The Watchers

by Reakes, Wendy

  When she walked through the tree door, it felt as if it was the most natural thing to do, but all the while, as she made her way along the layers, she couldn’t help wondering if she was dreaming and that in fact, it was probably the nervous breakdown she’d been waiting for? For all she knew, she could be lying in a hospital bed, in a coma, brought on by severe depression. God knows how many times she’d felt like retreating to that place of lifelessness after her sweet girl had been taken from her.

  But now, despite a lack of intellectual reasoning, Keri couldn’t help feeling that somehow her future lay there in that magical tree, in the Watchers world.

  No, she thought, there was no turning back now. She was going to see it through to the end.

  What else did she have any more?

  Jesus kept looking straight ahead. The whole experience was what he’d been striving towards, ever since he’d lost his beloved Shanna. He knew that place was where he would find the answers to the eternal questions that had kept him wondering for years and years; what life was all for without his wife and their unborn baby?

  He’d begun his life in Bristol, in poverty, living among souls who would kill for the want of a bite of an apple. He always remembered his mother as one who spent every waking hour cleaning the red slate step outside their front door, despite the inside of the small terrace house falling apart around their heads. His father was an alcoholic. He worked down the boat yard every day, but by night, after he’d bathed in the tin bath next to the fire and donned his tie, he’d go off down the pub where he would spend his hard earned cash on beer and whisky.

  Once known as Charles Basset, when he was fourteen he ran away to the navy, but after he got a taste of being at sea, he soon realised it wasn't the life for him. He decided he was more of an earth man, not water. He spent the next five years trying to get out and eventually, when the ship he was sailing on docked in Bristol harbour, he made a run for it and got out of the navy for good. He never went back to see his parents, instead taking to the road after buying a nice little second hand Morris Minor, using it as a house and home for the next ten years.

  As far back as he could remember, from the day he’d learned of the Watcher’s existence, he’d wanted more than anything to be with them. He felt compelled to adopt their beliefs and their ethos, even though he could never be a proper Angel.

  Yes, Jesus pondered, this was it. Below, the tree in the Watcher’s world was where he would find his answers. That would be his life.

  What else did he have any more?

  Tom entered the next chamber before the others. It was he who saw the wondrous vision first. He, who had gasped in awe of its loveliness, and it was he who’d fallen to his knees and thanked God for giving him the gift of sight. And Tom never prayed!

  Unlike the previous two chambers, the third was a cave of quartz. The walls were lined with the semi-precious stone, more pure and precious than any cut diamond set in a band of gold. Rough textures blended with smooth, some parts clear and some opaque with luminous hues, mingled with veins of red, like bloodlines running through marble. The cavern was aglow with back-lighting, not from the sun or from a flame or from a common bulb. The light was natural; simply there, as shimmering golden pinks of the quartz dazzled the beholder.

  Tom was still alone as he breathed in the wonder of the quartz. The light made a kaleidoscope of patterns in his eyes and the glow of the stone made his skin seem unblemished, as the pinks covered his skin like a dappling of powder from a woman’s bejewelled compact.

  With one knee on the stone floor, Tom pulled out his camera from the faded green bag once slung across his back and now sitting in front of him on the ground. He had taken some shots in the other chambers, but his flash hadn’t worked for some reason. He didn’t know why, but in that luminous space, he didn’t need any artificial lighting to bring his images to life. It was already there; as natural as day.

  Tom leaned forward as he adjusted the lens and focused on some quartz protruding from the floor, like a cluster of randomly shaped prisms of different sizes and depths. He did a test shot. It was perfect. The pictures would fetch a king’s ransom.

  After all, what else did he have any more?

  Chapter 26

  Jay Pullman had just spent the pastthirty-six hours trying to track down Fran and he was getting nowhere, fast. After he'd dropped Tom at Stonehenge, he'd continued his drive to Glastonbury via the country roads and frankly, despite his mood, he'd enjoyed the silence. He would have preferred the kid to have stayed with him, but after ten minutes of no talking, cruising along the English country roads with Aaron Neville playing on the radio, he thought, good riddance!

  When he arrived at the strange looking town of Glastonbury, lined with odd curiosity shops and row upon row of old terraced houses, he checked into a hotel already reserved by the holiday company. It was an old inn, as opposed to the modern travel lodges on the outskirts of town. They were once for the tourists, although now they housed the homeless by order of the English government. It was a nice gesture, but the weathered motels were places to avoid at all cost now.

  After recovering from his jet lag, he wondered around the town checking most of the hotels for any news of Fran. His only tip-off came from a waiter in one of the restaurants he'd dined at one evening. As he'd served dessert, Jay had shown him a magazine layout of Fran posing in black lace lingerie. After he'd taken some time gazing at her features, he said he may have seen someone who looked like her. Jay snatched back the magazine as the guy poured cream over homemade apple pie, which was nothing like the pie he could get in New York. "Yeah, I think I remember her." The waiter had said. "She was with a group from some fashion thing."

  "That's great," Jay said pushing away his plate. "So, if you can give me any clues...you know, where I might find her?"

  “Nah, sorry. I don’t know nothing else.” And that was the end of that!

  Jay had attempted to call Tom for the fiftieth time, but as usual, it went to message, just like the others. "Hey, kid. Why can't I reach you? Message me back."

  Now Jay was beginning to wonder if he should just give up and go home. He couldn’t even get a decent signal on his cell. “The United Kingdom!? Not!" he muttered before he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

  Days later and for the third time since he'd arrived, Jay sat on the grass at the top of the Glastonbury Tor looking out over panoramic views of Somerset, Wiltshire and parts of Wales. According to the brochure, the Tor was supposed to be a remarkable mystical place with close association to Arthurian legend. Jay had learned that the hill dated back to Neolithic times, around the same time as Stonehenge was constructed. The conical shaped Tor had been formed naturally on the Somerset levels, but the spiral terraces that led to the top were formed by man. At its peak were the ruins of a church, a Grade I listed monument called St Michael's tower.

  After following a few leads, he’d traced Fran back to a small hotel near the outskirts of town. It was a quaint English hostelry with rooms boasting four-poster beds, a restaurant with white linen covered tables and a bar with a moose’s head above a fireplace one could sit in and drink warm beer from glass jugs. Jay was starting to appreciate the English ways. New York was in such a state, as were the other cities around America, he could get used to living this. In peace.

  But it was expensive. The cost of living in the UK was so high, he wasn’t surprised that not many tourists were checking out the tourist town of Glastonbury. Most of the bespoke shops closed at midday, every day, as the owners reeled at their lack of sales.

  Two days ago Jay had discovered that Fran’s party had left Glastonbury, but that she had remained. She’d met someone - he guessed-and one day after leaving all her clothes and her belongings in the room she’d occupied, she’d left, disappearing suddenly without a trace.

  Amongst her things, which Jay had claimed, he found postcards and souvenirs of the Glastonbury Tor. Handfuls of pictures and leaflets, over and above what any normal tourist wo
uld collect. It was a cache of such abundance that Jay had to store them in a suitcase of their own. He’d scrutinised every piece, turning every crystal and every stone, reading every booklet, and scanning all receipts for pagan amulets, jewellery made with local semi-precious stones, pendants and charms, dream catchers, wind chimes, and a crystal ball set on its own carved wooden stand. It was a veritable feast of pagan paraphernalia and he had no idea what to do with it all.

  Now at the top of the Tor, alone, looking out across the fields and valleys below, he felt the sun beating down on him as he said what he always said when he went up there. “Where are you, Fran? Where the hell are you?”

  End of Part Two

  Part Three

  “We have needed a Father Nature for a

  long time,

  And never more urgently than now,

  When all over the planet,

  Armoured men, in or out of uniform,

  Terrorise each other, women and

  children,

  And what remains of the wildwood.”

  Dr Dan Wood.

  Chapter 27

  Mia stumbled into the quartz chamber behind Keri. “Wow!” she gasped, as her eyes adjusted to its alluring light. Behind her, Jesus came in, dancing and laughing and smoothing his hands over the golden quartz as if it was life itself. “Beautiful! It’s beautiful.”

  Uninterested, Keri paced across the floor and went straight to the other side, while Tom clicked his camera and Jesus broke off a piece of quartz and held it in the palm of his hand. The chamber was a similar shape and size to the last, about twelve foot in diameter. Like the others, it bore larger tunnels branching off in different directions, some big enough to walk through and some not. "Where do we go from here?" Keri called to the others. Mia noticed how keen she was to get through the tunnels to the end. She wondered if her eagerness was born out of fear.

  The largest shaft going from the quartz chamber was lined with the same precious pinks as the quartz inside, except it was a tone darker, running into common rock a few meters along before the tunnel went to blackness in the distance. Above their heads, smaller random holes were dotted about where chutes the size of water pipes were only wide enough to place a hand into. Keri looked up at them, and as the eyes of her companions followed hers, she asked, “I wonder what those holes are for?”

  Tom went closer and tried to reach them by standing on his toes. He fell short of about five inches so he stepped back just as a violent gust of wind blew out of each, making his hair whip about his face. “Look,” Mia yelled.

  The currents of air formed shapes that looked like maidens with long flowing hair streaming behind them. As the group in the chamber looked on in awe, the airborne nymphs smiled and circled above their heads, their transparent robes becoming wrapped around their perfect bodies like shrouds of white silk. Their shoeless feet and their delicate hands were tiny and their limbs looked as if they had been sculptured out of ivory. “Oh, my goodness,” Keri muttered. “What are they?”

  “They’re beautiful,” Jesus shouted with excitement. The sound of them swooshing over their heads made him raise his voice. “They must be the fabled air spirits. I saw an illustration of them in a book of folklore and fairy magic. They are known to bring either blessing or disaster.”

  “Befriend the nymph. Remember?” Mia said, remembering Jesus’ fable.

  She picked up Charlie from the floor, soothing him as he growled at the flying spirits. One of the maidens swooped to the centre of the room and crooked her finger. She was asking them to follow her. Then all seven flew like streams of wind through a single channel going from the chamber.

  "I guess that's the way," Tom shouted as he ran after them. The group of four trotted along the tunnel as if they sensed the momentum was building. They were coming close to the end. Mia didn't know how she knew that. She was losing all sense of time and distance. She couldn't estimate how far they had come, nor to what depths, they had travelled, but she could feel her ears popping as if they were descending to deep levels at vast speeds. She was still running when she looked behind her, and in the darkness, she saw a dot of pink, the quartz chamber behind them looking as if it were miles away.

  Then she heard a scream.

  Mia turned her face forward and stopped dead in her tracks as she almost collided with Keri who had collapsed to the floor. Mia fell down next to her as Tom and Jesus both stood as if they were admiring a priceless picture in an art gallery.

  Mia felt a sob charge from her mouth as she experienced a feeling of pure pleasure for the very first time. Then, as a solitary tear ran down her cheek, she shook her head from side to side. “No,” she whispered. “No, this cannot be.”

  They stood on a stone terraceprotruding from an enormous vertical cliff face. Far below, a great ocean ran into the distance, green, the colour of angelica threaded with blue and silver. A mile across the sea was the horizon, where mountains darted into the sky under a vast landscape of rock, as they realised the ocean and the world they'd found themselves in, was cocooned within a colossal cavern. Set into the rock walls far away, a red sun blazed above the rugged peaks; a globe of fire, burning and rotating, and raging as it spun as if the earth's core itself was visible behind a layer of hardened glass.

  To the right, the globe shone down over a sandy shore blending into a checked array of fields of yellow corn squared with purple lands of lavender. And through them, pure white horses ran and played, prancing and jumping as if their happiness was the only thing that mattered.

  In the distance, beyond the fields, was a city made of rocks and caves. Tiny dwellings, like catacombs, plain and featureless, stacked upon each other like random building blocks. And between them, paths spiralled their way through, weaving like a labyrinth up to a palatial structure with twisted pointed turrets.

  It was the fabled city of Caer Sidi. And there, amongst it all, the Angels roamed.

  Chapter 28

  London

  Alice Burton closed her office door. Even though she’d always favoured the open-door policy at Number 10, it was an impossible rule to administer. For one thing, most of the work she dealt with was top-secret and there were matters she certainly didn’t want any of her domestic staff to learn about. Most of the dealings she’d had lately were highly sensitive, so frankly, if she could remove the silly open-door policy she’d introduced at the beginning without losing her ‘people person’ reputation, then she would.

  And that wasn’t the only change she’d regretted. There were some members of the cabinet who were starting to appear all wrong for the role she’d bestowed them. The Chancellor, for one. She’d promoted Peter Shepherd out of loyalty since he had helped the Tories win the election the first time, and he was there right beside her when she’d gained the majority on her re-election. It was a victorious time for them all, and Alice believed in rewarding loyalty.

  At the same time, she’d also brought in his brother, Martin, and now they, the Shepherds, had surrounded themselves with men from the old school; men who knew their way around British politics better than anyone; men who had been in government forever. The Shepherd brothers had been with her behind the scenes with the Sous Llyndum project. They’d taken a silent approach, with the view to watching her back, picking up the pieces if anything went wrong.

  Well, it did go wrong.

  The Shepherds had come to see her the day after Geoffrey Barnes funeral. They proposed Alice should keep her head down until everything blew over, but they were there if she needed them, if by any chance anything ever came to light about her involvement. She knew it was an underlying threat, that if she ever stepped out of line, they’d leak the lot to the British press. Yes, if she had her time again, she’d never have allowed the brothers so much autonomy. They were so bent, the only reason she got reelected was because they wanted her right at the front where they could control her.

  Alice pressed the buzzer on her intercom. “Get me Keri Rains.”

  There was a paus
e as she waited for the call to come through. She needed Keri to help her with some diplomatic issues. There were things happening, which she needed to deal with, and Keri was someone who she could trust.

  She and Keri went way back. Alice had been a high-flying, ambitious backbencher with a very persuasive demeanour, and Keri had been trying to get her foot in the door in acquisitions. They’d helped each other out, and Keri owed Alice more than a few favours.

  Her secretary's voice came through the speaker. "Mrs Rains is unavailable, Prime Minister. She's on a short break."

  “Find her,” Alice said. “I want her back. Today!” Where the hell is she? She needed to talk to someone about their storage facility under Salisbury Plain and she needed to talk about it now. She pressed the intercom once more. “Get me her husband, please.”

  It had only taken a minute to get Harry Rains on the phone. “Madam Prime Minister.”

  “Where is she, Harry?”

  “You mean Keri?”

  “Who do you think I mean? Come on, Harry. We’ve known each other too long for games. Where is your wife?”

  “Keri and I are separated now, Alice. You know that.”

  “So what? You still keep in touch, don’t you? Where has she gone? I need to reach her.”

  “It’s personal.”

  Personal! Since when did any of them get to have a personal life? She didn’t have one. What makes Keri Rains so damn special? “May I remind you who you are talking to here, Harry?”

  “But you’ve always said…”

  What? Hasn’t she always said there are lines people should never cross? God knows they’ve known her long enough to know that at least. “Harry!”