by Morgana Best
Chapter Six.
I hadn't told Douglas anything, and in turn, he hadn't told me any more about The Orpheans. I doubted I could trust him. Just trying to figure out any possible agendas that he may have had put me in a headspin. The rainy day matched my gloomy mood, and I trudged back to the office with my doggy bag. I was going to eat the leftovers for dinner.
Melissa had not returned to the office, so I scurried past Skinny's open door and hurried to my storage cupboard which doubled as my office. I booted up the computer and googled Druids. It wasn't my day. The first site I opened played loud Celtic music. I looked for the sound icon as fast as I could and muted it. Too late.
"Misteeeee!"
Oh no.
Why do some websites have music anyway? Don't they know that some people are secretly accessing websites at work, for goodness' sake?
I hurried to Skinny's office. Her face was bright red, and she was clearly in a rage. She pointed to the chair opposite her desk and barked, "Sit!"
I sat, thinking that even a dog would have gotten a treat. Skinny waved the form in my face. "What's this?" she yelled.
"Err, the form that you made me fill out."
"Don't be smart with me, Misty." Her voice rose even higher. "You know very well that you weren't supposed to fill in the times that you went to the toilet or made coffee. This is ridiculous. Well, it just shows that I made the right decision in choosing you from the other journalists to have your hours cut, with this type of behavior." She thrust the form at me. "Make sure that you fill in the time you got back from lunch, and I want the Port Macquarie ghost article by first thing tomorrow morning. Do a good job on that article, Misty; take it to the next level. Go!" With that, Skinny pointed to the door.
I walked back to the storage cupboard that doubled as my office with my nerves on edge. Skinny sure knew how to rub me the wrong way. I quickly proofed the Port Macquarie ghost article, and then checked to see if the computer was on mute. I opened a window on a website about Port Macquarie just in case Skinny turned up, and then opened another tab to google ancient Welsh Druids.
An hour later, and I'd pretty much learned that no one these days knew anything much about ancient Druids, due to the fact that they wrote nothing down, and the accounts that we do have were written hundreds of years after their time. Great.
I was about to give up when I stumbled across a web page which had every ancient account on the subject of Druids. The first was written by Julius Caesar. I had seen the remake of the film The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage, so found the passage intriguing. Caesar said that some tribes of the Gauls had huge figures made of wicker work, specifically wood and straw, and then they filled the figures with live people. They then set the wicker figures, people and all, on fire. Caesar said that the people think that their gods prefer thieves to be sacrificed this way, but if they ran out of thieves, they didn't hesitate to use innocent people.
Yikes! I had thought that human sacrifice had something to do with the Druids, although Caesar didn't directly blame the Druids for it, just the Gauls in general.
I read on, hoping that other ancient dudes wouldn't agree with Caesar on the subject of Druids and human sacrifices. I was to be disappointed.
The next ancient writer was a Greek man by the name of Strabo. He had been a famous geographer and historian about two thousand years ago. It started off well, with Strabo saying that the Druids had a better sense of justice than anyone else, but then it deteriorated rapidly. I read with some concern that the Gauls used to stab a person through the back with a saber, and then do divinations from the way he thrashed around when he was dying. Strabo also said Druids had to be present at all sacrifices.
I shuddered, and tried to take small comfort from the fact that Strabo didn't actually say that the Druids themselves did the sacrificing. Strabo also mentioned the wicker man: a huge figure made from straw and wood, into which the Gauls placed wild animals and cattle as well as human beings, and then burned them to death. He also said that they killed victims with arrows, and impaled them in the Druid temples.
What had I gotten myself into? I hardly dared read any more, but I forced myself to go on. There wasn't actually much else. I found that less than two thousand words had been written by ancient authors, and that of these, Caesar was the earliest. Some historians even considered that Strabo had copied Caesar. That cheered me up - if Caesar was the only actual account of the alleged human sacrifices, perhaps they hadn't happened after all. I didn't fancy being the Keeper of a society that was into human sacrifices.
I got up and peered around the door of my cupboard / office. No sign of Skinny. I couldn't hear her yelling at anyone, so figured she was out. I hurriedly walked to the staff room and poured a coffee, and then quickly walked back to my desk. I sat at the computer and stared at the screen for inspiration.
By the time I got home, I was pretty miserable, even though on the way home I'd bought three tubs of caramel and butterscotch ice cream and a large amount of chocolate. Comfort food works for me. I could always diet, or perhaps even exercise if I got really desperate, later.
I threw my car keys on the table, put the ice cream in the freezer, ate some chocolate to keep me going, and then ran a hot bath into which I poured an over supply of Honey and Milk Bubble Bath. I didn't linger in the bath as I was too tense to enjoy it, and was on the process of lathering on copious amounts of Vineyard Peach body butter when there was a loud, insistent knocking at the door. I so hoped it wasn't Douglas.
I ran to my bedroom and threw on the first pair of jeans I could find, the first bra I could find, and the first shirt I could find, and then hurried to the front door. I was secretly hoping it would be Jamie, but that was not to be.
I threw the front door open, only to see standing there the two M16-ish type guys I had met on my Morpeth adventure.
* * *
Ye shall not possess any beast, my dear sisters, except only a cat.
(The Ancrene Riwle: Guide for Nuns)
Chapter Seven.
"Bill and Ben," I exclaimed.
To my horror, I realized I'd said that aloud. I had given the two guys the nicknames back in Morpeth as I had no idea of their real names.
They exchanged glances, and the taller one (the one I called Bill) raised his eyebrows. "May we come in?" he asked in a tone that had very little sound of enquiry in it.
The two men barely waited for me to agree before walking into my house. I have what's known in Australia as a Victorian miner's cottage. These houses are typically over a hundred years old, and the front door opens onto a long hallway. The men immediately turned right into my living room. How did they know that wasn't the bedroom, as was the case in many of these houses? I felt a little ill at ease. Had I been under surveillance?
The two men sat down on the sofa without being invited. So much for the myth of Englishmen having impeccable manners. Ben had a large blue folder, which he opened with a flourish and then set down on the coffee table in front of the sofa. I sat down opposite them. I was hoping like crazy that they were here about the job offer, and more so, that the job offer was a desk job which would not have me swinging by a rope from a high rooftop or anything else James Bond-like.
Bill spoke first. "Ms. Sales, we're here about the position that we spoke about some time earlier."
Thank goodness! My mortgage was looking safe after all. I nodded, trying not to look overly keen.
Ben thrust some papers and a silver pen at me. "You will need to read this and then sign in the places so marked."
Here we go again - the Official Secrets Act. I skimmed the first four pages which were mostly full of boring legalese, but I did note that the fifth page was a waiver stating that they would not be held responsible for death or injury. That was a little alarming. I duly signed and handed the papers back.
Just as I did so, my cat Diva ran into the room, arched her back, hissed at Bill and Ben, swiped viciously at Bill's leg, and then turned and ran out of the room.
Bill and Ben ignored me. "This pays full time wages," Bill said, "but we want you to keep working at the magazine as a cover."
I was in two minds. Firstly, I was overjoyed that my money worries appeared to be over. The bank wouldn't evict me from my house, and the credit card companies wouldn't be phoning me constantly, demanding to know when I intended to pay - and charging me fees because I couldn't pay, like that made sense! On the other hand, I would have to continue to work for Skinny Troll, who surely had to be the world's meanest employer.
"Do I have to keep working at the magazine?" I knew that my voice came out whining and childlike, but I couldn't help it.
Bill and Ben merely looked at me.
Bill leaned forward. "From time to time, we will ask you to do something for us, although as you read in the contract, you will be paid a good wage on a monthly basis."
I didn't remember reading that; surely I would have noticed anything with dollar signs. "Would you mind if I have a quick look at the papers again?"
Ben opened his folder and handed them back. My hands were shaking. The wage was noted on the third page. I gasped when I saw the figure; it was far more than I'd been paid as a journalist. I plastered what I hoped was a calm, reserved look on my face and handed the papers back to Ben.
"Your first assignment is to go back to Hillgrove and nearby Bakers Creek Falls," Ben said in his clipped Oxbridge accent. "The murdered man, whose body you discovered, was working for us."
"Murdered man?" I exclaimed. "Working for you?"
"Yes," Ben continued. "In fact, the murdered man was to be your contact at Hillgrove."
"My contact?" I parroted. A worrying thought hit me; perhaps this was dangerous after all, which would explain the decent wage. "But, but," I stammered, "isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that I was the one to find his body, now that I'm working for you, and especially since he was to be my contact? I don't believe that there are such things as coincidences. What are the odds of me finding him? It makes no sense; why would I find him, with him supposed to be my contact and all, even though I didn't know that at the time?" I realized I was rambling, but I was frightened.
"Ms. Sales, you will be in no danger whosoever. You do not have to find the murderer." Bill's tone was level and serene, and clearly intended to make me feel the same, but it wasn't working. I felt the panic rising in my stomach.
I narrowed my eyes and wondered what they really wanted me to do. I suspected they had only cooked up this assignment after the man had been murdered; otherwise, it was far too much of a coincidence.
Bill smiled at me. It was the first time I had seen either of them smile. He continued in the same even tone. "Your assignment requires you to go and find out everything you can about the evil entity at Hillgrove."
"What evil entity? There's an evil entity?" I gasped. "Do you think the evil entity pushed that poor man over the cliff?"
Ben and Ben exchanged glances. "Of course not," Bill said, looking down his nose at me. "You've been watching too much TV. Obviously someone, a human, murdered him, so you will be in no danger."
I frowned and chewed on a fingernail, not quite catching the logic of that statement.
Bill pushed on. "Being a journalist for the paranormal magazine is the perfect cover; no one will suspect you. It's all perfectly safe."
"Besides," Ben said, "it's not as if we want you to solve the murder or anything like that; we just want you to go to Hillgrove to make notes on the evil entity."
I was intrigued and puzzled at the same time. "What exactly do you want me to find out about it?"
Bill shook his head. "Nothing in particular, just make copious notes on it. You will need to delve into the history of Hillgrove, as well as use your abilities to see ghosts."
This sounded a little too easy to me. I figured there had to be more to it.
"Why are you so interested in some supposed evil entity at Hillgrove?" I rubbed my temples. "Oh, I mean, can you tell me? Or am I on a need-to-know basis?"
Bill and Ben exchanged glances again. This time, Bill spoke. "There have been several massacres at Hillgrove over the last two hundred years or so. It used to be a flourishing town too, but now barely anyone lives there."
I nodded. "I've heard about the massacres that happened about a hundred years ago. They were pretty much common knowledge when I was at university in Armidale, which is only fifty minutes from Hillgrove. Oh, I suppose you know that."
Both men nodded.
"There was at least one massacre at the adjoining Bakers Creek falls too," I continued. "People were thrown over the cliffs, same as the Hillgrove massacres. It's so steep out there - the whole area has one big gorge running straight through it; it's half a mile straight down."
The men nodded again. I could see they were getting bored, but I was on a roll; I love facts. "A strange thing, too. Over twenty years ago, three criminals escaped from jail in Queensland, and traveled down through Hillgrove, which is, of course, well away from the normal route. They happened to come across three miners, and for no reason murdered them and threw them over the cliffs into the gorge. That's strange how history repeated itself."
"The evil entity," both men said in unison.
"Our deceased colleague was researching the ancient evil and trying to ascertain whether it caused the massacres," Ben said.
"But you'll be safe," Bill hastened to add, "because he wasn't killed by the evil entity, which, of course, can’t kill anyone, just whip up fury in those already criminally minded. As far as humans go, you have a good cover story, and it will look like you've only gone back to Hillgrove because of the recent murder."
At that point, I don't know why, I realized I hadn't offered the men anything to eat or drink. "Um, would you like tea or coffee? Or a cold drink?"
I expected them to refuse, but they both said they would like a coffee, black. I walked to the kitchen and looked at my De Longhi Nespresso machine. I only had a few coffee capsules left, and although I was now no longer in danger of being penniless, I had no idea how long it would be before I was paid. I was almost out of my favorite capsules, Fortissio and Vivalto, and what's more, I had to buy them online. What to do? It was the only coffee I had. Then I saw the red capsules, the Decaffeinato. What a relief. I could give the two men decaffeinated coffee; they'd never pick the difference. After all, I never touched decaffeinated - the stuff should be illegal. When Melissa had given me the Nespresso machine as a gift, she'd given me a selection of capsules with it. At last I had a use for the Decaffeinato.
Now what to give them to eat? I searched in the back of the cupboard for cookies, but could only find noodles and brown rice. I sure wasn't going to let them at any of my chocolate.
It was too late in the afternoon for me to have a coffee, so I spooned some ice cream into a coffee mug. I put the three coffee mugs onto a tray and carried them out to the living room.
"I don't have any cookies, sorry, but would you like some ice cream?"
They looked at me as if I were mad, and both declined, thankfully. I sat opposite them and ate my ice cream with a teaspoon. It seems to last longer that way. I noticed they were again looking at me strangely, so said, "It's an Australian tradition." It wasn't of course, but people think Aussies say G'day, and keep dingoes as pets and have kangaroos hopping down city streets, so I thought it wasn't too much of a stretch.
They simply nodded and sipped their coffees. Well, Ben sipped his coffee while Bill downed it like a shot. "We need you to suggest to your magazine that you write the story on Hillgrove ghosts instead of your colleague, Melissa, so that your going to Hillgrove will be a cover," Bill said.
I shook my head. "Keith will never go for it. Melissa's already been assigned the story and has been working on it. Besides, Melissa is a good friend; there's no way I can do that."
They completely ignored me. Bill continued, "We have arranged accommodation for you in Armidale. Tell your boss that you have relat
ives in Armidale and will not require any expenses from the magazine. You will be staying with one of our agents who is infiltrating the international student scene at the local university."
At that point, both men stood up, said their goodbyes, and left. As I shut the door, I saw Julie hurrying down my path. Too late; she had seen me, so I opened the door wider. "Hi, Julie."
"Misty, sign here for this letter."
I looked at the letter, which, as far as I could tell without opening it, was simply a bill and likely, an overdue one. "I don’t need to sign for it, Julie."
She took the letter from me and looked at it, turning it over. "Oh. Anyway, I just saw two men leaving your house."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Visitors."
Julie did not take the hint. "Who were they? Do you have a boyfriend at last?" She giggled.
My shoulders sagged. "No, they're friends of my mother's." It was the first thing that came into my head.
Julie peered into my face. "Are you a suspect in the murders?"
I stepped back; Julie was always invading my personal space.
"No? What are you talking about?"
"The Bakers Creek Falls murders. Everyone is saying that you and Melissa found the bodies."
"There was only one body, Julie." I shook my head. How had news traveled so fast? My small town was a good four hours away from Bakers Creek Falls, and I hadn't told a soul. "I didn’t think anyone knew," I said aloud.
"Oh, you're silly." Julie giggled again. "It’s all over town. Anyway, Melissa must be really upset about it."
I knew I shouldn't have asked, but I did. "Why is that?"
"Well, I went to her house just then to get her to sign for a letter, and she didn't come to the door."
"She must have been out."
"No, silly. She was there; I saw her peeping through the curtains at me."
"Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Julie loomed closer and peered in my face again. "Well, so long as you're all right. See you later."
