*
It was past four when the dig started to wind down for the day. I had decided to hide the rucksack under loose earth and go back for it later. As the crow flies, the route to our campsite cut straight through the stone circle, but we were not allowed that way. Instead, we had to go the long way round, through the fence and along a footpath at the side of the road. As I fell in to step beside Tori, a warm breeze tugged at my hair and found its way beneath my shirt, ungluing it from my sweaty back. A skylark was giving it large somewhere. It felt great walking with Tori, and knowing that we shared a secret. I was happy, but too scared to look to see how she felt about it.
We didn’t talk. I looked around at the meandering tourists, the fee payers inside the fence, and the freebies outside it. Cameras were snapping and whirring all over the place. I felt like a professional, an insider, not a tourist. I enjoyed the feeling as we trudged back to our campsite.
Tori’s eyes were lowered to the path. ‘Where’s your bag?’ she whispered.
‘I hid it. I’ll go back for it when it’s dark.’
We parted at a farm track running between the car park and our campsite. Some of the archaeologists had caravans and cars drawn up to a scrappy thorn hedge; the only bit of shade the field had to offer. One of these was the Morris family’s RV. Tori’s dad had parked it there for her. She could enjoy comparative comfort. I was sleeping under canvas like most of the other school kids and the younger members of the Bristol University crowd.
It would be some time before I could safely go back for my rucksack. Darkness comes late in June. I didn’t mind; we were having a good time. A bunch of us charred some burgers and drank something they call Scrumpy. It's traditional farmhouse cider. I guess it was illegal for us to drink it, but somebody had smuggled in a big flask of the stuff. I suppose if the professor had seen it, he'd have confiscated it, though in the nicest possible way.
As the evening wore on and the Bristol crowd returned from a local pub to pelt us good-naturedly with bags of peanuts and potato chips – crisps they call ‘em here. I took the opportunity to slip away. I grabbed my torch from my tent and set off for the forbidden short cut through the ancient stone circle. I quickly retrieved my rucksack from the trench and headed back.
That’s when it happened.
I found myself in a scrubby wilderness. The ancient stone circle had gone. There was nothing to show it had ever existed. Everything had vanished: the visitor centre, the two highways, our dig site – everything.
……..