Midnight Dolphin (30 page)

‘
Do you think
we should turn back?’ asked Paul hesitantly.

‘
No’ replied
Lucy firmly. ‘Come on.’ They started walking on again, more
cautiously this time. Despite her bravado, Lucy couldn’t help but
imagine tonnes of rock come crashing down onto their heads. They’d
be crushed to death and no one would even know they were there. The
tunnel got narrower again and quite abruptly as they turned a
corner they realised that it was boarded up with heavy wooden
sleepers.

‘
Blimey! We’re
not going to get through that’ exclaimed Paul. Lucy tapped the wood
to see if she could tell how thick it was. She hoped that somehow
the sleepers would just turn to dust when she touched them, but
instead they felt quite solid. Paul was right; there was no way
they were going to get through there. Lucy flashed Paul’s torch
around her. She couldn’t quite tell if her mind was playing tricks
on her or not, but the light from the torch seemed to be getting a
little dimmer. Try as they might, they could see no way through.
Disappointed, they turned around.

‘
I supposed
we’d better head back’ said Lucy unhappily. Just as they began to
turn, the light in Paul’s torch failed completely and they were
plunged into darkness. Lucy tapped the torch and flicked the on-off
switch unsuccessfully.

‘
Work you
stupid thing. Work!’ she said, fear rising in her voice. It was as
dark as a coffin. Lucy couldn’t even see the outline of Paul
standing immediately in front of her. She turned abruptly and doing
so, cracked her head painfully on the low ceiling of the tunnel.
Lucy stood, stunned, holding her aching skull in her hands. She let
out an anguished moan. Paul grabbed her hand to make sure she had
something solid to hold on to.

A daze of
stars swam across her eyes. The pain was so intense that Lucy
thought that she was going to pass out. She looked at where she
thought Paul was, but instead of the boy, she saw a young woman
standing in front of her in the deep gloom wearing a bonnet and
shawl and a long crinoline dress.

‘
To find what
you want, you must first let go
’ the
woman’s voice whispered. ‘
You’ll know
when
.’

‘
What?’
muttered Lucy in her pain. She was so stunned she didn’t know what
was happening. She glanced down before looking up at the woman’s
face again. It was gone.

‘
You okay
there Luce?’ asked Paul, ‘that was a nasty crack on your bonce you
gave yourself!’ Lucy stood for another minute or so holding her
throbbing head. At least she hadn’t knocked herself out again like
she had at the swimming pool.

‘
I’m alright,
I think’ she said finally, gathering her wits together. ‘Don’t
worry’ she said, peering around her, trying to reassure herself as
much as Paul. ‘There’s only one way out. We’ll just walk back up
the way we came. They started stumbling along, but before she knew
what she was doing, she’d bumped into the wall again and Lucy
didn’t have any idea which way she was facing. She felt panic
rising in her chest.

‘
Hey stop a
minute’ said Paul. ‘Let your eyes adjust to the darkness.’
Blinking, they both looked around them. At first Lucy could make
out nothing at all, but slowly she realised that the rocks seemed
to be giving off some faint, barely perceptible glow. If she’d had
the torch on, she wouldn’t have been able to see the glow at all.
Now though the rocks didn’t seem so scary as they had just a couple
of minutes before.

‘
I reckon it’s
that way’ said Paul, pointing firmly in one direction.

‘
Alright then’
replied Lucy, the fear subsiding again, ‘let’s give it a go.’ They
walked on along the tunnel which curved round and upwards. Lucy was
convinced that just round the corner she’d see the girl in the
bonnet again, beckoning them towards the Trinity caves, glittering
with crystals and eerie luminescence. Lucy was disappointed though.
A couple of minutes later sunlight pierced the darkness and they
stumbled out into the cold snow that they had left just a short
while before.

Chapter
Eighteen
:

‘
Look up above
ye’ Mary Pewsey’s father said as her family walked back from
church, nodding in the direction of the starry sky above them. ‘Ye
can see the Three Sisters as clear as day.’ Mary looked up. It was
true. The three stars were particularly bright that night, nestling
in the velvet folds of darkness.

Half an hour
before, midnight had struck and Christmas day had just begun. The
Reverend Smith had glowered down from his pulpit at the midnight
worshipers in their Sunday best. Mary felt his eyes resting on her
occasionally. She never had told him the location of the Trinity
Caves and she feared his resentful stare as he surveyed his
congregation.

Even as she
walked arm in arm with her sister in their best bonnets and shawls,
part of Mary Pewsey’s mind was far away, resting in the still dark
waters off the coast with Sprite and the other dolphins of his
pod.

Mary smiled to
herself. The next year was going to be a good one, she was sure of
it. She and Sprite had found a wreck of a postal ship carrying
crates of silver plate that had sunk a few hundred yards off shore
during the Napoleonic wars. If she told her father and he recovered
the silver, they might pay off their debts to their landlord, and
free themselves from the poverty that had plagued them for years.
She might even be able to finish her education. The future seemed
rich with possibilities.

Mary wondered
what she might dream about that night. Strange dreams had been
crowding her mind in recent nights. Mary and her sister hummed
Christmas carols to themselves as they walked back home through the
crisp cold streets of Merwater.

‘
What happened
to you kiddo?’ asked Bethany as Lucy eventually came back to where
the Land Rover was parked. ‘That’s a nasty gash on your
head!’

‘
Oh it’s
nothing’ replied Lucy, defensively trying to cover up the bloody
graze with her hair. She shivered as she clambered back into the
chilly car.

‘
Has she gone
then? Rachel Greenwood I mean’ asked Lucy.

‘
I think so.
She had to get back to Exeter or something.’

‘
I didn’t like
her’ replied Lucy, ‘first she’s all friendly, and then she won’t
tell you anything, even though she knows it’s really important. I’m
not just some lab rat she can experiment on and neither was
Mum.’

Bethany
thought about everything that she’d talked to Rachel about after
Lucy had stormed out. Rachel had wanted to chase after her and
bring Lucy back. But Bethany knew Lucy well enough to realise that
the best thing to do was to let Lucy cool off before talking to
her. What’s more, Bethany wasn’t able to tell Lucy what she’d
learned from Rachel. She needed to speak to John first. He had a
lot of questions to answer. The fact was that she felt completely
shocked at what she’d learnt and didn’t know how Lucy would react
when she found out.

‘
I think she
means well kiddo, really I do’ was all that Bethany could say in
response.

Lucy slipped
into a gift shop and hurriedly bought a few small presents while
Bethany went to buy a hot Cornish pasty for each of them to eat.
Lucy felt strangely disconnected from Christmas this year. Normally
it was so exciting and important for her. This year it felt like an
afterthought.

They drove
back slowly in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Lucy looked at
the piles of slush on either side of the road. The crisp, beautiful
snow had so quickly been spoilt, she thought. At least the fields
on either side of the road were still unsullied. They turned down
the lane that led to the farm. Twice Lucy thought they were going
to slide into the verge, but each time Bethany brought the car
around safely.

Lucy looked
across the fields. ‘It’s like a sea of white’ she said to herself.
She thought of Spirit longingly and wished she could dive into that
sea and swim with him again. She was no closer to finding the
Trinity Caves and she no longer had any idea how to find
them.

The farmyard
was quiet when they drove up. Dad must be out helping Mary and
Darren on the farm, Lucy thought.

‘
Maybe you
should get those presents wrapped kiddo whilst nobody’s around’
suggested Bethany, stepping out of the Land Rover into the chilly
air. ‘There’s some things I need to get from the studio’ she added.
‘I’ll just pop over there’. Bethany seemed distracted, but Lucy
thought nothing of it. She took her bag of gifts and wrapping paper
and made her way back up to the holiday cottage.

Bethany
crossed the farmyard and let herself into the studio. It was quite
still inside. There was no insulation to speak of, and it was far
too cold to work or live there at this time of year. Bethany stood
for a moment and breathed a cloud of vapour into the still air,
looking around her as she did so. It felt like entering Sleeping
Beauty’s castle, it was so quiet. She walked up to her work table
and picked up a photo that she had propped between some
paintbrushes. It was the last photo of Megan that she had before
she’d died. Her sister was holding a glass of wine and laughing
happily. In fact the next time she’d seen Megan had been in a
sealed coffin at her funeral. She never had seen the press reports
of Megan’s death in the car crash, but that wasn’t unusual. Car
accidents seldom get much coverage in the news.

Bethany
studied the photograph closely, as though if she stared at it long
enough, Megan might come to life and say something. Instead she
stayed frozen in time.

Ever since her
death, Bethany had painted pictures of her sister compulsively, as
if she was searching for something in her memory that she did not
quite understand. Yet she never painted Megan as an adult, rather
she always painted her as a girl, of roughly the same age as Lucy
was now. She only had a vague sense of why she did so.

Reluctantly
Bethany replaced the photo and turned to leave the studio. Just as
she closed the door, Lucy’s dad appeared round the corner carrying
a bucket of bran.

‘
John!’ she
exclaimed in surprise. He’d nearly walked into her. ‘John’ she
repeated again in a broken voice.

‘
Whatever is
the matter?’ he asked, at once sensing that something was seriously
wrong. ‘Is it Lucy?’

‘
No!’ replied
Bethany, feeling so weak that she thought she would collapse. ‘It’s
Megan. Megan, who didn’t die in a car accident!’ John stood stock
still.

‘
Oh, I see.
You know’ he replied quietly.

‘
How could you
lie to us all like that?’ Bethany asked in disbelief.

‘
If you know,
then you will know I had to lie to protect Lucy. I had to protect
her till she was safe again. I couldn’t let the same thing happen
to my only daughter’. He let the bran bucket drop and stared
imploringly into Bethany’s eyes. ‘I wanted to tell you Bethany,
really I did. But a car accident was an easier way to explain her
death. But how do you know? Does Lucy…?’ Bethany shook her
head.

‘
No. You’re
safe. Lucy and I met Dr Rachel Greenwood today. She was the figure
you saw at Lucy’s hospital bed and at Thelma’s funeral. Lucy got
upset and ran out. It was only then that Rachel told me how Megan
had really died.’

‘
Oh I know
Greenwood’s name very well’ said Dad with an angry tone to his
voice. Megan often talked about her. But I never met her. I refused
to allow her to come to Megan’s funeral. She’d done enough damage
with all her experiments. I suppose she wanted to get her claws
into Lucy too. Well she’s too late. Lucy’s safe now.’

‘
I had no idea
John. No idea. You should have told me. I could have done more to
help protect Lucy too.’ He looked down at the ground, then bent to
pick up the bran bucket again.

‘
I really
thought I could keep things under control Bethany. Really I did.
But then she ran away to Cornwall to help that Spirit. Next thing
she was rescuing his mother from that lagoon. You know when you’re
fishing, sometimes you have to give the fish more line before you
reel it in. That’s what I had to do with Lucy in the end. I had to
give her more line. But she’s safe now. She’s safe from all
that.

‘
Is
she?’

‘
She’s lost
her gift now hasn’t she? She can’t reach out to Spirit like she
used to. She’s growing up to be a normal girl, just like Thelma
said she would. It’s all over. I’ve lost my wife. I’m not going to
lose my daughter too.’

Just then
Darren came round the corner.

‘
Having a bit
of a chin-wag?’ he asked, smiling. It’s too cold for folks out
here. Get yourselves inside for a warm up. Where’s Lucy? Mary
wondered if she wanted to help her decorate the tree.’

‘
Oh, I’m going
to walk alone a bit’ replied Bethany feeling both upset and angry.
‘I need to clear my head.’ John looked quite shaken up by their
conversation. He took his bucket of bran and walked over towards
the cow sheds.

Bethany went
into the top field and made her way up the track that the cattle
had beaten into the snow. She stood at the crest of the hill and
looked down on the spread of countryside below her. Bethany’s mind
was irresistibly drawn back to that summer holiday, so many years
ago, when Megan had first met Rachel Greenwood and her life had
changed forever. In her memory, every summer’s day as a little girl
had been sunny and packed full of adventure. She’d been so excited
to find Jet when Megan thought she’d lost him for ever. Bethany had
felt so proud to be able to bring them back together.