At once Michael was alarmed. He stepped closer to his sister and tugged her down, looking hard at the top of the chalk cliff. After a moment the man in the brown leather jacket appeared, leaning on the elm, peering down.
‘Michael? Michael? Where are you, Michael? Daddy wants to talk to you.’
There was laughter. A second man stepped to the edge. He wore a long, black coat and dark glasses and was smoking. At the entrance to the quarry Michael heard movement. A third man was approaching, striking at the undergrowth with a stick.
On the cliff, Brown Leather Jacket taunted him. ‘Come out and play, Mikey. Come and play with Daddy’s friends.’
The silent smoker flicked the butt of his cigarette into the quarry and walked past the elm, leading the way round to the gate.
‘Go!’ Michael whispered with urgency. ‘Go home. Quickly.’
‘You come too.’
‘Uh, uh. It’s me they want. And I can hide!’
His name was called again, a long, drawn-out cry, mocking and menacing.
‘Go on. Go round that way, it’s bushier.’
Carol crept off, her head low. When she looked back a second later, there was no sign of Michael, nor could she hear him.
He had vanished into the chalk.
THIRTY-FOUR
As he saw Carol running back across the field, Richard tried to break out through the totem ring, but was driven back by the power in the wood. He clutched his stomach, breathless, nauseous, but yelled for Susan, then pressed himself against the window, watching his daughter, watching her run …
‘She’s safe. Thank God! Carol! Run, love …’
The girl stopped at the gate and kicked viciously at the wooden effigy that leaned there. She was furious, he realized, her face red. She was drenched, her hair hanging limp. Again she kicked the effigy, and the house shook slightly, or perhaps that was imagination.
Susan had come into the room, and now she too stood against the cold glass, calling for Carol. The tall image-trees stared at them, and it was impossible to avoid their mocking, sneering gazes. And yet: they were only carvings. How could wood have power? How could a tribal totem carry energy and influence, so much energy, so powerful an influence that it could affect the awareness of modern human beings?
It was impossible. Richard stepped boldly through the French windows.
A hand twisted inside him, drawing him empty, clutching at his heart and squeezing so that he shrieked with pain … The face of a wolf lapped at his lips, bringing up his gorge, sucking at the food in his stomach …
He staggered back, weak and sweating, clutching at his chest.
‘Don’t keep trying,’ Susan said, holding him. ‘Don’t keep trying. You’ll kill yourself.’
‘There has to be a way through …’
Carol walked cautiously through the totem field, then arrived suddenly and breathlessly in the sitting room. She stank of the sea.
‘Men are getting Michael,’ she gasped. ‘Three men. I think they’re going to – abduct him.’ She pronounced the word carefully, unfamiliar with it, conscious that she had heard it used in reference to her brother. ‘But he’s all right. He’s managed to hide from them.’
Richard hugged the girl, crying with relief. Susan stroked her saturated hair.
‘Don’t do that again, darling. Do you promise me? Don’t leave the house again. You nearly killed us with worry.’
‘I have to take Michael food,’ the girl said grimly, obstinately. She stared at her mother, a defiant challenge. ‘He needs food. He trusts me.’ Then she lowered her voice, looked away. ‘He says he’s found the Grail. He wants me to fetch it back for him …’
‘You’ll do no such thing. Do you hear? You’re to stay with us until we can get you to safety. It’s not safe in the pit. We have to get Michael back too. Those men are not nice men.’
‘He knows that. But he’s hiding from them. He’s hiding in the chalk.’
Susan took the girl by the hand and led her up to the bathroom. ‘How did you get so wet?’
‘He lives by a beach. It frightened me, so I came home. But I think I have to go back. He really needs me …’
Richard listened to the girl’s voice as she ascended to the washing-place. Susan said, ‘But we need you too, love. And it’s dangerous in the pit. Something very evil is happening to us, all around us. It’s going to take a long time to understand it, but we’re trapped here …’
‘The watching-men don’t want me,’ the girl said. ‘Only you.’
‘Yes. They don’t seem to affect you. Aren’t you frightened, Carol?’
‘A little. But they’re only Michael’s dreams. When Mikey dreams he can make things seem real. You don’t have to be scared.’
‘Oh, but we are. And we’re scared for you. That’s why we don’t want you to leave the house again. You mustn’t go back to the quarry.’
‘But the Grail’s there. Michael can’t touch it. He needs me to bring it home for him. That’s what he said. I can’t let him down, and he’s hungry. Can we let him have some of our food?’
‘We’ll have to think about how to feed Michael. But of course we can. Perhaps we can throw some jars of pickle into the garden and he can come and fetch them. It’s too risky to let you go across the field again.’ And after a pause, ‘What beach? Where did you see a beach?’
Carol said, ‘When you step into the chalk it’s right there. But it’s only a dream. The Fish Lizard was really scary, though. But Michael said it wouldn’t hurt me. It’s only a dream. It’s where Chalk Boy lives.’
‘This water is no dream. Nor the odour.’
‘It’s a very smelly sea,’ Carol agreed. ‘I don’t want to swim in it.’
As Carol bathed, Susan stood behind her husband, arms around him, sharing his desperate search of the distant quarry.
‘He’ll hide. He’ll be all right. The bushes are very deep, they won’t find him. Dear God, I had enough trouble spotting him yesterday, and I’m used to him being covered in chalk. And he was bleeding from the thorns, and I still couldn’t see him.’
Richard’s hands touched hers, holding them into him. Susan realized that the man was crying. With his face pressed against the glass, the tears ran down the panes. She lay her face against his broad back, fighting down the waves of pain she felt herself, partly generated from within, perhaps partly the effect of the looming, leering rows of totems.
‘He’ll understand in time,’ she whispered.
‘He’s got to. I want him back. I want him back, Sue. I need him.’
‘Good. That’s a fine start.’ She couldn’t help laughing. ‘Do you realize that a middle-class couple, one archaeologist, one dolls’ expert, can’t move from their house because ancient spirits are blocking them in? It’s a reasonable sort of day’s experience, isn’t it?’
He turned and shook his head, unable to summon a smile, the tears glistening on his cheeks. ‘I don’t feel odd about it. You’re right. It’s strange. I just accept it. Next door they’re watching Oprah Winfrey. Or maybe listening to Derek Jameson. They do that, you know. They play him at top volume.’
‘Tell me about it …’ she muttered darkly.
Hugging closely, they grew more secure.
‘Michael will be fine. Other children must have this talent. It can’t be a one-off thing. Can it?’
‘Françoise didn’t know of any others.’
Richard’s body stiffened with anger. ‘But I don’t believe her. She works for an Institute that in one room is trying to get a kid to move a spot of electricity a centimetre across a screen; in another they’re reading minds left, right and centre. There’s a lot of deceit, a deal of covering-up going on in London. They know more than they’re telling us …’
‘Paranoia strikes …’
‘It’s not paranoia. They don’t dare share what they know. Anyway, these talents die.’
‘And get reborn.’
‘But die again. Michael’s gift won’t last beyond adolesce
nce.’
‘Nothing would make me happier.’
‘Me neither. I love him, Sue.’
‘Good.’
‘And I love you.’
‘I never doubted it. You just stopped knowing who you were. I didn’t know how to handle that. I hated you, the false-you, the shadow you. But I never stopped loving Richard Whitlock.’
‘Does that mean you still love me? Now?’
‘Of course. I’ll always love you. Why do you ever doubt it? But right now our son is out there, hiding, perhaps frightened, and we’re … we’re in some sort of limbo state. Look around you, Rick. Just think what’s happening to us. It’s a fantasy. But it’s real. It’s crazy. But it’s happening. Someone did something to Michael, years ago, and we’re living in ghost land. Look at it!’
‘I’ve accepted it …’
‘Yes. Yes, I can see you have. And it’s odd … it’s odd, but I have faith in Michael. He’s strong. I feel it. Is it possible for me to have a mother’s intuition? He never grew inside me. He and I never grew together. He never took food from me. He isn’t my child. But I have the strangest feeling …’
She pulled away, suddenly frightened again. Her body went chill. The field, the woods, the quarry, all seemed so quiet. Yet Michael was there, being approached by men who had sinister intentions.
And yet …
She felt calm. She felt at peace.
She turned to Richard and couldn’t help laughing. ‘I don’t know why … I don’t know why I think this … but …’
‘But what?’
She shook her head, looked back at the quarry.
‘I think Michael’s sent them away … and I don’t mean with a flea in their ear … I think he’s sent them away permanently. I think he’s safe.’
In the late afternoon Richard saw his son at the edge of the woods. The boy glistened white, though his face was a black mask, now. He was holding a tall pole, and ribbons fluttered from its length. Through binoculars Richard thought the ribbons were bits of tiny clothing. Michael moved restlessly along the edge of the copse, then held the pole above his head, as if signalling. Pressed against the upstairs window, fighting the vertigo, Richard beckoned to the boy, but Michael ignored him. And yet the lad wanted something, that much was clear.
And Richard knew it was Carol.
The girl sat on her bed, her face set, her body a testimony to the betrayal she was feeling. She kept whispering, ‘I must go. He needs me … I must go …’
Richard was quite determined that she wouldn’t. He made a large parcel of food and dropped it from the window. He talked to his daughter, hugged her: ‘It’s too dangerous …’
‘He needs me.’
‘If he needs you that much he’ll come to the house.’
‘You don’t understand. He’s got the Grail. He wants to give it to you. It’s a gift. He wants me to fetch it home for him …’
‘He can bring it himself. When he comes to the house, all this evil will vanish. These totems will just be wood and masks and bits of stone.’
Carol shivered, and Richard felt the prickle of power, the watching, listening, breathing essences of the past that crowded in upon Eastwell House.
Then downstairs the phone began to ring.
‘Stay here!’
He was in the sitting room in moments, but Susan had already reached the phone and was listening to the sounds that issued from the earpiece.
‘Who is this? Who is this please?’
She suddenly slammed the receiver down. The line had gone dead, but her face was a furious red, and her eyes blazed.
‘Who was it?’
‘Michael’s mother. I’m sure of it …’
It had been her! She had finally called. The voice was so soft. It was so sad, and yet so angry.
‘Why did you interfere? Tell him to go away. Tell him to leave me alone … I don’t want him here. You shouldn’t have done that to the doctor. You shouldn’t have found out. Tell him to leave me alone!’
That was all she had said. But the voice … it was the birth-mother. Susan knew it. She knew it in her heart. She had finally called.
‘Tell him to leave me alone. Tell him to go away.’
What was happening?
On impulse Susan rang Françoise Jeury’s number. She didn’t know why. She just felt a need for the woman at this moment. All hostilities were ended in her mind. She needed Françoise.
The phone was answered and a tired, American voice muttered, ‘Lee Kline speaking. How can I help you?’
‘Could I speak to Françoise, please?’
‘Françoise? She’s in Kent, visiting a client. Is it important?’
‘Very.’
‘Then I’ll give you the number. I guess it’ll be OK.’
‘Please. I’d appreciate it.’
There was a moment’s pause, the rustle of paper, then the man read out the Whitlocks’ own telephone number.
‘But she isn’t here!’
‘You’re the Whitlocks? Michael’s parents. She’s supposed to be there. Been calling you on and off for a day now. All she was getting were gremlins on the line. She’s taken a chance on your hospitality. Look around outside. Maybe she’s lost. She went down this morning. I thought she’d be with you long since—’
Susan slammed the phone down and went up to the landing, then into her own bedroom, skirting round the top of the tree that still rose above the hole in the floor. There was energy here, but no evil, not until the window, where a rag fetish dangled disgustingly, blocking access to the world outside. From here, though, she could see across the drive, on to the road outside.
There was no sign of the French woman. No sign of anyone. She noticed that the gates were closed, something that Michael had done.
It was Carol who found their visitor. Françoise had climbed over the gate earlier that morning, unable to raise the family on their phone, and had at once been drawn into the pattern of anger and violence emanating from the totem field and the scattered fetishes that had resulted from Michael’s rage the day before. She had started to run, trying to escape the influence and the screams that began to fill her head. Sickened, exhausted in seconds, she had been unable to escape the field, and had finally staggered into the greenhouse and collapsed.
When she had regained consciousness she had crawled under one of the trellised potting ledges, pressing into the corner among the cobwebs and curling up into a ball. She had tried to scream, but couldn’t utter a sound. Later, when she had cried in pain and fear, Carol had heard the distant sounds of her distress.
The girl came into the greenhouse and took Françoise by the hand. ‘Come on. Come home with me. You’ll be all right. Come with me to the house.’
Through her tears the woman had smiled, then hugged the girl. ‘Did Michael do this?’
‘He was very angry,’ Carol said, tugging at the woman to help her up. Françoise eased herself upright, shaking. The presence of the girl had had a remarkable effect on the ghostly field around her. Carol was like a path through the fire. An astonishing radiance of calm and peace flowed around the child, driving back the darkness. They walked hand in hand through the totem field and into Eastwell House, where the shattered, ravaged faces of the Whitlocks stretched like skulls into welcoming, fear-stained smiles.
When she had recovered, when she had finished a pot of black coffee, Françoise listened to what had happened to the Whitlocks. Carol stayed close to her. If the girl moved away, the power in the house was intolerable to the psychic. Carol was her shield. All three adults clustered around the girl, in fact, drawing their peace from the slender, bespectacled child. For the moment, Carol’s anxiety about her brother had been replaced by concern for the visitor.
‘The reason I rang you the other day was because Michael came to visit me in London.’
The Whitlocks were astonished. ‘That’s not possible. He hasn’t been to London for months, now.’
‘He came into my office two days ago. He stole some
thing from one of my shelves. That’s why I called you. He fetched something from my office—’
‘The stone! Of course!’ Susan walked quickly across the room and picked up the black stone from the corner. Françoise smiled, accepted the object and turned it in her fingers.
‘It belongs to me. It’s from Mexico, a magic stone. Is this what caused the damage?’ She looked meaningfully at Susan’s face.
‘Yes.’
‘It was a strange sensation when your son came to me. He looked something like Michael, and something … odd … like a fish. It was a huge apparition, taller than the room, though I noticed he bent to see. I don’t understand that part of it. When he reached for the stone his fingers were unreal. But he touched and grabbed the object before everything exploded. So I have seen the fetching technique of your son, in his guise as Fisher King.’
Richard added, ‘And now he’s found the Grail. He has it in his castle.’
‘The Holy Grail? He’s found it finally?’
‘He says he has.’
Carol shifted uncomfortably. ‘But he can’t bring it out himself,’ she said sharply. ‘He needs me to do it. But Mummy won’t let me go …’
Her feet kicked irritably against the chair. Susan watched her daughter squarely, the plaster over her left eye reddening slightly as blood seeped from the raw wound below.
‘Anyway …’ the girl went on. ‘It’s too frightening where he lives, so I suppose I won’t have to go anyway. I don’t like the beach.’
Françoise queried this with a raised eyebrow. Susan said, ‘It’s a part of Michael’s Limbo. There’s a beach and caves, and monsters. We think he has access to a past time, and goes there to hide. I don’t understand it, how it works, but if he’s reaching for objects, maybe he can hide in the past too.’
‘I know about the beach,’ Françoise said thoughtfully. ‘I was just surprised that Carol had been there. What did it feel like, Carol? Can you tell me?’
The Fish Lizards are dangerous,’ Carol said, and at once Françoise was excited, leaning forward, remembering.