Earthwhistle!
by
Carl B. Olsen
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Earthwhistle!
Copyright © 2011 Carl B. Olsen
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you.
Table of Contents
Chapter 8: The Ruins of Raktor
Chapter 18: One-eye's Betrayal
Chapter 22: Return of the White Stag
Earthwhistle!
The great
eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din
Of its loud
life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, The Garrison of Cape Ann
Although the following tale must be classified as fiction, much of it is true. Mysterious lights have long been reported at Shining Clough and Lantern Pike, as well as other places in England’s Peak District. Indeed, there are places on every continent associated with such lights.
The ‘Mass Trespass’ at Kinder Scout in 1932 really did happen, as did the mass civil disobedience to save the trees half a world away in 1993 that Meaghan’s mother participated in.
Meaghan’s description of the breathtaking scenery and teeming wildlife of Vancouver Island’s west coast is still true in many areas, though sadly, clear-cut logging has blighted much of this magnificent wilderness.
In Celtic and Arthurian legend, pure white fallow deer are associated with the Otherworld and questing. They actually exist, though as Arthur observes, nowadays they are very rare in the wild.
I have no comment on the portals in Edgestone Clough except to say that they’re far too cleverly concealed to ever be found.
There is more that is true in this tale as well, but I’ve admitted as much as I dare. You, the reader, must decide the rest.
Carl B. Olsen
The road to the Other World all ages can travel.
ANONYMOUS
Matt Cunningham flung open his bedroom door and clattered down the stairs like a prisoner trying to make a break.
“Matthew! How many times do I have to tell you?” his mother admonished. “You’re going to break your neck one of these days coming down the stairs like that!” Her expression softened. “Sorry, Matt. I’ve had a rough day at the café.”
Matt shrugged. “That’s okay. Don’t know how you can stand working there, to be honest, and then look what you have to come home to.” He glanced out of the window of the tiny kitchen at the endless stream of traffic. “It’s enough to get anybody down, living in this…this…” He caught himself, but when he turned back, he saw the hurt in his mother’s eyes.
Feeling guilty, he said, “I didn’t mean it, Mum. I’m just tired of it, that’s all. What I wouldn’t give to get away from Marlingdon for the rest of the summer, right away from London for that matter.”
“Did I tell you I’m thinking of selling the house and moving down to Cornwall?” His mother managed a little smile. “You know how I love the seaside.”
“Yes Mum, that’s great, but I was thinking about right now.”
Matt knew he wasn’t being reasonable, but he was tired of being reasonable. It had been two years since his dad, a linesman, had been electrocuted. In typical selfless fashion, he’d gone out as part of a volunteer crew in a particularly nasty storm to repair downed power lines. A flaw in the safety procedures, the inquest had concluded.
On the small pension from the utility company and his mother’s meagre wage there was little left after the necessities to pay for a trip. Unless…
“Maybe Uncle Ray and Auntie Cathy would have me and Mick for a few weeks. They should have a spare bedroom now that Kevin’s moved out.” Seeing his mother’s sharp intake of breath, he raced on, “I could pay our room and board with the money from my guitar. Delroy asked me just last week if he could buy it.”
He gave his mother an imploring look, and once again he saw the glimmer of hurt, now mixed with concern. He walked over to her and put his arms around her. They’d been through a lot together these last two years.
“It’s just that my lungs need a bit of a break from all the traffic for a while, Mum,” he said, and made himself cough to emphasize the point.
As he stood back his mother studied him, dropping anxious eyes from his pasty London face to his wiry, too-lean frame.
“Are you sure about this, Matt?”
“I’m sure, Mum. I just have to get away for a bit.”
His mother sighed. “I was afraid this was going to happen sooner or later.”
Matt straightened up to make himself look taller than his five and a half feet. “Hey, I know I don’t look it, but I’m almost fifteen now, remember?”
“Of course I do, dear, but I wasn’t thinking of that. Last week when I dropped in on Auntie Rose, her friend Eileen was there and she read my tea leaves. She said my son was going on a trip.”
“Not surprising, given the time of year. Was that all, then?”
“She said you were going to have an encounter with the Otherworld.”
“The Otherworld?” Matt wasn’t quite sure what the Otherworld was, but he knew he didn’t believe in it. “Okay, what kind of an encounter?”
“She wouldn’t say, but that’s just it, Matt. If it’d been good, she’d have told me, wouldn’t she? Oh, and she also said you should stay away from border areas.”
“No worries. Edgestone’s smack in the middle of nowhere,” Matt assured his mother as he headed for the front door. He was supposed to be at Mick’s place in five minutes. With any luck they’d finish their remote-control robot.
* * *
Matt took the Midland Mainline express train from St. Pancras station. When Auntie Cathy had told him she only had room for one, he’d almost decided not to go. Over the years he and Mick had fought each other’s playground battles, shared homework and had a mutual interest in electronics, so that now he thought of Mick as the brother he’d never had. But he’d felt an odd, insistent compulsion to go regardless. Besides, his Aunt wouldn’t hear of taking money for room and board, so the money from the guitar was his to spend, and he could stay for a couple of days or if he wanted, the full month until he had to return to school.
Uncle Ray was waiting for him at Sheffield Station. Matt recognized him right away, a small, wiry man with faded grey eyes and a sharp nose just like Matt’s father and Matt himself.
“You’ve grown since I last saw you,” Uncle Ray observed as he whisked him to the waiting car. “You’re a good looking kid, Matt. You’re looking more and more like your dad every time I see you. Need a bit of filling out though. Your Aunt’ll take care of that, no doubt. Still into electronics, are you? How’s your mother? Holding up all right, is she?”
The conversation continued in a similar one-sided manner, with occasional half-hearted interjections from Matt, as they left Sheffield behind on the Manchester Road. He wanted to tell his uncle that he would never be more than a shadow of his father, no matter how much he might look like him. That was something that even Mum didn’t seem to understand. She’d wanted him to wear Dad’s jacket, the brown leather one with the zippered pockets that his dad had worn for as long as he could remember. “It’s just hanging in the coat cupboard,” she’d said as if he didn’t know, but of course he couldn’t insult his father’s memory like that, so he’d told Mum it was too big, which was true. It would always be too big.
They turned onto a byroad, then another, threading in and out of the Peak District National Park boundary, until they arrived at the sleepy village of Edgestone.
Raymond and Catherine Cunningham lived in a gritstone cottage on a small cul-de-sac at the edge of the village. The aroma of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding wafted out to greet him as Auntie Cathy opened the door.
“Well, don’t just stand there, love, come on in.” Auntie Cathy ‘s warm eyes appraised him as she spoke. “Looks like you need some TLC. I’ll have you fattened up in no time. Come on, you must be famished.”
Little was said at the meal as Matt wolfed down two helpings of roast beef with all the trimmings followed by a generous serving of apple pudding.
“And that,” said Auntie Cathy, giving her head a little nod for emphasis, “is how we eat in the Peak District.”
“So where are these peaks, then?” Matt asked.
“There aren’t any, love, not really. Though there are rocky outcroppings—we call them edges—and it is pretty hilly. You’re in the Pennines, you know. Backbone of England.” Auntie Cathy drew her ample frame up to its full height in her chair to emphasize the point.
Not entirely clear on the matter, Matt decided he’d better leave it at that.
* * *
After dinner, Auntie Cathy showed Matt his room. He opened the window and looked out onto a small garden and beyond. In the mid-distance, snaking across the bleak, hilly moors, was a single empty road. On the far side, stark and out of place, a lone mansion peered fortress-like above a high wall, overshadowing the entrance to a steep, wooded valley. A gravel track emerged from the woods, cutting up the valley’s left flank and disappearing into a gash of exposed rock like a raw wound near the valley head. Peering at the gash, he could make out a cinderblock building behind a chain-link fence, and outside the fence, a barn-like structure. Atop the fence he could see a serpentine strand of razor wire, its blades glinting in the late-afternoon sun.
Auntie Cathy joined him at the window. “See that quarry at the top of Edgestone Clough?” She pronounced ‘clough’ to rhyme with ‘woof’, just as she pronounced ‘stuff’.
Matt nodded. “I was just looking at that.”
“That’s where the company your Uncle Ray worked for quarried gritstone. It was used to build all the houses round here.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Ray was sales manager, right up till they shut it down when they started to run into shale and limestone. We’re close to the border between the Dark Peak and White Peak here, you see. The White Peak’s the limestone area.”
“What’s them buildings for, then?” Matt asked. “And what’s with the razor wire? Why don’t they want anyone in there?”
Auntie Cathy scuttled from the room as if she’d just had an urgent call of nature. “Uncle Ray knows all about that stuff, love,” she called back. “Why don’t you join him when he goes for his evening constitutional. He’d love your company, I’m sure.”
* * *
Matt and Uncle Ray surveyed the desolate moor from the top of a small knoll, Uncle Ray puffing on his pipe.
“I had no idea there was still this much empty land in England,” Matt observed.
His uncle smiled. “Tucked in between Sheffield and Manchester, no less! That makes it pretty tough to farm in the Dark Peak, with all the acid rain and smog. Truth be told though, the Dark Peak never was that great for farming anyway, but that didn’t stop the early settlers from clearing the land. This was all forest a few thousand years ago. Now, as you can see, there are just a few woods left in some of the cloughs.”
“So what did people do here?”
“Quarrying, chiefly. They still do, though most of the quarries shut long ago. The few that are left just provide building stones, but the old quarries were once worked for millstones, too. You can still see them lying about in abandoned quarries or mounted on pedestals and used as boundary markers, like that one you may have noticed just outside Edgestone. They’re the symbol of the Peak District National Park.”
“So Edgestone’s in the Park?”
“Yes, just. The boundary’s Millstone Road. That’s the road that runs in front of Edgestone Clough.” Uncle Ray gave a wistful smile. “Where the quarry I used to work for is, least what’s left of it.”
“I know, Auntie Cathy told me. Tomorrow I thought I might go up there and check it out.”
Matt’s uncle looked at him with alarm. “No, you stay away from the clough. It’s private property, anyway. Belongs to Sir Roderick King. Got it all walled and fenced off. Sir Roderick’s brother Arthur lives on the property, too. Got a screw loose, if you ask me. Lives all alone in a funny little castle back in the woods. Even before it was fenced, the quarry workers used to stay out of the woods, you know. They used to say they saw…” He stopped.
“What did they see, then?” Matt pressed.
“Oh, nothing…nothing at all. It was all just superstition. Anyway,” his uncle raced on before Matt could protest, “the quarry’s mostly fenced off now, too. Razor wire and all. Sir Roderick just opened a pilot plant up there last year. He’s bought the patent on some sort of high tech plastic that’s supposed to be harder than steel. He’ll make a ton of money if he ever goes into full production, but now we’re hearing rumours there’s a problem with the manufacturing waste. You’d think he’d put his blooming factory in an industrial area, but no, it had to be right here for some unknown reason. We tried to oppose it but had to back off after Sir Roderick threatened to file a lawsuit.”
“This Sir Roderick threatened you and Auntie Cathy with a lawsuit?” Matt asked in disbelief.
“No, no, dear boy, the Peak Borders District Council over in Rundle. That’s just down the road from here, outside the park. I say ‘we’ ‘cause I’m on it.
“Sir Roderick blocked us every step of the way. He wouldn’t even let old Cyril, the health inspector, onto the property. Nasty business all round, but the Council’s solicitor advised us to back off. Said sometimes it’s best not to tangle with the aristocracy.
“Then again, sometimes it is.” Uncle Ray’s eyes lit up and he sucked his pipe back to life. “Take this empty moorland, Matt. Most of it’s owned by aristocrats. Back in 1932 people were thrown in jail—jail mind you—just for walking on a hill not too far from here, called Kinder Scout. ‘The Mass Trespass’ they called it. There was a terrible brou-ha-ha for a while, but eventually the government came to its senses long enough to see there are some rights more basic than private property rights, so they made the Peak District National Park.” He waved his arm in an expansive gesture. “The first and best National Park in all of Britain. It was all before I was born, of course, otherwise I’d have been right there with them. So you see, Matt, people can do just about anything if they have a mind to.”
Matt frowned. “Then how come you didn’t stop Sir Roderick from building his plastic factory in Edgestone Clough?”
“Good question.” Uncle Ray’s brow furrowed as he puffed on his pipe, and for a fleeting moment Matt fancied he could see the flinty linesman’s eyes of his father. He clenched his fists and swallowed hard to stop his eyes from watering. The call of a red grouse drift up from the valley, then a second from somewhere behind them.
At length Uncle Ray removed his pipe and squinted at Matt through the lingering blue haze. “Twenty years ago I would have stopped it somehow, but now I’m afraid I’m just getting too old and set in my ways to rock the boat any more than I already have. You’ve got to understand that it would take drastic action to stop it now, and with Cathy to think of and all…” His voice trailed off and they sat in silence as the sun sank behind the far ridge.
* * *
Uncle Ray glanced at his watch. “Good heavens! Where has the time gone? I had no idea it was so late. Asking me too many questions, you were. Come on, we’d better get moving. Don’t want to be caught on the moor in the dark.”
They hurried back over the moor in the gathering gloom, a full moon on the horizon. As they neared the road, Matt had a creepy sense they were being followed. Glancing back, he saw two pale blue lights about two hundred yards behind them.
“Look, Uncle,” he said, pointing. “Someone must be lost.” But even as he said the words, one of the lights darted to the right and back and the other shot straight up and disappeared, only to reappear to the left, where it began to pulsate.
Uncle Ray’s eyes widened. “Let’s go, Matt!”
“But what about…”
“Spook lights. For Pete’s sake hurry. Auntie Cathy’ll be having a fit.”
“Spook lights?”
“Spirits of the dead,” Uncle Ray rasped as he strode across the field ahead of Matt. “Least that’s what the old-timers say. Silly superstition, of course, but it’s not that unusual to see them out on the Dark Peak moors at night.”
“No kidding!” Matt exclaimed, as he struggled to keep up.
“Absolutely. There’s even places named after them. Shining Clough, Lantern Pike out near Hayfield…”
Matt broke into a jog. “You’re scared of them, aren’t you, Uncle?”
His uncle bristled. “Me, scared of a little will-o’-the-wisp? No, of course not.”
“Let’s go check ‘em out, then,” Matt urged with fake enthusiasm.
“Saints alive, no!” Uncle Ray answered far too quickly. “Look, your Auntie Cathy’ll be calling the Ranger Service if we don’t get back soon. I left the mobile in the car.”
As they approached the house, Uncle Ray restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you go mentioning nothing about spook lights to your Aunt, now. Understand me?”
* * *
When Uncle Ray was somewhat less than successful explaining why they were so late, Matt decided it was time for bed.
Before he pulled the curtains shut, he took a last look at the forbidding mansion in the moonlight. For a moment he could almost swear he saw something that looked very much like lightning flickering in the old quarry.
Tomorrow, he resolved, he’d explore the clough.
What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger
Is woman!
LORD BYRON, Don Juan
Auntie Cathy had left early to visit her ailing mother in Leeds for a fortnight. Never one to pass up an opportunity, it was easy for Matt to convince Uncle Ray to allow him to go on a camping trip. Almost too easy, Matt reflected—Uncle Ray had even loaned him his mountain bike and camping gear.
The chain slipped over the sprockets with ease as Matt tested the gears on a flat stretch of road. The bike felt as if it were made for him. He hadn’t even needed to adjust the seat. Sure, the straps of his uncle’s rucksack could do with some fiddling, but that could wait till he got into Edgestone village and bought some supplies. From there he’d ride to Edgestone Clough, and later he’d head down to Froggat for no particular reason other than he liked the sound of the name, to look for a place to set up his tent.
He found a small grocery on Priory Street, the only business in town other than the Mason’s Arms. After locking his uncle’s bike to a lamppost he entered the shop, causing a little bell to jingle. He was the only customer. Walking around the shop, he found a tube of toothpaste, soap and an opener, then decided he’d better pick up a roll of toilet paper. He circuited the aisles again, scanning the shelves without success, but decided he’d happily die rather than ask the large, frizzy-haired woman eying him from behind the counter as she chewed gum with her mouth half open. Doing yet another circuit, he saw two rolls on the bottom shelf, half hidden behind the paper towels.
He picked up one of the rolls, then dropped it back in place like a hot potato as the door-bell jingled and he heard somebody enter the shop. Silently berating himself for his foolishness, he picked it up again and took it along with his other supplies to the cash register. A cooler slammed shut, and with a furtive glance back he saw a girl about his own age. He swallowed hard.
After fumbling through his pockets, he plunked all his loose change onto the counter. As he counted the pile of coins, he became acutely aware that the girl was now standing right behind him. The toilet roll, sitting a little apart from the other items, began to look huge. He came up 3p short. His face grew warm and prickly as he plunged his hand into his wallet, grabbed one of the fifty-pound notes Delroy had given him for the guitar, and flung it down on the counter in front of the frizzy-haired woman.
Without bothering to look up, she asked, “You don’t expect me to make change for that, do you?”
“No, just forget it,” Matt blurted as he retrieved the note, ready to bolt. He’d change the fifty in a bank—there must be one somewhere—and get his supplies in the next town or village.
But just as he was about to retrieve his loose change and flee, a hand placed three pennies on the counter. He looked up, unsure if they were meant for him. The girl’s smile was warm, like that of an old friend, and for a fleeting moment he thought he might know her from somewhere.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“You’re welcome.”
The girl put down a litre bottle of water next to the toilet paper.
The cashier gave him a sugary smile. “You want these together in a bag?”
Without a word, Matt snatched up his purchases and strode out of the shop, his ears burning.
He tried to get away before the girl came out, but he was still jamming the toilet paper into his rucksack when she caught up with him at the lamppost, where she too had locked her bike.
“She knew we weren’t together, you know,” she said as she turned her lock.
“No kidding,” Matt said. It was all he could think of.
“You’re not from around here are you?”
“No, London.”
“I knew it! I knew when you said ‘thanks’ instead of ‘thunks’ you weren’t a local.”
“And you’re American, right?” Matt managed. He had to say something.
The girl gave an exaggerated sigh. “No, that’s what everyone says. Think north.”
“Alaska?” he ventured after the silence grew awkward.
She laughed. It was an unsophisticated laugh, a little too loud. “No, Canada.”
Cripes, of course! “Sorry. Whereabouts?”
“That’s okay, hardly anybody else guesses right either. I’m from Tofino, British Columbia. It’s on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Lots of hippies live there, like my mom.” She hung onto the word “mom” with an odd mixture of reproach and affection. “So how old are you?”
“Fifteen. Well, nearly anyway,” Matt said with a note of defensiveness, as if to say he couldn’t help that he was still only fourteen.
“I just turned fifteen last week,” the girl replied. “My name’s Meaghan. Meaghan Power.” She flipped her hair back with a head toss. “I’m staying at Redmond’s Caravan Park. That’s just outside the village, by the park entrance.”
Matt felt torn. That was on the way to Edgestone Clough. He could just say, ‘That’s nice. Have a nice day,’ but it sounded lame and rude. After all, she had done him a favour, and it wasn’t very far, but what if she wanted to come with him to the clough? After what had happened in the shop part of him just wanted to make an escape. Besides, while it was true he’d hoped to find a travel-mate, he’d envisioned someone who just said what he meant in plain English, like Mick, not someone to whom you had to keep watching what you were saying.
It wouldn’t be true to say that Matt wasn’t interested in girls, but they scared him. Some of his classmates had steady girlfriends, but he’d never so much as kissed a girl. Some of the girls at school thought he was ‘cute’, like he was a puppy or something, and often in class he would daydream about Gemma Whittleton or Emily Coleman, but girls were far too mysterious and complicated for him to actually get to know. Mick took girls to the pictures sometimes and they’d snog in the seats, but he just knew he’d somehow mess things up if he ever tried anything like that.
Still...
To buy some time, he fished a box of Smarties out of his pocket, the last of four he’d bought at St. Pancras Station, and opened it. He was about to tip the box into his mouth, but caught himself and offered it to Meaghan.
“Thanks, really, but no thanks. I’ve got to watch my weight.”
Matt scanned her figure. About an inch of rounded bare midriff showed between her T-shirt and thigh-hugging jeans. Her breasts were small and, he’d already noticed, moved slightly when she walked. He guessed she was about three inches shorter than him. He liked that. Her face was round, framed with dark brown hair that curled under and rested on her shoulders, and when she smiled her whole face was involved, her brown eyes almost disappearing between tiny slits. He liked that too.
“No, you don’t. You look great,” he said.
Meaghan coloured. “Maybe just a couple, then.” She let three slide into her hand and returned the box. Matt emptied the remaining Smarties into his mouth, hesitated for a second, and walked the half-dozen steps to the rubbish bin. Meaghan jammed her nearly full water bottle into her backpack and fiddled with the straps as she stood straddling her touring bike—a rental, he saw from the sticker.
“So I guess you’re heading back to the caravan park,” Matt said through a mouthful of Smarties.
Meaghan made a face. “Not if I can help it. Me and my mom are travelling around Britain in this little rented pick-up and tiny trailer—caravan as you call it. She’s a freelance travel writer. She thought it would be good for me to see something of the rest of the world, but to tell you the truth, we’re kinda getting on each other’s nerves. I’m not sleeping there tonight, thank goodness.”
“Where are you sleeping tonight, then?” Matt asked without thought.
“This girl I met yesterday, Ashley, invited me to a sleepover at her place with a bunch of other girls. I’m going over there after dinner, but I’ve got the day to myself. How about you?”
Matt tugged at his earlobe. “Me too, I guess.” After a few uncomfortable seconds, he added, “I was just heading over to check out Edgestone Clough.”
“Edgestone Clough? You mean the valley behind that big, ugly house? Why?”
“I dunno, just because.” Not wanting to be impolite, he added, “Okay, because there’s something weird going on in there.”
“That sounds interesting. Want some company?”
Matt shrugged. “I guess. I mean sure, if you want.”
Meaghan cocked her head and twirled her hair around her index finger. “So what’s your name?”
“Matthew Cunningham,” he replied stiffly, as if he were revealing yet another secret. Realizing how stilted and formal that sounded, he added, “My mates call me Matt.”
Meaghan put her helmet on and tucked in stray strands of hair. “And what do I call you?”
“Matt, of course,” Matt replied after the slightest hesitation.
“Then I’ll ride with you to the clough, Matt.”
* * *
They rode side-by-side down Priory Street and turned onto Millstone Road. As they cycled along the empty boundary road with a fresh wind in their faces, Matt began to feel less inhibited and soon he was filling Meaghan in on what little he knew about the mysterious plastic factory, Sir Roderick King’s odd brother Arthur who lived in some sort of castle back in the clough, the weird lightning he thought he’d seen coming from the quarry and the old quarry workers’ reports of seeing something his uncle wouldn’t tell him about. He didn’t, however, tell her that his uncle had told him to stay away from the clough.
They reached a high, mortared gritstone wall topped with iron spikes, and pulled up before two massive wrought-iron gates. An intercom was installed in the left gate post. Beyond the gates, a long driveway snaked its way between imposing oak trees to Sir Roderick’s residence. Seen through the black wrought-iron bars, the gloomy mansion looked even more imposing and sinister than it had from the bedroom window.
“Look up there,” Meaghan said, pointing into an oak just on the other side of the gates. Matt followed her finger and saw a camera mounted on a bough. It was arcing back and forth.
“Let’s go, Matt,” she urged. “We’re being watched.”
“So what? Where I come from, you can’t go anywhere without cameras following you.” Matt paused long enough to make it clear that closed-circuit cameras didn’t bother him, before adding, “But there’s no point in staying here any longer. I just wanted to check it out.”
Relief flooded Meaghan’s face. “So where to now? Wanna ride over to Castleton? It’s quite a ways, but it’s got a real castle, and caves and stuff.”
“No, I’m going to check out the woods further back in the clough, then head up to that factory where I saw the lightning.”
Meaghan’s face clouded again. “But how are you going to get in?”
Matt gestured farther along the road with his head. “Up that road there. Just past the wall.”
They cycled for a hundred yards or so until the wall made a right turn at the gravel road Matt had seen from his uncle’s house.
The sign at the road’s entrance read, ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY. POSITIVELY NO ENTRY EXCEPT ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS.’
Meagan gave her head a dismissive shake. “Well, that’s that. No way we can go up there. I bet they’ve got a camera around here somewhere too.”
Matt looked around. “I don’t see one.”
“Well, I’m not going.”
“Suit yourself,” Matt said, hoping he’d managed to hide his disappointment.
Meaghan looked crushed as she swung her bike around. Matt shook his head in bemusement, convinced more than ever that he’d never understand girls.
He had gone no more than fifty feet when Meaghan called, “Matt, wait!” He stopped.
When she caught up, Meaghan scolded, “You’re going to get into trouble if someone doesn’t keep an eye on you.”
“Crikey, you sound just like my mum,” Matt sighed. “Come on then.”
* * *
Farther up the private road, the wall gave way to a six-foot high chain link fence. They soon reached a heavy wooden gate locked to the fence by a padlock and chain. Overgrown wheel ruts ran through the gloomy oak and pine wood beyond.
“That must lead to Arthur’s place,” Matt said. “Maybe he knows something about that lightning I saw.”
“Arthur? Oh, you mean the guy your uncle says has a screw loose. That sounds like a good reason to stay away to me. Besides, the gate’s locked.”
“Which means we climb the gate of course,” Matt persisted.
Meaghan gestured with her hand. “Wait, Matt. Let me try something.” Then before Matt could respond, she called, “Anybody home?”
Matt cringed, but said nothing. Perhaps fifteen seconds passed, but they heard only a shrill, rising whistle that might have been a distant owl, and the chak, chak, chak of a small bird.
“See? There’s nobody home,” Meaghan said with a bright smile as she turned her bike around, ready to push off.
A squirrel chattered from an adjacent pine, causing Matt to flinch. He glanced at Meaghan, but she hadn’t been looking. He recalled Uncle Ray’s admonition to stay away from the clough, but wasn’t that part of the reason he’d decided to come? Deep down he knew that this was just another test he’d set to prove himself.
“Well, I’m still going,” he asserted, hoping his voice didn’t betray his nervousness as he turned to the gate.
“You don’t even care if I come or not, do you, Matt?” Meaghan said with feeling.
Surprised by Meaghan’s unexpected accusation and not sure why it even mattered to her, he managed to compose himself. “Okay, to tell you the honest truth, I guess I wouldn’t mind the company, but I’m not going to like, twist your arm or nothin’. I’ll even bike with you back to Millstone Road, if you want.”
Meaghan gave her head a decisive shake. “No, if you’re going, I’m going. I don’t want you to think I’m chickening out.”
Matt nodded. That was something he could understand. “All right. Let’s get moving, then.”
They locked their bikes to the gatepost and Matt climbed over the gate.
Halfway up the gate, Meaghan exclaimed, “Look! That bird’s carrying something shiny in its beak. I just saw it glint in the sun.”
Matt followed her gaze. “Where?”
“Too late. He dropped it. Up there, Matt, he’s watching us from the top of that old stump.” Meaghan clambered over the gate and jumped down beside Matt, and they stood watching a black and grey bird staring back at them from the top of a dead, lightning-charred tree trunk. It began to call, thrusting its head at Matt with each cry: ‘chak, chak, rascal, chak, chak, rascal’.
“It’s talking, Matt!” Meaghan laughed. “The bird’s calling you a rascal!”
“Aw, come on, Meaghan. Who ever heard of a talking jackdaw?”
“How should I know? We don’t even have them in Canada. Didn’t you hear it, though?”
“Could’ve been anything. Besides, nobody says ‘rascal’ anymore—except old people, maybe.”
Meaghan looked defensive, no longer sure of what she’d heard. “Well, he was definitely carrying something long and shiny in his beak. It looked like it was gold.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me. Jackdaws are known for stealing shiny things and carrying them back to their nests. Like magpies. I bet if I looked in there, I’d find other stuff, too.”
“Really? Then why don’t you climb up and have a look?”
Matt took Meagan’s words as a personal challenge. He eyed the charred trunk. Yes, if he jumped and caught that broken branch…
“Wait here, then.”
He scaled the trunk, and as soon as his head was at nest level, the jackdaw flew off, squawking and scolding as it went. He glanced down and felt queasy, though the ground was a mere twelve feet below him. Angry with himself and fearful Meaghan would see he was afraid of heights, he took a deep breath to steady himself. Peering into the nest, he saw an assortment of foil milk bottle tops and gum wrappers, a needle, a silvery button, and resting on top, a shiny gold-coloured pen cap. He shoved the cap into his pocket, and climbed down.
“Well, even if we didn’t have a reason to visit Arthur before, we do now,” he said with a note of triumph as he fished the cap from his pocket.
Meaghan took it from his hand and studied the narrow ribbing and the twin bands of fine scrollwork. “Yes, this must be what I saw the bird carrying. It’s a lot fancier than any pen cap I’ve ever seen before.”
“That’s because it’s a cap for a fountain pen. You don’t just throw ‘em away—you refill them from an ink bottle. You don’t see them hardly any more, but my dad had one he inherited from my grandfather. It’s even the same make, Waterman. I can tell by the clip design. If it’s Arthur’s he’ll want it back, because they dry out if you don’t keep the cap on. Anyway, we’re wasting time. Let’s get moving before…” He caught himself. He’d almost said ‘Before I chicken out!’
When Meaghan offered the cap to him, Matt noticed her slight hesitation. “You can give it to Arthur if you want, “ he said with a shrug. “You saw it first.”
“Thanks,” Meaghan responded as she slipped it into her pocket.
They turned to continue toward Arthur’s house, but barely had they taken a step when they halted, for on the track just ahead was a magnificent stag. The animal stood facing them, surveying them with a regal stare. It had an enormous rack of broad antlers, and it was pure white.
“Oh my God! A white buck!” Meaghan exclaimed. She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a compact camera just as the stag ambled off into the trees.
Meaghan raced ahead to where the deer had been standing on the tracks just moments before, but it had disappeared without a trace. She turned back in dismay.
“Damn! My mom’ll never believe me now. You know Matt, this place is really starting to creep me out. I mean first of all we come across a talking whatever, then a white buck, and it…”
“It’s just an albino, I bet,” Matt interrupted.
“No way. Albinos have pink eyes. His eyes were brown.”
Aware Meaghan was studying him, Matt looked away and began walking again. He wasn’t about to admit that he hadn’t noticed the colour of its eyes. He kicked at a stone. It skittered into the verge, sending an unseen snake slithering into the undergrowth. “Look Meaghan,” he said. “When we see a white elephant, maybe then I’ll think this place is creepy.”
Rounding a bend, they both stopped and gaped. Ahead, in the middle of a clearing, stood a miniature castle. Battlements edged the flat roof and corner turrets. A drawbridge with several planks missing crossed a moat covered in pond weed, and a portcullis was raised above two huge weathered oak doors. On the far side of the moat was a classic water well with a wooden bucket, and beyond that a small stone cottage with a sagging slate roof. A rusting Morris Minor with a cracked windshield was parked in front. As he took in the surreal scene with its air of genteel decay, Matt imagined for a moment that he’d stumbled into a computer adventure game.
“It’s like a dream,” Meaghan whispered in awe, “and I’m not sure if it’s good or bad.”
Unable to come up with anything particularly encouraging, Matt muttered, “Let’s go,” and began to head towards the decrepit drawbridge. Meaghan caught up and matched his stride beside him.
At the entrance, they looked in vain for a bell or knocker. Just as Matt was steeling himself to rap on the door Meaghan gave a little gasp. Following her gaze, Matt looked up and saw a hideous stone face with a lolling tongue and huge bug eyes leering down at them.
“Oh, that’s just a gargoyle,” Matt said, and wondered if Meaghan heard the slight quaver in his voice. “It’s part of the drainage system. All castles have ‘em.” He took a deep breath to compose himself, and knocked on the door.
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
JOHN STUART MILL, On Liberty
A tall bulky man, his shoulder-length mane making up for his receding hairline, opened the door and glared at them. A cloth was draped across his right shoulder, partly obscured by a full white beard. A jackdaw was perching on the cloth. Actually, it was the jackdaw. It fluffed up its grey neck and breast feathers, making it look as if it wore a judge’s powdered wig, as its hypnotic eyes surveyed them with a withering stare. For an instant Matt had the unnerving thought that it had already told Arthur of their find.
Arthur looked at them with a suspicious stare barely less unsettling than the jackdaw’s.
“Do you know you’re trespassing? Didn’t you see the sign back at the road?” he thundered in a voice like a foghorn.
“Yes, excuse me,” Matt began, “ but we found this pen cap, and…well, show it to him, Meaghan.”
Arthur’s face softened as he took the cap from Meaghan’s outstretched hand.
“My pen cap! Where on earth did you find it?”
“In a nest in that burnt tree. I saw a bird—that one, I guess—fly in there with the cap in his mouth. He flew off when my friend here went to get it.”
“Well, knock me over with a feather! I’ve been hunting the house down for it. I was writing a letter and I was sure I’d put it down on my desk, but when I looked, it was gone. I should have guessed.” Arthur turned his head and eyed the jackdaw on his shoulder. “Merlin, you rascal! You’re a dirty little thief!”
“Chak, thief, chak, chak, chak, rascal!” Merlin replied, and squirted a white deposit onto the cloth.
Meaghan poked Matt in the side and gave him a smug look.
“Shoosh, Merlin, you noisy old jackdaw!” Arthur chided. “This is Merlin,” he said as he turned back to them, “and that burnt tree’s where he lives when he’s not looking for a treat or mistaking my shoulder for a toilet. He adopted me two years ago—no doubt because his mate was killed and there weren’t any others available—and of course I feed him. So now he’s a hermit. Kindred spirits, you might say. Oh, and I’m Arthur King—Lord Arthur King to be precise, but you can call me Arthur. Lord King sounds a tad pretentious, don’t you think?” He sighed and added without enthusiasm, “Well, I suppose you’re going to have to come in. You owe me a proper explanation.”
Matt was more than ready to relieve himself of his rucksack, which he placed just inside the door.
The castle’s interior was stark, with bare gritstone walls and a huge wooden chandelier hanging from chains in the centre of the room. A plaque with a coat of arms and the entwined letters ‘AK’ (or they could have been ‘KA’, for they were written one on top of the other) hung over a massive stone fireplace. On a side-table next to a rocking chair was a faded photograph of a grinning clown with strange, pointed ears.
But it was the table in the centre that dominated the room. Surrounded by thirteen matching high-backed chairs, it must have been nearly ten feet across. The surface was well-worn and battered, suggesting great age. On it were a tattered two volume copy of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and a slimmer, newer work, The White Hart in Celtic Myth and Legend.
“Have a seat,” Arthur offered, pulling back two of the chairs. “A little uncomfortable, but they came with the table.”
“Yes, I was wondering about that,” Matt piped up, his confidence returning. “How come you have so many chairs and such a big table if you just live by yourself?”
Meaghan poked him again. “Matthew,” she hissed. He knew he must have said something wrong—she called him by his full name, just like his mother did when she was peeved. When Mum was really upset, she said his last name too, just so there was no mistaking whom she was talking to.
But if Arthur felt slighted he kept it hidden. “It’s an heirloom,” he explained. “Been in the family for more generations than I can count.” He studied it as if seeing it for the first time. “It is a bit of a white elephant, I suppose,” he conceded.
Meaghan put her hand to the side of her mouth and whispered, “There’s your white elephant, Matt. Getting creeped out yet?”
Arthur placed the cap back on his pen and settled his considerable bulk into the rocker. The severity returned to his face as he glared at Matt. “Now then,” he intoned, “what were you doing trespassing in my driveway?”
“We weren’t trespassing. We were just coming to see you, Sir,” Matt replied, trying to sound as if this were nothing out of the ordinary.
“Coming to see me?” Arthur’s booming voice sent Merlin fluttering into the air in alarm before he resettled on the filthy cloth. “That’s a likely story. Nobody ever comes to see Arthur King!”
Matt swallowed hard. “My uncle said that the old quarry workers used to be afraid of this wood, and, so, I wanted to ask you about it,” he persevered.
“Hah! What’s to say? Some silly twit sees a hare scampering about at dusk and thinks it’s an elf, and next thing you know he’s got them all believing it.” The old man looked askance at Matt. “You don’t believe in elves, do you?”
Matt laughed. “No. Of course not.”
“And you, young lady?”
“I never really thought about it,” Meaghan answered, fingering a small pendant that she’d pulled out from under her T-shirt.
“That’ll have to do, then,” Arthur declared. “Can’t have our guests believing in elves, can we Merlin?” Merlin kept his opinion to himself.
Arthur drew his bushy brows together. “Now then, where were we…Oh yes, why did you come to see me?”
Matt glanced at Meaghan with a look of exasperation. “Excuse me sir, but you already asked us that.”
“Yes, quite. And you said you’d come to ask me about elves, which you don’t believe in, which is just as well.”
“Well, I didn’t know about the elves, you see…”
“The ones you don’t believe in?”
“Yeah, those ones, I guess.”
“I see.” Arthur’s voice skied slowly down the second word and snowplowed into his beard. He looked up. “That leads right into my next question.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Why did you come to see me?”
In despair, Matt looked to Meaghan for help, only to see that she was struggling to stifle a giggle. His eyes darted away to the photo of the clown, but it too seemed to be laughing at him. He tried to look at Merlin, but the jackdaw’s stare left no doubt as to whose side he was on, so he examined the dirt under his fingernails.
“Okay, here’s the other reason, I mean the real reason I, we came to see you. You see, I’m staying with my uncle and aunt in Edgestone, and I can see the clough from my bedroom.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I saw lightning up in the old quarry last night.”
Arthur’s face clouded with suspicion. “But it wasn’t stormy last…” He brightened. “Ah, wait a minute! I bet my brother was playing with Tessie. I keep her up at the garage next to that infernal chemical factory of his.”
“Tessie? Who’s that?” Meaghan asked.
“His pet dragon no doubt,” Matt said with undisguised sarcasm, still studying his fingernails.
Arthur gave an explosive laugh. “Not a bad guess actually. No, Tessie’s my tesla coil. It’s a…let me think how to describe it…”
Matt jerked his head up. “It’s a spark generator,” he explained. “It makes lightning bolts. Invented by Nikola Tesla.”
Arthur beamed. “Yes, exactly! There aren’t many people ever heard of one. It’s one of Tesla’s many inventions. Another was radio, though Marconi took the credit for it.
“Technically Tessie’s mine, but Roddy likes to fire her up once in a while and tweak her a bit. ‘Just to keep her in working order’, he likes to say, though if truth be told, I think he just likes playing with her.”
“What do you use it…her… for?” Meaghan asked.
“Nowadays, nothing, but back when I had the circus…”
Meaghan’s eyes lit up. “You had a circus?”
“Yes, a long time ago now. It was pretty small, mind you.” Arthur settled back in his chair and his eyes grew distant. “We covered the North Country and the Midlands for the most part. I would fire Tessie up to draw customers when we were setting up. Five minutes at the top of the hour for five hours, and every time I ran her there’d be a bigger crowd.”
“Did you make very much money?” Matt inquired, earning him a sharp look from Meaghan.
“Money? No, my dear boy. Only the biggest circuses make any money, and I’ve inherited more than enough money for my modest needs. No, I needed something to occupy my time and I’ve always loved kids; not to mention it provided work for the…” Arthur bit his lip and his eyes shifted. “Well, some of the misfits, you might say. But then the seventies came and it seemed like everyone was getting a colour telly, and the crowds started to drop off. I didn’t mind as long as I was breaking even, but I couldn’t keep running it at a loss, so I folded it up. That’s when I realized that I didn’t much care for what was happening in the world, so I built my little castle and dropped out. No phone, no television, no wireless, and I haven’t taken so much as a step beyond the gravel road for over thirty years now. Doubt I ever will, either.”
“Don’t you even go shopping?” Meaghan asked in amazement.
“No, my man Bertram takes care of my needs in the outside world. He gets to live in the cottage in exchange, plus a bit extra to live on.”
“I was wondering if we could see Tessie,” Matt said before Meaghan had the chance to lead Arthur any farther from the subject.
“What’s that, lad? You were wondering if you could see who?” Arthur asked.
“Tessie,” Merlin squawked, just as Matt was about to reply.
“Oh, Tessie. I’m not sure I’m up to…I mean it’s a bit of a climb and it’s not much to look at, really…”
“But I didn’t mean just to look at,” Matt pleaded. “Can’t you start it up? I’ve never seen a working tesla coil, at least not in real life.”
Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. “Start it up? Oh, no, dear boy. I can’t run it when there’s anybody around—far too dangerous. If anything ever happened…”
“But what about when you had the circus?” Matt insisted. “There were lots of people around then. You said so yourself.”
“Matt!” Meaghan hissed through half-clenched teeth. “Can’t you take a hint? Arthur doesn’t want to show us his tesla coil.”
Matt looked crestfallen. He knew Meaghan was right—he really had no business pressing Arthur on the matter, but his eagerness had got the better of him. He was about to apologize when Arthur pushed himself up from his rocker, sending Merlin fluttering off through the open window, and retrieved a set of keys from the side-table drawer.
“Follow me,” he said. “She’s up at the quarry.”
* * *
The garage was one of the buildings Matt had seen from his bedroom window. The other building, the one surrounded by chain-link fencing topped with razor wire, was the chemical plant. Matt studied the squat, almost windowless cinder block factory and glanced up at two security cameras mounted on high posts, one on each side of the locked entrance gate. Just as the one they’d seen at Sir Roderick’s front gate, they arced back and forth, endlessly scanning.
“Come on, then! There’s really nothing over there of interest to you,” Arthur declared.
Matt wondered whether he had just imagined the trace of annoyance in Arthur’s voice as he hastened over to the garage door and joined Meaghan, who was already inside.
* * *
Faded posters for The One and Only “King” Arthur King’s Magic Circus “Direct from Camelot!” covered the walls. Tessie was bolted to a flatbed trailer hooked up to an ancient, rusting Bedford van. The device was much the same as the one Matt had studied in Science and Electronics, but bigger. The discharge terminal looked like a giant aluminum doughnut with a large bolt, the break-out point, protruding high on one side. It was perched atop a vertical cylinder wound with copper wire, the secondary coil. The primary coil surrounded the bottom of the cylinder like a giant hotplate. Occupying much of the front of the trailer was a diesel generator.
Arthur gestured toward the coil. “She’s portable. Has to be, I don’t dare run her in here; I’d burn the place down” He strode over to a workbench and removed a fluorescent tube from its fixture. “Hold this, will you, love,” he said, handing Meaghan the tube. Meaghan looked rather surprised but took the tube.
Arthur backed the van and trailer onto the gravel road and they followed him to a large open area inside the quarry. He climbed out holding a pencil and a sheet of printed paper.
“My checklist,” he explained. “Forget one step and I could end up dead.” Pointing to a spot about thirty feet from the trailer, he instructed, “Now I want you kids to stand right over there, and don’t move any closer. I used to set up barricades when I had the circus and of course I never dared run her at full power, because you can never be quite sure where the sparks are going to go. Sometimes I really do think Tessie has a mind of her own.”
Matt and Meaghan took their assigned spots far from the break-out point and watched with interest, with Matt explaining to Meaghan what Arthur was doing as he followed the steps on his list.
“Plug your ears,” Arthur warned as he picked up the control box and turned the Variac, gradually increasing the power to the coil.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. It sounded like the buzz of high tension lines in the rain but much louder, as a single bluish-white spark shot straight out from the break-out point and forked into a tangle of smaller sparks like miniature lightning bolts. As Matt watched the sparks continuously dancing, writhing and sprouting tiny branches of their own, he gained the uncanny impression that they were hunting for something. As Arthur continued to crank the Variac, the sparks grew more vivid, thicker and longer. Many of them were now ferociously attacking the ground, while the electric din grew ever more intense.
After half a minute, Arthur flicked a switch, instantly killing the light show and noise, and he launched into his old barker’s spiel, turning his head from side to side as if addressing an invisible crowd: “Now Nikola Tesla dreamt of building coils like this on huge towers to provide free, wireless electricity. Impossible, did I hear you say? Well, I have a volunteer who came all the way from America, and I handed her an ordinary fluorescent light tube, like you see every day in your schools and offices.” He looked at Meaghan. “Young lady, would you be so kind as to grasp it at one end? Yes, that’s it. Now hold it high in the air so that people can see it.”
Arthur charged the coil once again. Though the jagged sparks shot out and grounded well away from Meaghan, as she held the tube aloft, it flickered to life with an unsteady, shimmering light.
Arthur killed the display again.
“Well, did you see that? The tube was lit, and not a wire in sight! The power of the tesla coil extends well beyond the sparks, just like an invisible magic wand.”
Arthur gave a self-depreciating smile. “I’m a bit rusty I’m afraid, but you get the general idea. I used to have to line the kids up so they could take turns holding the tube. It’s lit by electromagnetic radiation of course, but it was like magic to them.”
“It is like magic!” Meaghan insisted.
Arthur beamed at her with tears welling up in his rheumy eyes. “I couldn’t agree with you more, my dear. I would see the sense of wonder and delight in those kids’ eyes, and I would share it with them. Yes, magic indeed!”
Arthur wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve and sniffed. “Sorry about that. Having you two here watching and listening like this took me back. Young people just seem to know that the world we live in is a total mystery and a very magical place. The sad thing is that once we grow up, most of us are far too busy to think about the magic of the world.”
Meaghan shook her head, “For sure I won’t be like that. I’ll never get tired of watching the whales off Long Beach, or camping among the big trees…” She turned to Matt. “How about you, Matt? Do you feel the magic?
Matt shrugged as he thought of the endless bleak flats and terrace houses of the London he knew. “I dunno. It’s not something I ever thought much about. I loved going to the seaside when I was little,” he managed, feeling a little left out.
“There you go,” Arthur said. “Now I’d better get Tessie back inside in case it rains.”
* * *
Walking back with him to the castle, Meaghan exclaimed, “The buck, I almost forgot! Arthur, right after I found your pen cap, we saw a white buck. I tried to take a picture of it, but I was too slow.”
Arthur looked bewildered by Meaghan’s North American term for a stag, then brightened. “Ah, yes. You Americans…”
“Canadian,” Meaghan said with resignation.
“Canadian, eh? Then I stand corrected,” Arthur replied. “So you saw Lancelot, did you? Nice to know he’s all right. Haven’t seen him in quite a while. Lord knows where he goes.”
“He’s an albino, right?” Matt said.
“Actually no, he’s a fallow deer. Most are brown with light spots on their back in summer, but some are black and some, like Lancelot, are white, though white fallow deer in the wild are very rare nowadays.”
Meaghan gave Matt a nudge. “Told you,” she said under her breath.
They re-entered the little castle and followed Arthur through an archway into the kitchen, where they noticed four bottles on a wooden shelf—or more accurately, their eyes were drawn to what was in the bottles. It was a bright yellow liquid with floating islands of tiny bubbles.
Arthur took down one of the disgusting bottles and unscrewed the cap. “Would you care to…No, I’d get myself into trouble. Can I offer you some tea?”