Winter Wood (53 page)

George looked at her, then at Midge. ‘Is she kidding?' he said. It wasn't like Katie to be suggesting anything that involved exercise, and it certainly wasn't like her to be including him in any of her plans.

‘No, seriously,' said Midge. ‘We were talking. We thought maybe we ought to go and see . . . what's up there. Or, you know, make sure that there's nothing.'

George flicked back his fringe. ‘I've been sort of forgetting about it,' he said. ‘Or trying to. It goes away in the end – like it did the first time. I think it's better not to think about it. Not to poke your nose in.'

‘OK,' said Katie. ‘We'll see you later.'

‘No, hang on a minute.' Midge wanted George to be there. ‘What we were saying was, maybe this
is
the best way of forgetting about it, or putting your mind at rest or whatever. To go and have a look. I bet you anything that they're gone. I know they are, but don't you want to be sure as well?'

George still looked doubtful.

‘Come on, you wuss. It'll be fun.' Midge knew she could call George a wuss. He was anything but.

He laughed and said, ‘OK, then. But if some little twerp starts shooting at me then I'm off – and you two are on your own.'

They climbed over the gateway into the Field of Thistles.

‘Anybody got the time?' said Midge. ‘I'm supposed to be going over to Sam Lewis's for tea.'

George pulled something out of his pocket. It was a wristwatch, but it had no strap.

‘Two o' clock. Just gone. You've got hours yet.'

‘Where'd you get that watch?'

‘I told you. That old bloke at Aunt Celandine's funeral. Mr Lickis? He just gave it to me – dunno why. I keep meaning to get a strap for it. Works OK, though.'

‘Oh, right.' Midge remembered now. George had said something about it at the time, but she'd been too upset to take much notice. There had been a surprising amount of people at the funeral, and the tiny church at Statton had been almost full. She'd been glad to see that so many had remembered Aunt Celandine – people from the home at Mount Pleasant, of course, but others too. Old patients of hers, a few work colleagues. Girls that Aunt Celandine had trained, ancient themselves now.

And everything had been OK until they brought the coffin into the church. That was what had upset her so much – not just the white-haired old men who carried it down the aisle on their unsteady shoulders, though that was sad enough, but the fact that the coffin was so small. It was tiny, almost like a child's. And it was the
image of a child that Midge had pictured in there – Celandine as a girl, the one from the photograph, dressed in her tight frock and lace-up boots, all her lovely hair spread out . . .

She knew that it wasn't so, but it had all been too much for her on top of everything else, and she had burst into tears. Howled and howled.

Afterwards it wasn't so bad. Everyone was very kind to her. Carol Reeve gave her a big hug. And then George had shown her the watch that this Mr Lickis had given him. He'd managed to smear it in butter from the sandwich he was holding, or mayonnaise or something, and it had reminded Midge of the watch in
Alice in Wonderland
.

‘Blimey, it's hot,' said George. ‘We should have brought something to drink.' They'd reached the sheep-gate, and the steepest part of Howard's Hill still lay ahead of them. The sun blazed down on their bare heads as they trudged on, silent now, saving their breath for the climb. By the time they got to the gully they were all red-faced and panting.

‘Phew. I've got a stitch, now,' said Katie. ‘Great view, though. Do you know, I can't actually think when was the last time I came up here.'

‘Probably when you were still small enough for Dad to carry you,' said George.

‘Ha! Yeah, probably. Where to now, Midge? Where's this tunnel then?'

Midge had an awful premonition that the tunnel wasn't going to be there – that all they would find would be a solid wall of brambles and that she
would be made to look stupid. Or completely insane.

But she said, ‘It's at the end of this gully.' She led the way, partly because that was her role, and partly because if this all turned out to be so much nonsense then she wanted to be the first to know of it.

It was still there. The dark mouth of the tunnel could just be seen through the overhanging curtain of brambles, and Midge felt relieved – proud too, in a way. It wasn't every day that you got to show off such an astounding discovery.

‘Yipes – is that it?' George bent low and drew aside a few of the brambles. ‘It's amazing.'

‘God, Midge. And you just went in there all by yourself?' Katie peered into the tunnel.

‘Yeah,' said Midge. She still hadn't said very much to either of them about Pegs. She just couldn't somehow. ‘Come on. You have to keep your head down or your hair gets all caught up.'

‘Yuck! It
stinks
in here.' Halfway along the tunnel Katie was struggling. ‘
And
it's all slimy. Wish I'd put on some boots.'

The stream had dried to a trickle in the hot summer weather, but the sides really were quite slippery.

‘It'll wash off,' said Midge. ‘And it's just a few more steps.'

‘Good. Because I've nearly had enough already.' Their voices sounded weird in the confined space.

The three of them stood on the large flat rock, and looked about them. For Midge it was both strange and gratifying. Strange because of all that she had witnessed here back in the cold dark days of winter,
and gratifying because of George and Katie's open-mouthed amazement.

‘It's like . . . it's like a whole other planet or something. I mean, it's so
different
from anywhere else . . . so . . . so . . .' Katie was searching for words.

‘Yeah, it's like . . . prehistoric.' George had got closer to the feel of the place. There
was
something ancient about the fallen trees, the swampy smell of dense vegetation, garlicky and musty at the same time.

‘I bet we're the first humans in here for hundreds of years,' said Midge. ‘You know, actual humans. Well, apart from Aunt Celandine, I suppose.'

‘I never even met her. Wish I had now.' Katie sounded regretful. ‘I can't imagine . . . well, I just can't imagine that kid in the photo being here as well. So, these
people
. Were they all like the ones we saw at the farm?'

‘No. There were different tribes. Some were hunters and some were like farmers. And there were another lot that fished – and then there were the ones who lived in the caves.'

‘What caves?'

‘I can show you in a bit. I never went in there, though. Come on. I want to see what happened up at the clearings.'

They picked their way up among the winding rocky pathways, ducking beneath the low branches of trees, and eventually reached the fringe of foliage that bordered the smaller clearing. The air was cooler here, and they were glad to stand in the shade of the sycamores, getting their breath back as they looked out upon the sunlit enclosure.

Midge shook her head at the wonder of it.

The Rowdy-Dow tree, once so dead and barkless that its appearance had been white, was now charred and smoke-stained, a great dark stump of a thing, its limbs crow-black against the blue of the summer sky. And around its base was a perfect circle, a ring of fresh grass that had sprung up from the scorched earth, a brighter green than the grass beyond. Like a fairy ring.

So what she had seen, or dreamed that she had seen, had truly happened. The fire had been real. Within that circle the Various had stood, and had brought together the Stone and the Orbis, and had travelled on. They really had gone.

‘Is this what you expected?' Katie was staring at her.

‘Yes. Pretty much.' Midge tried to keep her voice steady.

‘Let's have a closer look then.' George stepped forward into the sunshine.

Midge hung back a little longer. She wasn't sure that she wanted to go poking about among the grass, for fear of what she might find. It would be awful if there were . . . remains or something. She still couldn't grasp what had actually happened in that outlandish ceremony she had witnessed. Or imagined. Because after all, she couldn't
really
have been here. Could she?

‘You OK?' said Katie.

‘Yeah. I think so.'

There was very little to see. The ashes had been mostly washed away by spring and summer rain, just a
few patches of orangey-white stuff still visible here and there. Other areas of the soil were black, and there were scatterings of charcoal amongst the fresh grass. It was surprising how quickly the grass had reappeared. Another season and there would be no evidence left of what had happened here.

But what
had
happened?

‘I still don't get it,' said Katie. ‘So they were all standing inside this bonfire thing, and then they all just disappeared?'

It did seem ridiculous, put like that.

Midge sighed. ‘Well, yeah, basically. That's what I saw. I mean, I dreamed it, but it was like I was really seeing it. I just keep thinking . . . I just keep thinking about this idea of aliens. That's the only thing that makes any sense. I mean, if there are other worlds – and loads of people reckon there are – then maybe . . . you know . . . it's not all flying saucers and UFOs and whatnot.' She was struggling, but she clung on to what she knew. ‘They called themselves travellers. That's what they did. Travelled. At least they did before they lost the Orbis. And I
think
they meant travelling through time. Or space. Or other lives. You saw it, didn't you, George – the Orbis?'

‘Yeah. Weird or what,' said George. He was kicking around in the grass on the other side of the blackened tree. ‘Like an old astronomy thing. All slidey knobs and suns and moons and stuff. Hey, what's this? A relic!' He bent down and picked something up from the grass. It was pronged – the metal part of a small gardening fork.

‘Ha! Great find,' said Katie. ‘We got what we came for – let's go!'

‘No, he's right, though,' said Midge. ‘It is a relic. They used things like that for fishing and stuff. Like a spear.'

George brought the fork across to show them. It was encrusted in dried ash, orange with rust.

‘What are you going to do with it?' said Katie.

‘Clean it up and keep it. Maybe hang it in the tree house. It's my relic.' George stuck the fork in his back pocket.

‘Hmf.' Katie sounded unimpressed. Nevertheless she kicked half-heartedly at the grass around her feet, perhaps in search of some relic of her own.

‘Let me show you the other clearing,' said Midge. ‘Then maybe we should go and look at the caves.'

They walked across to where a gap in the bushes led into the Great Clearing. The short pathway had already become overgrown through lack of use. Soon the bushes would meet and the two areas would become entirely separate.

The pea sticks and beanpoles had all gone now, and the once neatly tended rows of vegetables were a tangled mess, overgrown with weeds and tall grass. You could still see what had once been, though, and Midge said, ‘This was like allotments. Beans and potatoes and stuff. Look.' She grabbed hold of a bunch of flower-headed stalks and pulled, not really knowing what to expect. The stalks were fleshy and they crushed easily within her grasp – the immediate aroma giving her a
clue as to what she had found. An onion, long gone to seed.

‘Want it?' She dangled the sorry object in front of Katie.

Katie laughed. ‘Er, no, I don't think so. Come on. Show us these caves.'

As they ducked into the shade of the trees once more, Midge took one last look around the Great Clearing. It was a shame really. All that work gone to waste. She turned to follow George and Katie, but then something caught her attention on the other side of the ruined allotments – dark shadows amongst the stumpy hawthorn bushes. Her heart jumped, and for a moment she thought that they were still here after all. The Various! But it wasn't people that she could see – it was horses. Those funny little horses that they kept, two or three of them, grazing in the distant shade. So they'd left them behind. She opened her mouth to call George and Katie back, but then thought better of it. Leave the poor creatures in peace. Perhaps they'd be discovered someday and perhaps they wouldn't, but she wasn't going to be the one to give them away. And in the meantime at least they'd have plenty to eat. Let them have the run of the place, then, and enjoy themselves whilst they could. They would be her final secret.

‘Hang on,' she called. ‘You don't know the way!'

It wasn't easy clambering up the bank of loose shale that spewed out in front of the main cave. For every three steps up you were likely to slip back two.
But they managed it, and stood together in the cool entranceway, peering into the gloom.

‘I can't see a blimmin'— Whoa! It echoes in here, doesn't it?' George's voice bounced around the cavern. They took a few steps forward and gradually their eyes adjusted to the darkness. The walls to either side of them were now visible, but it was still impossible to see into the depths. How far did it go back? There was an entrance to a kind of little side chamber, and they cautiously felt their way around this, but it was completely empty as far as they could tell. Midge put her hand up to see whether she was able to touch the roof. Her fingertips just reached, and she could feel rough textures . . . bumpy things . . . like barnacle-encrusted rocks at the seaside. But then the thought of bats came into her head, and she quickly withdrew her hand.

‘Should have brought a torch,' said George.

They none of them felt like exploring much further without some light to guide them, and so the experience was a bit disappointing.

‘Doesn't matter, though,' Katie said. ‘We can always come back and have a proper look.'