Devil's Rock

by Chris Speyer

  ‘Do you think she ever had children?’ asked Zaki.

  ‘I told you, she lived on her own.’

  ‘No one lives there now, do they?’

  ‘Cottage was abandoned long ago.’

  Grandad gathered the mugs and made a great clattering as he began to wash them with the plates in the sink. Anusha hopped off her chair and stood by with a tea towel.

  Zaki thought about their many visits to Dragon Pool. Had he ever seen movement up by the cottage? He didn’t think so, but then you only saw the cottage as you were entering the bay. They’d never climbed up there.

  ‘Did you ever go up to the cottage?’ asked Zaki.

  ‘I told you, we left her alone.’

  ‘But later – when you went there with Dad?’

  ‘There’s nothin’ there. A pile of old stones, nothin’ else.’ Grandad turned and scowled at Zaki. ‘I didn’t go there – I didn’t let your father go there – and you’re not to go there either.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Evil – that’s why. Some places have got evil in ’em.’

  Grandad stomped off out of the kitchen. Zaki and Anusha looked at each other and Anusha raised her eyebrows. When Grandad returned moments later with his jacket on, Jenna struggled to her feet and stood wagging her tail.

  ‘You’ll get your walk in a bit,’ said Grandad. ‘I’m runnin’ these young’uns home first.’

  Jenna dropped back down with a low groan of disappointment.

  Zaki and Anusha hurried to follow Grandad out of the house.

  g

  Chapter 9

  ‘I’ll drop you here, if it’s all the same to you. Save me turnin’ the old girl round.’ Grandad pulled in at the end of Zaki’s street.

  Zaki was done in. It had been the longest day ever. He was grateful for the lift home but he wished his grandfather had driven him to the front door. He climbed out into the darkness, said, ‘Goodnight, Grandad,’ and swung the passenger door shut.

  The old Volvo’s suspension groaned as it heaved itself slowly out of the gutter, as if it too were tired and reluctant to make the journey home. Zaki waved to the red glow of the receding tail lights, then, head down, trudged off along the street. The houses here were set back from the road, tucked behind high hedges or front gardens full of the dark, looming shapes of shrubs and trees. In most windows the curtains were drawn and little light reached the deserted street.

  ‘I know where you are.’

  Zaki froze. The voice was unmistakable. It was infused with the same cold venom with which she had spoken after she had pulled him from the cave. The girl! But where was she? Zaki glanced frantically up and down the dark street. Had she followed him? How? Or had she been lying in wait for him? What was she going to do to him?

  ‘I don’t need to follow you.’

  Zaki shrank back into a garden hedge, but its prickly surface felt too insubstantial to offer real protection. Zaki’s mind conjured up a shadowy form couching behind the hedge.

  Where is she, he thought, where is she?

  She gave a chill little laugh. ‘Yes, where am I?’

  He jumped. She seemed to be right beside him. Had he spoken his thoughts aloud? No – then she knew what he was thinking! How could that be possible? Zaki kept completely still, listening, but his mind refused to stay quiet for long. What do I do now? he thought.

  ‘You could start by giving back what you’ve stolen,’ came the sharp reply.

  The bracelet! Of course, she was after the bracelet.

  ‘All right,’ he said aloud, ‘All right, I didn’t mean to take it. I just put it on. I was just looking at it, and then I forgot. You can have it back. I haven’t done any harm.’

  ‘You have no idea how much harm you have done!’

  What did she mean? What harm? If only he could see her.

  ‘You really don’t understand, do you.’ It was more of a statement than a question, but he answered it anyway.

  ‘No, I don’t!’ He was tired. He was confused.

  ‘Look around. Can you see me?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but it’s dark.’

  ‘You can’t see me, because I’m not there.’

  Not there? What did she mean? He was talking to her, for goodness’ sake!

  ‘Work it out for yourself.’

  It made no sense unless . . . the bracelets – she had one, he had one – they could connect – it was like telepathy. No. Impossible! But he was wearing one of the bracelets, maybe if she was wearing the other one then she could hear what he was thinking.

  ‘Good . . . good,’ she mocked, ‘you’re not completely stupid.’

  Suddenly he felt annoyed. He pulled the bracelet off his arm and laid it carefully at his feet. There, now he could think in peace without her listening in. He waited to see if he were right. Yes, the voice was gone. He took his time deciding what he wanted to say. It gave him some satisfaction to know that he could cut her off. It was like hanging up the phone on an annoying caller. When he was ready, he picked up the bracelet and slid it back on to his left arm. Of course, he didn’t need to say anything out loud; all he needed to do was think. He understood that now. Tell me where to meet you, and I’ll bring you back the bracelet. He thought the words very clearly.

  ‘No!’ There was an edge of panic to her reply and he couldn’t help glancing round, it seemed so loud, as though she had shouted in his ear. It was hard to believe all this was happening inside his head.

  ‘No,’ her voice repeated, ‘you mustn’t, mustn’t, mustn’t come near me. Do you understand?’

  No, he thought back angrily, I don’t understand.

  ‘Perhaps you are stupid after all.’

  I am trying to help, thought Zaki.

  ‘Well, don’t. I will decide what to do, then I will let you know.’

  How?

  But instead of her reply, another voice broke in – a deep, unearthly growl, like the grinding of boulders upon boulders at the base of a slowly moving glacier, a voice that ground out the single word, a name – ‘Rhiannon!’ – and again, ‘Rhi-a-nn-o-n!’ If the dead could speak, this, surely, was how they would sound. A voice that made Zaki’s blood freeze and every hair on his body stand on end.

  Then the girl’s voice came again, full of fear and urgency, ‘Take off the bracelet! Take off the bracelet! Do it now!’

  Zaki did not wait to ask why. He never wanted to hear that terrible voice again. He tore the bracelet from his arm. His instinct was to fling it as far from him as possible, but he held it at arm’s length until his fear and panic had subsided, and then placed it on the ground between his feet.

  All he could hear was his own rapid breathing and the hammering of his heart. The voices were silent.

  Something had used him; something that spoke out of another time and place had used his mind to reach the girl, and whatever it was, she was very much afraid of it.

  Gingerly, he picked up the bracelet and put it in his pocket. He waited – there were no voices. It seemed he must be wearing the bracelet, and not simply carrying it, for the girl – Rhiannon – and her tormentor to have access to his mind.

  Zaki glanced around, his imagination conjuring monsters out of the dark shapes of the surrounding bushes. He was frozen to the spot, terror gnawing like a rat at his intestines.

  The street was still empty. He prayed someone would come.

  After what seemed hours, a car reversed out of a nearby driveway. Its headlights swept across Zaki as it turned and briefly illuminated the street ahead of him. There was the scrunch of footsteps on gravel as a man and woman came down the driveway to exchange goodbyes with the driver of the car. The sudden light, the sound of cheerful voices and the presence of other people going about their normal lives broke the spell and gave Zaki the courage to hurry towards the safe familiarity of home.

  The girl knew he had the bracelet; had she also noticed that one of the logbooks was missing? The logbook! Where was it? He had it when he left the boat shed, he wa
s certain of that. He’d carried it as far as Grandad’s. Had he left in the cottage? No – he’d picked it up again. The car. He’d left it in the car. He’d have to telephone Grandad in the morning – ask him to look after the ‘school project’ and hope he didn’t take a closer look at it.

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  Chapter 10

  Michael was quiet at breakfast and the silence continued during the walk to school. The air outside was cold and a pale sun shone through a fine white mist. This was not the heavy, wet sea fog that rolled up the estuary and over the town like a slow-motion wave in summer, fog with droplets so big you could see them blowing past your face; this was hazy autumn mist that smelt of wood smoke and damp leaves. With the chill from the air, a gentle sadness crept through Zaki’s body, and his muscles tightened, knowing that summer was over. Even the comforting warmth of the sun that reached down to him through the mist couldn’t banish the unhappy realisation that the outdoor life of the warmer months would soon be replaced by the indoor activities of winter. He envied his grandad whose link to the sea remained unbroken throughout the year; who woke every morning to a view of the estuary, walked down the steep steps, across the narrow lane and into his boat shed to spend every day building and repairing boats.

  * * *

  Zaki looked up at his brother walking beside him. Michael’s guitar was slung over his right shoulder and one strap of his rucksack over his left.

  ‘You’ve brought your guitar,’ said Zaki, knowing he was stating the obvious but wanting, somehow, to get his brother talking.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Michael.

  ‘Are you rehearsing?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Michael.

  ‘Got any gigs?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They walked on in silence.

  ‘Where are you going to play? What’s the gig, I mean? asked Zaki in a last attempt to get his brother to open up.

  ‘Hallowe’en,’ said Michael.

  ‘At the school party?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Michael.

  ‘Brilliant!’

  Michael added nothing further and Zaki couldn’t understand why his brother seemed so morose. The Hallowe’en party was a big deal at the school, a night that everyone looked forward to. To be the chosen band was really something! This knowledge, that his big brother and his band would be the stars of the party, made Zaki feel slightly better disposed towards school and a little less apprehensive about returning there after his disastrous first day. He wondered what sort of reception he would get this morning. He knew his classmates would pester him for answers and he had already decided he would simply say the hawk had nothing to do with him and he had no idea how it got into the classroom. But what about Mrs Palmer? How would she treat him? And naturally, he was anxious to talk to Anusha.

  He had telephoned his grandad first thing that morning and asked him to look after the ‘school project’. Now he wanted to fix a time with Anusha when they could look at the logbook together and he needed to tell her about the bracelet and the voices. The memory of that second, monstrous voice sent a shudder through him and he couldn’t help, even now, in the light of day, glancing round in case, by the very act of thinking of it, he might summon up the being that had spoken the girl’s name and its awful shape would emerge from the morning mist.

  g

  In fact, the school day went better than Zaki had feared. There was the anticipated initial rush of questions, but as he steadfastly refused to admit to any connection with the bird, his interrogators lost interest and went off to torment easier prey. Mrs Palmer studiously ignored him throughout English and on the one occasion when he looked up from his work and caught her looking in his direction, she quickly looked away and busied herself with the papers on her desk.

  When morning break came, Zaki and Anusha hung back as everyone else filed out of the classroom. They both looked up at the rear wall of the room.

  ‘It’s a different poster,’ said Anusha. ‘Was one about not eating chips, and that.’

  ‘I know,’ said Zaki.

  There was a glossy new poster extolling the virtues of Britain’s regional cheeses.

  ‘Cheesy,’ said Anusha.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said Zaki.

  ‘So, do you think it was the poster that turned into the bird?’

  It did seem crazy, thought Zaki, but the poster had vanished the moment the bird appeared.

  ‘But that’s mad, isn’t it!’ protested Anusha. Posters don’t turn into birds. How can a poster turn into a bird?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Zaki, ‘there’s something I haven’t told you.’

  Zaki glanced at the classroom door to make certain no one was about to disturb them. He removed the bracelet from his pocket and laid it on the desk between them.

  ‘What’s that?’ Anusha reached to pick it up.

  Quickly, Zaki caught her hand. ‘Better not touch it.’

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘It has special powers.’

  ‘You’re kidding me!’

  Anusha crouched down and examined the bracelet without touching it.

  ‘You should show this to my dad. I’m pretty sure it’s Indian. Where did you get it?’

  Zaki hesitated and Anusha read the guilt in his eyes. Her own eyes flashed with sudden anger. ‘You took it, didn’t you! It was on the boat and you took it. That’s why you wanted to get on to that boat! You wanted to steal this bracelet! What have you dragged me into? I’m not a thief!’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ pleaded Zaki. ‘I didn’t mean to take it. That’s not why I got on to her boat. But I’d seen the bracelet before. It was in the cave. She took it off me when she rescued me. When I saw it again on the boat, I picked it up and, in all the panic, I forgot to put it back.’

  ‘You forgot.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s the truth.’

  Her dark eyes regarded him coolly. ‘So what does it do?’

  ‘There are two of them – two bracelets, identical. She’s got one and I’ve got one. And if we’re each wearing one, she knows what I’m thinking.’

  He told Anusha about what had happened after Grandad had dropped him off, about being able to talk to the girl and about the terrible voice that seemed to call the girl’s name.

  ‘But you weren’t wearing the bracelet yesterday in class when the hawk appeared. You didn’t nick it until we were on Curlew.’

  ‘I know – but I put it on in the cave. That must have been how she knew I was there. That’s how she knew I needed rescuing – maybe once you’ve worn it – I don’t know – it changes you somehow.’

  Zaki picked up the bracelet and returned it to the safety of his pocket.

  ‘You were telling us about the bird in your dream when the hawk appeared.’

  ‘You think I sort of dreamt it up?’

  ‘Something like that. Look, I’ve got an idea. My dad’s got a camcorder – perhaps I could film you while you retell that dream. If it happens again, we’ll have a recording – we’ll have proof.’

  ‘Proof? What for? I mean, for who?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just an idea. I’ll bring the camera tomorrow.’

  They had a change of classroom after break, so they began to gather up their belongings.

  ‘When shall we meet to look at the logbook?’ Zaki asked, keen that it should be soon.

  ‘I’ve got a violin lesson after school today.’

  ‘How about tomorrow after school?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. Come on, we’ll be late for maths.’ And Anusha headed for the door.

  Zaki’s shoulder injury forced him to do everything one-handed. Once he had finally gathered his things together, he hurried to catch up with Anusha. In his haste, he blundered into Mrs Palmer in the doorway, who was returning to the room. The shock of the collision sent stabbing, blinding pain shooting out from his cracked collarbone. He let out a cry and dropped everything he was carrying. He leant against the doorframe, feeling faint.

  ‘You . . . !’ Exploded Mrs Palmer. B
ut then, seeing he was hurt, she continued more gently. ‘Is it your shoulder?’

  Zaki nodded.

  ‘You’d better come and sit down.’ She led him across to sit on the chair beside her desk and then gathered up his dropped books.

  ‘I’m not sure you should be at school if it’s that bad. Do you want us to call your mum?’

  ‘I’ll be OK in a minute,’ said Zaki. Not much point calling my mum anyway, he thought.

  On the desk was the book of myths from which Mrs Palmer had been reading before the incident with the hawk.

  ‘That story you read us . . .’ began Zaki.

  ‘Taliesin and Ceridwen?

  ‘Where’s it from?’

  ‘Well, the version in here,’ she flipped the book’s pages, ‘is from Wales, but, as I explained to the class’ – she paused – ‘after you left us, shapeshifting is a theme found in stories from all parts of the world.’

  ‘Shapeshifting,’ repeated Zaki.

  Mrs Palmer nodded.

  ‘Do you think it might – you know, shapeshifting – sometimes really happen?’ he asked and then wished he hadn’t, thinking it sounded a pretty stupid question. To his surprise, rather than brushing his question aside, Mrs Palmer looked thoughtful.

  ‘In some ways, yes. The shamans, the holy men and women of many societies, go on spiritual journeys during which they become birds and animals. Poets inhabit the minds and bodies of others in order to write.’

  ‘I meant . . .’

  ‘I know what you were really asking. Can people actually change into animals? I doubt it,’ she said, with a slightly patronising little laugh. ‘Although some children I know wouldn’t have to change very much.’

  Zaki, who was beginning to think that, perhaps, Mrs Palmer was all right after all, decided that probably she wasn’t.

  Just then the bell went for the end of break.