Zack was certainly hoping for the chance to talk one or two things over. However, as always, he wouldn’t be the one to set the agenda. They would deal first with whatever Gordon was most anxious or perplexed about.
Victor and Edith paused for a while on the impressive headland. The south-coast sea views were spectacular. The land, however, had been ripped into by the mining of kaolin. Since 1746, more than a hundred million tons had been extracted. The Eden Project had reclaimed one of those quarries.
“They’re standing close to where we were last night” Zack commented. He and Gordon had gone a bit further on, to be out of immediate earshot. Even so, Gordon used telepathy in response. It was effortless for him now. Better to be on the safe side.
“That’s one of the things I need to talk to you about,” Gordon said. “They ARE my parents, aren’t they? I mean, there’s no possible doubt about that.”
“None whatsoever,” Zack assured him. “I was there when you were born, remember.”
“So there’s no way my SGGm and this God Mabon can have been my parents, is there?”
“Well,” Zack said slowly, “that kind of depends.”
“What on?” Gordon wanted to know.
“On the way this magic works. A thousand ages to a God may be like an evening gone. If a God did come down to Earth to lie with a human female, who knows what, or when, the consequences might be?”
Gordon had recently watched Wonders of the Universe on TV. He was still trying to get his head around Einstein’s idea that everything travels in what appears to be a straight line, but through a spacetime bent by the gravitational pull of massive objects.
“Yes,” Zack confirmed, “that’s probably a good analogy. It seems to us in straightline time that sixteen generations have passed. But what is that to Mabon? How might he bend time to do his will? And what might the gestation period be of an inter-species fetus? There aren’t a lot of precedents that we know about.”
“It makes you wonder what Jesus made of it,” Gordon thought.
“I think the facts to concentrate on are these,” said Zack. You could always rely on him for common sense and clarity. “Your mum and dad are unquestionably your mum and dad. It says so on the birth certificate, and you came out of your mother’s womb. I can vouch for the fact that they have loved you with all their hearts ever since you showed up.”
Gordon grinned. He was feeling better about it already.
“However,” Zack added, “your SGGm’s story might explain how you came by such extraordinary supernatural powers. We can’t deny the facts. The ring recognised you, the fairy cairn opened for you. The torque came to you.”
Gordon glanced across at the torque. It was waiting patiently on the nearest flat rock. Zack had got that bit right as well.
Hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Victor and Edith caught up with their maturing son, and the whole family made its relaxed and relatively carefree way north to Polkerris for a good lunch at the pub.
On their way back to the car, Edith and Victor were pleasantly well-fed and happy. They were obviously feeling close to each other, which gave Gordon the chance to chat over another point with Zack. “That was a sweet little dog,” he said. He was remembering the way it had rolled over to have its tummy tickled.
“Sweet to you,” Zack reminded him. “It would have taken a chunk out of me if I’d tried to follow you down those steps.”
“You said it was called a cairn terrier,” Gordon said. “Is that a coincidence?”
Zack shook his head. “They were probably bred to dig prey out of burrows around cairns.”
“Showing up like that, like it was on guard duty, must have been part of the magic, mustn’t it?”
“Certainly,” Zack agreed.
“It made me think,” Gordon said. “Almost all the hauntings you hear about are connected to terrible injustice.”
That was true enough.
“So what about all the other species that regularly suffer terrible injustice at the hands of human beings? Where are the ghosts of all the slaughtered animals? Why aren’t they haunting the abattoirs, or all the other places their bodies are hacked up or eaten?”
“Hmmm,” Zack said thoughtfully. “Maybe carnivores just don’t see that kind of ghost.” He’d always been a vegetarian. It was something to ponder. Gordon made a mental note to be on the lookout for the spirits of animals, whenever he found himself around ghosts.
They were back to the car already. The burning topic of the Tara Torque would have to wait a while longer. Not too long, however. Zack didn’t know if the torque would wait much longer.
NOTES
THE MAP; CLASSIC DU MAURIER COUNTRY; THE CORNISH SOUTH COAST; THE CONES OF KAOLIN; A THOUSAND AGES TO A GOD; EINSTEIN’S IDEA; A GOOD ANALOGY; GESTATION PERIOD; FETUS; HAND IN HAND, WITH WAND’RING STEPS AND SLOW
Chapter 54
Talking The Torque
Gordon was in bed in good time, as excited about his birthday as you would expect an almost eleven-year-old to be. They were making a prompt start in the morning. The Eden Project opened at 10.00am. The plan was to breakfast early and get to St Austell Station in time to catch a local bus. It was the green way to travel, and you got a reduction in your entrance fee when you showed them your bus ticket.
“We have to assume your torque has its own agenda,” Zack said.
That had not occurred to Gordon. “My SGGm said it would grant wishes. I thought it would be like Aladdin’s lamp,” he said. “Won’t it just wait for me to put it on?”
Zack shook his head. “Aladdin’s lamp worked for anybody who managed to get hold of it. This torque seems to have been waiting for you and only you.” He looked thoughtful. “If it has the power to grant your wishes, might it not also have the power to grant the wishes of whoever made it? That is, assuming that its maker is still around.”
To live that long, they would have to be on the other side of time.
Gordon could see the truth of that. “She said ‘We wait and hope,’” he reminded Zack.
“Yes,” Zack said drily. “I remember wondering at the time. Who’s ‘we’?”
Gordon pursed his lips. Carrying the hopes of the Pobel Vean that you would use their torque to make the world a better place was quite a responsibility for someone still three hours short of his eleventh birthday.
“She went on to say,” Zack continued, “that when you put it on, it will take you somewhere I can’t follow. You will leave your body behind.”
Gordon shuddered. He remembered all too vividly what had happened the last time he had been taken somewhere that Zack hadn’t been able to follow. “Maybe if you involve yourself with me before I put it on, you’ll come with me?” he suggested.
Zack nodded, but he didn’t look all that confident. “Maybe. Your SGGm did promise that no harm could come to you while you were wearing it. She also said that you would return safely from wherever you had been. She told me to be your guardian angel.”
“... which you are,” Gordon assured him.
Zack grinned. “... which I am. That means I still have a job. But you remember those two biddies in that cottage by the Green?”
“Jeannie and Annie,” Gordon said. Of course he remembered.
“Jeannie told Annie what happened when somebody she knew first tried to greet your SGGm in our holiday cottage.”
“An' ‘er swings rownd,’ Gordon said, in a very good impersonation of Old Jeannie’s accent, “‘an' looks right through Molly, like she wuren't there. Grey-green eyes, but they wuren’t seein' nuthin'. ‘Er spirit ‘ud left 'er baady and gaan sumwhures else."
Zack shook his head in admiration. “Spot on. ‘Walking abroad’ was something people reckoned witches could do, usually at night, with a full moon. But clearly it sometimes happened during the day, when their bodies were up and about. What if their spirits had been summoned?”
“I suppose we’ll just have to see what happens,” Gordo
n said.
“We will,” Zack agreed. “If you get to pick the time, it might be best to try it one night. I’d rather you were safely in your room with your body in bed; but I don’t want you to be too tired. I don’t think it will be the same as when you and I set off on a dream.”
“It won’t be if you can’t come with me,” Gordon pointed out. “It sounds like the torque will take me somewhere you and I haven’t been before.”
“We just aren’t going to know until you try it,” Zack said.
“That won’t be tonight,” Gordon said emphatically. “I want a good sleep and a really good birthday tomorrow.”
He glanced across at the torque. It was sitting patiently on his bedside table. It didn’t seem to have any objections to his current plan. After all, it had bided its time for millennia.
NOTES
BIDDIES
Chapter 55
Happy Birthday
Gordon gazed in awe at the sheer size of the Rainforest Biome. It seemed to get bigger as they got nearer. The weather was perfect, and they were early enough to be ahead of the crowds. There was nowhere else he would rather have been.
“That stuff is called ETFE,” Victor told them. He pointed at the plastic bubbles covering the domes. “It’s recyclable. It doesn’t need cleaning, and it lasts up to 50 years. It’s 100 times lighter than glass, and able to bear more than 400 times its own weight. Those hexagons are supporting two-metre-deep pillows of it, filled with air.”
“Wow!” Gordon said, enthusiastically. “What does ETFE stand for?”
Victor bent his head closer to the information sheet. “You don’t want to know,” he told Gordon.
“I do, Dad,” Gordon assured him. His enthusiasm for facts and figures was boundless.
Victor tracked through the peaks and troughs of the scientific compound-name like a child who had just learned to read. “Ethylene-tetra-fluoro-ethylene” he said slowly, using his finger to keep his place. “Now you know.”
“Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene,” Gordon rattled off. “Thanks, Dad, that’s really interesting.” It looked like the polymer the gorillas had used to build their pyramid.
“I’m glad you think so,” Victor commented drily. His mum shook her head, smiling. Never once had Gordon said he was bored, and it didn’t seem likely he ever would.
“How many plants does The Eden Project have?” was his next question. Zack supplied the answer while his dad flicked through his guide in search of it. “Around 4,500 separate species and 135,000 plants.”
“Wow!” Gordon said, his eyes shining.
“Wow what?” his dad asked him. Gordon rarely got caught out these days, but when he was especially happy, his enthusiasm sometimes got the better of him.
“I was just thinking it must be a lot.”
“It is,” Victor said, having found the relevant figures. “How many do you think?”
“Thousands?” he said innocently. His dad confirmed the accuracy of Zack’s totals.
They entered the grass-roofed building that served as an entrance to the huge ETFE-covered domes. The smell of baking was delectable! They climbed the stairs, turned left, entered the Rainforest Biome, and were soon immersed in wet heat. It was absolute bliss, like entering another dimension. All around them were towering plants, huge leaves and exotic fruits. It was spectacularly different from anything Gordon had experienced before.
“Phew!” his mum said. It was around 28˚C with 85% humidity at ground level. She could already feel the moisture trickling, and they hadn’t started trekking up the winding paths yet. It would be even hotter and wetter up there. She handed Gordon and Victor the bottles of water she had sensibly brought with her. “Keep sipping,” she advised Gordon.
“I will,” he promised. “I’m going to look for bananas and bamboo and pineapples and papaya and ...”
“You do that, son,” Victor said. “We’ll follow you, taking our time.”
“And catching our breath,” Edith muttered. How much oxygen was there left in this dripping mist? She was already feeling a bit light-headed.
Gordon giggled. Zack was now wearing a white tropical safari suit and a topi rather too big for him. He headed off in intrepid-white-explorer fashion, gesturing at Gordon to follow him. “I’ll not be far away,” he promised his already wilting parents. He soon caught up with Zack, who pointed at plants growing on the branches and trunks of some of the trees. “Ooh yes,” he said. “They’re amazing.”
“They’re epiphytes,” Zack told him. “They get their moisture and nutrients from the air and the bodies of insects and small amphibians that use them to live in and lay eggs on. When species help each other survive like that, it’s called ‘symbiosis’.”
“Do they harm the host plant?” Gordon wanted to know.
“Most of them don’t. They just hang on by their roots. There may even be ways in which they help the host plant.”
“Symbiosis,” said Gordon. “Isn’t nature wonderful?” That was one of those questions that don’t expect an answer.
“Whatever works,” Zack said by way of explanation. “Most orchids are epiphytes. Many bromeliads are too.” He pointed to some pineapples. They looked far too solid and substantial to have been produced by the slender plants to which they were attached. “Now there’s a terrestrial bromeliad humans have found useful.”
“I didn’t know they grew so close to the ground,” Gordon said. “I expected to see them hanging from trees.”
“Yes,” Zack agreed, “like mangoes. Just look at the length of that bamboo!” A clump of bamboo towered at least forty feet above them.
“It’s hard to believe that’s a type of grass,” Gordon said, staring up.
“It can grow by 45 centimetres in one day,” Zack told him. It was like an alien world. It had taken Gordon eleven years to get to 144 cms. A bamboo shoot could grow taller than he was in 3½ days! “Happy birthday!” Zack went on, and an amazing noise erupted in the air above their heads. It sounded like the roar of an enormous prehistoric cat. It echoed throughout the biome. Gordon flinched and looked at Zack in alarm. His Alter-Ego/Guardian-Angel grinned at him. “I thought this might make a good present.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Gordon exclaimed. His tears of joy sprang from nowhere. High in a fig tree, a troop of black howler monkeys was staring down at him. The male was asserting his territorial claim by making a noise out of all proportion to his size. It was like something out of Jurassic Park. There were also two or three females and some youngsters, making seven in all. Gordon stared up at them, lost for words.
“They’re most curious when they’re young,” Zack said, “and they’re very fond of this particular leaf.” He held up a sheaf of leaves in his left hand and shook it at the watching youngsters. Immediately, they began climbing down the tree, followed a little anxiously by their mothers. Zack handed Gordon the leaves and he offered them to the bravest youngster. It clung to a branch just above him, staring down with intelligent black eyes. Prehensile tail wrapped securely round the branch, and hanging on with one long arm, the baby howler stretched out and took the leaves from Gordon. With flowing agility, it retreated and began eating them with evident relish.
“They are so beautiful!” Gordon said, his eyes glistening.
“Look!” Zack said pointing towards the roof. Gordon saw the unmistakable shape of a keel-billed toucan flash across the biodome towards him. It landed in the fig tree at the same time as a smaller, brightly-coloured bird flew in from a different direction. “Now that’s something you don’t see very often,” Zack said: “a keel-billed toucan and a violaceous trogon on the same branch.”
Gordon’s cup of happiness ran over. “Thank you very much,” he said, with a little quiver in his voice.
“You’re very welcome,” Zack assured him. “Would you like to hold a tarantula?”
“I don’t think so,” Gordon said, “but thank you for asking.”
NOTES
/> POLYMER; TOPI; I’LL NOT BE FAR AWAY; EPIPHYTES; ONE OF THOSE QUESTIONS; BROMELIADS; SOMETHING OUT OF JURASSIC PARK; TOUCANS AND TROGONS.
Chapter 56
Left Holding The Baby
It happened just as they reached the aerial platform in the roof of the dome. They were among the first visitors to get up there that day. He and Zack had bounded up the swaying stairs rather faster than the adults rather sensibly taking their time behind them. Apart from the ranger on duty, they had the platform to themselves for a few precious seconds.
It was an amazing view. Zack was planning a dramatic fly-past by a Harpy Eagle, one of the rainforest’s most magnificent - and critically endangered - species. Gordon was looking down through the canopy at the tiny people who had stopped to admire the waterfall. He felt a tug on his left hand and looked down. The ring was glowing. He looked in the direction his hand was being pulled, and saw the torque hovering within reach at the height of his neck. It too was glowing. He felt an irresistible summons and sounded the alarm. Zack merged with him in a moment. “I have to go,” Gordon thought urgently.
“I know,” Zack replied, and hung on as tightly as he could. The torque moved to meet Gordon’s outstretched hand. He was unable to control the impulse that placed it around his neck and he was gone.
Zack felt his heart lurch at the loneliness. He was inside Gordon’s body without him. There was no trace, no trail that he could follow. He looked out of Gordon’s eyes, and saw their parents smiling their way towards him. They had made it to the top and were now just a few steps away. He could see from their faces how much they were looking forward to sharing this special birthday moment with their one and only precious son.
“It’s even hotter up here!” Victor said. He moved to the rail to look over. Edith walked over to Gordon and smiled into his eyes. “How are you feeling, Darling? Not too hot?”