Chloe watched the shadow in the corner grow taller than the wall, until it crept over the ceiling above her. She knew that soon the shadow would envelop her unless she spoke, unless she made up an explanation. Her heart beat loudly like some sort of time bomb. Tammy was staring at her with blank eyes and the shadow hung above, ready to drop. She began to talk, hardly aware of what she was saying. It was no longer her own voice that was slipping between her teeth, it was the shadow’s that was leaning perilously over her. It sounded sleek and dark in her mouth.
‘There’s an underground passageway that goes through the Roman mines,’ it said in a low dark tone. ‘It leads…maybe to death, maybe to treasure. You have to find it for yourself, that’s what everybody has to do. A hole, a pit, a place of bones.’
The soft black voice withdrew and Chloe knelt and stared at Nimbus. Passerelle, passerelle. Leela’s word echoed in her head.
‘What are you doing to me?’ she asked.
‘Listening, Chloe, that’s what I’m doing. No harm in listening.’
With a huge effort Chloe stood up. ‘I must take back the map. I’m going home.’
Nimbus towered over her, speaking as if he was doing her an enormous favour, ‘No, Chloe, it’s my map now, and next time you must tell us more.’
Tammy caught Chloe’s arm and pulled her round. ‘You haven’t heard Nimbus shout, have you, Chloe? He’s never shouted at you, has he? Don’t be mistaken, Nimbus has power and it doesn’t do to abuse it.’
Chloe staggered to the stairs and put her hand out to the wall, holding on to it as she circled down to the television room. The tiny figure was still jumping up and down on the screen. She ran out as fast as she could, terrified Nimbus would come after her. She thought the ruffle in the trees overhead was the shadow, sliding down to envelop her, but it was the buzzard, neck forward, straining, ready to swoop. She froze, as an animal might, until the great bird rose and left behind nothing but a few falling leaves. At that moment, she heard the thud of hooves in her head, the thin neigh of a horse.
Chloe stumbled on, half drugged, half desperate to get out of the wood.
Chapter Seven
‘You didn’t go then?’ shouted Aidan. He was roped to a tall beech and was slowly climbing it by wedging his spiked boots into the bark and leaning back onto a cradle of rope. He edged the rope up the trunk as he moved another step. Peering down he called, ‘You climb trees?’
‘Not smooth ones,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve never seen anyone do this before.’
‘There’s lots of things here you’ll see for the first time,’ said Aidan. ‘Dangerous things. That’s if you’re staying.’
Sam kicked the bottom of the tree trunk. ‘Always was a slow decision maker! Dorothy gave me the time-table just before she left, in case I want to go.’
A twig crumbled to the ground and Sam watched Aidan concentrate on his climb. An electric saw was attached to his leather belt and when he reached the spreading branches higher up he sat in his cradle and began to saw.
Sam was getting a crick in his neck so he decided to explore. He wouldn’t go far, but there were things he would like to find out, despite himself. What danger could there be in such a remote quiet place? It seemed illogical somehow.
He wandered off, making sure to stay within the sound of the saw. The shadows from the trees thickened and the undergrowth broadened out. He felt strangely protected by the thin whine of the blade and might have gone further if he hadn’t come across a huge pit surrounded by thorn and holly bushes and tall oak trees.
At that instant, the noise of the saw stopped and for the first time Sam felt insecure. He had thought, unconsciously, of the sound as a string that would lead him out of the wood, but now it had gone, maybe forever! The quiet atmosphere had become threatening, the trees were like creatures who had joined hands and would not let go. They closed in overhead, their matted leaves keeping the earth in shadow. In his momentary panic, Sam stumbled and might have fallen into the pit if the thorn bush that tripped him had not also held him above it. He looked down where the newly dug earth crumbled through flints and tree roots to the bottom. He couldn’t make out what was down there but he could smell it, a sludgy, pungent smell, like the dead rat he had once found in the shed at home. The smell engulfed him and he clung to the thorn bush with scratched hands. His heart beat loudly, he felt captured by the smell. He looked up and the trees above the pit shivered. There was the great bird, sitting high and half hidden. For a few moments, although it seemed like hours, Sam’s fear was so big he hardly existed, as if he had turned into his fear. Was this what Chloe felt, a terror so strong it made your normal self almost disappear? When once again he heard the high whine of the saw he shouted out with enormous relief, adding, ‘I’m not the sort of guy who shouts normally!’ He was pleased to know his cry was probably lost among the trees.
He backed out of the thorn bush and began to follow the sound of the saw. For some reason he couldn’t make out, he felt as if he had a thousand miles to go. It was as if something weighted down his steps, trying to keep him back – trying to keep him in a time of fear; the same force, perhaps, that had rooted him in the bedroom. He expected to come across something terrible, a battlefield perhaps, or a massacre, and was surprised when he saw Aidan’s big haversack and then Aidan himself high up in the tree, striding a branch. Had he gone only a few metres? He sat at a distance on a patch of grass and tried to stop his whole body from shivering.
The sawing noise stopped and at the same time a branch fell, almost in slow motion, through the lower leaves, then crashed quickly to the ground some way off. Sunlight suddenly played at the foot of the tree and Sam found his spirits lifted. He looked up and saw the gap in the trees waving like a bright blue flag. Aidan grinned then slowly descended, spiking his boots into the bark, leaning on his cradle of rope and sliding the noose that held him down and down the smooth tree trunk. When he touched ground he unharnessed himself and came over to Sam.
‘Enough for one morning.’
He took out a large handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face. ‘You look as if you need something as well!’ He rummaged in his haversack for a bottle of coke and they drank in turn until the bottle was almost empty. Sam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Sharing the bottle had somehow turned Aidan into a friend.
‘I found this pit, and it smelled awful. I’ve always had a weak stomach. So has Mum. Once she took me to France for the day and I spent the whole time with my head down the lavatory pan! Don’t you notice that smell?’
Aidan nodded gravely. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a smell.’
He packed the bottle away carefully into his haversack. ‘You see up there?’
Sam followed the direction of Aidan’s pointing finger. The blue gap in the trees cheered him still, even though its light was small and very high.
‘I’m bringing in the light. And when I’ve done that, I’ll set about building the chapel, just as Uncle George wanted, on the same site as the old one. I’ll make it from the wood and old stones that lie about. Have you noticed them?’
Sam shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t normally go around looking at the ground.’
Aidan laughed. ‘Sometimes it’s useful. Many of them are from the old chapel. Will you help me?’
At that moment Sam didn’t even consider what Aidan meant. The thought of Balham flashed into his head in the shape of the kitchen at home. He could see the table where he ate with Mum and did his homework, and the telly in the corner, perched up on a small table with a pile of videos below. He had a vision of several of his mates choosing what to play. The sooner he got out of this one the better.
‘I think I’ll be going home,’ he said quietly.
He helped Aidan push the sawn branches and twigs into a pile and pack away his tools into the big, hemp haversack that was already bulging with different objects.
‘You never know what you might need,’ said Aidan, pulling out binoculars, string, note book
s, pencils and a bag of sandwiches. He re-arranged them round the tools, carefully secured the haversack and swung it up and over his left shoulder.
‘At least you can stay around for today. I’ve a little more work.’
‘Okay then.’ Sam followed Aidan into the undergrowth.
‘I have to notch the next tree.’
They scrambled through shrubs and brambles and, from time to time, Aidan looked up and back to the patch of light. They must have moved nearer the pit because Sam caught the stench of decay and his stomach turned over.
‘Too near,’ said Aidan, moving back and round. He pushed through a plantation of new firs and stood staring up at a tall sycamore. Its leaves patterned the sky so thickly, only small fingers of blue showed through its layers of green and shadow. ‘This one!’
He took out his axe and made a notch in the bark.
Just then there was a loud rush of leaves high above and birds shot up, invisible save for their cries. Sam thought he saw the shadow of the great bird behind the leaves but he wasn’t sure.
‘Do you have eagles round here?’ he asked nonchalantly. He never had been very good at birds.
‘Buzzards,’ said Aidan flatly. ‘That bird up there’s a buzzard. It’s a bird of prey, like the eagle.’
‘Like Chloe,’ Sam joked. ‘She’s a bird of prey. Yesterday she went off without telling me, and I never saw her for the rest of the day. Today she’s in hiding again. You know, Aidan, there’s no point being here if Chloe’s not going to be around. Not that I don’t like your company but you have to face it, everything here’s a bit strange. At home I’ve only got car fumes to make me ill! But Chloe – the thing is, I can’t come to grips with what’s happening here.’
Aidan smiled.
‘It isn’t funny,’ said Sam angrily. ‘I mean I come while Mum’s away, mainly because she wants me to. My aunt beats a hasty retreat, my uncle’s not around as usual and Chloe’s turned into a freak. There’s a limit to my interest.’
‘What’s the limit?’ asked Aidan evenly.
‘How she’s carrying on,’ he said carelessly, and then to cover his tracks. ‘Not that I care.’
He was silent for a while, surprised at the way he was talking to Aidan. But he couldn’t seem to stop, as if this tall, grave man would take anything he said, anything at all. So he went on, ‘This fear thing, I’d hate to get like Chloe and her weirdo. You must see it’s enough to make me want to clear off. I really don’t understand what’s going on.’
Aidan looked down at him, his expression serious. ‘Nimbus may have captured Chloe already,’ he said.
He put his axe into his haversack and started to walk away from the tree. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’
Sam followed closely behind. Near the edge of the wood Aidan took out his binoculars and adjusted them. ‘Take a look at that field, over there, sloping up behind the trees. Can you see the stone cottage – it looks as if it’ll tumble down any minute. The pest house it’s called.’
‘Aptly named from the sound of it,’ said Sam. At first the lens were blurred and he fiddled with the knob. Leaves took on hard, big shapes, a bird looked at him with a sharp eye. He lifted the binoculars until he found the sloping field and the stone cottage. Then he focused on a girl with red hair.
‘That’s Tammy all right,’ whispered Aidan into his ear. ‘She’s one of the Nimbus tribe. The only one who’s left.’
‘Nimbus tribe?’ Sam put down the binoculars and looked hard at Aidan. ‘Sounds like something from the Stone Age!’
Aidan laughed. ‘It is a bit like that! When Uncle George came across Nimbus and his family living in a squat, he offered them this cottage. Your uncle was the kindest of men, Sam. He knew Nimbus from years back, when they were both children in the village.’
Aidan looked up at the pest house. ‘They live their own kind of life. A law unto themselves you might say. Or unto Nimbus. It’s true a lot has happened to make him as he is, but —’ Aidan looked sharply at Sam. ‘He’s dangerous. He’s giving Chloe drugs you know.’
‘Can’t we call the police?’
‘First of all, Nimbus will deny it, and then he might precipitate something far worse. We have to be careful.’
Sam shook his head. ‘It’s like a story.’
‘It is a story, a very old story.’ Aidan picked up the binoculars and looked through them. After a while he gave them back to Sam. ‘What can you see?’
A tall, hefty man in black leather swung into the view finder. That had to be Nimbus himself. Why was he staring like that at Chloe?
‘Caught up, that’s what they are.’ said Aidan.
Sam went on staring at them. ‘Caught up in what?’
Aidan sighed and spoke in a voice he seemed to dredge up from another depth. ‘You could say it’s the darkness of a long ago massacre. You could say it’s the darkness that still lingers in the stones round their cottage. It was the pest house you see, where they kept people with the plague. Or you could say it’s simply human inadequacy. Blame, anger, revenge. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. And grief of course, at losing Rosie and his wife. The common feelings.’
Sam peered at Aidan over the binoculars. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They were circus people once but a tragic thing happened.’ Aidan stopped abruptly. ‘Honestly, Sam, there’s no point going on about it if you’re leaving. Of course if you stay, it’s another matter. You’ll learn about it all too soon anyway. You’ll have to. And, how with God’s help, we’re going to try to bring it to an end.’
Sam looked through the binoculars again. Nimbus and Tammy had disappeared inside the house. If Chloe went up there again, would she ever come out, he wondered.
‘She’s in danger,’ said Aidan. ‘What she needs is a friend, a real friend, to protect her. But if you’re going home…’
A real friend! Sam felt in his pocket and brought out the train time-table. If he went this afternoon he’d be home in three and a half hours, door-to-door. He could download his latest game and when Mum came home she would be pleased to see him, safe and sound. Nimbus would be blotted out forever.
And so might Chloe.
Very slowly he folded the timetable into four and gave it to Aidan. ‘You keep it for me for the moment. I always lose these things.’
Aidan smiled and put it in his pocket. He squatted down and took out the sandwiches, holding them out to Sam who took one and began to eat. For some reason he couldn’t quite make out, he felt relieved.
‘There’s always hope,’ said Aidan, munching vigorously. ‘You mustn’t forget that, ever. It’s one of the great Christian virtues. This valley used to be called the Nimbus Valley and that means light as well as dark. That’s how Nimbus got his name. There are ways through, Sam. There are always ways through. We’ll go to the library and I’ll tell you more.’
Chapter Eight
Sam looked up at the stained glass window above the stairway, the stuffed heads of tiger and deer, the faded oil paintings and the prints of hunting scenes his mother had described. It’s another world, he thought, it’s as if the whole place is floating into the past.
Aidan was inspecting one of the tigers. ‘It was Uncle George’s great-grandfather who shot it out in India. He was an officer in the army. You have a long line of soldiers in your family, Sam.’
They went halfway down the hall and stood at the foot of the great stairway in front of the portrait of Uncle George and commented on the sideways tilt of his head, the fair, trimmed moustache, the straight nose, the sharp blue eyes.
‘Eyes like yours,’ said Aidan.
‘And the nose,’ said Sam, ‘short and straight – like my Dad’s.’
‘Family likeness!’ Aidan laughed. ‘And look at this portrait of Uncle George’s mother. She was very sensitive to the past. I suppose you could say it runs in the family.’
Her pale face was set on a long neck and slim shoulders, her fair hair drawn back into a bun. The expression in her blue eyes was
vulnerable, as if she had experienced something from which she had never quite recovered. Yet it was not an unfocussed expression and Sam felt as if she was directing her gaze on him alone. Like Chloe, he thought, she looks just like Chloe.
Sam wanted to know more about Uncle George. There were plenty of rumours but what had really happened to him? How had he died?
They climbed the wide stairway with its carved oak balustrade, past the tall stained glass window that rose above the half landing, and up to the next flight where the stair-carpet became even more threadbare and grey and the walls and ceiling were stained and streaked with dirt and cobwebs. The first landing led to a corridor on the right and they followed it past a couple of doorways to another right bend where there was a heavy oak door. Aidan stopped and took out a bunch of keys from his jeans back pocket. ‘If you carry on down this corridor, you get to the back stairs that lead up to your bedroom,’ he said, ‘but this is where we stop – it’s the library.’ He selected a big, old key, inserting it into the lock.
Sam was surprised. ‘Do you always lock up?’
Aidan shook his head. ‘I never used to. A copy of an old map disappeared a few nights ago. It was very valuable to me and it might simply be that I can’t see for looking. But I have to be careful, I don’t want anything else to go.’
The door creaked open onto a room that was in semi-darkness. Sam stood in the doorway as Aidan drew back the red velvet curtains. Like an explosion, the late afternoon sun shone on rows and rows of books lining the walls. Only the chimney place was free of shelves. Above a white marble surround, a huge, ornate, gilt mirror gleamed with light. Sam saw his own reflection gazing back at him and he turned away to avoid his own squint. ‘I feel as if I’m in a public library!’
Aidan laughed. ‘It is a bit daunting, isn’t it. It was Uncle George’s great-grandfather who collected many of the books. Some of them go back a long way.’
Sam scanned the shelves for something interesting but all the books seemed old and untouched. ‘How many have you read?’ he asked.
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