Trespass: A Tale of Mystery and Suspense Across Time (The Darkeningstone Book 1) (14 page)

3,500 BC

TELLAN LEANED
BACK
against the rock face and listened. He looked to the footholds cut into the stone. Should he follow Burlic, try to stop him? He shook his head. Twice Burlic had shown how easily he could beat him in a fight. He rubbed his left arm. He’d hit it against a rock when Burlic had pushed him to the ground. Now it ached and throbbed. At least it wasn’t his knife hand. He took his knife from his belt, checked the edge against his thumb.
It’s a good knife, but it’s not enough
, he thought.
Burlic isn’t just stronger than me, he’s a better fighter
. He put the knife back in his belt and pushed himself away from the rock face.

He looked across the pit floor. It was getting darker, and he was tired. He could go home. Leave Burlic to his fate. But what if Burlic never returned? What would he say to his sister, Scymrian? He chewed his bottom lip. He’d think of something while he walked home. He’d make her see that she was still young, young enough to find another man, have more children. He took a step across the pit floor. And that’s when he heard the scream. Tellan whirled around, looked up toward Waeccan’s hiding place. “Burlic,” he whispered. His skin crawled. He knew the sound of terror. He should climb up, rush to Burlic’s aid, but he couldn’t move.
It’s too late
, he thought.
I can’t save him now
. He wouldn’t listen. And now the Shades have taken him.

Tellan turned away from the rock face, glanced nervously around the pit floor. There. To his left, the shadows beneath the trees shifted and stirred. “No,” he whispered. “Not me, I’ve done nothing.” A sound. His head snapped to his right. Something rustled through the undergrowth. “No,” he said again. He took a faltering step forward. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll leave this place. Let me pass.” He took another step, stumbled over a dead branch. The Shades had tried to trip him. Tellan touched the amulet at his throat. There was no doubt now. They meant to do him harm. He stared into the shadows, but they grew darker before his eyes—impenetrable. A crackling sound in the undergrowth. Something louder this time, close behind him. Too close.

Tellan ran. The shadows swirled toward him, unseen fingers snagged at his tunic, scratched his skin, a swarm of creatures swooped and flapped around his face. But Tellan did not stop running. He did not stop until he’d cleared the last tree and left the pit behind him. Then, clutching his sides, he sank to his knees and gasped for breath. He wanted to close his eyes but dare not. Would the Shades follow him out of the pit?

He stood and listened. Nothing. The night was still. He took a few steps forward. It was good to be in the open—safer. Nearby he spotted the path back to the village. “Thank you,” Tellan whispered. He touched the amulet at his throat. There were good spirits here, and they were on his side. Tellan walked toward the path. He could breathe more easily now, but still he listened, still he looked constantly to his left and to his right.

He did not look back.

2010

I YAWNED.
HAD I BEEN ASLEEP?
I rubbed my eyes then stared blearily at my radio alarm.
I must’ve dozed off
, I thought.
I came in here about an hour ago
. I swallowed. What was that disgusting taste in my mouth? Slowly, I sat up and tried to think straight.

And then I remembered the dreams. I blinked. “No,” I whispered. But they came back to me anyway. The dreams had been muddled, disjointed. Everyone kept changing, morphing into someone else. Except for him. His dark figure was always there, hovering just out of sight. He was watching me, staring at me, reaching out with long bony fingers to grab me, take me away.

I shook my head.
Just a dream
, I thought.
Just a lousy dream
. But I sat back and gripped the edge of my duvet. And I listened.

A door clicked shut. Someone was in the house. Maybe it was Mum. But I hadn’t heard the front door. I held my breath. There it was again. And a faint, muffled voice, calling out.
Hang on
, I thought,
that’s just the neighbours
. I breathed. We often heard them moving about. “Calm down,” I muttered. “Sort yourself out.”

I stretched.
I need some proper food
, I thought,
like curried beans on toast
. Yes. I pushed myself out of bed, padded across the room and put my bath robe on. I ran my fingers through my hair, felt the roughness of grime and dried sweat. “Ugh,” I said. I couldn’t go and eat like this. “I need a hot shower.”

It’s amazing what a dose of hot water and a change of clothes will do. Fifteen minutes later the toast was in the toaster, and the beans, curry paste and mango chutney were bubbling gently in the microwave. It wasn’t something they taught in cookery lessons at school, but they really should. I poured myself a glass of cold water from the bottle in the refrigerator and took a long drink. That was good. I was definitely feeling more human now. I’d even found some decent music on the radio.

The toast popped up, and I’d just finished spreading the vaguely buttery spread when, with perfect timing, the microwave beeped. I stirred the steaming beans, poured them over the toast and, since I had the radio on, I decided to eat in the kitchen.

The beans were perfect: hot, sweet and spicy. I hummed along to the radio as I chewed.
What a day
, I thought. But here I was, in a bright, clean kitchen. Normal. Safe.

How could I make sense of the things I’d seen?
There was the strange ledge and the mysterious black stone. Then there was Cally. Where had she disappeared to?
I wonder if I could find her,
I thought. Would she be pleased to see me, or did she ditch me on purpose? And was there really a bunch of archaeologists digging in the quarry? “Dad would know,” I said to myself. But I couldn’t ask him without making him suspicious. He’d warned me away from the quarry in the first place. If he knew I’d been in there already, he’d go onto defcon three. And I wouldn’t be the only one in the firing line. He’d blame Mum for the whole thing.

But I needed his help. For the first time in a long time I really needed my dad to be on my side. “Hmm, I need a good excuse,” I said. “Something believable.” A history project? Dad didn’t work at my school. That was one humiliation I’d been spared. But he knew some of the teachers, especially in history. He was bound to bump into one of them eventually. He wouldn’t keep quiet about my sudden enthusiasm, and then it would all come out.

But then it struck me—email. Face to face with Dad, I couldn’t hide much from him. He knew me too well. But with email, I could choose exactly what I told him. I could quite honestly say I’d been told there was a dig in the quarry, and had he heard about it? If he asked any awkward questions I’d have plenty of time to think up a reply. It was still a risk. It might stir up all kinds of trouble. I’d have to be very careful, but I had to give it a shot.

I’d finished my beans on toast, so I picked up the dirty dishes. I looked at the dishwasher, thought of Mum, wondered when she was coming back. “Nah,” I said. I clattered the dishes into the sink and hurried back up to my room.

I opened up my laptop. It was a decent machine and still quite new, another thing Dad had bought me after he moved out. Mum hadn’t been pleased, but Dad had said I needed it for my schoolwork, so that was that. While I watched it boot up, a thought hit me. “Of course,” I whispered. “Google it.” Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

I opened the browser. What should I type? The obvious thing was to try the name of the place, Scaderstone Pit. I typed that in, but I knew the results had come back too quickly—no matches. I thought I’d spelled the place right. No typing errors. I tried “Scaderstone quarry.” Again, nothing. I knew it wouldn’t be much good, but I tried “quarries.” That was ridiculous—almost ten million entries. I tried limiting the search to pages from the UK. That cut the list a lot, but there were still nearly two million results.

I sat back in my chair and stared gloomily at the screen. I was stuck. And there was something else: could there really be a dig at the quarry if it didn’t show up on the internet? And wasn’t it a bit weird that there was nothing about the place at all? After all, it had been a real quarry once, hadn’t it?

But there was no need to give up; I could still fire off an email to Dad. I opened up my email program and started to type. It took me a while to get it right.

Hi Dad. How RU? Don’t worry—I know txting drives you mad! I’ll write in proper English. I thought I’d drop you an email, then you can read it later if you’re doing the dreaded marking. Plus it gives me an excuse to muck around on the computer. Things are quiet here. Mum is out with you-know-who. School is OK—except for French.

I went around to Matt’s house the other day, which was a good laugh. We played his new game. It was cool, but his mum kicked us off after only one measly hour. She uses the kitchen timer! We had a walk down past the quarry. Matt reckoned there’s some archaeologists doing a dig in there. He says there might be all sorts of ancient Roman coins and swords and stuff lying around in there. I said it wasn’t so old. I told him you’d know. Or maybe you could tell me how to find out?

Send me an email soon.

See you next weekend.

I didn’t know how to close it. I wanted to put
love from
, but it didn’t seem right among the white lies. I sat and stared at it for a while, then clicked on
send
. It was only an email. I shut the laptop down. It was too late to expect a reply that night. Still, I was quite pleased with myself. It was all true except for the bit about the Romans, and I was pretty sure that I did once have a conversation like that with
someone
. It was done anyway. All I could do was to wait for a reply and hope that he didn’t suss me out.

It was getting late, but I didn’t feel like going to bed. I’d had that sleep earlier, and it had put me out of routine. Not that I had much of a routine anymore. I could stay up as long as I wanted. What could Mum say about it when she came in so late? I didn’t have to answer to anyone anymore.

I found myself wishing that Mum would come home, give me a hug, like she used to, and send me to bed. But that wasn’t going to happen. And I didn’t know what to do with myself. I sat on my bed and put the TV on. As usual, there was nothing interesting on, and anyway, I couldn’t concentrate on it. I was getting drowsy, but there were too many questions and ideas droning around my mind. I shut my eyes for a second. There was one question that bothered me more than anything else: how was I going to get my phone back? Could Dad help in some way? I thought back to the email, remembering it, trying to decide if I’d given too much away. Would Dad believe that I’d been talking about ancient Romans with Matt? Suddenly I was wide awake again. What about Matt? Would he help me? He was a good friend. My best friend really. I just wasn’t sure if it was fair to get him involved– especially if the Brewer gang turned up again. I pictured the look he would give me when I asked him. The phrase “You’re on your own” wouldn’t be far from his lips.

That’s if I tell him
, I thought. I could keep quiet about the Brewers. After all, we might not meet them, and then there would’ve been no need to worry him, no harm done. But
I
would know. And I’d regret lying to Matt, I was sure of that. Damn it. Life must be easy for born liars. I’d have to tell Matt the truth. But that didn’t mean I shouldn’t try to talk him around, make it seem like an exciting idea. I could always tell him about the car—the MG—he wouldn’t be able to resist that. And he wouldn’t have to actually do very much. He wouldn’t even have to go into the quarry. He could just keep a look out. I’d ask him during lunch break the next day.

I lay back and shut my eyes. I smiled. I had a plan.

1939

VINCENT CHARLES
CORBETT
stood back to admire his handiwork. He used a cloth to wipe the dust from the stone’s surface. “There,” he whispered. “That’s coming on nicely, that is.” It was a special piece made to replace a damaged lintel up at The Lodge. It was quite ornate, and it had to match the old one precisely. Vincent smiled. This job was testing all his skills as a stonemason.
It’s a shame
, he thought,
there aren’t many who can afford to have a piece like this made. Never mind, it’s not a bad place to work
. He looked around the quarry. It was a busy day; they’d done some blasting yesterday, and everyone else was working hard at the far end of the quarry, sorting, grading, shifting the rock. He watched as Mr Burrows, the foreman, fussed over everyone, shouting out orders and threats to anyone who looked like they might be slacking. Vincent allowed himself a grim smile. Who did Burrows think he was? He looked like an overexcited rooster, marching up and down like that. He acted as if he owned the place, although they all knew that the quarry’s owner, Mr Matthews, was the one in charge. Still, the rest of the blokes were decent enough to work alongside. And Vincent got his pay packet every week, which was more than many could say. He earned enough for his rent and upkeep, and there was always enough left for a pint or two. He’d even managed to put a little away for a rainy day.

He was a hard worker and proud of it. His workmate, Bob, on the other hand, was not only work-shy but crafty enough to get away with it.

Vincent turned to look around the quarry. For the third time that morning he muttered, “Now where are you, you lazy little devil?” But there was no sign of him. He’d probably sneaked off somewhere for a sit down and a fag. Vincent pulled out his hanky, mopped his brow and blew the dust from his nose. It was a scorcher of a day. Bob would be lurking out of the sun somewhere. There wasn’t a lot of shade in the quarry; it was mainly bare rock. There was just the one patch of greenery—a group of stunted shrubs and twisted trees that had somehow rooted themselves in the rock. They clung to the slope on the only part of the quarry that hadn’t been worked yet. Vincent supposed that, one day, the trees would be cut down, and then what a barren place the quarry would be. For the moment though, they provided a hiding place for Bob. Vincent strode toward the place, forming a few choice words in his mind. Vincent wouldn’t say anything to the foreman—Bob knew that. But boy, he’d be sure to give the lazy devil an earful when he found him.

Vincent arrived at Bob’s usual hideaway and pushed past a bush, ready to let rip. But there was no one there. There was something though. He sniffed. That was it—cigarette smoke. All the lads smoked, but this had to be Bob. Everyone else was working right at the other side of the quarry.

He called out, but not too loudly in case the foreman should hear. “Bob? Bob, where are you, man?” There was no reply. Damn. He was an annoying little blighter. Vincent called again, a little louder. “Bob. Come on.” This time there was a rustling from the slope above. Vincent looked up and was amazed to see Bob looking down at him. Bob was quite a way up the slope, his head sticking out from the undergrowth. He looked almost comical. He must’ve been lying on his stomach on a ledge. This was stretching things, even for Bob. Vincent was fuming. “What the bloody hell–”

But Bob wouldn’t let him finish, hissed, “Shut up, man! Do you want Burrows to hear you?” He sounded desperate, and for good reason. He’d been warned—mend his ways or lose his job. Mr Burrows didn’t make idle threats. And that made Vincent think.

“That’s right, and if he finds us mucking about in here he’ll give both of us our cards and send us home.”
That would do the trick
, Vincent thought. Bob may have been idle, but he wouldn’t want to get anyone else in trouble with the foreman—none of the lads would. They stuck together. They had to. There were plenty of men who would be ready to take their place. But Bob didn’t seem to have heard him. And there was something in Bob’s expression, something in his eyes. He looked anxious, nervous. He reminded Vincent of the way his Uncle Alf had looked when he came back from the trenches. Vincent hesitated, thought about getting some help, but couldn’t think what he’d tell the others. Instead he thought of his Uncle Alf and tried a softer tone. “Come on, Bob, let’s get you down from there.”

At least Bob had heard him that time. He looked Vincent straight in the eye, pleading, “No. You’ve got to come up here. There’s something here, something…I can’t tell you. You’ll have to see it for yourself.”

Vincent was curious now. Bob must’ve found something valuable and didn’t want to share it. But he wasn’t about to go on a wild goose chase. “What sort of thing?”

Bob glanced back over his shoulder then turned again to Vincent. He was clearly struggling to find the right words. “It’s a…a rock…a slab of rock but it’s…I can’t say. Come here and have a look.”

Vincent sighed. It didn’t sound like something valuable after all. Perhaps if he humoured Bob it would calm him down. That’s what they’d had to with Uncle Alf. He looked back toward the quarry. There was no one nearby—for the moment.

Vincent gave in. “All right, all right. I’ll give you two minutes. How do you get up there?”

Bob looked a little relieved. “Over there, on your right, there’s some steps.” Vincent could see nothing of the sort, but he walked toward the place where Bob was pointing. Bob was getting quite excited. “That’s it. Right a bit…a bit more. There! Straight in front of you.” And so they were. When he was up close, Vincent could see where Bob had pushed through the undergrowth. Narrow, steep and eroded, but steps nevertheless.

He took a deep breath, muttered, “Of all the daft things…” and started to climb.