‘Listen Lucy. Megan, your mother died far too young. She deserved many more years of life. Your father just wants to protect you. When I sent you that book in the post … I didn’t know what I was doing. It was stupid of me. I thought I was helping you, but now I realise that I was wrong.’ Rachel stood up. ‘I really must be going.’
‘No!’ cried out Lucy, loud enough to make the few occupants of the pub look her way. ‘How did Mum die?’ She glanced at Bethany, but her aunt was evidently as shocked and disturbed as she was. Rachel seemed almost scared by the turn their conversation had taken.
‘I, I cannot come between you and your father Lucy’ she answered unhappily. ‘You must speak to him.’
‘You won’t tell me anything at all!’ cried Lucy. Her eyes stung with the pressure of a million pent up tears. She felt as though she could bear it no more. Lucy got up suddenly and with her head down, pushed her way from the table where they were sitting and ran towards the pub’s low door.
‘Lucy!’ she heard Bethany call out behind her. Lucy ran outside into the cold. Snow-flakes were fluttering down again. Lucy ran up the street, great sobs welling up in her lungs and throat. Lucy knew she would miss Mum more at Christmas, but this felt like torture. Everything she thought she knew was wrong. She didn’t even know how Mum died. Lucy ran up icy pavements with no idea of where she was headed. All she wanted was to be as far away as possible.
Finally, when Lucy came to a halt, her chest was hurting and her eyes were smarting. She was in the recreation ground near Paul’s house. There he was, clad in his hat and gloves, standing with a friend next to a half-built igloo. Paul walked over to her.
‘What’s up Luce?’ he asked. Lucy didn’t know what to say. She felt as terrible now as Paul must have done earlier in the year when he was being bullied so badly by Baz and Mike. All she could do was sniff. ‘Hey, I’ve got a torch’ he said, pulling one out of his coat pocket. ‘Do you want to go back to the tunnels?’ Lucy nodded.
‘Let’s go’ she said. They crunched through the pristine snow, out of the recreation ground, across the road, into the orchard and then off to the left to the blocked up entrances to the tin mines.
‘You know it’s supposed to be really dangerous down there’ said Paul as they went along. My mum said that when she was a child some kid got stuck down there and died.’
‘People are always telling me not to do things, not to ask things’ replied Lucy with a steely edge to her voice, ‘I just don’t care anymore.’ It was still, silent and cold. The buddleia bushes were bent down almost to the ground by the weight of the snow which almost entirely covered up the iron grates that covered the entrances to the tunnels. At first they couldn’t find the one with the caved in side, but eventually Paul had brushed away enough snow to find the gap and they eased their way in.
Lucy switched on Paul’s torch, and flashed it around the tunnel. The light wasn’t bad but it still wasn’t enough to clearly illuminate the way. The light seemed to throw up looming shadows that made the tunnel seem more scary than it actually was. The tunnel ceiling was low and Lucy had to bow her head to avoid the damp stone above her. Even so, wet grit soon seemed to accumulate uncomfortably in her hair and try as she might she could not brush all of it out with her hand.
Cautiously, they walked down the tunnel, flashing the torch down at their feet and then out in front of them. The tunnel descended at a gentle gradient and the ceiling even rose a few centimetres so that Lucy didn’t have to duck her head anymore. The air felt warm compared with the icy chill outside and she began to walk with more confidence.
‘This doesn’t seem too bad’ said Paul behind Lucy, echoing her own thoughts. Barely had the words left his mouth, when Lucy tripped and stumbled on a loose stone and fell heavily onto her hands and knees, grazing them painfully.
‘You okay?’ asked Paul.
‘I think so’ she replied, looking at her hands in the light of the torch.
‘Do you think we should turn back?’ asked Paul hesitantly.
‘No’ replied Lucy firmly. ‘Come on.’ They started walking on again, more cautiously this time. Despite her bravado, Lucy couldn’t help but imagine tonnes of rock come crashing down onto their heads. They’d be crushed to death and no one would even know they were there. The tunnel got narrower again and quite abruptly as they turned a corner they realised that it was boarded up with heavy wooden sleepers.
‘Blimey! We’re not going to get through that’ exclaimed Paul. Lucy tapped the wood to see if she could tell how thick it was. She hoped that somehow the sleepers would just turn to dust when she touched them, but instead they felt quite solid. Paul was right; there was no way they were going to get through there. Lucy flashed Paul’s torch around her. She couldn’t quite tell if her mind was playing tricks on her or not, but the light from the torch seemed to be getting a little dimmer. Try as they might, they could see no way through. Disappointed, they turned around.
‘I supposed we’d better head back’ said Lucy unhappily. Just as they began to turn, the light in Paul’s torch failed completely and they were plunged into darkness. Lucy tapped the torch and flicked the on-off switch unsuccessfully.
‘Work you stupid thing. Work!’ she said, fear rising in her voice. It was as dark as a coffin. Lucy couldn’t even see the outline of Paul standing immediately in front of her. She turned abruptly and doing so, cracked her head painfully on the low ceiling of the tunnel. Lucy stood, stunned, holding her aching skull in her hands. She let out an anguished moan. Paul grabbed her hand to make sure she had something solid to hold on to.
A daze of stars swam across her eyes. The pain was so intense that Lucy thought that she was going to pass out. She looked at where she thought Paul was, but instead of the boy, she saw a young woman standing in front of her in the deep gloom wearing a bonnet and shawl and a long crinoline dress.
‘To find what you want, you must first let go’ the woman’s voice whispered. ‘You’ll know when.’
‘What?’ muttered Lucy in her pain. She was so stunned she didn’t know what was happening. She glanced down before looking up at the woman’s face again. It was gone.
‘You okay there Luce?’ asked Paul, ‘that was a nasty crack on your bonce you gave yourself!’ Lucy stood for another minute or so holding her throbbing head. At least she hadn’t knocked herself out again like she had at the swimming pool.
‘I’m alright, I think’ she said finally, gathering her wits together. ‘Don’t worry’ she said, peering around her, trying to reassure herself as much as Paul. ‘There’s only one way out. We’ll just walk back up the way we came. They started stumbling along, but before she knew what she was doing, she’d bumped into the wall again and Lucy didn’t have any idea which way she was facing. She felt panic rising in her chest.
‘Hey stop a minute’ said Paul. ‘Let your eyes adjust to the darkness.’ Blinking, they both looked around them. At first Lucy could make out nothing at all, but slowly she realised that the rocks seemed to be giving off some faint, barely perceptible glow. If she’d had the torch on, she wouldn’t have been able to see the glow at all. Now though the rocks didn’t seem so scary as they had just a couple of minutes before.
‘I reckon it’s that way’ said Paul, pointing firmly in one direction.
‘Alright then’ replied Lucy, the fear subsiding again, ‘let’s give it a go.’ They walked on along the tunnel which curved round and upwards. Lucy was convinced that just round the corner she’d see the girl in the bonnet again, beckoning them towards the Trinity caves, glittering with crystals and eerie luminescence. Lucy was disappointed though. A couple of minutes later sunlight pierced the darkness and they stumbled out into the cold snow that they had left just a short while before.
Chapter Eighteen:
‘Look up above ye’ Mary Pewsey’s father said as her family walked back from church, nodding in the direction of the starry sky above them. ‘Ye can see the Three Sisters as clear as day.’ Mary looked up. It was t
rue. The three stars were particularly bright that night, nestling in the velvet folds of darkness.
Half an hour before, midnight had struck and Christmas day had just begun. The Reverend Smith had glowered down from his pulpit at the midnight worshipers in their Sunday best. Mary felt his eyes resting on her occasionally. She never had told him the location of the Trinity Caves and she feared his resentful stare as he surveyed his congregation.
Even as she walked arm in arm with her sister in their best bonnets and shawls, part of Mary Pewsey’s mind was far away, resting in the still dark waters off the coast with Sprite and the other dolphins of his pod.
Mary smiled to herself. The next year was going to be a good one, she was sure of it. She and Sprite had found a wreck of a postal ship carrying crates of silver plate that had sunk a few hundred yards off shore during the Napoleonic wars. If she told her father and he recovered the silver, they might pay off their debts to their landlord, and free themselves from the poverty that had plagued them for years. She might even be able to finish her education. The future seemed rich with possibilities.
Mary wondered what she might dream about that night. Strange dreams had been crowding her mind in recent nights. Mary and her sister hummed Christmas carols to themselves as they walked back home through the crisp cold streets of Merwater.
‘What happened to you kiddo?’ asked Bethany as Lucy eventually came back to where the Land Rover was parked. ‘That’s a nasty gash on your head!’
‘Oh it’s nothing’ replied Lucy, defensively trying to cover up the bloody graze with her hair. She shivered as she clambered back into the chilly car.
‘Has she gone then? Rachel Greenwood I mean’ asked Lucy.
‘I think so. She had to get back to Exeter or something.’
‘I didn’t like her’ replied Lucy, ‘first she’s all friendly, and then she won’t tell you anything, even though she knows it’s really important. I’m not just some lab rat she can experiment on and neither was Mum.’
Bethany thought about everything that she’d talked to Rachel about after Lucy had stormed out. Rachel had wanted to chase after her and bring Lucy back. But Bethany knew Lucy well enough to realise that the best thing to do was to let Lucy cool off before talking to her. What’s more, Bethany wasn’t able to tell Lucy what she’d learned from Rachel. She needed to speak to John first. He had a lot of questions to answer. The fact was that she felt completely shocked at what she’d learnt and didn’t know how Lucy would react when she found out.
‘I think she means well kiddo, really I do’ was all that Bethany could say in response.
Lucy slipped into a gift shop and hurriedly bought a few small presents while Bethany went to buy a hot Cornish pasty for each of them to eat. Lucy felt strangely disconnected from Christmas this year. Normally it was so exciting and important for her. This year it felt like an afterthought.
They drove back slowly in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Lucy looked at the piles of slush on either side of the road. The crisp, beautiful snow had so quickly been spoilt, she thought. At least the fields on either side of the road were still unsullied. They turned down the lane that led to the farm. Twice Lucy thought they were going to slide into the verge, but each time Bethany brought the car around safely.
Lucy looked across the fields. ‘It’s like a sea of white’ she said to herself. She thought of Spirit longingly and wished she could dive into that sea and swim with him again. She was no closer to finding the Trinity Caves and she no longer had any idea how to find them.
The farmyard was quiet when they drove up. Dad must be out helping Mary and Darren on the farm, Lucy thought.
‘Maybe you should get those presents wrapped kiddo whilst nobody’s around’ suggested Bethany, stepping out of the Land Rover into the chilly air. ‘There’s some things I need to get from the studio’ she added. ‘I’ll just pop over there’. Bethany seemed distracted, but Lucy thought nothing of it. She took her bag of gifts and wrapping paper and made her way back up to the holiday cottage.
Bethany crossed the farmyard and let herself into the studio. It was quite still inside. There was no insulation to speak of, and it was far too cold to work or live there at this time of year. Bethany stood for a moment and breathed a cloud of vapour into the still air, looking around her as she did so. It felt like entering Sleeping Beauty’s castle, it was so quiet. She walked up to her work table and picked up a photo that she had propped between some paintbrushes. It was the last photo of Megan that she had before she’d died. Her sister was holding a glass of wine and laughing happily. In fact the next time she’d seen Megan had been in a sealed coffin at her funeral. She never had seen the press reports of Megan’s death in the car crash, but that wasn’t unusual. Car accidents seldom get much coverage in the news.
Bethany studied the photograph closely, as though if she stared at it long enough, Megan might come to life and say something. Instead she stayed frozen in time.
Ever since her death, Bethany had painted pictures of her sister compulsively, as if she was searching for something in her memory that she did not quite understand. Yet she never painted Megan as an adult, rather she always painted her as a girl, of roughly the same age as Lucy was now. She only had a vague sense of why she did so.
Reluctantly Bethany replaced the photo and turned to leave the studio. Just as she closed the door, Lucy’s dad appeared round the corner carrying a bucket of bran.
‘John!’ she exclaimed in surprise. He’d nearly walked into her. ‘John’ she repeated again in a broken voice.
‘Whatever is the matter?’ he asked, at once sensing that something was seriously wrong. ‘Is it Lucy?’
‘No!’ replied Bethany, feeling so weak that she thought she would collapse. ‘It’s Megan. Megan, who didn’t die in a car accident!’ John stood stock still.
‘Oh, I see. You know’ he replied quietly.
‘How could you lie to us all like that?’ Bethany asked in disbelief.
‘If you know, then you will know I had to lie to protect Lucy. I had to protect her till she was safe again. I couldn’t let the same thing happen to my only daughter’. He let the bran bucket drop and stared imploringly into Bethany’s eyes. ‘I wanted to tell you Bethany, really I did. But a car accident was an easier way to explain her death. But how do you know? Does Lucy…?’ Bethany shook her head.
‘No. You’re safe. Lucy and I met Dr Rachel Greenwood today. She was the figure you saw at Lucy’s hospital bed and at Thelma’s funeral. Lucy got upset and ran out. It was only then that Rachel told me how Megan had really died.’
‘Oh I know Greenwood’s name very well’ said Dad with an angry tone to his voice. Megan often talked about her. But I never met her. I refused to allow her to come to Megan’s funeral. She’d done enough damage with all her experiments. I suppose she wanted to get her claws into Lucy too. Well she’s too late. Lucy’s safe now.’
‘I had no idea John. No idea. You should have told me. I could have done more to help protect Lucy too.’ He looked down at the ground, then bent to pick up the bran bucket again.
‘I really thought I could keep things under control Bethany. Really I did. But then she ran away to Cornwall to help that Spirit. Next thing she was rescuing his mother from that lagoon. You know when you’re fishing, sometimes you have to give the fish more line before you reel it in. That’s what I had to do with Lucy in the end. I had to give her more line. But she’s safe now. She’s safe from all that.
‘Is she?’
‘She’s lost her gift now hasn’t she? She can’t reach out to Spirit like she used to. She’s growing up to be a normal girl, just like Thelma said she would. It’s all over. I’ve lost my wife. I’m not going to lose my daughter too.’
Just then Darren came round the corner.
‘Having a bit of a chin-wag?’ he asked, smiling. It’s too cold for folks out here. Get yourselves inside for a warm up. Where’s Lucy? Mary wondered if she wanted to help her decorate the tree.�
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‘Oh, I’m going to walk alone a bit’ replied Bethany feeling both upset and angry. ‘I need to clear my head.’ John looked quite shaken up by their conversation. He took his bucket of bran and walked over towards the cow sheds.
Bethany went into the top field and made her way up the track that the cattle had beaten into the snow. She stood at the crest of the hill and looked down on the spread of countryside below her. Bethany’s mind was irresistibly drawn back to that summer holiday, so many years ago, when Megan had first met Rachel Greenwood and her life had changed forever. In her memory, every summer’s day as a little girl had been sunny and packed full of adventure. She’d been so excited to find Jet when Megan thought she’d lost him for ever. Bethany had felt so proud to be able to bring them back together.
Even though Bethany had been left standing at the water’s edge, she felt included somehow; as if now she was in on the secret too. After Jet had swum off again. Megan let her come with her and they scrambled up the path out of the cove. Megan started desperately searching for something along the top of the cliff. It was so many years ago, but it felt like yesterday.
‘Megan?’ Bethany had asked. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘I’m looking for a hole, or a crack in the rock or something. Something that leads down to….’ She broke off.
‘Down to what?’ asked Bethany.
‘Down to a cave, I think’ replied Megan, lost in thought. ‘I don’t know really. I just know that…. I just know I have to find it.’
‘But why?’ asked Bethany, full of the curiosity of the very young.
‘I can’t explain. I just have to’ replied Megan, distractedly thrashing a bramble bush with a stick. To Bethany it felt like they spent ages searching that bit of the cliff near where a wind-swept tree clung perilously to the rock. Bethany was scared of the edge of the cliff and hung back, but Megan was fearless, clutching onto tufts of grass to peer down over the edge.
Midnight Dolphin Page 21
