Blue Moon (Book One in The Blue Crystal Trilogy) (25 page)

“Are you alright, Emily?” asked
my mother, walking into the hall. “You look done in. I hope you’re
not coming down with that virus again. They do say viruses come
back if you do too much.”

“No, I’m fine, mum,” I
answered, “just tired. How’s Granddad? Is he any better? Can I go
up and see him?”

“Leave him be for the moment,”
she advised. “He’s sleeping and I think it’s better not to wake
him. He’s had a reasonable day… came down this afternoon for a
couple of hours and had a bowl of soup. I’m sure he’ll feel better
tomorrow.”

She put her coat on. “I have to
pop out for a while. I need to return my library books and pop in
to the vicarage. Can you listen out for Granddad waking up and, if
he does, see if he needs anything?”

“Yes, of course,” I said,
stifling a yawn. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, love,” she kissed the top
of my head and was walking out of the front door, when she turned
to me and called back, “Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you, Theo
called.”

A bolt of adrenalin shot
through my system. “What?” I asked, suddenly wide awake. “What did
he say? Why didn’t he call my cell phone?”

“He says he tried, but you
weren’t answering, so he called the landline instead. He said not
to call him, he’ll call back. Now, I must go. See you later.”

She walked up the front pathway
and I shut the door behind her. I searched frantically for my cell
phone but couldn't find it anywhere. In a panic, I remembered
photographing the beautiful people the night before. That was the
last time I’d used it. I’d been so tired today, I hadn’t even
missed it. I couldn’t lose my phone.

In desperation, I searched my
pockets and my backpack, then ran upstairs and searched my bedroom,
pulling out the clothes I’d worn the previous evening, looking
under the bed and in the bathroom. But it was nowhere to be
seen.

I sat on my bed with my head in
my hands, various scenarios racing through my mind. Could I have
dropped it at Hartswell Hall? That was worst-case scenario,
particularly if it fell into the wrong hands and they saw the
pictures I’d taken. Could I have dropped it while running through
the woods, or while I was in the church? There was nothing for it,
I would have to go back and search. But I couldn’t leave Granddad.
I paced across my bedroom, feeling powerless and afraid, willing my
mother to come back. I had to find my phone.

Just as I heard my mother’s key
in the lock, the landline rang downstairs. I heard her pick up and
answer as she walked in to the hallway. Jumping down the stairs,
two at a time, I nearly collided with her as she handed me the
receiver.

“It’s for you,” she said. “It’s
Theo.”

“Hello,” I said, walking
quickly into the lounge and shutting the door behind me. This was
one conversation I didn’t want my mother overhearing. “Theo?”

“Hi Emily,” he said. “Where’ve
you been? I’ve been trying to call you all day.”

“Sorry,” I said, “I’ve lost my
phone. I can’t find it anywhere.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell
him I’d taken pictures of his guests with it the night before. It
seemed too voyeuristic.

“How are you?” he asked. “You
obviously made it back to the church okay.”

“Yes,” I answered, unable also
to tell him about the two yellow eyes I thought I’d seen in the
undergrowth watching me. Now it just seemed ridiculous.

“Emily, I need to see you…”

My heart was thumping in my
chest.

“Okay,” I said, wanting to say
so much, but hardly able to speak. I didn’t know where to start, so
I let him take the lead.

“Are you alright?” he asked
again.

“I don’t know, Theo, I’m very
confused.”

There was a silence before he
said, “Can you meet me tonight? In the church?”

“Yes,” I said breathlessly,
“What time?”

“11 o’clock. Our guests are in
the process of leaving. I should be able to get away by then.”

“Is it safe?” I asked.

“Emily,” he sighed, “Nothing is
safe.” And the line went dead.

At ten minutes to eleven, I
started out for the church.

It was the second time this
evening. Earlier on, I’d searched inside the church and along the
pathway, looking for my phone, but it was nowhere to be found. I’d
encountered Father James, just finishing evening prayer, who was
somewhat confused at the likelihood of my phone being in the
church, given my lack of attendance at services, but he said he’d
look out for it.

I told my mum I was going to
bed, and guiltily putting a pillow under the blankets to resemble
my sleeping form, I crept quietly down the stairs. Granddad was
sleeping peacefully in his room and my mother sat watching a comedy
show on TV in the lounge, the canned laughter so loud she didn’t
hear me open the front door and close it carefully behind me.

I walked on tiptoes up the
front pathway, then started to run down the road and didn’t stop
until I reached the old Lych Gate leading to the church. I looked
around furtively, feeling suddenly scared I’d see yellow eyes
watching me. It was a cloudy night and the moon was obliterated, so
there was very little natural light. I stepped through the Lych
Gate and into the graveyard. The undergrowth that surrounded the
graveyard was black and impenetrable, which only increased my
fear.

Why had Theo suggested we meet
here? Of all places, it was the scariest. But also the safest, a
little voice in my head reminded me.

Forcing myself to breathe
slowly and walking with my head high, I made my way towards the
church, passing the vestry and along the church’s east wall, before
reaching the entrance. Quickly, I turned the heavy iron door ring
and pushed open the door, just as the clock was striking eleven
o’clock in the bell tower. The church was in darkness and I
faltered as I closed the door behind me, dropping the iron latch
into place. What if it was a trap?

Almost immediately, I heard a
voice to my left. “Emily, I’m here. Don’t turn on the lights. Come
this way.”

I felt Theo’s hand reach for
mine and lead me into the church. We seemed to be going down the
central aisle and into the nave, past the choir stall and organ
pipes, and up to the high altar. As my eyes grew accustomed to the
dark, I could just make out Theo’s blond hair ahead of me.

He led me to the wall on the
right hand side of the nave, where a large tapestry hung. He lifted
it up, revealing an arched recess and door concealed behind it, and
placed a key in the lock. He turned it and the door swung inwards.
He stepped in, pulling me with him and I heard the door close
behind us. It was pitch black and smelled dry and dusty. I guessed
we were in a passageway, but didn’t feel brave enough to put out a
hand and feel the walls.

Almost immediately, Theo said,
“There are spiral steps leading down. Put your right hand on the
wall and you’ll find a handrail. Keep hold of it as you go down,
it’s quite steep.”

I let go of his hand and did as
he said. My hand touched an old stone wall, with large, uneven
bricks. I ran my fingers down until they touched a handrail. It
felt like polished wood and I guessed it had been worn smooth by
generations of hands holding on to it as they descended.

“Where are we going, Theo?” I
whispered.

“To the vault,” he whispered
back to me. “It was the safest place I could think of.”

For the next couple of minutes,
I concentrated on holding the handrail tightly and putting one foot
in front of another as the spiral steps led down and round. It was
not a pleasant experience in the pitch darkness and I was glad when
my feet touched a flat, even surface.

I heard Theo say, “That’s it.
We’re at the bottom of the steps.”

Then there was the sound of a
door being opened in front of us, the hinges creaking loudly, and I
felt Theo’s hand reach for mine and pull me forward. The air smelt
dry and stale, as if untouched for many years, but it was still
pitch black and I could see nothing until Theo struck a match. In
the faint glow, I could see a small room, maybe three metres
square. He lit two candles, placed in a recess hewn into the thick
stone walls, and I was able to make out an arched ceiling above us,
and two more recesses containing old books, candlesticks and some
ancient tools. An empty shelving system stood against one wall and
apart from that, there was little else of interest. I was very
relieved to see an absence of coffins. I didn’t think I would have
been able to stay for a chat if I was sharing the room with
mouldering old skeletons.

“Where are the coffins?” I
asked Theo, whispering in the gloom. “I thought this was a
vault.”

“They were removed a long time
ago,” he whispered back. “This room isn’t used for anything now. I
don’t think many people know it exists.”

“Except you,” I pointed
out.

“Yes. And Joseph. He discovered
it when he was looking at some old plans. It links to the
hall.”

“You mean there’s a secret
passage way?” I asked, incredulously. This was like an Enid Blyton
story, or it would have been if it weren’t so scary.

“Yes,” said Theo, “there’s
another door over there, under that tapestry, leading to the
hall.”

“Is that how you got here?” I
asked, walking to the ancient tapestry covering the wall and
lifting a corner. Sure enough, there was a door behind it.

“Yes, it seemed the easiest
way. I didn’t want anybody to see me leaving.”

“Are your guests still there?”
I asked, pulling the tapestry back into place.

“They’re getting ready to go,
so I won’t be missed for a while. But I don’t have long.”

I turned to him. “Theo, what I
saw last night…”

“I know,” he said, “you need an
explanation. And I’ll do my best to tell you everything, but I must
be back before midnight.”

As yet, apart from holding
hands, we’d kept our distance from one another. Now, I yearned to
be held by him, to kiss him, for things to be normal, to say last
night had all been a misunderstanding, and they’d been playing a
strange kind of party game. I looked at him closely, so ethereally
beautiful in the flickering candlelight, his skin smooth and white,
his hair golden and his eyes large and dark. I felt the energy
around him, almost crackling in its intensity and experienced the
most intense desire within me, heightened by the darkness, the
mystery and the danger surrounding us. But there was no time for
embracing. I had questions that needed answering and the clock was
against us.

“Go on,” I demanded. “Tell me
what’s going on… Who you are? What are you?”

He hesitated for a moment, then
started to speak.

“What you saw last night really
happened. You saw old people being rejuvenated, their youth,
vitality and beauty restored. You also saw what happened to the one
that didn’t make it. You saw him decay before your eyes, and that
is the danger facing us all, unless we bathe in the light given out
by the crystal of eternal youth.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
“What? Are having me on? This sounds more like some kind of weird
science fiction story.”

“Emily, believe me. It’s true.”
Theo’s voice became more urgent. “You need to know, so you can
understand the danger you’re in.”

“Carry on,” I said, hardly able
to believe what I was hearing.

“It began many thousands of
years ago, in the time of the Ancient Egyptians. It was 1350 BC and
Viyesha was a High Priestess in the reign of the heretical king,
Amenophis IV-Akhenaten.”

I cut in, my voice scathing,
“You mean Viyesha is thousands of years old?” Now I really was
having difficulty suspending my disbelief.

“Emily, you have to listen,”
said Theo patiently, “I don’t have long.” He took a deep breath and
continued, “Viyesha was the daughter of a slave girl and, amidst a
nation of dark-skinned people, was revered for her white-blond
hair, blue eyes and pale skin. She grew up in the palace of Queen
Nefertiti at Amarna, and when she was thirteen, she became a High
Priestess in the temple at Akhenaten, known today as Tell
el-Amarna. The temple was dedicated to the worship of Amun-Ra, the
Hidden One, God of Eternal Life, and it was said that a powerful
crystal, kept within the temple’s inner sanctum, was a gift from
the God himself and had the power of bestowing eternal life. As
High Priestess, Viyesha had made a sacred vow with Amun-Ra to keep
the crystal safe and protect it with her life. All was well until
the king, also known as Akhenaten, prohibited the worship of
Amun-Ra and insisted, on pain of death, that his people worshipped
Aten, the Solar Globe. Viyesha fled from the temple, in fear of her
life, taking with her the precious blue crystal and escaping into
the mountains.”

He paused, but I remained
silent and he continued with the story.

“For a number of years, she
lived alone in a cave, guarding the crystal. Every so often, she
would take it out and run her fingers over its hard, smooth facets,
and every time she did so, she experienced the most exquisite
feelings of energy, well-being and power. When she looked at her
reflection in a nearby pool, her skin was glowing, her eyes bright
and her hair shining. She had never felt or looked so amazing.
Occasionally, followers of Amun-Ra would visit her secretly and ask
after the crystal, but fearing spies from the king, she could trust
no one and always denied its existence. Over time, it fell into the
realms of myth. Still she guarded it, touching it only once a year,
to renew the feelings of well-being and vitality that it promoted
within her. The revelation of the crystal’s true power came in the
year 1332 BC, when Viyesha was 30 years old. It was the night of a
Blue Moon, an important and mystical event in the ancient calendar.
As she brought out the crystal to touch it, the moon’s rays fell
upon it, activating its hidden properties. Blue flames leapt from
the crystal and Viyesha was bathed in their brilliant blue light.
She felt like never before. Renewed, restored, rejuvenated. After
this, she stopped ageing. As all around her began to show signs of
the passing years, she maintained her youth and beauty. Now, at
last she understood the meaning of the strange hieroglyphic in the
temple’s inner sanctum: a circle crossed through by an infinity
sign.”