The envelope contained several more white five pound notes.
‘That’s clear enough,’ Jenna half laughed. ‘I wonder what Masterson will do now.’ Jenna echoed the thoughts I’d had on the platform. ‘Perhaps we should have done more – told someone that he might be on the other side in the war.’
‘It’s a few more years before the war starts.’ Demelza had grabbed the letter. ‘If you’d ever been at our school you’d have heard there were lots of people who sympathised with the Germans before the First World War.’
I didn’t argue although I’m not convinced Demelza’s school attendance was that great. I did think that Masterson might have been doing more than sympathising, even if he wasn’t building a nuclear bomb – or was he?
Jenna was silent for a while. Then she spoke, seeming to choose each word carefully: ‘If we get back to our own time, if … if it’s the same as before … then … well then he can’t have done anything? Can he?’
That led me to a lot of worrying. About how history might change with all this time travel.
‘What do we do if it’s all different?’ I said later.
Neither Jenna nor Demelza had an answer to that. The only person who might have known the answer was in a coma and taking up three seats opposite. Probably in a coma, maybe.
‘Pies, pies,’ came a shout from along the narrow corridor outside our compartment. A man in a tweed coat, flat cap, baggy trousers and a white apron knocked on our door and peered in.
‘Blimey,’ he said in the sort of accent that really did make us laugh because it sounded like something off an old TV show, old London. ‘Whot yerr done to ’er,’ and he pointed at Miss Tregarthur, whose drawn face and sunken eyes made her look like a corpse.
‘Can we buy some pies?’ Demelza broke in and I was glad she did. We didn’t want to get involved in a conversation about radiation sickness.
The man sold them to us in the train corridor. ‘Ain’t goin’ in there.’
We stayed in the corridor to eat our pies, Miss Tregarthur was a sight to make anyone lose their appetite.
‘Chewy,’ Jenna said, pulling a lump of gristle out of her mouth and chucking it through the train window – we had opened them again after the tunnels leaving London.
‘Do we give her something?’ Demelza asked.
We had tried to give her some tea but she retched and it came back up. I wondered how long she could last without food or drink.
There was a toilet on the train. Jenna went and filled her empty tea cup from a tap. ‘It said not for drinking, but it’s the best we’ve got,’ she said, tilting Miss Tregarthur’s head forward and pouring a few dribbles of water into her mouth. That stayed down so Jenna gave her a bit more.
The train hooted to warn of another tunnel and I rushed to close the windows. Again, I wondered if I saw Miss Tregarthur move.
The train rumbled on and on. We stopped at a station. Another woman on the platform took our dirty cups and offered to sell us more tea, it didn’t look any better. More hooting and the train pulled out. The same thing happened at every station.
I watched the countryside pass by, keeping an eye on our patient.
‘Her hair’s falling out,’ Demelza’s lip curled. She was right, Miss Tregarthur’s wild straw-like hair was coming out in clumps.
‘That happens with radiation,’ Demelza said, with confidence.
‘We all know that,’ Jenna said.
‘Eh?’ I had no idea.
‘Saw it with my nan,’ Demelza went on: ‘They gave her radiation for cancer and her hair all fell out, she had to wear a wig until it grew again.’
‘Did she survive?’ I asked. This might give a clue to whether we might expect Miss Tregarthur to recover.
‘For a while,’ Demelza replied. ‘Not long though, she’s dead now.’ And did Demelza give a sob? I found it difficult to imagine her as being the sort of person who would care for anyone other than herself. At least the flirting had stopped.
Eventually I drifted off to sleep, waking at each tunnel and each time we stopped. We did what Derek ordered. Two more men helped move Miss Tregarthur on to the next train heading for the grey moorland town. Getting another compartment to ourselves cost one of the five pound notes. I knew we’d been cheated but the man said he had no change and the train was about to leave. It didn’t really matter to us – if we got home I didn’t think we could use these old notes – probably wrong about that, maybe they would be valuable antiques.
I hoped this was to be our last train journey. Finding the compartment stuffy, I stretched and walked the corridor, getting back to a worried looking Jenna.
‘What do we do at the end of this journey?’ Jenna had dark rings around her eyes and her face was creased with tiredness. ‘It’s going to be dark before we arrive.’ We’d been travelling for two days. ‘We can’t take her up to the moor in the dark.’
‘Not sure how we take her up to the moor even when it’s daylight,’ I said and Jenna nodded.
‘Have to stay in that inn,’ Demelza gave her smirky smile. ‘The inn we stayed at before.’
I knew what she meant – the inn where she’d annoyed Jenna and worried me with her pouting and eyelid batting.
‘You get the bed with her.’ Jenna pointed at Miss Tregarthur.
‘Yuck,’ Demelza squirmed. ‘No way I’m sharing a bed.’
‘How do we get her to the inn? Do we carry her? Won’t that start people asking questions?’ I said.
‘She’s your sick aunt and we’re taking her home.’ Jenna had this sorted out. ‘And I did see wheelchairs at the last station, people were being pushed around. We may find one at the next place.’
‘Can’t push her all the way up to the moor,’ I said.
‘No,’ Jenna went on: ‘But we can get a horse and cart or something.’
I sat thinking about this for the rest of the journey. Miss Tregarthur on a cart being bumped along. But even that wouldn’t get us out on to the moor. There were no roads out in the wilds, just a few sheep tracks.
In a previous time when we’d been escaping from being burnt alive, we had thrown Zach and Demelza over a horse and tied them on. Was that what we’d have to do with Miss Tregarthur? I didn’t like the idea of trying to carry her all the way. I still wasn’t entirely convinced that she was as sick as she appeared.
‘Should we check the …’ I stopped as Jenna raised her finger to her lips and shook her head. Shouldn’t we check out the crystal? We hadn’t looked at it since we left Paris. Jenna had kept the metal box in her own bag. The way Jenna was shaking her head made me believe she also thought Miss Tregarthur could be faking. If so, we were heading for more trouble.
Demelza asked several times whether we should check to see if the light had reappeared inside the crystal. Each time Jenna said she wasn’t going to open it because of the radiation. I could see that we didn’t want either Demelza or Miss Tregarthur to know what had happened to the crystal. Keeping that a secret at least kept them guessing, rather than murdering us in our sleep. We might be needed if the crystal didn’t work, everything would depend on that old man at the stones.
We arrived at the moorland town. After paying more money we did get a wheelchair. Not the sort of thing you’d expect. The chair was made out of basket material and had four large wheels. Still, it did what we wanted. We lifted Miss Tregarthur onto it and headed off to the inn. Disability access hadn’t been invented and she had to be carried to a room upstairs.
All of this was taking money. If we didn’t get out of here through the tunnel, there would be a lot more to worry about if we had to stay in this time – not least because it wouldn’t be long before the First World War and I didn’t like the idea of being put in the trenches to fight. Worrying wasn’t going to stop us spending what we had and the inn gave us a large room.
There was space for Miss Tregarthur on a bed in an alcove. She wasn’t talking, but she was taking sips of water – taking sips from Demelza. I watched closely t
o see if they were up to something. Probably I should have stayed awake all night.
Lies
-19-
In the morning Jenna went out to search for help with the rest of our journey – horse drawn help – we didn’t want to have to wheel Miss Tregarthur all the way back to the moor. I’d offered to find someone but Jenna was firm that she wanted to make the arrangement. That probably meant she was planning something.
‘I found a man with a cart and a horse. He’ll come just after midday,’ Jenna said. ‘We should all fit it, fine so long as it doesn’t rain. He’s got some sacking we can put her on.’ Jen pointed at the still unarousable figure of Miss Tregarthur. But just to check she gave the patient a poke which produced a groan and did I see a slight flicker of her eyes? Jenna gave me an eye rolling glance. ‘And I’ve got a few provisions,’ she said, showing me a lumpy sack.
‘Don’t forget the crystal,’ Demelza said, pointing at the box we had brought from France. ‘Do you think it will work again?’
‘Probably doesn’t matter,’ Jenna said. ‘If that white robed man turns up he can get the tunnel to work anyway. We probably don’t need the crystal to actually work.’
I couldn’t see why she sounded so confident. I wasn’t sure anyone would turn up at the Hanging Stones to help us.
And another problem: ‘Will your cart man get us across the moor?’ I asked. We could get up to the moorland village, to the inn we’d stayed at before, but after that there was no road or track.
‘No,’ Jenna replied and there was a lot in the look that she gave me which stopped me asking too many questions. ‘We’ll have to stay at the village inn and try to hire another horse in the morning. Then we can throw her over it for the last part of the journey.’
‘Like we did with Zach and Demelza before,’ I laughed. Demelza scowled.
There were parts to this plan I didn’t understand. Why were we waiting for the cart? If we’d set off earlier we could probably have made the Hanging Stones without stopping. Why did we want to have another night at the inn? I had a feeling Jenna had set this up on purpose.
While we waited for the cart Jenna and I changed into the smocks we had worn before, smocks and boots. Ready for the moor. Demelza refused to change. The inn provided food. It seemed that potatoes were really common here along with pies and pasties. By the time the cart-man turned up I’d stuffed myself. Bad idea on a bumpy cart. There might be a road but it wasn’t smooth. The roads would have to improve here if more cars appeared.
When the cart driver arrived he had a way of saying little but making us feel completely stupid. He made it clear that he expected me to sit up front with him, leaving the girls and Miss Tregarthur in the back along with our luggage. There might be sacking to sit on but the cart had obviously been carrying something smelly before us. I wondered if I would get away with the more comfortable ride. It was obvious that the man thought it was a male right to sit with him. Jenna and Demelza didn’t fit into a high enough class to change that.
Jenna just pushed me to the front. ‘Get up there, Mr Carter,’ and she bowed with a grin. I was going to protest but Jen stopped me and anyway the pies in my stomach made this a good choice.
We rumbled off. Not the same route that we had walked before. We went through the town and followed a river for a while. The cart man kept stopping and talking to people he knew, lots of talk about food, food and manure. Our cart driver was the specialist manure deliverer, which explained the smell.
I turned to the others. Jenna sat looking backwards, watching the hedges disappear as the route took us up towards the moor. Miss Tregarthur on her sacking bed was nearer to the front. Demelza had stayed close to her and moved away quickly when I turned around. Did Jenna know what was going on? She almost seemed to be letting them get on with it, whatever ‘it’ might be.
The day had started overcast and as we went higher the misty drizzle started. I suppose that did dampen the smell but we were all quite soggy when we arrived at the village. We were used to this village inn, seen the changes over so many years in time. This time we had to take two rooms. There, apparently, wasn’t one big enough to take us all.
‘I’ll go in with her,’ Demelza said, pointing at Miss Tregarthur. ‘Leave you two together.’ She said ‘together’ in a pointed way. Losing Demelza for a night might be a great idea, but did we really want to leave those two alone?
‘Fine,’ said Jenna, before I had a chance to argue.
So, after another meal of potatoes and something I didn’t recognise and probably didn’t want to, we went to our rooms.
‘See you in the morning,’ Demelza winked at me as I closed our door. The rooms were next to each other.
‘What the …?’ I started as soon as we were alone.
‘Shh.’ Jenna went over to the wall between our rooms and listened.
Could we hear voices? If we could surely this had to be a bad idea. Nothing that Demelza and Miss Tregarthur did together was likely to be good.
Jenna wouldn’t explain. ‘I’ll tell you in the morning,’ she said, giving me a cuddle.
Down at breakfast – another potato meal – we were the only two guests.
‘Shall I get Demelza?’ I went towards the stairs.
‘Worth a try, I suppose.’ Jenna smiled.
I went upstairs, their door was open. The room was empty. I ran back down.
‘Gone,’ I shouted. ‘We need to get after them, COME ON.’
Jenna didn’t move and took another forkful of mash. ‘Alvin, sit down and eat some more of this delicious meal. It might be your last.’
Why was Jenna so calm about this?
‘But … but …,’ I stammered.
‘It’s what I thought would happen,’ Jenna said, with her mouth full. ‘At least it’s saved us from having to drag those two over the moor.’
‘You think they’ve gone to the Hanging Stones?’
‘Certainly,’ Jenna said.
‘Don’t they need the crystal?’ I looked around for the metal box.
‘Demelza took it in the night,’ Jenna laughed. ‘You were out of it and snoring so you didn’t hear her come in and take it.’
‘You let her take it?’ I could see Jenna had some plan and was really enjoying me being uncomfortable. I just had to hope this would work.
For a few more minutes we ate our breakfast and drank something we were told was tea. It definitely had a strange unpleasant taste. But we were both thirsty.
‘You are right.’ Jenna stood up. ‘We do need to get after them.’
The envelope of money was empty, we had nothing to pay the inn. Demelza again. Without any money the landlady would find a way to make us work for payment. We wouldn’t be able to get after them. We would have to run for it.
Jenna smiled again. ‘They didn’t take it all, I kept most of the notes.’
I felt stupid not to know what was happening. Jenna seemed to have worked all this out.
We paid and headed up the short hill to the moor.
We made for the top of the first tor, to give us a better view. Up on top the rain held off but the wind still blew hard, whisking tufts of grass in spirals. Clouds scuttled across the sky. The usual storm would come later. It was difficult to make out any movement. We sheltered from the wind and watched for a while.
‘There.’ I pointed.
In the distance we could see two figures. It was obvious that Miss Tregarthur might not be as sick as she had made out but she was still leaning heavily on Demelza. They were moving slowly, at that rate we could catch them before they reached the Hanging Stones. Demelza struggling in the clothes she had bought for Paris.
Jenna held back. ‘Let them go, wait a bit.’ Her words were blown away in the wind, while I just wondered what was going on.
I didn’t argue and leant against the rocks. I didn’t feel right. It had to have been that breakfast.
Further on, Jenna stopped again, suggesting we shared some of the stuff she’d bought in the town,
carrying them in her lumpy sack. Not just potatoes, she had a couple of apples but neither of us felt like eating. My stomach still churned.
I was past asking questions. At least not knowing made me feel this might go better than I expected. We went on.
As we reached the bottom of Hanging Stone Hill we could see that Demelza was struggling badly. Miss Tregarthur could barely move on her own. They’d manage a few steps and then collapse with Demelza having to haul her to her feet. We weren’t feeling great either. It wasn’t just my stomach, I was feeling dizzy.
‘I want them to get there first.’ Jenna sat down holding her head. We were near a stream and could see what was happening further up the hill.
‘Why?’
‘This is my revenge.’ Jenna’s face reminded me of all the terrible things that had happened: the attack from the cavemen; the Black Death; the sentences to be burnt; the deportation across the world. Miss Tregarthur had brought all those upon us. All because we had stopped her from her promise to her father – a weird genetic experiment – for a group of captured teenagers.
I sat down beside Jenna and tried to throw stones into the stream. ‘I still don’t understand why she wanted us dead. It wasn’t going to make anything better for her.’ I threw another stone as hard as I could, it cracked against a bolder.
‘Why did she want … why did she need us to die?’ I looked up. The noise of the stone must have reached the other two. Demelza turned and rushed to drag Miss Tregarthur up the hill.
‘You.’ Jenna held my hand to stop me throwing more stones. ‘It was you she wanted dead. There must be another reason. We may be going to find out quite soon. Let’s get after them.’
We climbed the hill, heading straight into the wind. That must have made it even harder for the other two. Black clouds were gathering. Even though it was only the middle of the day, the light was fading. We’d been through this sort of weather before, storms out here were common. But we were nearly there, nearly at the stones again. It wasn’t just the other two who were struggling. My dizziness was worse, sounds started to feel a long way off, something was making us both unwell. Had we been affected by the radiation? We both had to sit again before making the final yards to the Hanging Stones.
Tregarthur's Crystal: Book 4 (The Tregarthur's Series) Page 17
