I’m telling you. They were making a tomb or something, and this bit must’ve been spare, or maybe there was something wrong with it, so they just left it there.”

I ground my teeth together. He was wrong, but there was no talking to him when he got like this. The stone was special. I knew it. But what could I say? There was no way I was going to start rambling on about bad dreams and visions of a strange old man.

“Hey,” Matt said. “Did Lenin really have bad breath?”

“Who’s talking about Lenin?” I snapped. “I was thinking about you.”

Matt grinned. “Ouch,” he said. “That’s a
grave
insult.”

I snorted. I usually made an effort to laugh at Matt’s jokes, but that one was old, and I was in a grim mood.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go. Before you do that joke about the
dead
centre of town.”

Matt laughed. “All right,” he said. “No need to have a dig.”

I smiled and shook my head. And as we turned away from the stone platform, we both heard the voices at the same time. We looked at each other. Matt wasn’t too worried until he saw the look on my face. After all, he had no idea who it could be. But I was certain. I recognised their jeering laughter. It was the Brewers. And unlike Matt, I knew that the only way I’d managed to get out of the quarry was to go back down onto the quarry floor. We were trapped.

The voices grew louder.