Pel scanned the rough grass of the graveyard with those orange paint marks forming the outline of a vast wheel. ‘So how did this place work? What was it for?’
Kerry hugged herself. ‘Think prehistoric Vatican. A place where ancient people travelled to from all over Europe. They came here to worship and to perhaps seek a magic cure for illness.’
‘See those radiating lines?’ Nat asked. ‘How they converge on the most intensely sacred centre of the temple area? Those will be spirit roads along which not just mortals would walk. Those are the highways of the gods … and for the ghosts of the dead. They’d approach the holy epicentre along those from all points of the compass. The area within the rim of the wheel shape would be a meeting place of heaven and earth. Once inside here, the ancients believed you could talk to your gods. The living might bring presents for dead ancestors and meet them face to face.’
Kerry added, ‘Think of it also as an occult savings bank. The spirits of the dead could be summoned, then – through sacred ritual – be joined with the ground here. That is, the ghost would be embedded into the earth.’
Pel’s flesh tingled. ‘You mean the place where the mausoleum sits is a kind of anchor? It anchors ghosts to this world?’
Nat grinned. ‘Yup, to stop them flying off. It would make this place supernaturally strong. Where the sick would be miraculously healed. It might also have been used to imprison evil spirits.’
Pel’s voice rose. ‘But that’s what Mr Murrain has been saying. He told me this morning that the ghost of his ancestor, Justice Murrain, is embedded in the mosaic. It holds him captive.’
Nat sighed. ‘Something which he clearly believes. And if we believed in such things as malicious spooks, and troublesome phantoms, this is the time to get really, really worried.’
‘Why?’
Nat showed her the print-out that revealed a shadowy line that encircled the site … or nearly encircled the site. ‘The ancients created a mechanism here, or so they believed. It was a machine built from mounds, ditches, standing stones and timber posts. Just like a computer processes information, so this temple processed beings from the spirit world.’
Pel began to see a pattern in the plan’s blotches. ‘But a quarter of it has already fallen into the sea.’
‘Exactly,’ Kerry affirmed. ‘A whole section of rim has gone, along with parts of the spokes – the spirit roads.’
‘So the machine is literally falling apart,’ Nat told her. ‘The ancient people who worshipped here would be frightened if they’d known this was going to happen. They’d realize it wouldn’t function properly.’ As a cold wind sighed from the sea Nat gave an expressive shrug. ‘If Murrain shares the same belief, he’ll be convinced that his ancestor’s ghost is already starting to break free.’
Cloud looming over them suddenly made the world a gloomier place. Chill fingers of air touched Pel’s face. When she looked up the slope she saw a darkly clad figure standing against a line of bushes. At that moment, she didn’t know whether she was looking at Mr Jacob Murrain. Or someone else who resembled him. When she looked again the man had gone.
5
‘JOE, I DARE you.’
‘I’m not scared.’
‘You are.’ The older boy made chicken sounds. ‘Scared – pant-filler scared.’
‘I’m not. It’s just stupid. I mean, what’s the point?’
‘Everyone says, you’re a coward, Joe, prove that you’re not.’
The girl said, ‘Don’t listen to him, Joe. We came up here for a bike ride, not to mess about on the edge of the cliff.’
The older boy made chicken sounds again. There was no humour in it; he was being mean.
‘Stop it, Neil. And leave Joe alone, or we’re going back into town.’
‘So you’re taking orders from a girl now, Joe? Jelly belly.’
A teacher assessment day meant they’d got a day off school. Everyone had heard about the church falling into the sea, so crowds had come up to see it for themselves. Of course, with the church, or rather the rubble from it, lying in the surf, there was nothing interesting to see now the actual collapsing part was over. The three – Neil and Bethany, aged fourteen, and Joe, thirteen – had cycled round the lanes hunting for excitement. They’d briefly paused to watch the archeologists. There were holes in the grounds. A couple of people sieved earth through a mesh. A guy with a metal detector had been scanning the ground. A pair of women had been painting orange marks on the grass.
‘Boring.’ Neil had declared.
Joe wouldn’t have minded staying a little longer. He’d planned to ask if he could see the finds table. He’d done that before and been rewarded with the chance to hold a medieval spearhead. There’d also been a dozen Roman coins. It had given him a buzz to touch money that had been used to buy stuff like wine, cloaks and swords centuries ago. The archeologists had been happy to chat with Joe, once they realized he had a genuine interest in the excavation. One had held up the smallest coin: it bore the picture of Poseidon, god of the ocean. The man had smiled. ‘Two thousand years ago this would have bought you a cooked mouse. The people round here used to jab a stick through the head of the mouse, roast it over a fire, then eat it like a lollipop.’
A second archeologist had added drily, ‘The mouse would have been flavoured with honey. Which is infinitely better food than they give us here on site.’
Unlike Joe, Neil wouldn’t stick around to watch the excavation. He longed for the kick danger would give him. Then Neil got a juicy thrill from smashing windows. Sometimes he let down car tyres, then laughed when their owners stood scratching their heads, no doubt wondering if they’d got a puncture. So, Neil being the eternal risk-taker, suggested they cycle down to the cliff.
‘Toby Lomax told me about this,’ he said, as he laid his bike down on the grass. ‘Now watch me. ’Cos you’re both going to do it.’
Neil approached the edge of the cliff.
Joe’s stomach muscles clutched tight. ‘Careful. There’s a fifty foot drop here.’
‘I’m not scared.’
‘Don’t come running to us if you break your legs,’ Bethany quipped.
‘It’ll be more than broken legs,’ Joe warned, ‘you’ll bust like an egg.’
‘Shut up, jelly belly.’ Neil knelt at the edge of the cliff, so he could see the yellow sand fifty feet below.
Yeah, Neil, you’re not brave, Joe told himself. What you’ve got is a lack of imagination. You can’t picture yourself dropping over the edge like a lump of dirt. Then hitting the beach so hard you break every bone in your body. Joe closed his eyes for a second. In perfectly sharp detail he could picture annoying Neil Chambers toppling over. He’d scream for his ‘Mammy’ as his legs kicked the air on the way down. Splat!
Joe was imaginative. He could imagine the ancient Roman invaders living in their villas up here. He was intelligent, too. This week the kids had been getting excitable at school. Suddenly, there’d been lots more fights. There’d been trouble in class. Kids had been fidgety. Joe had noticed birds had started to migrate. The season had changed. The first frost of winter had appeared a couple of nights ago. Thousands of years ago humans used to migrate, like the birds still do. The urge to migrate is still in our genetic memories. Children have the instinct to move on to some other place. But because we have civilization we’ve stopped migrating, but the urge is still in our blood. When the seasons change that urge possesses us; it makes us restless. We’re no longer ourselves. History doesn’t just lie underground. It lies inside our minds, too. One day we will have psychological archeology.
Now, at the top of the cliff, which had all these cracks running back through the soil from where it was giving way, Neil planned some crude archeology of his own. Here they were screened by bushes from the archeologists in their trenches, but it was still within the precincts of the graveyard.
‘You’re mad, Neil Chambers,’ Bethany told him. ‘Don’t you know that right at the edge of cliffs you get an overhang where r
oots hold the soil together? If that gives way—’
‘Shut your spit flaps, Bethany. Now watch me.’ The youth lay flat on his stomach, then wormed toward the edge of the cliff until his head jutted over the edge. That done, he reached downward.
‘You’ll kill yourself,’ Joe warned.
‘I’ll kill you, jelly belly, if you don’t be quiet. Uh … I can feel ’em!’
‘What’ve you found?’ Bethany was interested now.
‘Ah, wouldn’t you like to know?’
Joe realized what it must be. ‘It’s the graves underground. The cliff’s dropped away.’
‘Bingo, jelly belly.’ Grinning, Neil brandished a pale object in his hand. ‘When you look down you can see bones jutting out from the cliff. It’s like cutting a cake in two and seeing the fruit inside.’
He flung the fragment of skeleton at Joe, striking him on the chest. When it fell on to the grass Joe recognized it as a piece of skull.
‘Those are human remains, Neil. It’s disrespectful to chuck ’em.’
‘Frightened, jelly belly? Scared the ghost will come along and twist your nuts.’
‘I’m going home.’ Bethany picked up her bike. ‘You’ve gone too far.’
Laughing, Neil pushed himself to his feet, then flung something resembling a stick. A child’s thighbone struck her cheek with enough force to make her cry out.
‘Hey!’ Joe shouted. ‘Stop that.’
‘Cry baby.’
‘You’re a bully,’ he said. ‘Whenever you get bored you start hurting people.’
‘Oooh, write it all down. I’ll read it the next time I’m on a long, boring bus ride.’
Joe picked up his bike, too.
‘Cowards,’ Neil jeered. ‘Show us you’ve got some guts, Joe. Get down here at the edge of the cliff and pull out some bones.’
‘Give it a rest,’ Bethany sighed. ‘We’re not interested.’
The wind blew harder. Dark fists of cloud punched the horizon. Surf hissed over the sands as the tide turned.
Neil snarled, ‘I’m sick of you sticking your nose in, Bethany. How’s about this, then? I’ll hold on to your legs as you reach over the cliff for the bones.’
‘No.’
‘Tough. I’m going to make you anyway. I hope you’ve got a head for heights.’ He grabbed the girl’s arm before she could pedal away.
‘Neil, stop it!’ Joe shouted.
‘Like you’re going to make me? Remember who made your mouth bleed last Christmas?’ He dragged Bethany, together with the bike, to the cliffedge.
‘Neil, let go!’ Fear snapped through the girl. By this time, they were ten feet from the sheer drop.
‘Stop it.’ Joe climbed off his bike.
‘Not a chance. She’s bone picking, like I did.’
‘Leave her alone.’ He ran to the youth.
But Neil shoved the smaller boy aside as if he was nothing more than a doll.
‘Stop it, Neil,’ Bethany pleaded. ‘You’ll let me fall.’
He chuckled. ‘Your family will leave flowers here if you’re killed. Then I’ll come up here and kick them over the edge, too.’
Joe saw he could do nothing to physically stop Neil forcing Bethany toward the cliff-edge. Instead words erupted from his lips. ‘Neil. I dare you to do something.’
‘What’s the point? You daren’t take risks.’
‘Yes, I will. Come with me?’
‘Where?’ The bully eyed Joe with suspicion.
‘The Ghost Monster. Watch me touch its face!’
‘You daren’t touch a teddy bear’s face, jelly belly.’
‘I dare you to touch it, too.’
‘That Ghost Monster dare’s for little kids.’
‘So you’re not coming with me?’
‘Nah.’
Joe made chicken clucks.
That incensed Neil. ‘OK.’ He let Bethany go. ‘I’m going to make sure you touch the Ghost Monster. If you don’t I’m going to beat you to crap.’
They were at the mausoleum in two minutes. The archeologists were using picks to attack a small area of ground near the cliff. They swarmed over it like ants, as if lives depended on digging the pit.
The three leaned their bikes against the brick structure then snuck round to where the iron grille protected the mosaic. The bars were easily wide enough to reach through. For a while, all three stared at the face, as it peered up out of the shadows. Joe found his gaze drawn to the grey eyes centred with pupils that possessed a wet, shiny slickness. Like real eyes, he told himself.
‘Hello, Mr Murrain,’ Bethany said.
Both boys saw how she’d turned away from the iron bars to look down the slope.
‘Idiot,’ Neil grunted. ‘Who are you talking to?’
‘I thought I saw Mr Murrain standing there by the graves.’ The girl appeared troubled. ‘I’m sure I did.’
Neil shrugged. ‘Bloody time of month.’
‘Touch the picture,’ Joe ordered.
‘You touch it.’
‘Remember the story?’ Bethany had turned back to the mosaic. ‘If you touched it, then the Devil would get you.’
‘Kid stuff,’ Neil uttered.
‘I dare, if you won’t.’ Slap! Joe’s palm smacked down into the centre of the Ghost Monster portrait. Its grey eyes peered out from either side of his fingers.
Neil pretended to be bored. ‘OK, jelly belly, I’ll touch it now, if it makes iddy-biddy boy happy.’
Joe didn’t move. He remained in a crouching position, arm extended through the bars, hand flat against the picture of Justice Murrain.
‘Shift out of the way, doofus.’ Neville tugged Joe’s hair.
The boy still did not move. Nor did he seem to feel the yank of his hair.
‘Can’t you hear me? Move your lard butt.’
No reply.
‘Shift.’ Neil jabbed his toe into Joe’s back. ‘Next time, I’ll give you a proper kick, then you’ll know about it.’
Joe crouched at the bars, staring at the face inside the mausoleum.
With sadistic pleasure Neil gave Joe a sharp kick. Joe didn’t even appear to register the blow, though it must have hurt.
‘Hey, stop that, Neil,’ Bethany protested.
The breeze carried a body of cold air from the sea. The grass flattened as if invisible feet marched through it.
Neil gave a menacing snarl. ‘If you don’t move, I’ll knock your teeth down your damn throat.’
Without turning, Joe murmured, ‘So, been watching your stepmother through the keyhole again? She makes merry with the sailor-men.’
Neil recoiled in astonishment.
Joe continued smoothly, ‘That performance excites you, doesn’t it? A regular horn-pipe of pleasure, uhm?’
‘Shut up.’
‘You love to peep through that keyhole.’
‘Joe. I’m warning you.’
‘Told your father, eh, boy?’
Joe still remained in the same position, crouching at the bars, his hand on the mosaic. The image’s grey eyes peered up out of the ground.
Bethany took a step back. Joe’s voice had altered. It had become much, much deeper. That, and the phrasing. As if someone uttered words that were unfamiliar.
‘I know what you crave, boy.’ Joe spoke with rich pleasure. ‘You long to use your father’s di-gi-tal camera. You promise yourself to cast images of your stepmother’s frolics on to a web … no, on to THE web … for all the world to see.’
With a roar Neil lunged at Joe. Clearly, he intended pounding the boy. However, Joe leapt to his feet. His expression had undergone a profound transformation. He leered at the bigger youth.
When Neil swung his fist, Joe easily swept the punch aside. Then he grabbed Neil by the hair and slammed his face against the iron bars. Bethany stared in horror.
Neil must have figured his skull colliding with the gate had been a pure accident. He flung a savage punch at Joe’s face. Once more the smaller boy smashed Neil’s head against th
e ironwork. This time the teen’s face turned bone-white as a river of red gushed down from his fringe.
Joe blinked. ‘Neil, what happened to you? How did you cut your head?’
Bethany stared in total shock.
He took a clean tissue from his pocket then held it out for Neil, so he could press it to the bloody cut. However, Neil, backed off. The youth was terrified of Joe. Awash with blood, Neil grabbed his bike then cycled away down the lane in sheer, blind panic.
Joe turned to Bethany. ‘What happened?’
At last, she broke eye-contact with him, then cycled away as fast as she could. Before she fled, however, she’d uttered these mystifying words as she pointed at the mosaic. ‘You were him!’
6
‘HURRY IT UP,’ Pel warned. ‘It’s starting to give way.’
Nat and Kerry tied the rope to the towing pin on the van. The other end of the rope had been secured to the slab of stone that covered the ancient tomb.
‘Nearly there,’ called Kerry. After checking the knot, she ran to the van to jump into the driver’s seat.
Nat wore a bitter expression. ‘This isn’t archeology, it’s criminality.’
‘The crack’s widening,’ Pel warned. ‘I can even see the beach through it.’
‘Just two more minutes, then we’ll lift the stone.’ Nat signalled Kerry to start the motor. ‘Take up the slack, but don’t pull yet.’ Then he motioned to the diggers who still sweated in the deep hole they’d dug on the cliff top. ‘Everyone out. Stay right back. If the rope snaps, it’ll take your face off.’
The team didn’t need telling twice. They backed off a good fifty feet or so.
Pel remained close, however. She had to be near enough to judge whether the section of cliff-top that contained the Iron Age tomb would fall into the sea. To distract herself she imagined describing her situation to friends back home in Providence. OK, picture this. I’m standing just three feet from the edge of the cliff. The beach is fifty feet below. In just two hours we’ve dug a hole ten feet deep to expose a tomb that’s more than 2000 years old. At any moment the entire thing could collapse. Fissures run from the cliff to the excavation pit. They’re opening wider by the minute. I can even hear the grass roots ripping as more cracks appear. This is a race against time. So, as a last ditch attempt to break open the grave, we’ve tied a rope to the stone that seals the tomb, the other end’s tied to a van. My boss is just about to tow it clear. The archeologists have to dive in, scoop out the contents, then vamoose. Or it’s certain death.