Lazar

by Lawrence Heath

  Jan stood watching him with growing irritation.

  “Thank you, Jan, for going down to the museum,” she said. Her sarcasm was lost on Hal. It was not that he ignored her; he just did not seem to notice.

  “Well, enjoy yourself typing in all your measurements and dimensions. I’m going outside again. It’s far too nice a day to be stuck indoors feeding a computer.”

  She turned and left the room.

  Hal carried on typing.

  Jan retraced the steps of her excursion to the museum earlier that morning, carrying on past the ancient chapel and heading down toward the sea. She had noticed a narrow lane that branched off to the right, just beyond the village, and wanted to investigate it.

  When she reached the lane and ventured up it she soon discovered that it petered out to nothing more than a footpath that rose gently toward a slight bulge on the horizon – all that remained of the ancient hill upon which the medieval town of Wickwich had once stood. Much of it was wooded, but beyond the trees Jan could just make out the top of the ruined tower that had captured her imagination the day before.

  She stopped for a moment. The noonday July sunshine was becoming very hot. She wiped her brow with her forearm and took a look around. She was surprised at how high she had climbed in such a flat terrain. She was able to look over the roofs of the row of cottages, which included the museum, toward the narrow river that trickled through a broad salt marsh toward the sea. To her right stood a high, dense hedgerow of considerable age.

  This must have been the original road into Wickwich, thought Jan. She went over to the hedge and tried to pull herself up to look over it, taking care not to snag her clothes on its twigs and branches. After several attempts she manage to get a foothold on a clump of twisted roots and snatch a scrambled glimpse of the field beyond. On the far side was a paddock where a couple of horses were grazing, apparently oblivious to the fact that they shared it with a ruined monastery. Jan stared in surprise at the crumbling grey stone walls.

  She carefully stepped back down and looked further up the lane. How could she get over, or through, the hedge to take a closer look? Perhaps, if she carried on in the direction of the sea, she would come upon a gate or stile or something. But as she hurried along the footpath her heart began to sink. If anything, the hedgerow was growing higher and becoming more impenetrable. Eventually it merged into the strip of woodland that skirted the brow of the hill she had been climbing. Jan ventured in, but not very far.

  Where she was hoping to get round the end of the hedgerow and turn back toward the field, Jan found herself confronted by a deep, wide ditch that cut straight across the ancient roadway, stretching out in both directions. Its sides looked steep – but not that steep. Perhaps, if she could hold on to something, she could scramble round. She looked about her. An ancient, twisted tree corkscrewed out of the bank at the point where the hedgerow ran into the ditch. There was an overhanging branch.

  Jan reached up, turned round and grabbed it and began to edge sideways along the ditch’s brink toward her left. When she had gone as far as the branch and her outstretched arm would allow she caught a glimpse of the monastery through a gap in the foliage. She looked around for another branch. There was one immediately above her head – but it was only just in reach. She stretched and stretched until her fingertips could feel the bark along its underside. If she leant out just a little further…

  Within an instant she lost her balance, then her footing. She felt the edge of the ditch give way beneath her feet. The next thing she knew she was falling, rolling backward down the slope, head over heels over head over heels over … until she landed with a thump, flat on her back, at the bottom of the ditch.

  Jan had been lying on the grass for some time, gazing up at the sunlight shimmering through a kaleidoscopic canopy of every shade of green, before it occurred to her that she had not hurt herself. She sat up and was just about to brush the greenery and dirt from off her skirt when something attracted her attention. It did not shine or sparkle, nor was it brightly coloured. It was the shape that caught her eye. A minute cross with slightly flared arms of equal length, sticking out of the soil that had been disturbed by her fall.

  Jan leant forward to pick it up. At first she could not. It was attached to something, but after working at the ground with her fingernails for a few seconds she extracted it from the earth. It was a ring. She began trying it on, pushing out the soil that was caked inside its tarnished band.

  “You’ve found it, at last.”

  Jan gave a start and dropped the ring into her lap.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Jan looked up. At the top of the bank, silhouetted against the bright green leaves and sapphire sky, stood a figure of a girl about the same height as herself. Jan shaded her eyes and squinted but could not make out her face. The girl was standing directly in front of the sun, her dishevelled hair like a halo around her shining head. She stepped forward. Jan called out.

  “Be careful, the ground’s very steep and slip…” Jan’s voice faded away. The girl was so sure-footed that she obviously did not need a warning. She came down the bank as serenely as if she had been descending a flight of stairs.

  She reached the bottom of the slope in less time than it took Jan to lift the ring from her lap – then she dropped it again. The skirt the girl was wearing was identical to her own. So was the coloured T-shirt. And her hair…

  A story Jan had once read bubbled up from deep within her unconscious, about a girl meeting her double in a wood – her doppelganger – and how the legend said that to do so was a premonition of one’s own death.

  “Are you alright?” The girl’s voice was soft, with a strong Suffolk accent. She sounded very concerned. “I’m sorry. I was so excited to discover you had found the ring that I forgot to ask whether you had hurt yourself when you fell.”

  “No, I’m fine, thanks,” Jan smiled as the superstition vanished from her mind. “Is this yours, then?” She held the ring up. The girl took it with one hand and held out the other. Jan grasped it and pulled herself up.

  “It was mine once,” replied the girl, “but you found it, so it’s yours now.”

  Jan stood there, expectantly. But the girl did not move. In spite of her words she seemed loath to relinquish the ring. Her head was bowed down, her hair hanging over her face. She was obviously inspecting Jan’s find with keen interest. Then, suddenly, without looking up, she thrust it back into Jan’s hand.

  “Please,” she said, “it’s yours.”

  “No … no, I couldn’t.” Jan shook her head, but found herself clasping the ring.

  “You must take it,” the girl snapped insistently; then, more softly, “as a token of our friendship.”

  “Oh!” Jan was taken aback. She tried to make out the girl’s expression in order to ascertain the sincerity of what she said, but she was playing with a knot of her unkempt hair and pulling it diagonally across her face. Only a single eye showed above a pallid cheek. It was cornflower blue on the rim of a tear.

  Jan stared at the girl, momentarily unnerved by the contrast between the sudden assertiveness in her tone and the desolation that reflected in her eye.

  “Thank you,” Jan said, eventually, as she slipped the ring upon her finger, still staring into the stranger’s eye. “If we’re to be friends, we ought to swap names,” she smiled. “I’m Jan, short for Janet.”

  “I’m Margaret … Margaret Hase.”

  She spread her left hand and held it out for Jan to see.

  “Look, our rings make a pair.”

  They both broke off their gaze. She was wearing a ring of a similar style to Jan’s, except that it bore a circle, instead of a cross, and was cleaner and shone brightly in the sun. She placed her hand over Jan’s so that they could see both rings side by side.

  “They fit together to form a single ring.”

  “Oh yes, I see – the cross fits inside the circle. That’s clever,” Jan enthused. “H
a! Mine looks really dull compared with yours. It must have been in the ground for an awfully long time. When did you lose it?”

  “Ages ago.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “All my life.”

  “Then you must know the legends about old Wickwich?” Jan asked rhetorically. Margaret did not answer, but began to twist the knot of hair in an agitated fashion; winding and re-winding it tight around her fingers and pulling it even further across her face. Jan felt awkward, but despite herself persisted in her enquiry.

  “I was following the footpath, along the line of the old road into the town, when I came across this ditch. Was it a moat or something?”

  Margaret turned and looked up and down the line of the ditch.

  “This is Pales Dyke. The city wall runs along the top, there.” She pointed at the summit of the slope opposite the one Jan had descended so precipitously. “And that’s Bridge Gate, just there.”

  Jan looked at the spot Margaret indicated – the gap between the trees where the lane met the dyke.

  “That’s great. That’s exactly what we need to know. My cousin Hal and I are recreating the old town…” She stopped. Margaret had turned back and was looking straight at Jan, her single eye fixing her with an icy stare. Jan tried to continue what she had been saying, but stumbled over her words.

  “You know … the legend … the city drowned beneath the sea. We’re trying to recreate it … on Hal’s computer …”

  Margaret’s stare continued. She was still fiddling with her hair, a habit which at first Jan had put down to shyness or insecurity, but which was now beginning to really annoy her. She once again became aware of the stilted nature of their conversation and tried to lighten the frigid atmosphere.

  “I wonder if Wickwich was as wicked as the legend says,” she smiled. The smile froze on her face. She had never seen so much sadness and despair in a single eye before. She had obviously unintentionally upset her newfound friend.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” Jan started to explain. But it was too late. Margaret turned and walked away, climbing the slope with the same ease with which she had descended.

  “She was really weird,” said Jan.

  “So you keep saying.”

  There was just the slightest hint of irritation in Hal’s voice. He wanted to get back to entering contours and coordinates on his computer. He had been making good progress before Jan burst breathless into his room and started telling him about her meeting with the strange girl.

  “But she was. She was wearing exactly the same clothes as me.”

  “That is weird.”

  “No, I mean exactly the same. Really spooky.”

  “Perhaps she was a ghost.”

  “I didn’t think you believed in ghosts.”

  “I don’t, but I thought you did.”

  “No,” Jan gently shook the notion out of her head. “No, like I said, she was wearing modern clothes, and she gave me that ring.”

  Hal handed Margaret’s gift back to his cousin and turned once more to his computer screen.

  “It’s quite heavy, isn’t it?” he said as he moved and clicked his mouse. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was made of gold.”

  “Do you really think so?” Jan slipped the ring on her finger and held out her hand. “No, gold wouldn’t tarnish like this has.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, just wondered, that’s all.”

  “Well, I couldn’t see her face. She kept pulling her hair across it, like this…” Jan demonstrated Margaret’s mannerism, but Hal was too engrossed in his computer to turn round.

  “It’s a shame she ran away,” he said, as he briskly poked the keyboard with his index fingers. “She might have been able to give us a few more clues about old Wickwich.”

  “She did tell us about the dyke and the city walls.”

  “Yeah, but I’d already got that from the map. What I need to know is whether the walls were made of stone or wood; was there water in the dyke – that sort of thing.”

  “How would she know?”

  “Yeah, you’re right, she wouldn’t know.” Hal put his hands together, as if in prayer, and rested them against his lips. He stared hard at the screen. “Did you mention that they had a model of the old town in the museum?”

  “No.”

  “Then I must have read something about it somewhere. It must be in one of these.” Hal leant forward and shuffled through the pile of books and leaflets on his desk. “I think it was in this one … Yeah, look, just there.”

  He turned the open page toward his cousin. She peered down at a small black-and-white photo of a scale model of the town surrounded by its city wall.

  “I don’t remember seeing that when I was there. But then I didn’t go much further than the shop, there seemed to be everything we needed in there.”

  Hal put the book back on the pile then looked up at his cousin.

  “How do you fancy popping down there and taking some photos on your phone? I need some close-ups, from all angles.”

  “What, now?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to get on with this as soon as possible if we’re to finish by the day after tomorrow.”

  “The day after tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, July 29th,” Hal confirmed in an offhand way. “It’s apparently the day, every year, when Old Wickwich is supposed to rise up out of the sea at midnight.”

  Jan frowned in puzzlement, then laughed and smiled broadly at her cousin.

  “First ghosts, and now legends,” she teased. “What will you believe in next?”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Hal retorted, “or legends. It just seemed like a pretty neat idea to take a virtual tour around Old Wickwich on the day it’s supposed to rise up out of the sea. OK?”

  Jan smiled, then leant forward and extracted The Legends of Old Wickwich from the pile of books and leaflets.

  “I wonder why July 29th?” she pondered. “Perhaps it’s a special day – like Hallowe’en – you know, like a Holy Day or Saint’s Day or something. Where are the other things I brought back from the museum? They’ll probably have the answer.”

  “I’ll race you.” Hal threw down the challenge. “Let’s see who can find the answer first, me on the Internet or you in those books.”

  Jan went over and sat down on the edge of Hal’s unmade bed, where the other books and leaflets lay, and began thumbing through their pages while her cousin began frantically searching through the web.

  “Here you are,” she said, at exactly the same time as Hal yelled, “Yes!” Their pronouncements caught each other by surprise.

  “What have you found, then?” Hal asked indignantly.

  “There was a great storm on July 29th,” Jan said, “in 1286. Three parishes in the city were completely washed away in a single night. What have you found?”

  “I Googled it. According to Wikipedia,” Hal read from the screen, “‘Lazarus is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints on July 29’.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Well, wasn’t he the bloke that Christ raised from the dead? Seems sort of appropriate, don’t you think? – the city rising from its watery grave on his Saint’s Day.”

  “Goodness,” Jan smiled ironically, “are you beginning to show signs of an imagination?” As soon as she said it she wished that she had not. A momentary frown creased her cousin’s brow and his lips parted as if to protest.

  “It is an interesting idea, though,” Jan conceded swiftly, “but will we be able to collect all the data you need to feed into your CAD program in so short a time?”

  “Goodness,” Hal retaliated, “are you beginning to show signs of nerdiness?”

  “No such word.”

  “Bet there is,” he said and turned to Google the word.

  “Come on,” there was a hint of exasperation in Jan’s voice, “we haven’t got time to waste on stupid words. If we’re going t
o get the whole of Old Wickwich on your computer by the day after tomorrow we’ve got a lot more research and typing in to do.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Hal stopped what he was doing and switched over to the program he had been working on. “Are you OK to go back to the museum to take the photos?” he asked distractedly as he stared hard at the screen. “Please?” he added.

  “No problem,” Jan smiled. “But I must get changed first. Look, I’m covered in mud and grass.”

  Jan half twisted round and stretched out her leg to show a slick of green running from her hip down to her ankle. Hal took his eyes off the screen and turned to take a look.

  Jan’s photographs were exactly what they wanted, sharply focused images of the model of medieval Wickwich. Jan scrutinised their detail. There were hundreds and hundreds of houses, their rooftops threading along the streets that formed the seams within the patchwork of graveyards, allotments, market squares and quays. How much of it was conjecture, and how much based upon sound archaeological evidence, she could not say. But it was just what she and Hal needed to begin work on recreating the town.

  Where was she?

  Jan stopped and looked around. She had been so engrossed in her smartphone that she’d become completely oblivious to her whereabouts as she walked back from the museum. She found herself to be standing by St James’ churchyard wall.

  Why there?

  Jan was conscious that she hadn’t stopped next to the ancient chapel by chance. Something had broken her concentration and attracted her attention. But what? Had it been a sound? A movement? A sudden breeze? Or had someone called her name? She looked hard into the graveyard – her eyes searching for something, though she had no idea what. The sun-bleached shapes and their shadows shimmered in the heat. The silence was absolute. The only movement was the occasional speck of an insect dancing lightly in and out of the shade.

  “Hello, Jan.”

  The voice came from behind. Jan span round so quickly that she fell back against the wall. Her draw dropped. It was Margaret. But it was not her presence that had taken Jan aback – somehow she had already known that she was there – it was the clothes she was wearing.