The Girl and the Guardian

  Long minutes passed as I stood in the freezing darkness, afraid to move for fear they would hear me, not wanting to think about the possibility that I would never get out, and thinking over and over, ‘The Vicar, the Vicar knows I’m here, he’ll be back.’ But gradually, as the minutes passed, it began to occur to me that he could have been killed, or he could have been in league with them, the Athmadites. I was sure it was they who had approached, before the tree closed. They would come with axes and chainsaws and cut their way in, and shoot me like a trapped pig in a pit. Or worse, torture me, and use this treasure, the Key, possessing unknown powers, for evil ends. ‘They must not get the Ouvron…’ I thought, gripping it in my cold yet sweaty hands.

  ‘The French word, ouvrir, to open!’ I muttered, a sudden hope rising within. ‘Could this Ouvron literally be a kind of key, to another place – from here? The knight came out of this tree – from where? Perhaps there’s a tunnel!’

  I held the medallion in my fingers and raised it with both hands to my blind face, rubbing it with my thumbs, feeling the contours, imagining the silver getting shinier and shinier. I smelt the amber, a fresh, wonderfully rich smell which reminded me of pine needles and forests in sunlight. Slowly a strange feeling began to come over me, as if my mind’s eye was being opened to another kind of sight. The Ouvron began to gleam with a golden light – or was that just because I was staring at it in the dark so intently? The amber island and the sea surrounding it were definitely glowing now. I felt that the Ouvron could help me, somehow, somehow… Then I saw a tunnel of light open up like a torch-beam from the glowing disk, and at the end of the beam was a white horse in a peaceful green field, calling to me without words. I yearned to step into that place, but I was afraid. It was not of this Earth, I felt sure… Then the entrancing vision began to fade, and in its place I saw something far more pedestrian: my bicycle, leaning against the fence where I had left it!

  I stepped toward the bicycle, as if in a dream. There was a crackling sound and a slight smell of ozone (I thought), and branching tunnels of pure, empty blackness seemed to open around me for a second, obscuring the bicycle. Another fearful step into the unknown, and then bliss! I was blinking in the blessed morning light. I was out of the tree, out of the churchyard, standing in the street outside the church where I had parked my bicycle, a little down from the gates. I looked for the white horse, half expecting to see it, but of course it was not there. I reached shakily for the handlebars and pocketed the Ouvron, which was now quite warm, almost hot, as if it had been a channel for some power, not electrical but – the thought crossed my mind – of black magic. I had not liked the feeling of the black cracks in the air. And the pentacle troubled me.

  Just then I noticed the big grey car parked right by the gates of the churchyard. Two tall men wearing grey suits were getting into it. The chill in my spine told me they were the ones who had approached the yew tree moments before when I was still trapped in it. Forgetting my rucksack by the tree, and the Vicar, I took off down the lane in the opposite direction, pedalling hard in top gear, fumbling for the gear change. I was unsure whether I would be followed, part of me already believing I had been hallucinating the whole thing, but I was afraid to turn and look.

  ‘Perhaps it was the mushrooms this morning, or the rye bread,’ I muttered. I had read of witches who ate rye mould to hallucinate. And of the effects of the ‘magic mushrooms’ that the Gypsies and punks collect in the woods… ‘Who knows, maybe the landlady took a dislike to me and poisoned me with mushrooms? But wait a minute, there’s the Ouvron. I’ve got a ruddy great silver artefact to prove it! If that’s real, the whole thing is real. Can’t stop just yet though…’

  And if the medallion was in my pocket, I reflected, my safe little World would have been turned upside down forever… Why had I meddled in this stuff? For once I sympathised with my father’s fear of the abnormal and the unknown. I wondered if I was suffering a relapse of the mysterious delusions that had left me with no memories of my childhood. My head was beginning to pound. I needed a strong cup of tea.

  I pedalled madly on for a while, round the next bend, then the next, and finally careered off the lane into some bushes, where I would be hidden from the road. Breathlessly I rummaged through my pockets (which contained, as usual for me, an assortment of ‘just in case’ items)… Pocket-knife yes, handkerchief yes, wad of tracing paper yes, string yes, pencil yes, oh no! Was that a hole? Nothing in that pocket. Then I remembered, when distracted I often put things automatically into my back pocket… digging deep, my fingers felt something round, grasped it. I lifted it up into the light of day, and I knew then that my life would never be the same. Mystery lay thick around me in the sleepy countryside, as I silently prayed to whatever higher power gives meaning to the universe, makes sense of it. I felt the power of nature all around me. The sky began to show patches of blue, and the sun came out. The silver medallion lay in my hand, warm now, and beautiful; strangely, glowingly beautiful. Nothing else happened; no visions, no instantaneous transportations. But the sense of its power remained strong, exhilarating me, reassuring me that I was still sane – and yet unsettling me, as if I was walking on thin ice, and the very fabric of the universe might somehow tear – as indeed it apparently had when I stepped into the medallion’s beam.

  After perusing the images on the Ouvron for a few minutes, trying in vain to see some connection with any known civilisation, I carefully wrapped the alarmingly alien treasure in my handkerchief, pocketed it again, and cycled somewhat shakily back to the inn, where I ordered a pot of tea. Then I phoned the vicarage to see if the Vicar had returned to the tree, and to reassure him that I was safe and well. Sure enough, a now-familiar voice answered, sounding worried. ‘I was about to call the police and the fire department to try and get you out, but I put it off, not wanting any publicity: I had seen two suspicious-looking gentlemen snooping round the churchyard. They had well-tailored grey suits - French maybe, or Italian. I asked them if I could help. They asked, in impeccable English - too impeccable, I thought - if I had seen a “friend” of theirs. I told them no, as I didn’t like the look – or the ‘feel’ – of them one bit. They excused themselves stiffly and left.’

  ‘This must have been just when I came out of the tree and found myself at my bicycle,’ I replied, shaken.

  ‘What say you come over to the vicarage as soon as you can, and we’ll talk some more, and have a nice cup of tea with my wife and me. But keep Mary out of this, just in case, you know?’’

  We met later that day and we had tea, and his wife plied us with hot buttered scones with home-made strawberry jam. I told him my phone number and address. He told me that I could stop calling him Vicar, that his name was Stephen Prebble. Then Mrs Prebble told me a little of the family history on both sides, and a lot about their grown-up children. I felt warmed by their company, reassured by the homely ‘ordinariness’ of the surroundings, and very much at ease, which is unusual for me. We did not discuss the strange events at the churchyard in front of Mary, but later in the privacy of his study, we returned to the subject. Certain by this time that the Vicar could be trusted, I showed him the Ouvron and told him of my remarkable escape from under the yew tree.

  ‘I wonder if I hallucinated with the stress and then somehow used the medallion as a key to open a door to a tunnel that led out of the tree?’ I ventured, but the Vicar said, ‘No, I’m sure that’s not it. There is magic at work here – or something unknown to terrestrial science! It is, I believe, the Ouvron of the Templar Knight who appeared to Annora. Remember the knight’s warning: that it is perilous! Keep it safe, and if I were you I’d tell no one else about it just yet. Those men in suits knew something, I’m sure. They will be back, I fear. I won’t tell you all I suspect now but, if they belong to the Order I am thinking of, if that is still active in the World, and if they know about the yew tree…’ He crossed himself, and continued, ‘We must be prepared for the worst. But hopefully, they didn’t actually see you and
have no idea that you have found… what you have found.’

  ‘What is it, do you think, Father? Where does it come from, and is it, well, you know… kosher? What with the pentacle and so on…’

  ‘Well, ‘kosher’ is not quite the word to use from a Christian point of view,’ he smiled. ‘But yes, I think so – Annora was not one to be deceived by Satanists! And, you know, the pentacle is found in the apple, if you cut it crosswise. And the apple tree was the Tree of Life to our Celtic forefathers – hardly a bad origin.’

  We agreed that I should very cautiously investigate the medallion’s history and powers further. I took the copy of the diary of Annora the Anchoress which the Vicar had been given to study. As we parted I was sure we would meet again. His parting words at his front gate were ‘Bless you, my son. Take care. Remember, “Your adversary the Devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” But Mother Earth is with you in this Quest. Do not fear the sign of her apple! Learn all you can of Eden – remember the words of the knight: “The gates of Eden once more shall be seen.” There’s a wonderful mystery for you to solve: seek it out, for all our sakes.’ He shook my hand warmly, and went back indoors. That was the last time I ever saw him.

  Back safely at my ‘digs’ in Oxford, sitting once more at my old oak desk, so familiar and comforting, I pondered the polished silver Ouvron before me (remarkablly, it had hardly tarnished after eight hundred years), in the light of what I had read. All the clues seemed to lead to that place of mystery and power, Chartres cathedral, and I felt sure that I needed to go back there, with the Ouvron, and (despite the Knight’s warning of peril and my own unease at the black crackling) use it to seek for some opening, this time not merely to a nearby location, but a portal to another dimension or time or World, one where Eden, the mythic garden paradise spoken of in Genesis, perhaps still existed. Courage I needed, but my professional curiosity (and pride) made up for much of my timidity, at least most of the time. And when I held the Ouvron, it was as if an assurance that was not my own came into my heart and my thinking. I did not yet take seriously the Vicar’s concern that I might be followed.

  So it was that I booked a ticket for France (one-way: after all, I did not know where I might end up after Chartres), using the last of my study grant. No one to answer to (my PhD supervisor did not count; I hardly saw him from one week to the next), no dependants, no itinerary; and hopefully, no one following me. Of course, I had to postpone some tutorials with the few students to whom I taught medieval history, telling them I was taking a short research break, but they were only too glad of the reprieve, being behind in their other studies – essays and reading papers; the usual. One of the more serious students (though she did tend to wear rather loud clothes), wished me luck and asked what I would be doing over in France, and I was somewhat flattered at this display of personal interest, but managed to be suitably vague – though I did, I think, mention Chartres.