The Gorgons Gaze # 2 (Companions Quartet) (7 page)

“I don’t think she has any,” said Connie. She thought a moment. “She likes work and order.”

“Right, I’ll lay it on thick what hard labor it’s all going to be.”

“Don’t worry, Connie, your aunt doesn’t stand a chance against her,” said Jane as Anneena disappeared downstairs. “No one’s got the better of her, yet. I almost feel sorry for your aunt.”

It was a tougher battle than Jane had predicted. Godiva only agreed to allow Connie to work on the festival preparations
as long as it was at
her
house and under
her
scrutiny. As for going out on site, that was out of the question.

Anneena chewed the end of one long black braid thoughtfully as she reported back from her initial assault.

“Your great-aunt is a funny one, Connie. When I mentioned you coming up to Mallins Wood it was almost as if I’d said some terrible swear word. She’d been coming along nicely until then—I think I almost had her persuaded—but she suddenly backed off and said you weren’t to be allowed within a million miles of the place—that she couldn’t bear it and that the sooner the whole thing was cut down the better.”

“She didn’t!” Connie was outraged. She hadn’t liked Godiva before but now she had reason to detest her. How could anyone want to see all those trees felled?

“She did. But anyway, at least she’s agreed to us coming to visit you from time to time.”

Connie put her face in her hands. “This is a nightmare.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” asked Jane. “Have you asked your parents?”

“Uh-huh. They said I had to try my great-aunt’s regime for a few months and I wasn’t to expect it to be easy.”

“Wonderful,” said Anneena in a hollow voice.

“Thanks for trying.”

“I’m not beaten yet. Let’s hope next time I have more luck.”

A few days later, Col and Rat were lying in the long grass of a woodland clearing, watching a woodpecker hard at work in a nearby chestnut tree. The tree was decked with countless leaves like splayed fingers and hundreds of pale green baubles. Every time the breeze passed across the clearing, the leaf-hands rose and fell in a wave of applause. Col felt it was almost as if Mallins Wood was celebrating the perfect summer’s day.

“Look at him go!” Col exclaimed with admiration as the bird rapped his beak so rapidly against the bark that its head became a blur.

“Yeah, a bit like my dad at a heavy metal gig,” Rat said. “Must mess up his brain, don’t y’think? Ma’s always saying that Dad’s never been quite right since he started doing it.”

Col snorted with laughter as Rat grinned broadly back at him. He passed Rat the binoculars and lay on his back, looking up at the blue sky overhead, picking out shapes in the clouds—a face, a ship, now a hawk.…Swallows swooped, catching insects.

“Hey, here’s something worth looking at now,” Rat said with sudden excitement.

“W…what?” Col asked, snapped back to the present to see Rat gazing across the clearing with the binoculars.

“Would you look at that!”

“Here, give me those!” Col grabbed the binoculars and
focused them in the direction Rat had been staring. It was someone in a white dress—a woman with long golden hair that fell in curling ringlets around her shoulders. Col dropped the binoculars as if they had burned him.

“What’s the matter?” Rat asked, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “Has she gone?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s just that…she’s my mother, if you must know,” Col said more aggressively than he intended.

“Well, are you going to say hello or not?” Rat asked calmly, picking up the binoculars. He looked puzzled as Col stayed rooted to the spot, unaware that his new friend was both confused and frightened by the very sight of his mother. “You’d better hurry.”

Col nodded and began a strangely uncoordinated half-jog to his mother as if his legs could not decide whether they wanted to go forward or not. She was now kneeling, hair in a thick curtain around her face, thumping the ground with her fists as if it were a drum.

“What are you doing?” Col asked.

“Calling the snakes,” she replied in her husky voice that always made Col shiver. She turned her forget-me-not blue eyes on her son. “Hello, Colin.”

“Oh…er…hi, Mom,” he replied, fidgeting awkwardly.

She rose in a fluid motion from the grass and came to
his side. Taking him by the shoulders, she stared hard into his face.

“You’ve grown up,” she said with a fierce kind of pride. “You’ve known danger and mastered your fear.”

Col would have preferred a more ordinary greeting, but he was pleased that she had noticed him for himself at last.

“Thanks,” he said briefly, pulling away. She continued to gaze into his face, making his insides squirm as if she had drummed up snakes in
him
. He tried to distract her:

“So why are you calling snakes? Isn’t it a bit public here at the moment—against Society rules and all that?” His mother was a companion to the snake-haired gorgon, and he was thinking of how Rat had almost seen her in action.

“Ha!” She gave a short, scornful laugh. “When have I ever cared about rules?”

True, thought Col. “So why are you here?” It would not be to see him, of course.

“To join the protest. This wood is the last home of the gorgons in southern England. It is the place they have returned to for centuries to spawn their young. If it goes, the gorgon’s hair will die—
she
will die.” Col swallowed and glanced behind him. He had not known that gorgons roamed these woods, and he certainly did not feel like meeting one just now.

“Oh, that’s…that’s bad,” he replied feebly. “So where are they now?”

“There’s only one and I’ve got her well hidden,” his
mother said. “She’d be in danger if she’s discovered by one of these protesters or the road-builders.”

Yeah, Col thought, to say nothing of the danger the unfortunate person would be in from the gorgon’s eyes—which had the power to turn living beings to stone—but he guessed that his mother was not concerned about that.

“Dad’s here, did you know?” he asked tentatively as she set off back to the camp, her long white skirt brushing the bracken, picking up burrs by the dozen. She did not reply, but from the determined set of her jaw Col knew that this was unwelcome news.

Col followed her to the steps of a pale green camper-van parked at the far end of the picnic spot.

“You’d better not come in,” she said. “Wait here for me—I’ve got something for you.”

She vanished inside—Col could hear voices and tried not to imagine what she was talking to. He sat down on a picnic bench and ran his hands through his hair. He was feeling terrible, feeling just as he had when he was five and still living with his mother. He hated to admit it, but he was just plain scared, yet part of him was drawn to her as if she had him on an invisible piece of string which she could pluck at her pleasure. The worst of it was that he did not think she realized the effect she had on him. He did not matter much in her life, she was so wrapped up in her snake-haired companion; and she probably did not believe she counted for much in his.

A shout from behind: “Ah, Col! There you are. I’ve been looking for you. Your gran wants you home by six.”

Col spun around in horror, realizing he had only seconds to avert a catastrophe. His father was swaggering out of the trees, smoothing his black hair out of his eyes and stretching lazily.

“Thanks. See you then,” Col shouted back, waving at his father and making as if he was about to go.

“Wait!” Mack was jogging over to catch up with him. “I’ll give you a lift on the bike. I’m going out for the evening.”

With Evelyn, no doubt, thought Col, now changing direction and running toward his father to head him off. He did not want this bit of information shouted across the clearing with his mother in earshot. “Fine.…” His voice tailed off.

It was far from fine. His mother had reappeared in the doorway of the van, holding a package. She stood frozen on the top step, her look as stony as a gorgon’s but, fortunately for Mack, without the killing power.

“Hello, Cassie,” Mack said heavily on seeing her there.

“Cassandra,” she said curtly.

“So you’ve decided to join us protesters, I see,” Mack continued in a doomed attempt at polite conversation. “I s’pose I should’ve guessed you’d come.”

“Not join you!” she snapped. “I’ll never make that mistake again.”

Mack bristled at the insult. “Ha! You never really did, even when we were married! Too busy grubbing around looking for snakes, if I remember—funny way to behave on our honeymoon.”

“It was no honeymoon for me, believe me! You—off in the slimy embrace of your tentacled friend! ‘Let’s go to the Bahamas,’ you said! Oh, I was so gullible then. I should have known it was the Kraken rather than the beaches that interested you.”

“So you
were
jealous!” Mack cried in triumph.

Col looked furtively around. The argument was attracting the attention of other campers; a small crowd was beginning to gather. Col saw Rat and his family coming out of their bus and wondered if he could slip away before they noticed him.

“Jealous—jealous of you? Ha! A second-rate creep who only feels big when roaring around on that ridiculous bit of tin!”

“You—you scheming viper!”

Col flinched as if ducking blows, as the slinging match continued over his head. Mack’s last insult brought a burly man with a shaven head out of the crowd.

“Is he bothering you?” the man asked Cassandra.

As if she needed help, Col thought.

“He’s always bothered me,” Cassandra replied, “but I can handle him, thanks.” She flashed the man a brilliant smile; he moved to stand at the bottom of the step, a self-appointed
bodyguard.

Hoping the escalating confrontation was sufficient distraction, Col tried to slide away but his father grabbed his collar.

“Don’t you go, Col! Don’t let shame of your mother drive you away!” Mack said loudly.

Col could now feel the eyes of the onlookers turned to him. He could have shriveled up with embarrassment.

“Ashamed of me!” Cassandra shrieked, darting down the step to seize Col’s arm. “Thankfully he’s inherited his mother’s courage—none of that Clamworthy weakness.”

“You’re deluding yourself as usual, Cassie. He takes after me. Ask him!”

They both turned their fierce eyes on Col, breathing hard after all the shouting. Col wished at that moment that he were anywhere else on the planet.

“If you want the truth, I don’t want to be like either of you!” he burst out, pulling himself free of their grasp. He turned on his heels and ran away as fast as he could, heading back to Hescombe—to anywhere where they weren’t.

When his breathing had become so painful that he could run no more, he bent over by the side of the road, panting. He wished he could keep on running forever—leave them both behind and never have to see either of them again. His eyes were burning, but he was too old now to waste tears on his parents, he told himself. Furious
at his weakness, he brushed the tears away and walked slowly down the hill.

The roar of a bike gave him ample warning of his father’s approach, but he was hemmed in by high banks on both sides of the road; so he had no choice but to stomp on, pretending he couldn’t see or hear anything. The bike screeched to a halt right in front of him, forcing him to stop.

Mack lifted his visor. “Here!” he said and held out a brown paper package. “Your mother wants you to have this.”

Despite himself, Col took the package, amazed that his father had deigned to run an errand for Cassandra. He could only imagine that for once he had managed to put out the blazing argument by his abrupt departure.

“Get on,” Mack said, gesturing to the back seat of his bike. “It’s a long walk home.” He held out the spare helmet.

Col hesitated. Putting up a fight now would be pointless. Besides, though he would never tell his father, he rather liked zooming along on the bike—it beat walking. He took the helmet.

“So, what are we going to do about Connie?” Dr. Brock asked the members of the Society who had gathered in Mrs. Clamworthy’s kitchen. The wooden table was bathed in soft light from the lamp overhead. Around it sat twelve
anxious people.