The Watchers

by Reakes, Wendy

  She shrugged. “I just think about things.”

  “What sort of things?” He sat down on the grass opposite her, almost exactly the same place Uriel had sat, but closer.

  “Oh, you know, stuff!” She didn’t want to appear vague, but she could hardly divulge her rendezvous with the Watchers. Or maybe she could? They hadn’t told her to keep their meeting a secret.

  “Kudos,” Jesus said.

  Her eyes opened wide and wondrously. “What?”

  “It means praise or glory for an achievement.”

  “Yes, I know what it means, but why did you just say it to me?”

  “No reason.”

  No way! Jesus couldn’t be Kudos. Could he? It would be too much of a coincidence, but then again, they were sitting in an ancient megalith. Where better to meet other Kudos?

  She took a stab at it. “Kudos to you too, Jesus.”

  He held up his head and stared into her eyes, and then he smiled. “I knew it,” he said. “I couldn’t understand why a girl like you…no offence, would be here with folk like us. I knew you had to have a special reason for being here.”

  Mia could feel tears stinging her eyes. Jesus…Kudos! A kindred spirit. It was a wonderful moment. “When...when did you meet them?”

  He offered a graceful nod, as their camaraderie was confirmed. “Many years ago. It was near here. A place they call Woodhenge.”

  “Many years ago? But how is that possible, they’ve only just arrived?”

  “No, they’ve been here a long, long time. Only now they are showing themselves openly…well as open as they deem appropriate.”

  Mia shook her head, there was so much to learn about the Watchers. So much she wanted to know.

  “Anyway, I was camping near Woodhenge and like tonight, I went into the circle to meditate, to seek solitude and contentment.” He pulled off his hat, struck it on the grass and then put it back on his head. “I was attacked by two youths whilst I prayed. They robbed me and they beat me and when I ran away they came after me. That’s when the Watchers came. They destroyed the two men as if they were made of paper, returning their ashes to the earth.”

  “Wow!” Mia whispered.

  "The Watchers spoke to me." He tapped his forehead with one long, bony, nicotine-stained finger. "They said if I wanted to know more, I could meet them at Stonehenge the following night." He shrugged and smiled. "How could I not go?" His face looked as if he was remembering something eternally unique and wonderful. It was.

  Mia couldn’t keep silent any longer. “I met them here too. It was only a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I knew you were special.”

  “Thank you. Can you tell me everything you know?”

  He rose to his feet. “I’ll show you if you like. Come on.”

  It was late evening and Miawas sitting outside her tent looking at the now very overcrowded field. The surrounding area looked like a gypsy camp, littered with smoking fires, cooking pots, tents and makeshift washing lines. She briefly wondered what it would like after the solstice when everyone had packed up and gone home. She picked up some matches from a pouch inside her tent and struck it over the burner. It wouldn't light. She was out of gas.

  She looked over to where Jesus’ van was parked. It was quiet over there. He must be asleep inside, protected by his emblems and crystals and stones. She smiled as she thought about him. They had become trusted friends since their discovery of each other’s connection to the Watchers. They were an odd couple, everyone must have thought so, but he was like a protective older brother to her now and when she left, any day, she knew she was going to miss him.

  When they’d met up at the stones and they’d both divulged their Kudos status, Jesus had taken her back to his van. It was mid-morning, and the solstice worshippers were huddled in groups smoking weed and drinking white liquid from old brown bottles.

  Mia followed Jesus through the masses of bodies, debris and mayhem to his van, when he stopped and looked about, ensuring no one was observing. “I trust you, as the Watchers have trusted you,” he said. “Everything you see here, I share with you only. You must not discuss it with a soul.”

  She gave a sombre nod of the head. “Understood.” She tied Charlie to the bumper and instructed him to wait, while Jesus unlocked the back door. All of the windows had been painted inside and out, and as well as the normal key lock on the rusted handle, he also had two levers with an impenetrable padlock soldered on. He unlocked it and put the keys back into his pocket before he turned the handle. Then, after another quick glance around the area, he swung open the doors and pushed Mia inside.

  Before she could get her bearings, he climbed in behind her and pulled the doors shut. Mia wondered if she hadn’t been a tad hasty in her decision to go alone to his van. The same feeling of foreboding only increased when he turned on a makeshift overhead light and locked three separate bolts on the inside of the doors.

  He turned on another switch and then another. One was for a light over his bed and the other for operating a small whirring fan. It was meant to cool the interior, but instead, it circulated the rancid odour of urine, well-worn socks and air-freshener, making Mia gag at the nauseating smell.

  Jesus watched her from one side of the van, where he was sitting cross-legged on his mattress. The rickety bunk had a sleeping bag on top of it and a dirty striped pillow at one end. Behind that with the extra light above it, was a low table with jars of economy coffee and dried milk, a box of cocoa pops and a half empty packet of digestive biscuits. Behind the passenger seat in the front, an array of crates and boxes were piled up, presumably containing everything he owned.

  Mia sat on her knees on the floor, covered in dirty brown, mismatched remnants of carpet. To her right was an old wooden bottle crate covered in a yellowed white lace handkerchief. She moved her face closer to a photograph of a woman with long blond hair wearing jeans under a flowery white tunic top. Her face was young and very pretty. Next to the photograph was a half burned-out candle. Jesus leaned over and struck a match over the black wick and the light shimmered gently, casting a haze of life over the shrine of his beloved wife, Shanna.

  Mia couldn't take it all in. Within his living quarters, the only home he had, an enormous collection of pictures and maps and charts adorned the walls until not even a space the size of a stamp could be seen. From the ceiling and from shelves he had fabricated out of bits of wood, an assortment of stones, crystals and emblems dangled like a fairy's hanging garden, with twinkling ornaments, reflecting the light as they moved. Pictures of Angels adorned the walls, some religious some just whimsical. There were pictures of places she recognised, like Stonehenge and Avebury and the Glastonbury Tor and there were symbols and maps, some printed on A4 paper and some featured on tourist leaflets. As she turned to look at the van doors closed behind her, there at the centre was a mask of green, made of dried leaves and twigs forming a face staring out of the foliage like a bearded man.

  “Jesus, what is all this stuff?”

  He spoke with a truly loving tone. "I've been trying to find the meaning of it all ever since I met with them that night. I just needed to know more." He ran his hands over a photograph of an emblem with two circles intertwined. "That's the green man. In myth, he is the father figure. He is the resurgent life force of the forest and the field." He touched the leaves on the mask, now dried and withered.

  He turned his shoulders to look at a picture above his bed. “You see this symbol...It is my most treasured and revered symbol. It is the labyrinth, also called the Cretan maze. It is illustrated all over the planet, even on the Nazca plains...on old Greek coins, Italian vases and tiles, on ancient-constructed pillars, but mostly it is etched into the ground in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of places on earth.” He paused for breath. “And here...” He pointed to a colour image next to the picture of the Cretan maze. The picture was old, once printed from Google Earth, looking like a circle formation filled with white dots. “This is Woodhenge. Where I met the
Watchers. The dots you see are wooden posts protruding from the ground. It was discovered in 1925, estimated as being constructed in the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. That would make it about 4,500 years old.” He coughed with loose phlegm in his throat. “It has been described as a replica of Stonehenge. They say the posts once supported a structure of some kind, but I believe it is a message in picture form. It could even have been constructed by the Watchers themselves.”

  He pointed to a duplicate image next to it, where he had joined the posts and formed a pattern with a black marker pen. “I joined them all up and created a perfect Cretan maze. See?” He smiled.

  “So…?” Mia was more than a little dubious to her new friend’s findings.

  “It’s a sign. There’s something important to our future that involves a spiral maze. Did you know there was a crop circle in 2012, which was made like a Cretan Maze?”

  Mia frowned. “Okay, so what do you think a Cretan maze symbolises? What does it all mean?”

  As far as Woodhenge is concerned…and remember it has been likened to Stonehenge itself…I believe the wooden posts were once joined with something so that it created a spiral path.” He smiled.

  “For what purpose?”

  “Maybe as a portal into another world.”

  Mia shook her head. Jesus was going way beyond any thoughts she may have had of the Angels returning to earth. What she believed was real, but the stuff that Jesus was describing was myth with no substance at all as far as Mia was concerned. She had seen the Watchers with her own eyes. She needed no pictures or symbols to make it any more real than it already was.

  She had a notion, “The markings on the Angels, you know down their arms…”

  He smiled. “I noticed that too. I saw at least six spirals and intertwining circles and some of the other tattoos were exactly the same images of signs I recognise, like the ones on the Nasca Plains, the Hopi drawings and also crop circles. I found that fascinating.”

  Mia looked once more around the van. “It all seems so daunting…all this information. How does it relate to our life on earth, to the meaning of it all?”

  “Mia, the symbols and drawings are the very fabric of the meaning of life. And the glue holding it all together are the Angels. That’s life.”

  Chapter 19

  London

  Jay and Tom’s flight set down on English soil three days before the summer solstice. Jay was aiming to head towards Glastonbury, but Tom was opting for Stonehenge. “The idea was for you to come and support me while I found Fran,” Jay complained as they walked through Heathrow’s airport terminal. The place was covered with armed guard and whirling security cameras.

  “I’ve got my own stuff to do.” Tom wanted to see Mia. It was all he wanted.

  “So, you get me to pay for your flight and now you’re ‘doing your own thing’.” Jay would have raised his fingers to imitate air quotation marks, but his hands were full.

  Tom glowered. He was jet lagged and grumpy. "Why are you so pissed? I kept you company on the flight, didn't I? Not many would have done that, believe me, bro."

  Jay was incredulous. The nerve of the guy! And they weren’t really friends anyway. “How are you getting there, to Stonehenge?”

  “You can drop me off.”

  Jay grunted his response. Frankly, he was having serious second thoughts. It was one thing, dreaming about being with Fran 24/7, but it was quite another to jump on a plane and fly half way across the world, at great expense, when he didn't even know where she was. He needed his head examined. Apart from the obvious reasons why he shouldn't be there, Fran may have found some other guy by now. She was a beautiful woman. It wouldn't take a lot for some rich Englishmen to lay down his life for her. And after the way Jay had treated her, he wouldn't blame her if she hated him now. Yes, he was thinking of taking the return ticket out of his pocket and going straight back to New York. Somehow it felt safer there. "How am I expected to find my way around this goddamn country all on my own?"

  “More to the point...how are you going to find Fran?” Tom spat back.

  “Well, I guess I’ll have a GPS in my car? I mean they have that here, right?”

  “You know New York isn’t the only place on the planet. You need to get out more, dude.”

  When they arrived at Hertz and Jay had processed the paperwork, neither of them could believe how small the car was. A Sierra! The guy in the suit said, “You can upgrade, sir, but it will be extra on your bill.”

  “That’s just great.” He said raising his voice while some passers-by stared. “I never drive in New York and the first chance I get to feel the power of an engine beneath me, I’m driving around in a white bubble.” He threw his luggage into the trunk and slammed it shut. “Hello, England.”

  They drove West on the M4. Jay was concentrating so hard on the motorway that his knuckles went white from clutching the steering wheel. “Why do they have to drive on the wrong side of the road?” He was keeping track of it through the GPS. At least he had that. And why are the cars on this little side road here, the same as this white bubble…small?”

  “There’s a recession over her too, Pi. Or don’t you watch the news? The cars are electric; it’s all the commuters can afford. Their mustangs are locked up in a garage somewhere with no gas.”

  “Well, I guess it feels good to be out of the city. The English have had it good compared to us, right?”

  "They've suffered in their own way, but a lot of the old folks don't mind. They say it's like wartime all over again. They're growing vegetables in their backyards," Tom added with a chuckle.

  Jay shook his head. “Weird, huh!” Jay smiled as he kept on driving. He was keeping to the slow lane until he got used to the road. “What do you know about all this English stuff, anyhow?”

  “Mia tells me about it.” Tom sat with his feet up on over the glove box. There wasn’t much room for his legs in that small car.

  Jay looked at the clouds hanging like blankets in the sky in front of him. “What’s with this crazy weather? I thought it was bad in NY but there’s no friggin; air here.” He searched for the air-con. But he couldn’t wait for it to start up. He wound down the windows on the doors at the back.

  “So, have you got hold of her yet?” Tom asked.

  Jay took a sideways glance at the kid. “Who?”

  “Fran.”

  “Nope. I tried her again from the airport, but nothing. I’m telling you, kid, she’s ignoring me. I have good instincts for these things.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tom offered encouragingly. “Women like to get chased.”

  "Is that right? And you'd know all about it, would you? You're a man of the world now, huh?"

  Tom ignored him. He took a final swig of his soda, burped, and then crushed the tin with one hand.

  Jay sniggered. Truthfully, he liked the kid. He was good company and he didn’t take any of Jay’s bullshit. He liked having him around. “Come with me to Glastonbury,” he pleaded one last time.

  “Nope. I’m going to see Mia.”

  “But, you’ve never even met.”

  “Are you kidding? She knows me better than anyone.”

  “Yeah, but do you know her, kid. Do you know her?”

  “Course I do. She’s my gal. We’ve always said so.”

  “Young love, eh!” Jay had a real dirty laugh. Love! Maybe if he was younger, he could deal with all of that stuff, but he was going to be thirty-five next month. He should be past that now. It was certainly no age to go running around after women.

  “So you’ve told her you’re coming, right?” Jay asked. When the kid didn’t answer, Jay took his eyes off the road to glance at Tom. “Oops, you haven’t told her.” He laughed, but then he almost hit a truck on the inside lane. “Shit.”

  “You just watch your driving, Buddy, and I’ll worry about Mia. I told you, everything’s going to be all right. She’s going to be ecstatic to see me. No worries.”

  Chapter 20

  Stone
henge, Wiltshire

  Mia had been asleep in her tent when it happened. An almost unbearable heat had descended the country, like a message of foreboding. The skies were heavy with dark clouds hiding the sun with their thickness. Everyone was awaiting a storm, a storm so big it would clear away the mugginess of the air and allow a breathable breeze.

  Mia had unzipped her sleeping bag and lay atop it. She was wearing a thin t-shirt and cotton shorts and minutes before she’d sprayed her face with water to cool her body down. That’s when she’d fallen into a restless sleep.

  Her dream was the sort of dream she didn't want to wake up from since her imagination would never have extended so far to finish it. She found herself in Woodhenge, dancing around the white dots which had turned into faeries; little sparkling fairies like Tinkerbelles. They were laughing and playing, until they became entangled in her hair and started tugging and pulling to be released from the trap made of Mia's long locks. She was picking them out one by one until her mother was dragging a nit comb through her hair pulling out crawling white lice. Her mother set the garden hose on her and she was suddenly basking in the white sunlight beneath a beautiful waterfall tumbling over a cliff face. She was at Dover, running along the top of the white chalk cliffs, her hair wet and matted. Tom was chasing her but he was growling and cursing. Goddamn, he kept saying, goddamn, over and over again; goddamn, goddamn…She was drinking milk, white and frothy like snow and then she was throwing the contents over the head of a man she couldn't recognise.

  Then she felt his form cover hers.

  She gasped as the sensual warmth of him above her naked body. His hands were stroking her shoulders as he caressed her neck with kisses. She was arching her back, waiting for him to take her, to set her on fire as she smouldered with passion. She wrapped her hands around his head and as white paper become splattered with black ink she opened her eyes to see a black mist covering her body like a blanket, its outer layers like extended limbs, morphing into the shape of a man, lying atop her, about to enter her body…She opened her eyes again and the figure raised his head. He had an expression of seduction on his beautiful face, but as Mia suddenly felt the pressure of his hands wrapped around her wrists, pinning them to the white sheets beneath her, his face changed as quickly as a heartbeat. His demonic features snarled at her just inches from her face and as she opened her mouth to scream he opened his, revealing dozens of snarling sharp bloodied teeth.