The Watchers (23 page)

It had been no more than an earthly hou
r
since they’d left the realm of the Maidens of Avalon and made their way back through the crystal chamber. Keri had been beside herself with grief and after the gate had closed behind them, leaving her daughter, Elizabeth, on the other side, she’d wailed as if she was in physical pain. Mia had calmed her with the reminder of the maiden’s promise, that they would soon be reunited as long as she kept up her side of the bargain. From there on, Keri had clung to the little girl, Sarah, as if she never wanted to let her go. And the child, with no words to offer, had taken Keri’s protective hand as the two of them walked together, one pining for her daughter and the other for her mother.

They’d moved through the palatial chamber, albeit this time it was a straight walk, with no illusion of a labyrinth to hinder their progress.

Uriel and the other six Angels welcomed them on the other side of the waterfall. "Come with us now and we will show you the way home. But first, you must receive instruction from Varquis."

He was standing on the beach, with his back to them, his beautiful wings outstretched as they reacted to the pleasure the leader felt as he looked at the landscape beyond the sea. They all stood aside him, waiting for him to turn but he didn't face them. Instead, he spoke as if he was speaking to the ocean.

It was Keri he directed his instructions. She would be the one who would contact the Prime Minister of Great Britain, her employer and confidant. Keri would be the one to set up the rendezvous and it was Keri who would be their downfall if it all went wrong.

The other had turned to look at her as she stood hand in hand with the child, Sarah. She looked as if the whole world rested on her shoulders. It did.

But Keri had changed. Despite the burden, living with the loss of her daughter had turned her into a woman of strength and purpose. Now she was a woman of substance who knew that to fold under pressure now, would not only mean failure on the grandest scale but that she would never see her little girl again.

After the details had been agreed upon, Varquis dismissed them, saying his heart was heavy. He told them that to fail would mean destruction and pain, a change to the way of life for the people on earth, which would be so immense and catastrophic that few would survive. The message had made his wings slowly descend as if they were sinking under a great weight.

"Go now," he said. "There is little time left. You have only until the morning of the solstice. After that, we will take a different stance. We are offering leniency now, only as one final plea to save our planet."

Varquis turned as Uriel and his six brothers stepped forward. “It is time,” he said quietly.

After they had received their instruction
s
, Mia and Tom bid farewell to Jesus. It was a poignant moment, especially for Mia. Mia knew her friend was happy to stay in the Watcher’s world, but for a moment, before they left, he looked anxious. He held Mia’s hand as he put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Look after her, Tom,” he said with a croak. “She’s a great gal.” Tom nodded as he left them alone to say goodbye.

“What will I do without you, my friend?” Mia asked. A tear rolled down her cheek before she wiped it away with her fingertips. “Will you be okay?”

He looked at the landscape about him. “I feel close to my Shanna here, Mia. I don’t know why.”

“But, Jesus,” she said. “Shanna’s in heaven and you couldn’t get any closer to heaven than this.” She leaned down and picked up Charlie. The little dog licked Jesus’ face as he went into his arms. “Will you take care of him for me?”

“I will.”

“I’m going to try and come back.”

“I hope so.”

She took one last look at her little Charlie, safe in the Watcher’s world. “You can bet on it.”

They were taken from the beac
h
by the air-spirits. They were as beautiful and as wondrous as the first time they’d seen them. They smiled and danced and played, sweeping them up into their whispery embrace and flying over the ocean towards a cavern on a mountainside, similar to the one where they had arrived. But before they reached the shelf tucked into the rock, something happened that made Mia fear for her life.

The spirit carrying her had swooped her along to where Tom was sailing on a breath of wind. They were side-by-side and they were laughing and enjoying the sense of flying as if they were Peter Pan and Wendy themselves. Then, as if day had changed to night, the air-spirits changed, as their forms went dark like thunderous clouds. Their smiles suddenly dropped away and anger and hatred took their place. The spirits had turned to devils with a look in their eyes that was so terrifying, Mia felt as if death was carrying them away to hell itself.

In her struggle, Mia couldn’t see Keri or Sarah. The stream of air they were caught up in was turbulent and dark, and Mia’s hair lashed her face, restricting her vision. She could see Tom at the side of her with fear in his eyes. Fear like she had never seen before. “Tom,” Mia screamed. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” he yelled back over the din of the air thrashing about them. “They’re angry. I don’t know, Mia, I don’t know.”

Then Mia was dropped from the sky. She hurled to the sea below and as her breath had all but stopped, she watched the vast ocean coming towards her like she was about to career into a wall of blue bricks. “Tommmmm…” she screamed. She thought she was going to die.

Then it had stopped.

It was as if she had fallen upon a mattress of goose down as the angry air-spirit wrapped her in its arms once more and carried her upwards. She was taken back to Tom’s side as if the fall had never happened. But they were still raging.

Then Mia knew. “Tom. Your camera.”

“What?”

She was sure of it. "It's that. They were never going to let you take it back. It's the camera…"

In that moment, Mia wondered if she would need to convince him it was for the best. That to let go of his precious camera would certainly save their lives. But, if she had to convince him…that would mean his camera was more important than she. Before her thoughts made her doubt the boy she’d always called her friend, she watched Tom struggle to open the bag strapped to his back. He didn’t hesitate. Not once. She couldn’t detect a single flicker of doubt in his eyes and when he removed his camera from his bag and released it without pause, she realised then, the love she felt for her crazy American boy. Both of them watched as the camera fell down and down, where it was finally swallowed up by the sea with a tiny splash. When they looked back at the spirits carrying them, they were pure again, white and beautiful and smiling.

Releasing them on the rock shelf, the air-spirits flew away, waving as they parted like dear friends contemplating a time when they would meet again.

Tom rushed to Mia’s side as her knees gave way and she began to cry. When he put his arm about her shoulders, she was caught off guard. Still reeling from the turbulent flight, she shrugged him off. Before she could correct herself, he’d turned away, but not before she saw the hurt in his eyes from her accidental rebuttal.

Now there was no time to explain. They had to make their way through the opening on the shelf where they had been left.

Mia followed Tom, Keri and Sarah along a tunnel made of plain, ordinary rock, until they spotted an opening at the end where daylight pierced the gloom. They suddenly found themselves on a grassy landscape of great beauty, where rolling hills were spread out in front of them and where below, gentle slopes of lawn met a river, twisting and turning and gushing fresh white water. The atmosphere smelled clean and godly. It truly was heaven, Mia thought with a sigh.

Ahead, a single stone path took them to a lone tree on a gentle mound of grass. It was a massive yew, about six meters in diameter with heavy branches leaning downwards, its leaves dressing it like a cloak of green brocade. As if they were in a dream and knowing somehow that the tree was their way out, Mia saw that the side of the trunk was indeed hollow and wide enough to walk into.

They went through one by one, a spiral of rough bark and wet moss, where a light from somewhere illuminated it with hues of browns and greens.

At the other side, it felt as if the journey through the tree had taken only seconds as if they had stepped in from one side and out from the other in a single breath. The transition was remarkable and strangely daunting as if time had been forgotten and misplaced. Now they were beneath a willow with a small trickling stream running from its base. And from its branches, coloured ribbons hung, ragged and soiled and swaying in the breeze.

Mia sat down upon a rock. Her shoes were wet from where they had stepped out of the tree into the stream. She noticed a carving on the rock next to her.
Swallowhead Springs
, it read
sacred waters
.

"I know this place," Keri said as she guided Sarah to a place on the grass. "I remember reading about it in a brochure I picked up in my hotel. If I remember correctly, Silbury Hill is that way and then beyond that is Avebury."

"That’s right,” Mia gushed, suddenly getting her bearings. “I live near Avebury, but I've never been here. The whole idea of it always seemed to a bit daft to me. This spring runs into the Kennet and Avon."

"So, maybe we should go back to your place and clean up. We could get the ball rolling from there," Keri suggested.

"Good idea."

Mia stood up, but before she followed Keri in the direction of a simple rough path, she turned to see Tom still sitting on the rock next to the willow. "What’s wrong?"

He was nodding to himself as if he was contemplating something important. “After all this time, I’m actually going to meet your parents."

Mia grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him to his feet. "Don’t get too excited, Stoney. They don't even know you exist.”

Jay helped Maggie across th
e
rugged terrain leading to Swallowhead Springs. She stumbled once as her artificial foot caught a protruding stone on the narrow path leading up to it. He caught her and she thanked him before she leaned harder onto her stick. He knew at that point Maggie was getting tired.

They arrived at the spring, which looked pretty unspectacular as far as Jay was concerned. He was expecting something like a monument or a fenced-off enclosure with lots of touristy stuff advertising the legend behind the alleged sacred place, but all he could see was a willow tree and a sprinkling of water that trickled away along a shaft of dried mud, twisting its way around stones and tufts of grass. Jay walked under a branch draping over the path and as something brushed his forehead, he flicked his hands as if he was shooing away a fly. It was a red ribbon, amongst hundreds of others, all tied to the branches of a willow tree, where the spring sprung from the ground as if a water pipe had burst somewhere below the surface.

“Is this it?”

“What did you expect, Niagara Falls?”

“No, but something a bit more grand.”

Maggie guffawed. “This is Wiltshire, Yankee boy. We’re much more scaled-down than you lot over there. You Americans are so…‘in your face’.”

“Thanks.”

“No offence.”

“None taken. Really!”

He watched Maggie sit upon a boulder. “Looks like someone got here before us,” he said.

“Huh?”

“The stone you’re sitting on. It’s wet.” Maggie seemed confused by his deduction.

“I’m a Private investigator remember. It’s my job to notice these things.”

“In that case, get your P.I cap on and look for something which could be a portal into the otherworld.”

“Sure, sounds easy.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on her. She was used to him now.

Maggie hitched up her skirt to reveal her prosthetic leg. She was manipulating it, twisting it from the top as she dug the heel of the plastic foot into the ground. “Ah, that’s better,” she sighed.

Jay scanned the area with his hands dug in his pockets. He was kicking some stones around when he noticed some footprints in the soil. They were going towards the boulder where Maggie was sitting. “That’s odd.”

“What?”

"These footprints are fresh." He crouched down and touched the ground. "But they're only going one way as if someone came out of the spring but didn't walk in."

“They probably went in from another side.”

“No, I’ve looked. There are no others as fresh as these. In fact, it’s not one set of prints, it’s three…maybe four.” He looked towards another boulder, which also had some water marks on its side. It seemed odd. You know, Maggie, I don’t think you’re going to find your entrance to the otherworld here, sweetheart. Not unless you put your head down that hole where the water’s coming out.”

“I was so sure…”

“How about Silbury Hill itself? You said the crop circles were right next to it.”

She shook her head. “Too obvious. If that was the entrance, someone would have found it by now. No, I was sure they meant Swallowhead Springs.”

“So, now we can head back, right?”

Her shoulders slumped as she looked up at him. She nodded. “Yes, I suppose we can go back now. You can call me crazy and a fanatic…it’s what you’ve been dying to do.”