Triskellion 3: The Gathering (21 page)

Celia looked over at him. She could see that beneath his hand a tear was trickling down his cheek. She wiped it away. “Tell me, darling.”

“It was ten years ago,” Wing said. He spoke quickly. It was as though he were afraid his nerve might fail him; as though he were desperate to reveal a secret he had kept for far too long. He kept his hand over his eyes. “Nineteen fifty-five. I had just come back from Korea and the Yanks had recruited me into the test pilot scheme here. I was only twenty-four, so breaking the sound barrier on a daily basis during peacetime was
very
appealing.” He paused, took a breath. “It was a perfect June morning and I had taken a new Super Sabre up to do some altitude tests over the desert. I remember it so vividly because it was a perfect flying day; the sky was clear as far as the eye could see. Once I got above the clouds everything was so bright and blue I felt I could have been in heaven. I was still in radio contact and they told me to climb higher still to really test the kite. I must have been doing seven hundred miles an hour or so – just subsonic…” He paused for a moment in his story, his voice cracking a little.

“Go on,” Celia said. “I’m listening.”

Wing was almost in tears. “Well, then I saw something, you see. People at the time were always talking about seeing cigar and saucer shapes in the sky. We were all terribly paranoid about spying in those days, as you know. But this was different. It was more like a
vision.
As I climbed to a higher altitude I saw a golden shape coming straight for me. It was travelling very slowly and, although I was going at high speed, it did not seem to get closer quickly at all – so I was able to get a good look at it. It was a light … well, more like
three
lights, spinning and intersecting like wheels of energy. It drew close and I began to see it was more solid, like a gyroscope.

“My radar was registering nothing, so I spoke to them on the ground. I told them that a flying object, gold and bright, was heading almost straight for me. They asked me to confirm the sighting because nothing was showing on their radar either, and then told me to try and make radio contact with it. But when I tried, using different frequencies on my radio, all I got was a high-pitched whine, like singing voices: metallic and strange.

“There was a delay on the ground as if they were deciding what to do, and then a voice told me to open fire. To open fire on the instructions of the president himself! At that moment the thing came closer. I took evasive action and it passed me. As it went by I swear I saw a figure standing in the middle of the spinning wheels looking straight at me. I told them on the ground that there was no need to shoot; that it had gone past. They told me to pursue, but I didn’t need to. The thing had taken a wide circle and was coming round in front of me again. I swear, Celia, as it circled me in that bright blue sky, way above the clouds, I felt an immense feeling of peace. And do you know, I did a really foolish thing: I waved at it…” Wing stopped, gathering his thoughts.

“And then…?” Celia pressed.

“It circled me again and I told them on the ground that it just seemed to be observing me.”

“And what did they do?”

Wing’s voice caught in his throat. “They told me to fire, or be shot down myself. And when this spinning wheel approached me again I was sure that whatever was inside it was
smiling
at me.”

“So what did you do, Gerry?”

“I blew him to bits,” Wing sobbed. “I let off both rockets and got a direct hit when he came in for the fourth time. The thing exploded into a million balls of light that burst like bubbles as they hit my plane… I felt as if I had made a friend and then shot him down. It felt so wrong.”

“Oh my God! What happened after that?” Celia asked, astonished.

“I remember nothing until I was on the ground. As I was being dragged from the cockpit, I could see the remains of a … body on the tarmac. It was naked and had been torn apart; its broken back and ribs were spread out like wings.”

“Oh my God,” Celia gasped. “Were you injured?”

“That’s the thing,” Wing said. “There wasn’t a scratch on me. After I was pulled from the plane, I just sat there on the tarmac with this … thing in my hand.”

“What thing?”

Wing was wiping away his tears with a big white handkerchief. “That’s what really frightened me, Celia – I was holding a … a Triskellion.”

“Like the one in our village?”

Wing nodded.

Celia leaned across and kissed the tears from his face. Suddenly there was a noise behind them and they turned to see a boy standing there.

“Hilary,” Gerald said, attempting to compose himself. “What is it, old boy? Has Rudi been bullying you again?”

But Hilary Wing kept looking at his father and Celia, his face collapsing and his mouth opening in a howl as he turned and ran crying towards the lake.

T
here was plenty more of BB Honeycutt’s honey at breakfast, slathered over toasted rolls, mixed into cereal and poured over natural yoghurt. Adam’s enormous appetite was a clear sign that he had fully re-covered. He told Honeycutt he was feeling much better and thanked him for all his help, but he kept the bandage on, not wanting Honeycutt to see that the wound had completely disappeared.

Once breakfast was cleared away, Rachel told Honeycutt that they needed to move on.

“You never said where you was headed,” he said.

“West,” Rachel said. “The desert.”

The beekeeper stared at her, waiting for her to say more – but when he saw that she had told him all she wanted to, he simply nodded and wished her a safe journey. “And remember what I told you last night,” he said; “you and your brother got to watch out for yourselves…” He turned to find Gabriel standing behind him.

“I’ll watch out for them,” he said.

“You’d better. I don’t care what I saw you do to those bikers yesterday; these two come to any harm, I’m going to come looking for you.”

Gabriel nodded. “We need to get a bus towards New Mexico,” he said. “You know where—?”

Honeycutt held up a hand. “Can you kids drive? I know you’re not old enough, but…”

“We can drive,” Adam said.

“You won’t need the bus.” He led them out into the yard and across to a weather-beaten wooden garage. Chickens scattered and rats scurried into the shadows as he opened the door. Light filtered down through holes in the ceiling, casting thin beams on to the roof of a dusty old car.

“My daddy bought this thing forty years ago,” he said. “Thing was in pieces when he got it, but he worked every weekend for two years until it was good as new. She’s been sitting in here gathering dust since I was in my twenties.” He wiped a sleeve across the wing. “You’re welcome to take it if you want.”

“Don’t you need it?” Adam asked.

Honeycutt shook his head. “I use the pick-up to make my deliveries. Got no real use for this old thing.” He carried on wiping at the wing, clearing away the grime to reveal the shiny blue metal beneath. “It’s yours if you want it,” he said. “She’s a sixty-one Packard. They made these things to last.”

Rachel stared at the car, remembering her dream from the night before: another vision of her grandmother’s old life. Celia Root and Gerald Wing – her grandparents – together by the side of a lake. This was the car that had taken them there: her grandfather’s blue Packard.

“We’ll take it,” she said. “Thank you.”

Honeycutt nodded, smiling, as though he had always known what Rachel’s answer would be.

Ten minutes later they had said their goodbyes and Adam was driving the old car out through the gates of Honeycutt’s farm. Rachel waved from the back window and watched the figure of the beekeeper receding as they accelerated away and out on to the main road.

“This is the same car, isn’t it?” Adam said. “The one they drove to the lake in.”

Rachel nodded. As always, Adam had been privy to the same dreams and visions as his sister. She knew that finding Honeycutt and being given this car had not been a coincidence. “It’s the way we were meant to get there,” she said.

Gabriel looked at Rachel, read her thoughts. “When you meet someone with the same name or when two neighbours find themselves on the same beach on the other side of the world,
that’s
coincidence” – he smiled – “this is something else.”

“We’re going there because of the crash, aren’t we,” Rachel said. “Because of what my grandfather shot down.”

“Partly,” Gabriel said.

Adam sounded the car’s ancient horn as a sedan swerved in front of them. “They left him with a Triskellion.”

“Yes. Another Triskellion stolen from a Traveller not exactly welcomed with open arms.”

Rachel sat back. The car’s cracked leather seats seemed perfectly moulded to her body and the smell of the interior was oddly familiar and comforting. “Things are starting to add up,” she said.

“They’ve always added up,” Gabriel said. “It’s just taken you two this long to do the maths.”

By the time Laura and Kate were awake and had freshened up in the public toilets, the wholefoods store they had looked at the night before was open.

The previous day Laura had taken back roads to avoid driving on the interstate as much as possible. The journey had taken twice as long, but they had hoped that by travelling through small towns and rural areas and staying off major routes they would avoid drawing attention to themselves.

The sun in the early evening sky had been golden, and Kate and Laura had admired the expanses of cornfield that had extended into infinity on either side of them. They could have passed for a pair of ordinary women, enjoying their independence by driving coast to coast across the US.

As it was, their situation was very different.

They had found a small village unmarked on the map, some forty kilometres outside Tulsa, Oklahoma. It had been empty as they’d driven through at eleven in the evening, and Laura had thought the lack of activity made it the perfect place to stop. At the centre of the village they had noticed a store:

Now, the owner, a plump middle-aged woman with long silver hair, welcomed them warmly and encouraged them to try the coffee before they so much as thought about buying anything.

The coffee was every bit as good as the woman had promised, as were the Danish pastries that Laura and Kate bought to go with it. Once they were finished, they loaded up a basket each with supplies – fresh fruit and bottled water, cookies, bread and cheese – and carried them to the checkout.

“Long journey ahead?” the woman asked as she rang up their purchases.

“Not really sure,” Laura said. “Hopefully not that long.”

“I’ll give you a flask of coffee to take with you,” the shopkeeper said. “On the house.”

Kate could not have explained why this simple act of kindness affected her so much. But, eaten up with worry for her children and herself, fearing for the lives of everyone she loved, lost and far from anywhere she might remotely call home, she suddenly found herself bursting into tears.

“Your friend all right?” The woman handed Laura a handkerchief for Kate.

“Just tired,” Laura said. “She’ll be OK.”

The woman behind the till turned as the bell on the door rang and a man walked in. She smiled and said, “Hey, BB! How’s tricks? Want some coffee?”

“Let me unload your delivery first, Martha, then I’ll be right with you…”

He stepped out again and returned a few minutes later with a crate of jars, which he began to unload on to the counter. Each was labelled
HONEYCUTT’S PREMIUM HONEY. BEE-LICIOUS
!

“Can we buy a jar of that?” Laura asked.

“You certainly can,” the man said, passing her one.

Laura added the honey to her basket and Martha rang it up.

“Where are you ladies from?” the man asked. “That’s not an accent I’m familiar with.”

“I’m Australian,” Laura said. She turned to Kate, who was still dabbing the tears away from her face. “But my friend’s from New York.”

“Now that’s an accent I
do
know. Matter of fact, I just had breakfast with some kids from New York. Two very nice kids, who…” He stopped, seeing the look on the women’s faces. “Did I say something wrong?”