Marc Chadbourn - The Queen of sinister

To distract herself, she turned her attention to Mahalia and Carlton while Crowther drove.

'Where were you going when we met you?' Caitlin asked.

Mahalia thought for a moment, then said, 'To meet you.'

Caitlin didn't hear any sarcasm in the comment, but she couldn't be sure. She still hadn't decided whether she liked Mahalia, or if the girl's sullen attitude was simply a defence mechanism.

Mahalia saw what was going through Caitlin's head and gave an annoyed shake of her head. 'Carlton saw you in his dreams. Yeah. Really. He was determined that we should come after you.'

The boy looked up at Caitlin with wide, innocent eyes that made him seem even younger. She saw in them something of Liam and instantiy wanted to hug him. 'He dreamed about me?'

Mahalia read Caitlin's expression and threw a protective arm around Carlton's shoulders. 'He's special. Aren't you, mate?' He giggled silently as she squeezed him. 'I didn't believe it at first, but he soon showed me. He sees things.'

'Visions?'

'I suppose. He knows all sorts of stuff that he shouldn't. Sometimes he has trouble making me understand exactly what he's saying, but I get most of it. He's got us out of a few scrapes. There was a time in Southampton…' She shook her head to dispel the sour memory. 'I wouldn't be here now if not for him.'

'But why me?' Caitlin said.

Mahalia's contemptuous expression said that she had no idea either.

'What is it, Carlton?' Caitlin asked gently. But all the boy would do was smile.

'He does that sometimes,' Mahalia said. 'He'll tell you in his own good time.'

'So when were you going to tell me this, Mahalia?'

'Oh, soon,' the girl replied lightly.

Caitlin didn't fall for it. She wondered what else lay behind Mahalia's diamond-hard exterior that the teenager wasn't revealing. They made their way through picturesque villages that belied the advent of the Fall. In many of them, life appeared to go on as normal: wisps of smoke floated up from the chimneys of stone houses and washing fluttered on lines in back gardens. Villagers out on their errands would stop and stare in amazement as the car roared by, wondering what the apparition signified. Other lanes were blocked by horse-drawn carts transporting produce from one village to the next, the drivers yanking the reins tight to prevent their horses from shying at the unfamiliar beast.

Eventually, reaching a minor road along a windswept ridge on the edge of the Cotswolds, Crowther pulled up against a mass of vegetation that had once been the verge.

'We're here?' Caitlin said, looking for some sign of a specific destination. All she could see were untended fields turned wild, and burgeoning hedgerows and copses.

Crowther grunted something incoherent in response and set out along the road without waiting for the others, his staff clattering an insistent rhythm. Mahalia and Carlton crawled out from behind the seats, stretching aching muscles. It was still and peaceful, with insects flitting over the long grass and birds singing in every tree.

As Caitlin, Mahalia and Carlton hurried to catch up with the professor, the chattering at the back of Caitlin's head grew louder as her inner selves became feverishly excited.

Mahalia could feel something, too, for the contempt had left her face to be replaced by an out-of-place uncertainty. 'Where are we going?' she asked. Carlton gave her hand a supportive squeeze; of all of them, he appeared the most at ease.

Crowther pointed to a weather-worn rock rising up in a field to their left. Rusty iron railings imprisoned it. 'Well, there's part of it,' he said gruffly. He turned swiftly through a gate concealed by overgrown vegetation and led them past a small hut with yellowing pamphlets in a dirty display case. And then they were there.

Surrounded by trees and hedges on three sides was a small stone circle forty strides across. Only a few of the pockmarked, eroded limestone pillars still stood tall. The majority were broken stumps. On the fourth side, two gateway stones opened out on to sunlit fields rolling down into a valley.

'The Rollrights,' Crowther intoned. 'A Neolithic stone circle.'

'This is where we get to that other world?' Caitlin asked.

'Where we'll make the attempt to cross over.' Crowther led the way cautiously, his darting eyes searching amongst the trees.

They paused on the edge of the circle, which Crowther defined with a wave of his hand. 'These are known as The King's Men.' He turned and pointed in the direction of the stone now hidden behind the hedge across the road. 'The King Stone.' And then away across the fields to the east, where they could just make out four upright stones and one fallen. 'The remains of a chambered long barrow, now known as the Whispering Knights. Legend says they are a king and his knights turned to stone by a witch. Some of the locals say the stones come alive at midnight, performing strange ritual dances… they even go down to Little Rollright Spinney over there to get a drink. Stories like that are one of the hidden sources of information I spoke of earlier. The suggestion of transformation and magic tells me the ancients believed this place had a special power — that's what we need to tap into, the reason why we're here.'

Caitlin expected Mahalia to make some sneering comment, but the girl remained on edge and watchful.

'I'm not sure I like it here,' Caitlin said.

'You're responding to the atmosphere. This is a special place,' Crowther replied.

'What do you mean?'

'It has a unique ambience, a confluence of subtle alterations to the quality of the light, the scents of the vegetation, the temperature… and on an unseen level, patterns of background radiation, ultrasound, anomalous radio signals. What you're feeling is the shock of a new experience. It's quite… destabilising. You'll get used to it.'

Mahalia didn't look convinced. She put her arm around Carlton again and led him away to one side where she whispered to him insistently, flashing occasional urgent glances at Caitlin.

Crowther moved to the tallest of the nearby stones and held out one hand, as if to touch it. But then he hesitated, as if he were about to plunge his hand into water that could be freezing cold or boiling hot. He steeled himself, then clamped his palm on the surface before smiling. 'Power, you see. Infused in every molecule.'

'What kind of power?' Caitlin asked.

'Ah, that's the question. Something science never quite got to grips with. This place is like a battery… no, like a node on some national energy grid.' He removed his hat and leaned forward until his forehead was gently touching the cool rock. 'There was a research group called the Dragon Project working here in the late seventies, early eighties, looking into the notion of some kind of telluric energy — earth energy. Airy-fairy, you might say.' He laughed. 'New Age nonsense. But then a Geiger counter picked up sudden surges of radiation, something that only seemed to happen at megalithic sites. And then they found pulses of ultrasound, strange radio signals, short bursts, like a homing beacon. They never did get to the bottom of it.'

Caitlin realised that Crowther was right: she was starting to feel better, attuning herself to the subtle energies of the place. The chattering voices had quietened, and an abiding peace rose in her heart. She breathed deeply, tasting the trees and grass and rock. But there was still memory, tugging her back. 'How long have we got?' she said.

Crowther looked at the sky, an ages-old shaman divining the wind and clouds. 'Not as much time as I'd like.'

'You don't think the Whisperers will leave us alone?'

'No. Do you?' He eyed her cautiously before deciding not to let it spoil his mood. 'It's going to be a lovely day. Make the most of it.' The morning passed slowly. They lit a fire on rough ground beyond the hut and cooked up a meal of eggs and herbs, stolen by Mahalia from a farm they had passed during the night. Caitlin's plea that they in some way pay for the produce had been cut short by the angry farmer and his sons chasing them furiously away.