Emerald Greene and the Witch Stones Read online

  Richie and Jess followed Emerald’s index finger. A second later, Emerald tilted her head, said, ‘Mmmm,’ turned about-face and set off in the opposite direction, leaving Jess and Richie to skid round in a half-circle and hurry after her.

  They raced across the deserted quadrangle. The school seemed eerie with nobody in it, Richie thought, as if it was waiting for something.

  Expecting something.

  ‘Em, what exactly is that device of yours?’ asked Jess..

  ‘A detector for disturbances of temporo-psychic energy,’ Emerald muttered, casting her gaze up and down the quadrangle. ‘Left here,’ she added.

  ‘When was it left here?’ Richie asked, confused.

  ‘No - left here,’ Emerald repeated, and kicked open the door to the Assembly Hall. She swooped inside, sweeping her detector in a wide arc.

  Jess and Richie followed, at a more hesitant pace.

  The Hall, with its wooden panelling, dusty parquet floor and rows of plastic chairs, was shrouded in shadow. It seemed darker than ever today; only the feeblest of grey light peeped through its high windows. Their footsteps echoed as they stepped forward, Richie and Jess keeping a couple of paces behind Emerald with her detector.

  At that moment, the device began to make an alarming warbling noise and to flash with a bright orange light.

  ‘A disturbance of temporo-whatsit energy?’ Jess suggested.

  ‘Or just a flat battery?’ Richie asked.

  She suddenly rounded on Richie, making him jump. ‘Richard Fanshawe! Tell me again what you saw that time in the computer centre!’

  Richie licked his lips, a little frightened now by Emerald’s manner. ‘Just a machine exploding. It hit the wall in pieces.’

  ‘Anything else?’ asked Emerald, pointing the detector in his face.

  ‘I - heard singing,’ said Richie. ‘Sort of... old singing, like it was coming from deep in the earth. And there was an odd smell. Like... damp. Mustiness.’

  Emerald Greene drew breath sharply. ‘My goodness,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Jess asked urgently, tugging at her sleeve.

  Emerald shook her head. ‘Visual manifestations are commonplace, even instances of sound projection... but things are very grave when the subject breaks through into the olfactory range.’

  ‘Sorry, the what?’ Jess asked, baffled.

  ‘She means smell,’ said Richie smugly, pleased that Emerald had used a word he could explain for once. ‘Sense of smell. Olfactory.’

  Emerald nodded. ‘Yes, yes... Only a step away from the tactile - and that would really be serious.’

  She swung her detector around the Hall. There was the main stage, quiet and still and dusty. There were several exits: to the quadrangle, the car-park and the Science Block. Emerald tried every direction, and when she pointed the device towards the Science Block, it started bleeping, the needle on its dial oscillating wildly.

  ‘Does that mean it’s cooked?’ Richie joked nervously.

  ‘You kids!’

  They spun around. Standing on the Hall stage were the two black-coated men. The older one with the moustache had his hands behind his back and was smiling benignly at them, while the young black man had his arms folded across his chest and looked stern. They were flanked by a pair of black-clad soldiers, a young man and a woman, who were levelling small, lethal machine-pistols.

  ‘Unless you get out of here right now,’ said a stern voice, ‘you’re going to be in very serious trouble.’

  Jess sighed. ‘Wouldn’t you know it?’ she said to the world in general. ‘Just when things are getting interesting, the adults come along and spoil it all.’

  9

  Enemy Interference

  Strickland looked up from his computer with an expression of alarm and beckoned his younger colleague. ‘Arossi? You’d better come and look at this.’

  She sauntered over, wearing a gently mocking smile. ‘Hey, what is it now? You worry too much.’

  ‘Yes, and you drink too much. Look!’ Strickland jabbed at the readouts. ‘I don’t like this one bit. Argon emissions are up fifteen percent. Temperature is eight hundred Kelvin and rising. Do you want me to go on?’

  Arossi peered at the monitor screen. ‘Are you sure that machine’s accurate?’ she murmured sleepily.

  Strickland shrugged. He stared transfixed at the softly pulsing screens, his hands gripping the rail so tightly that his knuckles went bone-white. ‘I don’t like this. Look at that... thing! It’s playing with us!’ Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead and he dabbed them with a spotted handkerchief from his pocket.

  ‘That thing, Strickland, is a pile of old bones.’ Arossi folded her arms and looked at him sternly. ‘Listen, if you don’t get a grip, I’m going to have to - ’

  ‘What’s that noise?’ Strickland interrupted her.

  There was a sound, now, echoing in the tomb chamber and relayed to them in the van through the speakers... A low, sonorous sound like the harmonies of voices.

  Strickland looked up at Arossi in panic. ‘You hear that? Can you hear that?’

  She went over to the nearest control desk and grabbed the headset, listening intently at one ear. ‘Pulse fluctuation... Amplitude and frequency inconsistent with any standards...’ She looked over at Strickland, and for the first time, her normally impassive face bore signs of concern. ‘There’s no central source to the transmission.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s wide-banding, looped throughout the immediate area. As if it’s tuned into the whole of Meresbury, using the city as one giant transmitter!’

  Strickland, sweat gathering in rivulets on his forehead, grabbed the phone. ‘I’m calling the boss,’ he said. He grabbed his coat. ‘And then I’m getting out of here. And if you know what’s good for you - so will you!’

  Jessica had no idea how the new arrivals had managed to get in unheard. She knew one thing, though - they thought they were in control.

  She tried the usual approach - if in doubt, be flippant.

  ‘Off on your holidays?’ she asked, nodding at Mr Odell’s sunglasses. ‘I hear the South of France is good at this time of year.’

  The older man stepped forward. ‘My name is Courtney, Special Measures Division. This is my colleague, Mr Odell.’ The two men briefly held up small, silver ID cards, so quickly that they could have been anything. ‘But you youngsters can call me Sir,’ Mr Courtney added with a superior smile. Jess took an instant dislike to him, and from Richie’s expression she could tell he felt the same. ‘This school is now under the authority of the Special Measures Division - and that, kiddies, means we’re in charge. So just do as you’re told and everybody’s happy.’

  ‘You think this can be sorted out with the usual military blustering?’ said Emerald Greene sharply.

  ‘We’re not military,’ murmured Mr Odell with a languid smile.

  ‘And, yes, don’t think we don’t know about you,’ added Mr Courtney sternly, pointing at Emerald. ‘You shouldn’t be here at all, madam! Don’t worry, hmm, we’ll deal with you in good time.’ He swung round suddenly to face Jessica. ‘Now - you, young lady.’

  ‘Me?’ she said, alarmed. She looked over her shoulder, as if in the hope that he was addressing someone else.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Courtney sternly. He strolled over to stand beside her and bent down so that he was looking her in the eye, so close that she could see the individual grey hairs of his bushy moustache and the red, blotchy skin of his face. ‘You have something which it isn’t safe for you to have,’ he murmured. He held out his hand. ‘The compact disc, please.’

  Jess put her head on one side. ‘Phhhhww. Dunno what you’re talking about,’ she bluffed.

  ‘Oh, dear me,’ said Mr Courtney, shaking his head. ‘Young lady, don’t play around. I am
a gentleman of the world. I’ve been lied to by more deceitful young women than you’ve had hot dinners.’

  ‘That’s not that many, actually. My aunt’s a lousy cook.’

  ‘The CD,’ said Mr Courtney, raising his hand so that it was level with her face. ‘I shall count to five.’

  ‘Really?’ Jess wrinkled her nose. ‘You’re sure? Not three?’

  ‘One,’ said Mr Courtney, unblinking.

  ‘Two comes next,’ Jess offered with a smile.

  ‘Two,’ Mr Courtney continued, unruffled. ‘Three.’

  ‘Three-and-a-half?’ offered Jess, backing away. She collided with a wall behind her, and knew she couldn’t go any further.

  ‘Four.’ Mr Courtney straightened up. ‘Five.’ He nodded to the two impassive operatives. ‘Mr Braxton, Miss Hicks - search her.’

  Jess held up her hands as if in surrender. ‘All right, all right. No need for any of that.’ She put her hand in her blazer pocket and drew out the plastic CD case.

  Mr Courtney smiled and reached for it.

  ‘Ooops, butterfingers!’ Jess yelled, as she fumbled the CD and pretended to drop it. ‘Richie, catch!’

  She lobbed the CD to her friend, who caught it neatly. Blimey, Richie, she thought, that must be your first ever clean piece of fielding.

  ‘Give me that!’ Mr Courtney snarled, rounding on Richie.

  ‘Why?’ Richie snarled. ‘Why should we trust you?’

  ‘Because we have a serious investigation in progress, and you... children are likely to get in the way,’ said Mr Courtney sternly. ‘Now that disc is very important evidence. Give it to me, please!’

  Mr Courtney lunged at Richie, making a grab for the CD - but with a cry of, ‘Here!’ Richie skimmed it back to Jess like a Frisbee, and she caught it neatly between both palms.

  ‘Better be careful, Mr C,’ Jess said. ‘Don’t want to risk breaking it, do we?’

  Out of the corner of her eye - just too late - Jess saw the woman operative, Hicks, lunge for her. She tried to skim the CD back to Richie, but too late. The young woman grabbed her arms, pinning them behind her back, and twisted the CD from her grasp.

  Jess gave a yelp of pain. ‘All right, all right! You’ve made your point!’

  Mr Courtney snatched it and nodded in satisfaction, and nodded to his underling to let Jess go. ‘Thank you for being sensible,’ he said. ‘And now - ’

  Suddenly, the lights flickered and went off, and then a low, crackling noise began, a sound like static electricity magnified several hundred times. Richie gasped, grabbing Jessica’s arm. She shrugged him off, irritably. A second later, the school’s emergency lighting kicked in, a dim reddish glow from the ceiling.

  Mr Courtney pointed at Emerald, Jess and Richie. ‘You lot, get out on the field with the rest of them. You’re getting in the way. Mr Odell, check those doors.’

  Richie and Jess backed away, but Emerald Greene silently stood her ground.

  The Special Measures team advanced down the corridor, through the swing doors to the Science Block.

  Mr Odell kicked open the doors to the Chemistry lab.

  They swung back with a creak and a thud, and the smells of metal, bleach and gas wafted out. Mr Odell marched boldly in. They saw him through the glass, marching up and down the silent benches and gas-taps, appearing to sniff the air. He opened cupboards, prodded the various items of equipment - retort-stands, circuit boards, solenoids and resistors.

  He lifted up a glass globe with a smaller ball contained within it - Jess recognised it as the plasma-ball Mr Gretton used to demonstrate electrical discharge - and hefted it in both hands. Mr Odell looked back out at Mr Courtney and shook his head.

  ‘Listen to me,’ snarled Emerald Greene, and Jess was shocked by how angry she appeared. ‘The thing that is loose inside this school is here for a reason. Evil cannot be shot at and it cannot be arrested. If I am right about what they want, there is only one way to stop them!’

  The crackling noise was growing steadily louder.

  ‘Out of the way - now,’ said Mr Courtney, and he actually moved to brush Emerald Greene aside.

  Uh-oh, thought Jessica. I wouldn’t do that.

  One moment, Mr Courtney’s arm was reaching out to grab Emerald’s sleeve. The next, his arm flipped upside-down, spinning his whole body through a circle. He yelled in astonishment, loose change falling from his pockets along with a compass and a hip-flask, and a moment later he gave a dull ‘Oooof!’ as he was flipped on to his back on the floor of the corridor.

  Just then, there was a shout from within the lab. They all turned as one, to see Mr Odell cautiously backing away from the plasma-ball. The glass globe was alive with flickering crimson light, the tendrils straining at the transparent glass. As they watched, the crackling ball lifted itself up into the air without any visible support and began to float through the air towards Mr Odell.

  Mr Courtney was on his feet in a second, dusting himself down. ‘Here they come,’ he murmured.

  The dim light in the corridors flared brighter for a second, then the lights began to flicker and buzz alarmingly. Jess clung instinctively to Emerald. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, staring as if mesmerised into the red lightning.

  ‘The wraiths are using electrical impulses to break through the thin reality into the real world,’ Emerald muttered. ‘We are at the Nexus.’

  Before either of them could stop her, Jess had run into the science lab and was pulling Mr Odell back by his sleeve. ‘You’ve got to get out of here! Come on!’ She brandished her hockey-stick at the globe, just to make herself feel braver.

  ‘Get back!’ Mr Odell snapped, and levelled his revolver at the globe.

  ‘Do not be a fool!’ shouted Emerald Greene. ‘You think bullets can stop it?’

  Ignoring her, Mr Odell fired once, twice, three times into the heart of the globe. There were three cracking, popping sounds, like nutshells in an open fire, but apart from that there appeared to be no effect.

  Jess, horrified, stared at the globe of light, unable to take her eyes off it.

  Then the globe flared suddenly, for an instant as bright as burning magnesium. There was a powerful gust of wind which ripped the posters from the wall of the lab. The tattered fragments, pulled into the heart of a mini-tornado, whirled in the air like hideous birds of prey before burning up in showers of incandescent red light.

  Mr Odell holstered his revolver and grabbed Jess’s arm. ‘Come on,’ he ordered, ‘let’s get - ’

  His lips froze in mid-sentence. Jess blinked, did a double-take. Mr Odell appeared to have stopped talking and moving. He stood at her side, as still as a waxwork dummy, his fingers immobile on her arm.

  Time stood still.

  Jess, drawn to the light, felt strangely detached from her own body, although she could see her arms and legs shaking. She heard the energy crackling, the sound like the crunching of crêpe paper amplified a hundred times.

  The room darkened around her, and suddenly she was in a dark, open arena, cold and empty. It had to be the size of a football pitch - no, surely several football pitches. In fact, she could not see any boundaries to it at all.

  There was now a dot in front of her, shimmering with cobalt-blue; and as it grew in size, coming closer, she realised she was looking at a blue, human-shaped hole in the blackness. It came closer still, then shimmered, forming a shape not unlike the one she had seen in the playground. She could smell the damp, vegetable odour again.

  Jess swallowed hard and tried to control her shaking limbs. Features formed on the shape. It was a woman, her face wizened but her eyes clear and bright. She leaned on her staff and moved jerkily, leaving traces behind her like photo negatives.

  ‘Girl,’ said the witch’s voice. It had the resonance of a church bell, and seemed to come from everywhere a
nd nowhere at once. ‘Girl! Can you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you.’ Jess, without realising it, had thought the words and not spoken them out loud. She shivered, not daring to move, nor to wonder where she might be. ‘What are you doing in the school?’

  The voice murmured inside her head now - secret, soft and calming, like a soundtrack on headphones. ‘An interface, that is all. As we grow towards our Becoming.’

  ‘So you’re the ones who’ve been causing all the weirdness,’ Jess said, narrowing her eyes. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘My name is Xanthë. We do not wish you any harm. Yes, we are outcasts - yes, witches, if you like. But all we desire, all we need, is to regain form. Can you not understand that - Jessica?’

  She shivered inside at the witch’s use of her name, but did not let it show outwardly. ‘What do you mean, regain form? You’re ghosts, aren’t you? Ghosts are always ghosts...’

  ‘Are they?’ said Xanthë softly. She lowered her eyes, quivered as she leaned on her staff. ‘Sometimes, girl, I feel I am only a fragment, only a molecule away from living fully again. And then it drifts away, out of reach, and I realise that the molecule might as well be a thousand light years, for it is equally impenetrable... I remember the sunsets, yes, the sunsets... the moorland dripping with honey-light as the chimney-smoke drifts up into the clear blue evening. And the villages burning, fire painting the night sky vermilion, the sparks lifting up on the wind and then falling, softly, like shooting stars... I remember the idea of smell, but I have forgotten the old aromas; I cannot remember when I last smelt the scent of the herbs and flowers in the forest. They are just names - wolfsbane, hemlock, foxglove... All these things are gone, now... gone, like teardrops in rain.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jess, and there was a catch in her voice as she felt her eyes prickling with tears. ‘I’m so sorry for you. But it’s over. You have to accept that.’

  ‘And I remember a man, a young man with hopeless loss in his eyes as I was sent from the village, sent to the other place whose name could not be spoken. The place down in the valley.’ She looked up, and there was an angry light in her eyes. ‘All we want is to return. To have another chance. The dead can live again, Jessica. Surely you realise this is true? Have you not thought and wished this, keeping it at the back of your mind, for your whole life?’