Trespass: A Tale of Mystery and Suspense Across Time (The Darkeningstone Book 1) (5 page)

2010

I STOOD,
LOOKING UP AT HER,
tried to think what to say. It didn’t have to sound clever; I’d have been happy with something resembling a sentence. It didn’t help that she was looking down on me from above. She was about halfway up the steep wall of the quarry; she must have been standing on a ledge. It didn’t help that she looked a couple of years older than me. And it didn’t help that, even though I could only see her head and shoulders, she was obviously pretty. Her hair was long, dark brown and hung in loose curls. Her skin was tanned, and her eyes were pale blue. “I…” I said. “I’m…”

“Look,” she snapped. “Is this some sort of a joke? Where the hell is everybody?”

I felt like telling her to get lost, but there was something in her voice—it was tight, strained. She was trying to cover it, but she was worried.

“I’m Jake,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you’re looking for. I shouldn’t be here really. It’s just, sort of an accident.” The girl looked nervously to the left and right, then looked back down at me. She tilted her head to one side, making her mind up.

“An accident?” she said. “What sort of an accident?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I, er, I was sitting on the fence, and I sort of, erm, fell in.”

“You
fell
? Off a fence?”

“Yeah,” I said, doing my best to smile. “I know it sounds sort of lame, but I’m a bit stuck. I need to find a way out.”

The girl smiled. “Why don’t you just use the path?”

I fought off the urge to look around me. I didn’t want to look any more foolish than I already felt. “What path?” I said. “There isn’t a path.”

“Oh my god.” She ran a hand through her hair, tutted at my stupidity. “OK,” she said. “You’d better come up here, and I’ll show you. But don’t mess me about. My dad’s just up the path, and my mates are up here too.” She raised her voice. “I know they’re mucking around here somewhere—hiding like a bunch of stupid little kids.”

“OK,” I said. “I’m not sure I should—I mean it looks pretty steep.”

“Which is
why
there are steps,” she said.

“Er, steps?”

She sighed in exasperation. “Turn a little bit to your right. No, not that much. Back a bit. That’s it. Now walk forward. Try to go in a straight line. There,” she said. “What do you see?”

As I followed her instructions, my cheeks felt hotter and hotter. I couldn’t seem to walk two steps without stumbling. I approached the quarry slope, and all I could see was ferns and grass and wild flowers. She was winding me up. I said, “All I can see is –” I was about to tell her what I thought of her when I noticed something—something too regular in the way the plants were growing up the slope. I reached out, pushed the fronds of a fern to one side. “Steps,” I said. And there they were. True, they were completely overgrown. And if she hadn’t told me they were there, I’d never have found them. But there they were.

“Climb up,” she called. “And try not to fall off.”

3,500 BC

TELLAN WAITE
D
.
It was almost dawn, but the shadows under the trees at the edge of the pit did not seem to be growing any paler. He shifted his weight gently from foot to foot. He had been standing still too long. He must press on. He looked to the east, but there was no reassuring glimmer of light. He touched the talisman he wore at his throat. His father had given it to him when he became a man. It had given him courage in the past, and he needed it more than ever now.

He faced the pit and squared his shoulders. Somewhere in there Burlic was prowling with murderous hatred in his heart. And he must be stopped. If Burlic was banished, he didn’t know what would happen to Scymrian, but he could not stand by and see his sister suffer any longer.

He could do it. He could stop Burlic somehow. There was still a little time. Burlic probably wouldn’t do anything until first light. And while Burlic was stronger than him, Tellan was far stealthier than Burlic could ever be.

He took a step toward the pit. That was where he must go. This was his time to strike.

2010

THE STEPS
WERE STEEP
and covered with undergrowth, lush, leafy and knee-deep. With each step I crushed the stems underfoot. They crunched and squeaked, releasing a fresh, green smell that reminded me of sliced cucumber. It was pleasant—for a while. But the trampled leaves were slippery. The first time I slipped, I flailed my arms to recover my balance and let out a little nervous laughter. The second time, I swore under my breath. I thought I heard contemptuous laughter from above. I couldn’t see the girl, but the thought of her listening to my stumbling progress made me even clumsier. I don’t know how many times I slipped and staggered, but eventually I fell hard onto my hands and knees. As I tried to stand, my right foot lost its grip again and I cracked my shin on the sharp edge of a stone step. I was a fury of frustration, spitting, sweating and swearing for all I was worth. I planted my feet more carefully, rolled over into a sitting position and took a couple of deep breaths.

“You all right down there?”

I didn’t answer.

“Are you…are you there?” And there it was again: the tension in her voice, the hint of fear. And what a weird question.

“Of course I’m here,” I said. “Where do you think I could’ve gone—flown away?”

“Oh good,” she said. “Look, it’s OK, the last bit’s easier—the steps aren’t so worn away. Keep climbing. When you get up here, I’ll show you something.”

“Best offer I’ve had in a long time,” I said. And this time her laugh was genuine. I smiled. I couldn’t quite believe I was delivering wisecracks to a girl who was clearly out of my league. Perhaps it helped that we couldn’t see each other. Perhaps she just appreciated my jokes. Only one way to find out.

I turned around and stood up. It was time to show these steps who was boss. On the next step, instead of gingerly feeling for a step and flattening the undergrowth, I just guessed where the step would be and kicked my foot into it. I felt my trainers grip the thin covering of gritty soil, and I strode upwards. In seconds, I could see the top and the girl was right—these steps were not so overgrown. A moment later, I was stepping onto a surprisingly wide, flat ledge, and there she was, sitting in the sunshine, leaning back against the slope of a low grassy bank, her legs stretched out on the ground in front of her. She was wearing a pair of green dungarees over a white T-shirt that showed off her suntanned arms.

“Hey,” she said. “You made it.” And when she smiled, I knew I’d been wrong to think she was pretty—she was gorgeous. And I’d been wrong about her age too. She was at least three years older than me—probably in a sixth form somewhere. I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know how it got so overgrown,” she said. “It wasn’t like that before.”

“Really?” I said. “When did you last look?”

“Yesterday,” she said, and she frowned. “At least I think…it didn’t look so bad anyway.”

I said, “Well, it was easy really.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “That wasn’t you I heard swearing your head off then.”

“Ah, sorry I, er…”

She smiled. “No need to be. I think you might have taught me one or two that I hadn’t heard before.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I learned to swear in the Scouts—they gave me a special badge.” And when she laughed, it wasn’t like the irritating giggling of the girls in school, it was warm and free. And one thing was for sure: I wanted to hear it again. “So,” I said. “You were going to show me something?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Unless you want me to show you the path so you can go?”

“No,” I said—a bit too quickly. “No, that’s OK. No rush. I can hang around for a while, if that’s, you know, OK with you?”

“Oh sure,” she said. “My friends have all cleared off somewhere without telling me—acting like they’re twelve or something. Don’t you just hate that?” She looked me in the eye, and I couldn’t help but feel she was having a dig at me. After all, it was only a couple of years since I actually was twelve.

“Yeah,” I said. “I haven’t acted like a twelve-year-old since I was ten.”

She smiled and said, “Are you always like this?”

“No,” I said. “You’ve caught me in a deep depression.”

She laughed. “More like a pit of despair.”

“Oh dear,” I groaned. “You’re so shallow.” And we both laughed. This was something else. I’d never met a girl I could even have a proper conversation with, never mind share a running joke.

She stopped laughing and shook her head. She stood and inclined her head toward the grassy bank. “Come on,” she said. “Over here. I’ll show you why we’re here.”

“Very deep,” I said, but she didn’t respond. The running joke was over. I looked around as I walked over to her. It seemed to me that the ledge wasn’t just level—it was perfectly flat. And its edges were all totally straight. There was no way it could be natural. And it was pretty big, maybe five or six metres wide and fifteen metres long. A ledge that size must have had some purpose.

“So,” I said as I stood beside her. “What do you reckon they kept up here—so far out the way? Something dangerous? Dynamite and stuff?”

But she didn’t answer straight away. She just fixed me with a look, narrowed her pale-blue eyes. “Something dangerous? Maybe. But it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the quarry.” And she turned around and looked down at something on the top of the bank.

I followed her gaze, not sure if she was being serious. And for the first time, I saw it. And felt the prickle of cold sweat across my back.

3,500 BC

WAECCAN STRAIGHTENED
UP
. The rain had eased, but as usual, it had washed a lot of soil onto the stairway. It was always a hard job to clear the steps, but clear them he must.
At least
, he thought,
I haven’t been interrupted
. The intruder had surely gone. It was a relief to focus on the simple but vital task of looking after the stairway. Each step had been carefully cut into the rock; each was a perfect copy of its neighbour. Together they made a perfect stairway—a harmony of toil and precision etched into the earth, wrought into the landscape.

Waeccan and his father had made the stairway together. It had taken many months. Now, as he worked, he liked to think that Cleofan’s Shade was near, watching and approving.

“Ah, Father,” he said. “Do you recall the beginning of the stairway? How you would only let me watch?”

Usually, Waeccan expected no reply but today, his father’s voice was clear. “Of course—you were not ready. You were no more than a prattling child.”

Waeccan smiled. His father had always been a stern taskmaster.

“I didn’t mind,” he replied. “I liked to watch. Even then, I was fascinated by the work.” Waeccan could picture the rhythm of his father’s deft movements: split, chip, scrape and smooth, over and over. Every detail was important: the expert handling of the sacred instruments, the precise placing of the fingers, the exact angle of the splitting blade and the strange, high, singsong sound that came each time the striker hit the blade’s handle.

“Well, you watched carefully,” Cleofan said. “I’ll give you that. And you learned. You were well-named, little watcher.”

Waeccan paused in his work. He was almost halfway up the stairway—a special place. “And this was the first step I cut,” he said. He examined the step carefully. He could never be sure it was quite level.

“Humph,” Cleofan snorted. “It’ll do. At least the next one didn’t take as long.”

Waeccan returned to his cleaning. “And yet,” his father went on, “by the time we reached the ledge…I was the one who stood by and watched.” Waeccan smiled to himself. He’d long since given up on expecting praise, but it was something to know that his father recognised the value of his work. It was enough.

He looked back down the stairway to assess his progress and frowned.

“I sometimes wonder, though I’m sure you know best, Father, whether we should have done it…differently.”

There was no reply. Waeccan went on. “Perhaps it would be easier to keep clear if we’d cut the steps deeper or wider or in a different place.” He shook his head wearily. The clearing of the stairway was a never-ending task. The soil continually crept onto the steps as though the earth was trying to heal its wound, trying to recover and reclaim them. And the forest was quick to join the effort: moss, ivy, liverworts and ferns missed no opportunity to obscure the steps and obliterate his careful work.

“Waeccan!” His father was once again the strict master. “We do not choose the splits in the stones—they choose us. And now that the stones have allowed us this sacred stairway, it must be preserved.”

“Yes, Father. You are right of course.”

“And let us not forget, there is good reason to keep the steps clear.”

Waeccan nodded. Even when clear, the stairs were so narrow as to be treacherous. It was even harder in the weak grey light before the dawn, but that was the time when he must climb them each and every day. “The difficulty of the climb,” his father continued, “is a daily test that you must pass.”

Waeccan nodded thoughtfully. As he grew older and less steady, he sometimes feared he would slip or even fall from the stairway. What would happen if he did not reach the ledge, did not complete his vigil? It didn’t bear thinking about. So Waeccan cleaned the steps. It was part of his duty, and it could not be otherwise.

“Father?” he asked. “You said I should have an apprentice. I do not mean to question, but…”

“Soon, Waeccan. Be patient. Continue our work. Look for a sign.”

“Yes, Father. Of course. As you say.”

Waeccan moved carefully to the next step and began to scrape away the soil. Would there really be a sign? Was he really to have an apprentice? It was best not to question. He would wait and see.

Tomorrow, before dawn, he would climb the stairway as usual. He would concentrate on the rock and empty his mind of cold, hunger and aching bones. He would keep his vigil until sunrise. Only then, when the Shades had returned to rest in the earth, would Waeccan return safely to the pit floor and, with the stone’s blessing, work upon the rock face. There may be a sign, or there may not. Either way, the stones would be waiting for him. No power on earth could alter that simple fact.