Emerald Greene and the Witch Stones Read online

  ‘Exciting?’ Jess shivered, remembering the thing in the Cathedral. ‘Em, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but there’s an old Chinese curse. It goes, “May you live in interesting times”. Have a think about that. It worries me. Doesn’t it worry you?’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ Emerald shoved the papers into her satchel, folded her arms and scowled. ‘I sometimes wonder why I bother. No doubt you would prefer your life to be filled with vacuous electronic music, cheap cosmetics and beans on toast. How exciting that would be for you.’

  ‘Oh, Em... I didn’t mean...’

  ‘You have a chance here,’ said Emerald, and she rounded on Jess, her eyes gleaming behind her blue glasses. ‘A real chance to see what binds this reality together, rather than just accepting everything at face value like those mindless children, all those sheep in there.’ Emerald pointed a long, white finger in the direction of the school. ‘But if you are not bothered, well, forget it all. Forget that Emerald Greene ever existed. I will disappear, quietly, and leave you all to sort the mess out for yourselves.’

  ‘Okay. Okay... Look, I’m sorry. I do want to know what’s going on. Really I do.’

  Emerald grinned. ‘You have an enquiring mind, Jessica Mathieson. I like you.’

  ‘Well, I try.’ She smiled, shrugged. ‘So what now?’

  Emerald hoisted her satchel on to her shoulder. ‘Registration!’ she announced firmly. ‘Let us go and act like sheep for now... and wait for the Enemy to show its hand.’

  The day went on as normal.

  Mr Stone told Leeann Brooks to get her feet off the desk and confiscated her phone for about the tenth time that term. In Assembly, Miss Pinsley groaned at the Lower School’s rendition of the Harvest hymn. ‘No, no, no. You girls have no idea! And you boys are even worse,’ she exclaimed, striding up and down the stage and waving her stick. ‘What does “We plough the fields and scatter” mean? It doesn’t mean anything!’ She sighed in exasperation and stared out at the puzzled Lower School. ‘It is “We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land”... You do not take a breath!... Now, let’s try it again. And this time - no breathing!’

  Later on, Suzie Chang was arguing in the corridor with Mr Kenworthy about her nose-stud. He reminded her loudly that the school had a policy: nose-studs were allowed only ‘for cultural reasons’. Suzie’s reply was, ‘What about youth culture, sir? That should count, surely?’ There was a loud guffaw from Ollie Church and some of the other boys, who were leaning against the wall nearby and enjoying the show. ‘It is for cultural reasons, sir,’ offered Ollie. ‘She’s growing bacteria in her nostril.’

  A normal day, then, at St Agnes’ School.

  It was about to become a day like no other.

  Jessica was sitting by the window when it happened.

  She was in Maths - a subject for which Emerald, thanks to her abilities, had joined the Year 11 class at the other end of the school. Jess had just managed to solve her last equation when she glanced out at the window at the grey expanse of the playground. She was sure she glimpsed a shape out of the corner of her eye.

  She frowned. She looked again and there was nothing - just a weak September sun and the grey shadows of the mobile classrooms and the netball hoops. But something, now, made a sound in her head - a twittering, buzzing noise, like something trying to tune itself to the right frequency.

  Jess, biting her lip, glanced across the room. Ms James was busy helping Leeann Brooks with her equations. Jess stood up, pressed her hands against the glass and concentrated on the sunlit playground.

  The sound began to coalesce in her mind. A twitching, twittering, scratching noise, interspersed with fragments of - voices - yes, the voices again, those stone-ancient, hollow singing voices full of approaching menace. Her heart beat faster and the sunlight seemed to scorch her eyes; she felt them watering, but she dared not blink for fear of losing concentration. Fixing her eyes on the centre of the playground, she pressed her face up hard against the window, smelt the odour of warm glass -

  And she saw it.

  The pilot concentrated as she brought the helicopter in low over the city of Meresbury.

  Mr Odell leaned out at an alarming angle, zooming his binoculars in on the Cathedral precincts. Mr Courtney, meanwhile, was in the back seat of the helicopter, leafing through some notes. Both men and the pilot were wearing black headphones with radio-mike attachments.

  ‘On your right, beautiful Meresbury,’ said Mr Courtney softly. ‘Home to a 13th-Century Cathedral, one of the oldest city walls in England, and forty thousand inhabitants... What are you hiding, beautiful Meresbury? What are you hiding?... Well?’

  Mr Odell shook his head. ‘Just over there,’ he shouted over the noise of the rotors, pointing beyond the Cathedral.

  ‘Saint Agnes’ School...’ said Mr Courtney, tapping a finger against his moustache. ‘Saint Agnes?’ he repeated, more loudly, towards the front of the cockpit this time.

  Mr Odell leaned back. ‘Patron saint of girls, betrothed couples and gardeners,’ he called over his shoulder. When the older man raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise, Mr Odell shrugged and looked sheepish. ‘I had a Catholic education, sir.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Courtney. ‘Let us hope it serves you well, Mr Odell.’ He tapped the pilot on the shoulder. ‘All right, Lieutenant. Take us in!’

  She nodded and gave him the thumbs-up. The helicopter banked steeply and started its descent.

  In the Transit van at Scratchcombe Edge, all was quiet, except for the gentle hum which indicated that the equipment was still running. Two white-coated technicians monitored readouts - Strickland, the nervous scientist, and his colleague Arossi, a tall and wiry Australian girl.

  On the bank of screens, the bones were glowing under the red lights in the tomb. For a second, the interior of the tomb seemed to pulse, scarlet becoming crimson, then a bright orange for a fraction of a second, before dying away again.

  Strickland looked up from his instrument panel, glancing over his shoulder at his colleagues. ‘Did you register that?’ he asked worriedly, chewing a fingernail.

  Arossi shook her head. ‘Nothing on my readouts, mate. What did you get?’

  ‘A surge in the energy supply. As if...’ He turned, stared up at the screens. ‘As if something was drawing strength from here.’

  Arossi clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Have you been drinking, Strickland?’

  He shook his head. ‘No way.’

  She took a flask from the inside pocket of her white coat. ‘Then maybe you oughta start.’ She waved it at him. ‘Here, settle your nerves.’

  Strickland took the flask unwillingly, sniffed the brandy but did not sip. ‘You’re not taking me seriously, are you?’

  Arossi sighed. ‘Look, you know as well as I do that this equipment is state-of-the-art. Cutting edge. It does all sorts of things that even Mr C doesn’t understand. So if you get the odd glitch on the readout, don’t let it freak you, mate.’ She shrugged. ‘I certainly won’t. I want an easy life, me.’

  There was a noise, like a throbbing pulse right through the van. This time, the screens glowed orange for a full two seconds before the light died away.

  Arossi grabbed the brandy back from her colleague. ‘On second thoughts,’ she said, turning pale and gripping her chair, ‘maybe I’m getting freaked after all.’

  ‘You - you see?’ Strickland licked his lips and began polishing his glasses on the sleeve of his coat. ‘I didn’t imagine it. Now what’s happening?’

  ‘The dead stay dead, don’t they?’ Arossi’s tone didn’t sound convincing, though, and she took a swig of brandy, narrowing her eyes at the glowing screens. ‘Vikings go to Valhalla... I thought they had to stay there.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Strickland, his voice shaking with fear, ‘it wouldn’t do any harm to run s
ome tests. And I think we should call Mr C.’

  Arossi sighed, and placed a friendly arm around the little man’s shoulders. ‘Strickland, how long have you been with Special Measures?’

  ‘A few months,’ he admitted. ‘I was in academic research before that.’

  ‘And why are you here? Why are we both here?’ Arossi persisted. She leaned down, so that her pale blue eyes were on a level with her colleague’s nervous, bespectacled face. ‘We’re supposed to be people who know how to use our initiative, right? And running back to bug the boss-man every time some little thing gives us the jitters is not good initiative. For all we know, this could be one of those - whatsit - test things they throw at us every so often.’

  ‘You think we’re being tested?’ Strickland hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘Hey, I’m just saying it’s a possibility, right?’ She tapped him on the nose. ‘So what d’you say we run those checks, and see what’s going on? Try and work it out for ourselves.’

  ‘All right,’ said Strickland, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  He turned back to his instrument panel, glancing at the screens again. As Strickland’s fingers flickered over his keyboard, his hands were shaking. It had always made him nervous, this mysterious Viking taken from her grave. Now, it terrified him.

  Jess’s heart missed a beat. She looked again.

  Something was moving slowly and purposefully across the middle of the playground. It flickered, like a poorly-tuned image on a TV - and it seemed, as she watched, to change in colour, from blue to grey to black. It was shrouded in a dark cloak with a hood, and moved in a humpbacked crouch, arms outstretched as if feeling the way.

  For a second, Jess stood there, paralysed with fear, and then the image began to cloud over with grey - her own breath, misting the window. She leapt back, hearing herself gasping now, aware that she was trembling, backing away from the window with her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Jessica?’ Ms James was hurrying over. ‘Is everything all right?’

  Jess grabbed Ms James’ sleeve. ‘Miss, which room’s the GCSE Maths class in?’

  ‘What?’ Ms James looked utterly bewildered. Everyone was staring.

  ‘Please, Miss, which room?’

  ‘Room 21, but - Jessica Mathieson, wait!’

  Ms James’ voice, useless and distant, rang in Jess’s ears as she ran from the classroom and bounded down the stairs three at a time, almost tripping over.

  At the bottom, she ran past the lockers, then stopped, thought for a moment. She turned back, tugged her locker door and - ignoring the cascade of books, magazines and oddments - yanked out her hockey-stick and hefted its comforting weight in both hands. For all she knew it might be useless against witches, but it made her feel better.

  Now she was running again. The blood was pounding in her temples and she could hear her own breath, ragged and desperate, above the pounding of her heart.

  Down, down, down, and along the corridor she ran, classrooms and their lessons whizzing by as she glimpsed details - flasks of copper sulphate, je suis allé en ville, “Imagine You Are Wat Tyler”, a film about India - and teachers looking up in alarm as Jess ran, ran, ran.

  Where was the classroom? Where was Emerald?

  Room 19, Room 20, Room 21. There.

  Pause.

  Breath.

  She burst into the classroom, hockey-stick first, without knocking - not even looking to see which teacher was at the front of the class. It wasn’t important.

  Year 11 pupils turned and stared at her. She spotted Emerald’s bright red hair, and saw her friend turn, turn, turn towards her... standing up as if in slow motion.

  Their eyes met.

  Emerald nodded, and Jess nodded back.

  ‘They’re here,’ Jess said. ‘I’ve seen them.’

  The teacher, Mrs Barnes, dropped her book in astonishment with a loud THUMP on the desk. ‘What do you girls mean by disrupting my lesson?’ she demanded in booming tones.

  Emerald Greene, ignoring her, bounded over three desks, knocking books and papers flying as she joined Jess in the corridor. ‘You’re sure?’ Emerald asked, sounding calm.

  Jess, who had no breath left to speak, nodded fervently.

  Emerald cocked her head on one side as if listening hard. She seemed to turn a shade paler, as if she had somehow confirmed what Jess had just told her.

  ‘We need to get everybody out of the school,’ said Emerald.

  ‘But Em, the thing’s out in the playground!’

  Mrs Barnes was there in the doorway - stout, furious and red-faced, hands on hips. ‘What do you two girls think you are playing at?’ she demanded.

  Emerald completely ignored her. ‘They will want the school,’ Emerald said to Jess, and her eyes held utter conviction. ‘We must clear the area in case they damage anyone.’

  ‘Did you two hear what I just said?’ Mrs Barnes squawked indignantly. ‘Emerald Greene, being a genius does not allow you to be arrogant! Get back into your classroom immediately!’

  Jess glanced down the corridor. Her eyes zoomed in on the small, red box of the fire alarm. ‘We could - ’ she began.

  ‘Do it,’ said Emerald.

  ‘But we shouldn’t, it’s just for fires...’

  ‘It is for emergencies, is it not?’ demanded Emerald. Jess nodded. ‘Fine,’ Emerald said. ‘This, I feel, is an Grade One emergency. Hit the button.’

  ‘You, girl!’ Mrs Barnes exclaimed in utter horror. ‘Where on earth do you think you’re going with that hockey-stick?’ She grabbed Jessica’s arm and halted her in her tracks, holding her there with surprising force as she squealed and wriggled.

  ‘Mrs Barnes,’ said Emerald Greene, turning towards her for the first time and lifting a hand, ‘please, do not excite yourself. The very fabric of the Time-Space continuum is under threat, and shouting is not going to help.’

  ‘I don’t care what games you girls are playing! What I think, young lady, is that you are being disruptive and rude!’

  Emerald Greene sighed, hands on hips, and tilted her head to one side. ‘Mrs Barnes, if you do not let us hit that alarm, then you, like the rest of the school, could well be reduced to a puff of smoke within the next few minutes. So with all due respect, your opinion is most spectacularly irrelevant.’

  For the first time in her life, Mrs Barnes stood with her mouth gaping open and was utterly speechless.

  Jess took her opportunity to break free as Mrs Barnes slackened her grip. She skidded to a halt, feet slightly apart, in front of the fire alarm. She lifted her hockey-stick back over her shoulder, then swung it hard and smashed the glass.

  An instant later, bedlam began.

  From every fire-exit, excited girls and boys streamed - not quite running, but not quite walking either. They headed out on to the field, shepherded by anxious teachers waving their clipboards. The blaring klaxon of the alarm resounded through every room of the building, echoed out on to the playground and the school field.

  Something else happened, though, as the pupils began arranging themselves into straggly lines in register order. The sky above them was filled with a mechanical clattering sound, and several hundred faces gawped skywards as a dark helicopter swooped in over the red-brick gables of the school like a giant, black bird.

  It cast an undulating shadow across the masses below. It bore no markings, and yet it somehow managed to convey power and authority. And then behind it, there was another helicopter, exactly the same, and yet another.

  The first helicopter, keeping a steady vertical path, came in to land on the school playground, right on top of the centre circle of the netball court. The other two held back and settled over the field, descending slowly and rippling the grass like water. The anxious teachers - commanded by a brusque, stick-wielding Miss Pinsley - shepherded
the excited, waving children out of the way.

  Mr Courtney and Mr Odell, tall and powerful in their black coats, alighted from the first helicopter, followed by young, black-uniformed men and women with low-slung machine pistols.

  They strode across the playground as if they owned the place. Mr Courtney signalled to the operatives to spread out, and they did so gradually, black uniforms forming a semicircle advancing on the school entrance.

  Richie had seen it all from his vantage-point.

  He’d slipped away from his class when the fire bell sounded and watched, aghast, at the upstairs window of the Physics lab, from where he had a grandstand view across the grounds of Aggie’s. He had given a start as he recognised the men he’d seen on the stairs that time.

  The incessant blaring of the fire alarm cut off, leaving an eerie silence. Richie couldn’t help noticing that it seemed to have grown unnaturally dark inside the school. Corners, crevices and alcoves seemed to have gained new shadows; classrooms stood empty, the desks cold and stark like rows of graves. Richie shuddered - he had to get out.

  He headed for the stairs and almost ran into Emerald Greene and Jess, who hurrying upwards.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Richie gasped.

  Emerald held up a slim, wand-like device with a dial on the end. ‘Witch-hunting,’ she said.

  Richie looked anxiously at Jess, who shrugged and hefted her hockey-stick. Richie started to wish he had brought something to carry.

  ‘They will be heading for the temporal nexus point,’ said Emerald, ‘to attempt to break through into the Earthworld. Come on!’

  They hurried after her.

  ‘Emerald, do you know what those helicopters are?’ Jess asked, running to keep up with Emerald’s long strides.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Emerald threw the contemptuous comment over her shoulder. ‘Those imbeciles from your Government’s special division, I expect... Officials pretend in public that the Otherworld does not exist. When they try and deal with it in their bumbling fashion, they usually make things worse.’ Emerald clicked her tongue in despair, then stopped dead as they came to a T-junction. She waved her wand-like device, appeared to do a quick ‘eeny-meeny-miney-mo’ and pointed left. ‘This way, I think,’ she said.