“Ready?” he whispered to his wife and son.
“Ready,” they nodded.
Gordon heard a derisive snort from behind them and the echoing ring of his SGGm’s haughty voice. “We have been ready long since.”
NOTES
PRIEST-HOLE
Chapter 47
Home At Last
Lieutenant Colonel (Retd.) Sir Hugo Cholmondeley Davenport, Bart. was taking tea with Lady Davenport in the main drawing room, as they did every afternoon at this time. The room was south-facing. On a fine afternoon like this, it was filled with warm, pleasant sunlight.
Lady Hermione was about to pour her second cup when she heard a sharp scraping sound in one corner of the room. She paused, the silver teapot poised above the elegant china cup. Her husband was eating a large slice of his favourite seed cake.
"Rat," he said helpfully. She sighed and began to pour. They really must get on to the pest control people. Oh, my goodness, there it was again! "More than one, if you ask me" the colonel added. From roughly the same spot, metal scraped on metal for a third time. He opened his mouth to pop in the last delicious morsel, and froze in astonishment.
A whole section of panelling had swung open in one corner of the room, and a rather grubby adult, male member of the public stepped out from behind it. He was followed by a child and an adult female. They appeared to be a family. They appeared to be lost. Nonplussed, the Davenports remained frozen for a moment. The Bennetts dusted themselves off and looked around in wonder.
Sir Hugo levered himself out of his winged armchair and found his voice. “Where the devil did you spring from?" he demanded in a forthright military manner, and was suddenly taken with a violent fit of shaking.
"Are you all right, Darling?" his wife enquired, anxiously. The colonel recovered. "Course I am, M'Dear; confounded draught, that's all.” He turned once more to their uninvited visitors. “Close that damned door sir! Tell us who you are and where the devil you sprang from. You nearly frightened the life out of Lady Davenport!"
Gordon heard a faint snort of derision. A moment later, it was Lady Davenport's turn to start shivering uncontrollably. Her husband's face turned a dangerous shade of purple, a sign that he was about to fly into one of his famous rages. "What the BLUE BLAZES," he roared, "is going ON?!"
Victor shut the panelled door with a little more force than was necessary. Edith knew that her skills in diplomacy and tact were about to come in handy. Gordon was fairly sure that life in this particular manor house would never be quite the same again.
The ghosts of Mellingford Hall were home at last.
Chapter 48
Keeping It Quiet
“Well,” said Victor, as they opened the front door to their holiday cottage some two hours later. “A very interesting holiday this is turning out to be.” He had tried to persuade the chauffeur to drop them off in the main road at the turning into Hob’s Lane; but no, the good fellow had insisted on bringing them right to their gate. The Bentley had excellent wing mirrors, he had explained. It would be no trouble to reverse all the way back to the road.
“It was so nice of Hermione to say that had they not had that prior engagement, they would have been delighted to have us join them for supper.” Edith said. “It was practically an invitation. I think you can put that flagstone back, Victor. There’s a real draught coming out of that hole.”
“His Lord and Ladyship are going to be feeling the occasional draught from now on,” Victor grunted. He lowered the flag and put the small stone back over the iron ring. “Still, you weren’t wrong about the benefits this could bring them. I thought Hugo picked up on that straight away.”
Edith was putting the kettle on. Her Ladyship’s herbal detox had made a refreshing change, but now she was ready for a real cup of Tetley’s. She was also looking forward to half an hour’s total relaxation in their spook-free holiday cottage. They’d have their soup and sandwiches after that. She came back into the living room while the kettle got its act together. “Imagine them still being the owners of this cottage as well! That was a stroke of luck for them.”
“Wouldn’t have been easy to sell, in any case,” Victor suggested, “the kind of reputation it had earned for itself. Easier to let an agent handle it and get some income from holiday lets.”
“And who was the star of the show?” Edith said proudly. She beamed at Gordon. “They really took a shine to you, Gordon.”
“I’m glad they’re going to give those remains a proper funeral,” Gordon said, “and lay them together in the family vault.”
“That should help calm your sixteen-greats-grandmother down a bit,” Edith agreed. “It isn’t the present family’s fault, after all. You can’t blame them for what happened all those years ago.”
“I think Hugo was rather hoping you’d explain that to them,” Victor told Gordon. “Being reliably haunted may be good for business, especially when you throw in a secret tunnel and a priest hole.”
“And a spooky little cottage in Hob’s Lane,” Edith added, looking around with a smile, “but having a couple of poltergeists trashing the ancestral pile could be a bit of an inconvenience.”
“We need to be careful about the publicity fallout from this,” Zack warned Gordon. “You don’t want the local paper going on about an eleven-year old psychic on speaking terms with his ancestors. There’d be a queue of people wanting you to get in touch with their dearly departed. And think of all the haunted houses you’d get invited to! You’d be on television in no time. Then goodbye life as we know it.”
“Dad, could we play down my part in all this?” Gordon asked. “If the papers get hold of the story, it could interfere with our lives. I don’t want people thinking I’m a weirdo.”
“He’s right, Victor,” Edith called back from the kitchen. She poured the boiling water into two mugs and got the freshly squeezed orange juice out of the fridge for Gordon. “We’d get invited on to talk shows and all sorts.” She brought the drinks into the living room.
“Fair point,” Victor admitted. “We’ll get our story straight about finding the mirrors. We’ll say we stumbled across the tunnel entrance from this end. The experts can get the rest from what Edmund wrote before he shot himself.” He took an appreciative sip of his tea. “There must be something in historical and family records about the disappearance of an Edmund Davenport. There may even be a record of a witch-burning on the Green in the seventeenth century.”
“It does feel different in here, doesn’t it?” Edith asked. She received three affirmative nods, though of course she only saw two of them. “I think it’s just us now.”
“You’re right Mum,” Gordon said. “Just us now.”
“No ghosts,” his dad added.
“And only one attendant spirit,” Gordon beamed.
“On your bike,” said Zack, good-naturedly.
NOTES
HERBAL DETOX; PILE
Chapter 49
The Key To Mabon’s Cairn
Zack was on a ZX 750 F Turbo. It was nippy - 0-60 in around 3.3 seconds - and exceptionally stable round a tight bend. Gordon had gone for the superior straight-line speed of the GSX1300R Hayabusa. It would have been a handful for anyone, let alone a boy of a little less than average size in the final throes of his eleventh year.
They’d tested the brooms fairly thoroughly beforehand. Zack had darted hither and thither, while Gordon zoomed impressively high above the village. Gordon got to the old church tower first, but his turning circle was quite a lot wider than Zack’s. The full moon bathed the great clock face in a silvery glow. The ancient bell tolled twelve.
“’Tis now the very witching time of night,” Zack beamed to Gordon, “When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.”
“That’s a bit dark, Professor,” Gordon commented, “but it will have to do.” He was in thumpin’-good-young-wizard mode. “Time to pay our house call.”
They whizzed up the hill and circled the towers of Mel
lingford Hall. Riding the cool night air some fifty feet above the highest turret, Gordon clearly detected psychic energy pulsating on the other side of the drawing-room windows. It signalled the presence of supernatural forces. They swooped down.
“We’ll park here,” Gordon decided. “The Roman road approach I think.” They dismounted, lifted their right arms and passed through the mullioned windows like mottled smoke, rematerialising on a polished hardwood floor.
“Edmund!” cried his sixteen-greats-grandmother. She was in the act of raising a ghostly cup of steaming tea to her lips. Her little finger was crooked safely away from the bone china.
“Yes, M’Dear?” said her husband. He lowered a foaming tankard of the local ale and wiped the froth from his moustache.
“No, not you, Edmund, Edmund Minor. Our son has come to visit us in our new abode.” She waved the tea cup grandly to indicate the immensity and elegance of their surroundings. The heating bill was none of her concern. “I told you he had the power. Come, child and embrace your mother.”
“Well met indeed, M’Boy,” said Edmund Senior. He rose gravely and held out his hand while glancing questioningly at Zack. “This your djinn, is it? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Gordon shook the hand. “This is my Alter-Ego, Zack,” Gordon said. “Zack, this is my – er - my father, Edmund Davenport.”
Zack and Edmund Senior bowed formally to each other. Gordon gave his spirit-mother the required hug and kiss on the cheek. She smelt faintly of mothballs and Lily of the Valley. That seemed rather odd; but then, rather odd things do occur quite frequently in dreams.
Seated in an adjoining armchair was a headless nobleman from an even earlier period of history. He put his tankard on to an adjacent surface and rose grandly to his feet. His head was tucked in the crook of his arm, its eyes informing his limbs which way to move. “Well met, i’faith!” he declared in a manly, military voice very like that of Brian Blessed in the Kenneth Branagh version of Henry V. “Sir Roger de Daveneport, beheaded in battle during the Wars of the Roses.” Snatching up his tankard again, he raised it to the House of Lancaster and damned the upstart Yorkists to the Eternal Pit of Fire. “Richard of York gave battle in vain!”
He took an appreciative swig of ale. “Damn fine drop, this,” he remarked. “They should name it after me. ‘Daveneport Ale’, what say you?”
Gordon bowed to the noble knight, then turned again to his Spirit Mother. “I also came to crave a humble boon,” he explained.
His SGGm was smoothing out the creases in her fine gown. It flowed to the floor around her. “A humble boon, you say?”
“Much time has passed in the material world,” Gordon explained. “The Davenports now living in this house ask most respectfully that you do not blame them for the sins of those long dead.”
“That is just,” his pensive forebear replied slowly, “though should that wicked old fool of a father to Edmund ever see fit to come back and haunt the place, he will have me to deal with.” She was visibly pleased with this show of humility from the currently extant Davenports. Gordon had thought she would be; that’s why he’d added it.
“The present Lord and Lady Davenport,” he went on, “are doing everything they can to preserve Mellingford Hall for posterity, and therefore,” it occurred to him, “for – er …” There had to be a word. He looked to Zack for guidance.
“For anteriority, young master?” Zack suggested.
“Exactly,” Gordon said, “for anteriority. It would help enormously if you could manage a little gentle haunting now and again.” He thought he should explain. “Ghosts are very popular with the visiting public. The occasional manifestation would boost the revenues and preserve the house in all its dimensions.”
“Splendid,” his SGGm agreed. “A trifling involvement with the hoi polloi passing through. It could prove amusing. What say you Edmund?”
Edmund Senior drained his tankard. “Capital notion, M’Dear. Tally ho! A charge through the main hall and up and down the stairs. Might even persuade Sir Roger here to put in the occasional canter.”
“Thought you’d never ask!” Sir Roger exclaimed, slamming his tankard down. “The old ‘headless hunt’ routine usually goes down well. Straight over the rails on Old Bess, and out through the damn window!”
“Thank you very much” Gordon said, bowing to them. “I’m sure you will do wonders for the place.”
His SGGm put down her cup and stood up, her manner suddenly grave. “It may be that my spirit has prevailed in this dimension for one task alone,” she told him. “It is my destiny now to confer a great honour upon you, my son. Approach and kneel.” Gordon gazed wonderingly at Zack, who nodded encouragement. Knowing Gordon, the dream was about to take an interesting turn.
Gordon knelt. His ancestor raised her left arm and the sleeve of her dress slid back. His eyes were drawn to a milk white ring on the third finger of her left hand. Gently, she slid it off, and let it lie in the palm of her right hand.
“The gifts you have, you got through me,” she told him gravely. “I give you now this key to Mabon’s Cairn. There is none other.” She slid the ring on to Gordon’s finger. To his surprise, it fitted perfectly. “It can only be worn by one of Aisling blood, an Archwizard. It fits the finger of the one to whom it is freely given, and cannot be removed by mortal hand. You will use it to gain entry to his cairn, and take possession of the Tara Torque.”
Gordon’s head was swimming. “I don’t understand,” he exclaimed. “Who is ‘Mabon’? Where is his ‘cairn’? What is the ‘Tara Torque’?”
Zack gazed in wonder as this scene played out between Spirit-Mother and Dream-Son. A thought had just occurred to him. Gordon’s material world SGGm cum spirit-world God-Mother smiled gently. She sat down again and patted a chair beside her.
“Sit child,” she said, “and you, Spirit, attend thee well. I have a story to tell.”
NOTES
HAYABUSA; CONTAGION TO THIS WORLD; MULLIONED WINDOWS; DJINN; ALTER-EGO; MOTHBALLS AND LILY OF THE VALLEY; ANACHRONISM; RATHER ODD THINGS DO OCCUR QUITE FREQUENTLY IN DREAMS; CRAVE A BOON; THE WARS OF THE ROSES; RICHARD OF YORK; POSTERITY; ANTERIORITY; HOI POLLOI
Chapter 50
A Wizard Of Dreams
Mabon dwells in the Land of Gods on the other side of Time. To the lucky few who know him, he remains forever young. He loads the vines each autumn with young wine, as they wind around the aging trellises.” A dreamy look crossed her face. “He bends the mossy orchard trees with fruit, and fills our world with ripeness to the core. Mabon it was whom once I served in life, and honour now in death. He gave me that ring.”
She pointed to Gordon’s hand. The ring was no longer visible. It had ripened on his skin and blended into his finger. Gordon heard Zack take in a sharp breath and knew he was surprising him again. He was surprising himself, if truth be told.
“He did not choose to save me from the stake,” his SGGm went on, “as Yahweh left his Son upon that cross. Mortals may ask, can guess, but cannot know the reasons why.” She smiled sadly at Gordon. “But you, my son, I sense possess a power much greater than mine. You will learn what gifts that ring will lend you in the course of time.”
Her hand, now bare, stroked his face gently. “My Aisling wizard, yet but young in deed,” she murmured.
“I don’t know what “Aisling” means,” Gordon confessed.
“‘Dream’ is the nearest one-word in the language you now speak,” she told him, “though it falls short of all that “Aisling” means.” He could tell from her tone that she was telling him something of the utmost importance. “An Aisling wizard finds and tames wild things that wander through the tangled world of dreams. He travels in the wonderland of wishing. He goes wherever truth has found a cunning place to hide.”
“I see,” said Gordon. By “I see” he meant ‘I see as through a glass, darkly’. A wizard of dreams and schemes; he decided he could live with that. “And what is the “Tara Torque”?
“Tara,” his spirit-mother informed him gravely, “is the sacred place in Éire where the High Kings were crowned in ancient times. The Big Stone of Fál – The 'Lia Fáil' - still stands there, on that mound.” Her spirit seemed to drift on ancient winds that blew through lands forlorn in fairy times. She came back to earth with an effort.
“This world is ours now. We define and dream it,” she told Gordon. “It was not always so. There was a time of different hopes and dreams.” She spoke as if she could remember it. “In such a time the Pobel Vean placed a sacred torque in a rath below that mound. Its force was felt far later by the humans who first found the land.”
How long ago was that?
“That is why they chose that place to crown their kings, and why they dragged the Lia Fáil to stand upon that ground.” She noticed the confusion on Gordon’s face. “Ask your questions, child,” she said gently.
“Who were the Pobel Vean?”
“You had better ask who ARE the Pobel Vean? The words mean ‘Little People’ in the Old Tongue. These lands were theirs before the humans came.”
How much he had to learn.
“They are here still, and may still be seen by those with the gift of seeing. You will have come across them in your dreams, and called them fairies.”
Gordon’s eyes widened. How could she have known that? He glanced at Zack who gave a little shake of his head. Never mind that now; ask your questions.
“What is a 'rath'?”
“A rath is a circle in the earth,” she told him: “a space made round by rocks. Such places were sacred to all fairies. To this day people do not disturb them. The rath of which I speak is now buried deep beneath the Hill of Tara.”
Gordon nodded slowly. Things were becoming clearer. Ireland belonged to the fairies, millennia ago. Tara was a sacred place where the fairies buried magic things. He asked his final question, which turned into two questions rolled into one. “What is a torque, and why is this one sacred?”