A Change In The Weather

Chapter 27: The Persephone

The sun was setting fast now, and the evening sky was dashed with vivid oranges and deep reds as the narrowboat Persephone made its way up the river Marland towards the Winterton estate. It passed the little stone bridge – the marker that indicated the start of the estate - and slowed to a crawl, as if careful to avoid any unwanted attention.

Eliza looked around, carefully scanning the horizon in case there had been anyone who could have seen them. When she was sure that there was no one around, she killed the engines and allowed the boat to drift a little so that it finally came to rest with a gentle bump under a large weeping willow. Its obscuring boughs seemed a perfect place to hide the boat, she thought.

As the boat stopped, she could just make out the top of Winterton Hall poking over the lie of the hill through the leaves and branches. One whole side of the building had turned a rich golden red with the reflected light from the evening sun as it continued to slip slowly below the horizon.

‘Make sure it’s tied properly,’ hissed Eliza from the rear of the boat, pointing to a mooring post. ‘We don’t want it going missing,’ she said smiling, ‘and we don’t want anyone taking it for a joyride either.’

‘Righto,’ said Thomas, throwing a heavy rope to the bank. ‘I can’t see anyone in their right mind stealing this great hulk,’ he muttered under his breath. He jumped to the shore and lashed the Persephone to the mooring post.

‘Pardon?’ said Eliza, feigning deafness.

Thomas said nothing, instead he beamed innocently at her.

Meanwhile, Scarlet was thinking about her actions. She didn’t know whether or not to just grab Thomas and run home as fast as she could. The cottage had been wrecked, and more importantly, her parents had forbade her to go back to the wood or come home late. It was already late though. What did it matter now if they were a little later? Scarlet’s comfortable life was beginning to fall apart, and she felt helpless to do anything about it.

She shook her head and pointed to a slight rise to the right of Winterton Hall.

‘What’s that over there?’ she said.

Eliza looked in the direction.

Sure enough, there, on the other side of the little hill, something seemed to have punctuated the ground at regular intervals. It looked like stones of some description – all white and bleached - pushing up through the impeccably mowed lawn like giant peg-like teeth, but they were too far away for her to be sure. She needed to climb the hill to look over it. The angle was too shallow to get a good view from where she was standing.

Eliza squinted ahead and gave a little sigh.

‘I’m not sure…’ she said finally. ‘We could go and look, but we should do as much as we can to lessen the chances of us being seen.’

Scarlet knew Eliza was right and nodded reluctantly. Eliza gave a little smile. She could sense Scarlet’s desperation to go and explore.

‘We’ll go and look later,’ added Eliza, as a compromise.

It was something, after all, that she would have done. But she didn’t want to risk anything going wrong. In the back of her thoughts were Tobias and Hillary at Winterton Hall. She just hoped that if anything did happen they’d be in a position to help.

‘There is a stone circle nearby called the Eleven Hags. Chances are it could be that.’

‘The Eleven Hags? Why’s it called that?’ asked Scarlet, clearly intrigued.

‘Oh it’s well known. Legend says that ten villagers went up to Winterton hill one Saturday night and made a bonfire around the ancient stone there called Old Nick’s Seat. They took food and wine with them and a fiddler.’

‘As they drank more and more, they got more and more carried away.’

‘With the combination of the music and the drink, they danced and danced around the stone, so much so that they forgot the ancient laws.’

‘What ancient laws?’ asked Scarlet, suspiciously.

‘About not dancing on the Sabbath.’

‘But that’s not a real law!’ said Scarlet with a tut.

‘Oh it is. It’s just that nowadays there are other punishments that the devil inflicts on us. It’s just that you don’t realise. Mind you, there’s not that many religious people about any more child. Woe betide anyone who breaks that rule…’

‘So what happened then?’ asked Scarlet.

‘You see, the fiddler remembered about the law, and he made his excuses and left. The rest of them continued to dance well past midnight.’

‘But, when they’d exhausted themselves they found that they couldn’t stop dancing, and the fiddler’s music instead got faster and faster. They carried on dancing into the morning, pleading and shouting for the fiddler to stop.’

‘Just a minute,’ pointed out Scarlet. ‘I thought you said that the fiddler made his excuses and left?’

‘I did dear. You see, it wasn’t the fiddler playing the music, but the Devil punishing them for breaking the Sabbath. In the morning, townsfolk found ten new stones around Old Nick’s Seat, one for each reveler. You see, they’d been turned to stone. Good story, eh?’

‘Erm, yeah,’ replied Scarlet on tip-toes, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the stones again.

And with that Eliza disappeared below deck humming to herself.

‘Fancy a cup of tea?’

Posted in A Change In The Weather |