The Gorgons Gaze # 2 (Companions Quartet) (31 page)

T
he policewoman guided Connie out of the wood and over to a police van parked in front of the bulldozers, which sprawled like yellow crocodiles on a river bank, teeth-edged jaws gaping open. A dozen or so road-workers were sitting with their feet up in the cabs of the idle machines. A few of them looked up from their newspapers curiously, but then seeing nothing more than a bedraggled girl and her escort, returned to the sports pages.

Connie sat on the back step of the van holding a mug of tea from a police flask in her shaking hand. The shock of all she had gone through over the past week was beginning to hit—the forced entry into her mind by Kullervo and his followers, the days spent lying tied up on the top bunk, the last few perilous hours at the
summit of the oak. And now she was going to have to give some kind of explanation to her parents and greataunt, but what that would be she could not even begin to imagine in her numbed state. Of one thing she was certain: whatever she said would not stop Godiva from telling her parents to impose the severest punishment she could think up. Connie’s suffering was not over.

A police car came up the hill on the tail of an ambulance with lights flashing and siren blaring. The ambulance turned into the picnic spot and disappeared from view, but the second vehicle continued up the hill to where Connie was waiting. The moment of reckoning had come. She stood up, letting the blanket fall to her feet, and took a deep breath. The rear doors opened and her father and mother got out, then her great-uncle. There was a momentary pause as the three of them looked over at her silently, her father’s face gray with the strain of the past few days, her mother’s tear-stained, her great-uncle’s eyes full of pain. All Connie’s made-up words of explanation died on her lips, and she burst into tears. It was the best thing she could have done because it immediately released an outpouring of emotion from her mother that swept over her, too, like a storm.

“Darling, where have you been?” her mother cried, grasping her in a tight hug as if she never wanted to let go of her again. Her usually immaculate clothes were rumpled and had clearly been slept in. “Do you realize
what you’ve put us through? We were beginning to think that all sorts of horrible things might have happened to you when we didn’t hear from you.”

Her father put his arms around both his wife and daughter. Connie could smell his reassuring scent—she felt secure in his strong embrace. “Now, now, she’s safe,” he said with unusual softness. “Let’s not talk about this now. Let’s just be thankful that she’s back with us.”

Uncle Hugh came over to stand awkwardly beside the family huddle.

“Are you all right, Connie?” he asked uncertainly.

“I’m so sorry,” Connie said, brushing the tears from her eyes with the back of a grubby hand. “I wish it’d all never happened,” she added truthfully.

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize how bad it had got,” he said gruffly. “I let you down.”

This was what Connie feared—that he would blame himself.

“No, no, it’s all my fault. I know I shouldn’t have run away.”

The policewoman returned with Godiva Lionheart. Connie thought her great-aunt looked dazed. Godiva walked up to her. She said nothing but patted Connie on the back.

“What? Y…you’re not going to tell me off?” Connie stammered.

Godiva shook her head.

Hugh approached his sister and took her arm. “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice.

The policewoman gave a discreet cough. “I think we’d better get Connie away before the media get here. I’ll need to ask her a few questions later, but for now I suggest you take her back home.”

It was a very subdued party in the police car for the short journey back to Lionheart Lodge, where Connie’s parents had been staying over the last few terrible days. There did not seem to be a safe topic of conversation. Uncle Hugh began to ask about the procession as a way of lightening the mood, but he fell silent when it was clear that Connie did not feel like talking. The police driver sensed the awkward atmosphere and tried to help by switching on the radio. Unfortunately, the local news station was running continual coverage of the exciting events up at Mallins Wood:

“…a most extraordinary day, you’ll agree, Steve,” the reporter burbled to the studio. “First the stand-off between the protesters and the construction team and now this.” The policeman moved to switch it off, but Connie intervened:

“No, leave it, please!”

“Yes, and now I can see them winching the boy down. A local lad, according to the procession’s organizers, Col Clamworthy. He arrived here this morning dressed as Sir Galahad. You may remember, Steve, I reported how he
left the others, waving a lance over his head. Look, here he comes—but I can’t see how badly injured he is. Two firemen are lowering him to the ground. We had no idea that he’d gone on such a dangerous quest when he galloped off. How he got up so high is anyone’s guess.…”

“Is there any news of the girl they brought down earlier?” the studio presenter asked in a voice that suggested he was lapping up the drama.

“Connie Lionheart, the missing girl? She’s already made a name for herself as an environmental protester over that tanker incident on New Year’s. Too bad the police didn’t think to look earlier at the obvious place where all the eco-warriors in the country were congregating, ha, ha,” the reporter laughed heartily, making Connie wince. “From what she said when she was found, she had been up the tree all week as a kind of protest—extraordinary dedication for one so young.”

“And how is the campaign to save Mallins Wood going now that the appeal to buy it has been launched?”

“Zed Bailey told me earlier that he’s been bowled over by the response. He only launched the appeal a matter of hours ago, but the Web site has already been inundated with messages of support and cash pledges from people all over the country. Of course, the dramatic coverage of the rescue of the missing girl and her friend has helped give it publicity they could not have dreamed of. And yes, the boy is down. Sir Galahad is once more on the
earth and in the care of the emergency services.”

“Thank you, Mike. If any of our listeners would like to make a pledge, you can log on to the Save Merlin’s Oak Web site, check our site, and follow the link. And now, stay tuned for Krafted’s first live appearance at the Hescombe Music Festival.…”

The car pulled up on the Abbey Close. Walking down the path, flanked by her parents, Connie took a last look up at the sky and wondered what was happening on the moors. Had her message got through in time to stop the others from coming to rescue her? What would Kullervo’s forces do now that their leader had fled? Confused and abandoned, would some of them try to attack, or would they just melt away, biding their time for a more favorable occasion? From what the reporter had said, everything seemed quite normal in the wood, apart, that is, from the assortment of medieval characters, horses, reporters, and emergency services all milling around the foot of Merlin’s Oak. It looked as if the attack had been postponed. The Society had survived this crisis—just barely.

“Now, darling,” her mother said as she ran a hot foaming bath for her, “take off those clothes and have a nice relaxing soak.” As Connie discarded her brown leather flying suit, her mother picked it up gingerly. “Godiva mentioned your strange taste in clothes, but I’m pleased to see that it stopped you from getting too
scratched up while you’ve been perched up that tree,” she said with a hint of approval for the once-despised garment.

“And,” Connie said with a yawn as she stepped into the tub, “at least I’m not on national TV wearing bells and armor.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

Connie’s mother stepped softly out of the room as her daughter lay back in the bubbles and tried to let the warm water wash away both the grime and the bad memories.

The fire crew wrapped up Col like a very large papoose for the journey down the tree. His leg was aching, his back screaming with pain where the dragon’s tail had caught him, and the rest of him was a network of minor injuries, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was Skylark, last seen tumbling through the trees not far from the clearing where they had taken off. As soon as he bumped to the ground, he looked frantically around for his father and spotted him in the company of a stern-faced policeman.

“Dad,” Col shouted, “Dad!”

The crowd fell back, allowing Mack to reach his son’s stretcher. He knelt down beside him and took Col’s hand.

“It’s all right, son,” Mack said loudly. Then, quieter,
he added, “No need to worry—I’ve called off our forces—just in time, too. The dragons were about to set off. I had some difficulty though; my guard here was very suspicious—thought I was talking to some eco-warrior reinforcements or something.”

Col was only half-listening to him, desperate to get an answer to the only question in which he was interested. “But Skylark? How is he?”

“I don’t know, Col,” Mack said with a shake of his head. “Captain Graves and some volunteers are leaving now to search the wood for both him and Argand. I’d go myself but apparently I’m under arrest.” He grimaced. “They seem to think I put you and Connie up to climbing that tree. Your gran’s on her way to the hospital—she’ll meet you there.”

The paramedics ushered Mack back and picked up the stretcher. Col felt his frustration building. He could not bear to be carried away like this not knowing. Skylark could be lying injured somewhere close-by. He might even be dying. He could be dead already.

“Col! Col! It’s me, Rat!” The familiar sharp face bobbed up by the side of the stretcher. “I’ve come to tell you that I’ve got something of yours. Don’t worry, I’ll look after it for you!”

“What?” Col asked in confusion as Rat was pushed back by a policeman. “What’ve you got?”

“I’ve got your—” But the doors of the ambulance were slammed shut, and Col did not hear the answer.

Mrs. Clamworthy wheeled Col out of hospital later that day to the waiting taxi. He had spent many hours in the emergency room having his right leg encased in plaster from the ankle to the thigh, the cut on his back dressed, and his other injuries cleaned up. The nurse who dealt with his back marveled over the extent of his injuries.

“You tell me you didn’t fall?” she said doubtfully as she dabbed his wound with disinfectant. “But this is the strangest cut I’ve seen in a long time—all lacerated as if you’ve been hit by a saw. And your costume—completely shredded! Very strange.”

“Yeah, weird,” agreed Col, deciding that blank incomprehension was his best defense.

Mrs. Clamworthy helped Col slide into the back of the taxi.

“Right, home and bed for you, young man,” she said firmly.

“No way. Not till I find out what’s happened to Skylark.”

“But there’s no word of him, Col dear, as I told you,” Mrs. Clamworthy said in a low voice, glancing nervously over at the driver.

“Then we’re going back to the wood. I’m not giving up just because I’ve taken a bit of a battering.”

“A bit of a battering!” Mrs. Clamworthy exclaimed, forgetting to keep her voice down in her indignation. “You’ve got a broken leg and stitches in your back. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“But I
am
alive, and I have to find out if Skylark is, too.”

Mrs. Clamworthy sighed. She could not in all honesty say she would not have been demanding the same thing if it had been her companion at risk.

“All right, Col, but only for an hour—no more. Then it’s—”

“Yes, I know: home and bed.”

The picnic spot was quiet when the taxi turned in, as the festival was now in full swing and everyone had gone to listen to the bands on the main stage. Col could hear the music booming from the speaker system. Lights arced in the sky, dancing on the clouds.

“What exactly do you think you’re going to do?” his grandmother asked him in an exasperated tone as Col began to hobble on his crutches over to Rat’s bus. “Too much of that and you’ll split your stitches!”

Col knocked on the door with a crutch but there was no reply except a torrent of furious barking from Wolf.

“I’m going to the clearing,” he told his grandmother, swinging himself around. “It’s where he fell.