Emerald Greene and the Witch Stones Read online

  There had been a partially successful breakthrough already, but the portal had not been stabilised.

  However, a major disturbance in the equilibrium had just happened, at one of the strongest points - the standing stones.

  And now, it seemed - if they could, together, muster the power - they could once more cross over into the land of the living. Through a door waiting to be opened by a foolish man.

  At last, after centuries of waiting, there could be a way out.

  By the time the school party got to Scratchcombe Edge, crowds had been gathering for four or five hours.

  Jess guessed that some five hundred people were already assembled on the plateau, chattering in the twilight. A rope kept them at a distance from the standing stones, and from the two big silver tents which housed much of Professor Ulverston’s scientific equipment. In the centre of the circle a round metal opening, from which various cables trailed, led to the tunnel which the Professor had so far excavated. Two flat video screens on scaffolding were set up to the east and west of the circle, she saw, so that the audience would have a clear view.

  The Professor himself was giving a radio interview in the shadow of the stones, his booming voice carrying through the chilly air: ‘And so they told me it was impossible. Weeeellll, I said, nothing’s impossible if you set your mind to it...’

  Mr Stone was there in the crowd, and Aunt Gabi was there too, in thick leggings and a biker jacket, laughing and gossiping with a group of other parents-and-guardians. She was passing round a small metal flask, which Jess suspected contained something stronger than tea.

  Jess and Richie slipped away as soon as they could and managed to elbow their way to the front of the crowd. Nobody seemed to mind. Richie nudged Jess and pointed to a dark-haired, tanned man a little way off, tucked away in his own small enclosure of monitors and microphones, who was smoothing his hair and checking his cuffs. Jess grinned as she recognised Mike Devenish, the local TV presenter.

  ‘Shall we go and listen to him?’ Richie said.

  They squeezed through the tall bodies around them to move a bit closer to the Outside Broadcast unit. Mike Devenish, while having his face powdered by a bored-looking make-up girl, was rehearsing his script to camera.

  ‘The Vikings,’ he was saying, ‘were pagan Scandinavians, and acknowledged a huge range of gods. The dead were often buried with objects they might need for life in the afterworld. A poor man might be buried with just a single knife - a rich man, however, would share his tomb with many luxury items.... Many luxury items? Blimey, Dave, who wrote this rubbish? Sounds like the Shopping Channel!’

  Someone babbled into Mike Devenish’s earphone for a few seconds. He shrugged.

  ‘Okay, okay. If you say so...’ He waved the make-up girl away, cleared his throat and returned to the script. ‘However, this Viking tomb is a little special - if a Viking tomb is indeed what the Professor has discovered. It’s been found beneath an ancient stone circle - the famous Ten Sisters, here,’ Mike Devenish gestured behind him, ‘on Scratchcombe Edge, high on the moors above Meresbury. For some reason - we don’t know what - the relatives of this Norseman, a man who would have lived about a thousand years ago, chose to make his final resting place beneath a stone circle from the Bronze Age. A stone circle which, as we know, would have already been here for nearly three thousand years by the time the first Viking warships arrived on the coastline of England.’ Mike paused, grinned. ‘OK, Dave,’ he said, ‘is that a bit too melodramatic?’

  Jess nudged Richie. ‘Come on, we could head further up on the rocks. We’ll get a good view from there.’

  Richie looked dubious. ‘I don’t really do climbing up rocks,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you do now,’ said Jess, and she grabbed him by his scarf. ‘Come on.’

  From a flat-topped boulder a little way up behind the plateau, they had a magnificent view of the proceedings. The nine stones dominated the panorama, lit like a stage-set. Striding up and down within the circle, tall and imposing in his pinstripe suit, was Professor Edwin Ulverston, MA (Oxon), PhD, Fellow of the British Academy, Member of the International Fellowship of Archaeologists. He was checking details on a clipboard, occasionally barking orders at his assistants and the TV people.

  The heads of the massed spectators bobbed in the gathering gloom, and from among them there came the occasional flicker of a camera flashlight, or the flare of matches as people lit candles. A murmur of excited voices carried up to the rocks, and it made Jess’s fingertips tingle. The air, Jess thought, smelt of - what? Petrol, certainly, and also matches and hot wax. There was no doubt that something big was happening here tonight.

  Jess narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, peering down at the crowd. ‘I might have known it,’ she breathed. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  Moving swiftly and silently around the back of the crowd, dressed in her duffel-coat and with her hands thrust casually into her pockets, was the Newbie - Emerald Greene.

  ‘She’s at Aggie’s too, you know,’ said Richie mildly. ‘She’s allowed.’

  ‘But she wasn’t on the list!’ Jess snapped.

  Emerald Greene appeared to be checking something on her wristwatch - only Jess suspected that it probably wasn’t a wristwatch at all, but rather one of those gadgets which Emerald toted around with her and hid whenever anyone came to look at them.

  ‘I’m going to find out what she’s doing,’ muttered Jess, clambering over their little flat-topped rock and hopping back on to the grass. ‘I don’t trust her. You stay here and watch.’

  ‘Hey,’ Richie called. ‘Don’t get lost!’

  As Jessica scrambled down the slippery path, her footing not always as sure as she would like it to be, a great roar went up from the crowd. She drew a sharp breath of excitement. The two enormous TV screens, she saw, were displaying a close-up of Professor Ulverston’s commanding smile.

  Jess, reaching the foot of the slope, mingled with the tail-end of the crowd. She could feel the quickening in her body, that strange sixth sense which told her Emerald Greene was somewhere near. Well, she was going to find her.

  The TV image pulled back to reveal Mike Devenish standing next to Ulverston, and delightedly pointing his microphone into the Professor’s jowly face.

  ‘So,’ Devenish’s amplified voice was saying, ‘you join us here live at Scratchcombe Edge. It’s nearly eight-thirty, and we have just half an hour to go before Professor Ulverston reveals his major find to us!’

  A digital clock appeared on the screen and began counting down from 30 minutes in lurid green figures.

  ‘The Professor is accessing the tomb,’ Devenish went on, ‘through a carefully-excavated tunnel beneath the stones. Of course, archaeology is a very precise science. One cannot simply go racing in with a hammer and pickaxe - the Professor is using the very latest in computer-controlled equipment. The countdown you can see represents the time to the point at which the excavation drill will penetrate the central chamber of this thousand-year-old Viking tomb.’ Devenish paused for effect. ‘Now, I have the man himself here with me! Professor, how does it feel to see all these people here?’

  ‘Oh, splendid, absolutely splendid!’ The Professor’s smile was dazzling. ‘I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see all these super people taking an interest in my work.’ Ulverston, again, seemed at home on television. He turned to look into the camera and pulled a face of mock seriousness. ‘You are taking an interest in my work, aren’t you? Of course you are!’

  Jessica slipped through the crowds, dodging past them all - families with sparklers and hot-dogs, young fathers bouncing toddlers on their shoulders, pensioners, students with cameras and notepads. Lots of people held the candles which someone had been giving out in the car-park - their waxy scent drifted across the plateau, mingling with the pungent odour of onion from the hot-dog stands.

 
And Jess cursed the growing crowds of onlookers, for now she had managed to lose Emerald Greene.

  Professor Ulverston opened his big eyes wide, held his hands up, palms outward, and beamed out at the crowd - just like a dodgy TV evangelist, thought Jess. The two pixellated images of his teeth lit up the plateau almost as brightly as the floodlights above the Ten Sisters.

  The countdown clicked on to 18 minutes.

  ‘Dangerous. Very dangerous,’ said a soft voice at Jess’s ear.

  She whirled around and found herself looking into the pale, impish face of Emerald Greene. She was wearing her duffel-coat like a cape, with the hood over her face like a cowl, and just a few strands of hair trailed like blood against the ivory skin of her face. Even tonight, her eyes were shaded with her cobalt-blue glasses.

  ‘Where did you pop from?’ said Jess with a shiver.

  ‘Just over there,’ said Emerald innocently, nodding over her shoulder. ‘I am finding this a most interesting public event. Although it is being transmitted live on the television, hundreds of people have made the journey to be here in person - only to find themselves watching it on television.’ She smiled, seemingly directing her words at a point just beyond Jessica’s left ear. ‘Ironic, no?’

  ‘Emerald,’ Jess hissed, moving closer to her, ‘what d’you mean, dangerous?’

  Emerald Greene turned to face Jessica and stared at her as if the answer were obvious. ‘What this Professor is about to do will cause chaos beyond the imaginings of his limited mind,’ she said scornfully. ‘Do you not understand, Jessica Mathieson?’

  ‘No,’ said Jess faintly, ‘not really. But then there’s been a lot recently that I’ve not understood.’ Suddenly, she broke off and stared hard at Emerald. ‘Why aren’t you trying to stop him, then? Ulverston, I mean?’

  Emerald tutted and shook her head. ‘You see the security,’ she answered patiently. ‘One cannot get near the Professor or his scientific equipment without... drawing attention.’ She began to move smoothly through the crowd, making her way towards the front.

  Jess, dodging a small child with a sparkler, hurried after her. ‘Drawing attention? Yeah, I know what you mean,’ she said angrily. ‘Flipping it over like you did with Rich’s phone, maybe? That was a cool stunt, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was not intended to be a stunt,’ said Emerald coldly.

  ‘Oh, right. How about vanishing into thin air, then?’ Jess folded her arms and heard her voice sounding full of bravado - which she didn’t feel at all. ‘You pulled it off pretty well, didn’t you? Who taught you that one? David Blaine?’

  Emerald stopped. She turned round and stared hard at Jessica, eyes bright like tiny jewels, and for a moment Jess felt a chill in her heart, something so cold and powerful and frightening that she took an involuntary step backwards.

  ‘You - followed me,’ said Emerald, with cold deliberation.

  ‘Yeah.’ Jess tried to hold her chin up and meet Emerald’s gaze, but those green eyes seemed to hold a terrible, vivid light which she just couldn’t look at. Around her on the plateau, the night seemed to have grown darker and colder. ‘Me and Richie. We followed you across town, that first day we met you.’

  Jess licked her lips, shivering. Emerald Greene was circling her, now, watching her interestedly with her head tilted strangely on one side. The boom of Mike Devenish’s commentary and the excited hubbub of the crowd seemed to shrink to no more than a soft background murmur.

  ‘Only Rubicon House isn’t there, is it?’ Jess went on, coolly meeting Emerald’s gaze. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘All right. Continue,’ said Emerald quietly.

  Jess caught a glimpse of the countdown - 15:39. Just a quarter of an hour to go. ‘And - and we saw you down by the lake and we followed you.’ She was hugging herself, now, arms tightly round her body as if for protection. ‘Back to the forest. You didn’t see us, but we saw you walk into the middle of the clearing.’

  ‘And?’ said Emerald threateningly.

  ‘And... you disappeared,’ Jess concluded. She swallowed hard, nervously fingering the velvet choker which Aunt Gabi had given her for Christmas.

  Emerald gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘I did not disappear,’ she whispered. ‘I am here.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jess said with a frown, ‘but - ’

  ‘What you saw,’ Emerald murmured, ‘was the simple effect of a piece of technology. A keyed chronostatic barrier.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You know how some cats have an electronic device on their collars which enables them to enter a cat-flap, so that only the right cat with the correct key can pass in and out? The barrier is like that. You need the right chronometric alignment.’

  ‘Chronometric?’ Jess frowned, thinking about the word. ‘You mean something to do with Time?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emerald wearily, ‘I mean something to do with Time.’ She held her hands out, cupping them. ‘The clearing houses a bubble, if you like. An artificial space of stability, which...’ She sighed. ‘Look, I do not have time for this.’ Emerald glanced at her watch, then up at the video-screen.

  Jess saw that the countdown now read 11:55 - less than twelve minutes before the moment of breakthrough. The screen was showing a computer graphic image of Ulverston’s electronic probe, burrowing through the peaty earth on its steady way to its target.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Jess asked, panic in her voice.

  Emerald sighed and folded her arms. ‘If I cannot stop the fool,’ she said, narrowing her eyes, ‘then I must intercept his damage.’ She made as if to move off, then stopped, remembering something. She looked Jess in the eye. ‘Coming?’

  Jess was taken aback. ‘Right. Okay.’

  ‘Right,’ said Emerald, and smiled at the unfamiliar word. ‘We need to be near the front. Follow in my footsteps.’

  Jess hurried after her. She had no idea whose side Emerald Greene was on - nor what she intended to do - but she wasn’t going to let her out of her sight.

  Richie shivered.

  His mum wouldn’t be pleased now, he thought, to find that Jess had deserted him and that he was stuck up here on his own. Even the stars, the bright constellations whose names he knew and loved, didn’t bring him much pleasure at the moment.

  Richie rummaged in his pocket and found the chocolate snack he’d been going to share with Jess. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have it all myself now.’ He took a bite. It was chewy, smooth and comforting.

  He could see one of the video screens clearly. Now, Mike Devenish’s amplified voice echoed up towards him. He strained to hear.

  ‘So, Professor, just seven minutes on the clock! Are we on schedule?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Really rather exciting, isn’t it?... I must say, tonight will be featuring prominently in my memoirs - did I mention that I’m writing my memoirs? I did. Of course. One does forget things, you know. So much to remember. Life is so... short, isn’t it, Mr Cavendish?’

  ‘Yes, it’s Devenish, actually.’

  ‘I expect so,’ said Ulverston, his smile not wavering.

  For a second, his booming voice made the microphones sing with feedback. It bounced off each of the stones in the circle, and Richie thought that he heard it echoing also on the rocky tor behind him. He shuddered because - just for an instant - it sounded like the plaintive wail of a woman’s voice, singing the last notes of an old lament. But then it was gone.

  The audience below him was clapping, cheering.

  The moon, a bright crescent, was high in the sky now.

  Less than five minutes remained on the digital clock.

  Aunt Gabi was enjoying herself. She cracked open a can of lager from the back of the minibus, took a deep and much-needed sip from it and passed the can to Jess’s form teacher, Cameron Stone.

  ‘Ah, beturrr not, Gabs,’ he
said. ‘The kids are around.’

  She grinned. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, and took another gulp.

  ‘Y’know - I didn’t rrealise old Ulverrrr-ston was such an egotist,’ Mr Stone offered with a wry smile.

  Gabi shrugged. ‘These academic types usually are, aren’t they?...’ She realised she had lost sight of Jessica and the others a while ago. ‘Hey, is Jess up the front somewhere?’

  ‘Yeah, she and that boy, er, Fanshawe went up togetherrr... How long to go?’

  Gabi squinted at the screen. ‘Three minutes?... Listen, Cameron, I’ve been meaning to tell you something.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The other day, right, these two really weird guys came round to the house. They were like policemen, only, well, they weren’t. They were asking about - ’

  Just then, a great cheer went up, and they all turned to look towards the stones. The clock had clicked down to a minute, and the audience started to chant the numbers in unison as they clicked off.

  ‘Fifty-nine! Fifty-eight! Fifty-seven!’

  Mike Devenish was in full flow.

  ‘...for nearly three thousand years by the time the first Viking warships arrived on the coastline of England. Yes - we’re live at Scratchcombe Edge again, and now, as you can hear, the crowd are getting louder, the atmosphere is wonderful, and we are, indeed, on the verge of a historic discovery here. Professor Edwin Ulverston is a name to go down in history - a name, indeed, which may even rewrite history as we know it!

  ‘On this clear, beautiful September evening, the Professor’s probe has now almost reached the outer wall of the chamber beneath the stones. In less than a minute’s time, history will be made - and you’re watching it here, live on County TV, with me, Mike Devenish.’

  Emerald grabbed Jess’s arm, steering her past the last two rows of spectators until they were right up against the rope barrier. Jess, worried about what Emerald might do if she let her go, allowed herself to be led.