“No.”
He feigned a cough. “Well, okay then. Nice to meet you, I guess.”
“I am a seer,” she said.
“What’s that you said?”
“I’m a seer. I can help you find her.”
“Ah, I see…excuse the pun! You’re like a fortune teller, right? And how much would this cost an average American traveller like me?” He must have ‘sucker’ written across his forehead.
She pouted her painted red lips. “You can pay me what you want.”
“Thanks all the same.” He tried moving past her, but she wouldn’t get out of his way.
“Don’t you want to find this woman?” Her voice was a croak.
She had a point. What did he have to go on? Nothing! No leads, no way of finding her, nada. So if he paid the crazy lady twenty bucks, so what?
He wondered if his expression told her he was prepared to accept her terms; because right then she stepped forward whilst leaning on her stick, and linked her free arm through his. He couldn’t shake her off, as his hand got caught in his pocket.
“Silly boy,” Maggie chuckled. “Come on. I only live around the corner.”
Maggie’s home was a narrow two-story terrace house set on a hilly road within Glastonbury town centre. The building was 1900’s, with a dirty red brick front façade holding old wooden window frames covered in peeling blue paint.
Jay followed the crazy lady -as he’d now dubbed her-to the end of the building and to an old rusted iron gate. It squeaked on its hinges as she pushed her body through, making him wonder what on earth he’d let himself in for. For all he knew she could be an axe murderer, and yet he still followed her inside. The darkened alleyway at the other side of the gate held crumbling concrete steps leading up to a higher level. With a nod of her head, instructing him to tag along, Maggie began to climb, holding a broken and rusted handrail on one side and her walking stick on the other.
Slowly they rose towards the light at the top and Jay had to admit to a certain amount of impatience. It wasn’t like him. Ordinarily, he was nice to people who were physically challenged. It was his thing.
On the last two steps, pots of red geraniums sat like a welcome mat, saying, ‘Come out of the darkness and into the light'. And true enough, at the top, he was momentarily blinded by a pool of sunlight shining down upon a shrub-crowded roof terrace amassed with pots, plants, trees and herbs, and ornamental statues of angels of all sizes dotted everywhere. Trellis structures segregated areas, and on the far side, a brick wall had been whitewashed and painted with a strange drawing. On the back wall, a stone ornament of the fabled green man rested above a dried-up font. Jay recognised it from among Fran's collectables, although he had no idea what it meant.
Shaded from the glaring sun, under a rickety trellis covered in grapevine, sat a small wrought-iron table with two wooden kitchen chairs painted dark green and covered in faded floral print cushions. In the centre of the table, alongside a pot of nearly dead white daisies was an ashtray overloaded with roll-your-own butt-ends.
He watched Maggie take a bunch of keys from a frayed crochet bag. She inserted one into the lock and pulled open the double glass doors, securing them on the walls so that her living space inside became part of the garden.
“This is my flat,” she said.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light. The apartment was charming and surprisingly cool. The main room stretched from the back to the front of the building and the interior was crammed with so many things, Jay didn't know where to look first. He spotted a screen in one corner. He liked it himself. He had a thing for screens and this one was very special. It was hand painted with various scenes; the Glastonbury tor, Stonehenge, mystic symbols, and a mountain with a white horse etched upon it. He recognised that from one of Fran's brochures too. It was the white horse of Salisbury Plain.
Next to the screen, under the window, was a grand overstuffed, dark red velvet sofa, with cushions of varying designs scattered over it and a fringed Chinese shawl draped over the back. A standard lamp stood on the floor, and around the walls, bookcases were crammed with so many books and ornaments and curiosities, it would take months to inspect them all; if one had the inkling.
The centre of the room was dominated by a round table draped in a white lace cloth. In the centre was a crystal ball on an onyx stand, and suspended above was a light with a Tiffany shade. Rugs were strewn across the floor and stacks of books covered every available surface, apart from the table in the centre.
Maggie came out of the kitchen at the side of the room. She carried a tray with a teapot and china cups atop it. Jay rushed to her aid and took it from her as she motioned for him to place it on the table in the centre of the room. The bangles on her wrist rattled as she proffered her hand, instructing Jay to sit on the chair opposite hers. In turn, she lowered herself into the other seat with a grimace on her face and a soothing sigh. "Ah, that's better."
“How long have you been wearing an artificial leg, Maggie?”
“Hmm…this thing? Uh, let me see now…it was forty years ago. I was a missionary in Africa. I fell down a pit meant for game, crushing practically every bone in my poor old leg. I nearly bled to death one day after contracting gangrene in the hospital, so they had to cut it off to save my life.
“Hell, no!”
She nodded. “Ah, yes.” she chuckled. “But it was a long time ago and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I wrecked a trap and saved one poor animal’s skin.” She poured the tea into china cups. Jay watched the leaves fall through the spout inside the golden liquid. “Milk or lemon?”
“Lemon.”
“Sugar?” He shook his head. She nodded. “Very wise.”
She handed it to him on a matching saucer. “Go on, drink up and we’ll get down to it.”
He sipped the drink and was immediately taken with the taste of it. He didn’t normally drink tea, but this was refreshing and calming. Then it occurred to him she could have drugged him. Date rape! She was obviously a crazy old bird.
“Tell me about Fran,” she said as she held the cup to her lips and sipped.
“She’s…a friend. I came to England to find her, but she’s disappeared off the face of the earth.”
Maggie nodded. “Yes, that happens.”
“Excuse me?”
“Literally, ‘disappearing off the face of the earth’…it’s very common.”
“Is that right?”
“I was just being…never mind. So, this ‘friend’ Fran. Do you love her?”
“No, of course not. I’m just concerned about her, that’s all.”
Maggie smiled as she placed her spectacles over her nose. “I see. Okay then, give me your cup.”
He passed it across the table, but she rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Drink it all.” She strummed her fingers on the table whilst she waited.
He drank some more and left a quarter-inch of liquid and tea-leaves at the bottom. She took the cup from him, tipped the excess into a bowl and then turned it upside down onto the saucer. She rotated it a few times and then peered inside, turning the cup all ways as she tried to read the tea-leaves clinging to its side.
“She is near, yet she is far...” Maggie coughed. “She is happy, yet she is not…” she coughed again. She took another sip of her tea and carried on. “She is with another…” Maggie looked up at Jay watching her from across the table. “But he is not you.”
“What does that…?”
She raised her hand to prevent him from talking. “She is calling you. She wants you to find her.”
“How? Where can I find her?”
“Not here. Not on this plane.”
“Not on this…?”
“Listen to me, son,” Maggie said in earnest. “She is not of this plane.”
“You mean she’s dead?” Suddenly he felt the back of his throat seize up and his stomach spasm. He was going to throw up.
"No," Maggie answered. "No, she is not dead. You mu
st seek her in Caer Sidi."
“Where’s that?” Did he even believe all the shit she was telling him?
“It is the otherworld. It is the fabled land of the faeries.”
“The fabled land of…?” He wanted to laugh but he stopped himself.
Maggie looked offended. She knew what he was thinking. “You mustn’t doubt it. It exists, but only for the pure of heart and only for those who see.”
Jay nodded. Yeah right! He thought as he offered her a smile. Crazy old broad!
Chapter 33
“Look,” Tom shouted. “It’s not possible. How…?” The others followed the direction of his finger to the horizon on the other side of the vast underworld. On tilting rolling hillsides, row-upon-row of fruit trees lay in stripes upon the land. The orchards, perfectly lined and evenly spaced, resembled an army of soldiers on parade. Apple and plum trees, with tall slim trunks and bushy foliage, stood in rows, where in-between, grape vines with twisting roots, pushed the greenery to the same height as the fruit trees so that the leaves of each mingled with the next. The group watched with awe at the multitude feast of lush black grapes, red and green apples and purple plums running in candy stripes into the distance.
As the seven Watchers grouped around Tom, Mia, Keri and Jesus, together they all stood at the bottom of the stone palace towering above the cave dwellings like a great monument, high into the eaves of the underground cavern. As they all lingered on the gentle slope in the path, Tom swung his bag from his shoulder and placed it on the ground. He bent down, unfastened it and pulled out his camera to take some pictures of a view never before seen by man. All the while, in his mind he saw the photograph feature in National Geographic.
But then he felt a hand cover his. Jesus stood over him, shaking his head. Not here, not now. “Kudos, remember?” he whispered.
Tom felt guilt spread down his neck from his cheeks. He nodded with a solemn expression and put away his camera. The old man was right. That wasn’t the time. That place, the Angels; there was something about them that made him feel humble and protective.
Mia disturbed the moment and Tom was grateful for that. “You eat fruit!?” she asked Uriel.
“Yes, among other things,” he answered. “Come, we have refreshment prepared for you.”
They followed him and another Angel along the upward winding path. Five other Watchers trailed behind alert and focused, like loitering bodyguards.
The string of pearls continued to run along the edge of the path, bordering dwellings on the way up like tiny floor lights. Tom peered into one of the caves, but there was only blackness inside. To him, they looked empty, completely devoid of all light and life.
Up they went, moving past cave after cave, while the path wound in one direction, and then twisted back again in a distinct U-bend, going back on itself and then turning again. Above them turrets projected from the palatial structure, protruding to great heights in the centre of the catacomb homes.
Behind him, Tom could hear Jesus speak to Mia. “There are many tales attached to the fabled city of Caer Sidi. Caer means fort, fortress, or stronghold and the legend speaks of a spiral construction like the spiral terraces on the Glastonbury Tor.”
Mia responded like an excited child. “So the labyrinth, which forms the shape of the Tor is the same as the path leading up to the palace here.”
“There does seem to be a similarity. It’s connected, somehow.”
Halfway up, dominating one level, a large entrance had been perfectly squared off within the stone structure, unlike the other entrances with roughly formed edges. The group came to a stop on a landing outside, bordered by a carved stone balustrade to protect viewers of the city below from falling to their deaths
As they all looked across the land to the sea and the mountains beyond, there were no words. No words could have described such magnificent and wondrous beauty. In human terms, the sight they saw before them was literally indescribable
In unison, the group turned towards the entrance to the room at the rear of the terrace. It occurred to Tom that they were all doing the same thing at the same time as if they were being operated by an invisible puppeteer. Perhaps it was the Watcher's minds directing them; making them do what they wanted them to do.
The entrance appeared black and void inside, just like the other cave dwellings, but it was Tom who stepped forward first. He was either being inordinately decisive, or all their movements were being orchestrated by the Angels. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out a wall inside the recess made of cobalt blue granite with faint feathered veins running through it.
One of the Angels went past him and disappeared through the wall. Whoa! Another illusion.
Despite his fatigue, Tom's excitement returned. The wall was the same principle as the bark on the spirit tree; layers upon layers, only visible from the side, undetected if one stared at it face-on.
Tom stepped further inside and grinned as he sidled in-between the layers. It appeared as if the world had gone dark blue as if he was enclosed in a seashell. He heard the others follow him when he came out the other side and as he listened to their intrusive footsteps, he blinked as he gazed at the remarkable room on the other side of the wall. Mia came up behind him and touched his shoulder as she too stared in awe at that most wondrous of spaces.
It was enormous, so much so it defied logic. Tom thought if he had gazed upon it from the outer aspect, a room so large could never have been possible. It was like everything in that underworld. It broke all the rules and nothing could be measured or justified. Time, distance, cubic mass…here in the Watcher’s habitat, science simply didn’t exist.
The space was round and the floor was of the same cobalt blue as the wall in the entrance, with a dappling of sparkling specks on it, like a starry night sky. Threaded through, were rings of silvery white, looking as if they had been painted on, but they clearly had not. They were set within the floor as if the whole thing was one natural piece. The rings made a labyrinth, the same as the Cretan maze featuring on the wall of Jesus' van.
Above the windowless room, a mural on the ceiling depicted man in the field, working and toiling the land. Women in long robes carried baskets laden with oats, and children laughed as they ran through the long grass. Trees lined the outer circling parameter, blowing inwards like a wild breeze was forcing them to lean in. The mural reminded Tom of the work of Constable, painted onto the ceiling, just as Michelangelo had created his art on the Sistine chapel.
Dominating the room was an enormous round table made of onyx with colours splattered over it, looking as if a paintbrush had been flicked above it many times with colours of orange, yellow and green. Twelve chairs sat around the table made of twisted bark, fashioned from the stems of the vines from the Watcher's orchards. Around the walls were symbols and signs, which Tom couldn't recognise, but the most startling of features was an altar at the back of the room made of ordinary rock with flattened tops and stacked in tiers. Its roughness looked out-of-place in a room so rich and fine, but upon it, making the perspective of it seem well aligned, were seven crystal skulls. Their hollowed eyes stared at the group staring back at them, as they watched the light making them sparkle like polished glass in the sun.
An Angel appeared out of nowhere. It seemed as if he had been inside all along. “Here is my father,” Uriel announced. “He is Varquis. A trusted elder in the colony”
Uriel’s father looked upon the crystal skulls displayed above the altar. “They are our ancestors,” he said. “Your people have thirteen like these, found mainly in South America, but they do not know what they are. The sceptics think they were fashioned from pieces of crystal, but others say if man had chiselled them they would have been impossible to create artificially. Most of your people do not see what’s in front of their faces.”
“Remarkable,” Mia said. “But how…?”
“We lived many millennia before, but we were destroyed when the Lord vented his anger upon us. All lif
e was wiped out by fire and storm. Our ancestors and all the creatures roaming the earth perished. The skulls recovered by your people, and these here,” he proffered his hand, “are the remnants of that time when our people were sent back to the earth from whence they came. Mother earth turned them into crystal so that we may be reminded of our purity.”
Varquis indicated the seats around the round table. “Please, sit.”
They each took a chair of vines and sat down, keeping their hands folded in their laps. Tom watched Mia run her palm over the table. He did the same. It was smooth like glass, with the lines running through it like veins. “What is this?”
Varquis mimicked the stroke of her hand. "This is life," he said affectingly. "These lines and explosions of colour are illustrations of the workings of our brain. They are our intelligence. You would see the same if you looked through a microscope. They are what your scientists call neurons, except ours, are slightly different to yours."
“How different?” Jesus asked.
“Well, we use ours to full capacity. Man does not. The mother has been giving you many clues to help you develop your intelligence. She has written across the surface of the Earth in her own hand, but you do not see.”
“We have had clues?” Tom asked.
“Yes. There is a place not far from here. It is a place you call Avebury.”
Mia was suddenly excited. “I know Avebury. I live near there.”
“Yes, Lakey.”
“My name’s not…”
Varquis continued. “Avebury is a very special place and soon you will see why it is there. The two circles, which were once defined by sacred stones, have now been destroyed by man’s own hand. It is an entrance to our world and even though it has been there since time began, you still have not deciphered the code.”
“Code?” Tom was absorbing all the information as if his own brain had expanded. He just couldn’t get enough of the Watcher’s revelations.
The Watchers Page 15
