Page 4 of The Dragon Ring
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The memory blewaway.
My father’s ashes settled, leaving the air empty once again, but the musical note continued. I put the open urn beside my backpack and walked around the tower, half expecting to find the Fancy-Dress-Man lurking there, intruding on my grief.
Not a soul. I surveyed the frosty hillside in every direction. Still no one. Yet that musical note swelled until it filled the crisp, early morning air.
“I know you’re here.” My voice sounded small and lost in the stillness of the morning. Anger made me bold. “Come out right now.”
Nothing. I walked around the tower again, then paused and looked inside. Low sunlight slanted across the uneven paving slabs, but it seemed as empty as everywhere else. Or was it?
Something shone on the ground in one corner.
I stepped inside. The note, loud in my ears, rose to a crescendo. A ring. Lying on the flagstones.
I took another step. The morning sun filled the ancient building, bouncing off the uneven walls, magnified so much I had to screw up my eyes against the glare. On the floor at my feet, the ring shone as though a star had fallen from the sky. The musical note rose. I bent, reaching for the ring. It looked like solid gold, with a dragon, like the ones on my bracelet, carved on its face. My outstretched fingers touched it.
A powerful force yanked me forwards and I fell, arms outstretched, fingers clenched tight around the ring. The sunlight vanished, and the stone walls of the tower melted away as bright lights exploded in my head. Air rushed past my ears, and a high-pitched wailing joined the musical note. It might have been me making it.
Chapter Two
The ground cameup to meet me, bumpy and cold and wet. I rolled, mud and grass finding their way into my mouth, hands scrabbling to stop my fall. Finally, I slithered to a halt, facedown, eyes shut, head spinning.
My fingers clutched soft wet grass. Bile rose in my throat. The musical note had died to nothing.
After some steadying breaths, the feeling of imminent sickness passed. I raised my head a little and took a peep. I’d finished my downhill roll lying face down in the mud, my hat lost and my hair a tangled mess. Grass, and treetops shrouded in mist, sloped steeply away below. And now I was definitely going to puke.
Retching only brought bile up as I’d not eaten breakfast. What was happening? Had there been an earthquake? Ridiculous as that sounded, what other explanation was there?
I sat up and surveyed my filthy clothes. No doubt my face matched them. Opening my hand, I studied the golden dragon ring. At a loss what to do with it, I slipped it onto my forefinger where it fit perfectly, then rubbed my hands together to get rid of the worst of the dirt.
The mist had crept up the hill and thickened. I needed to get my backpack and Dad’s empty urn and return to Nathan. The thought of snuggling up with him in our nice warm hotel bed was a great incentive.
The climb back up the hill took a lot longer than my roll down it. The frost had vanished, leaving the ground damp and slippery. Sheep droppings peppered the grass, which I’d probably rolled in as much as the mud. The effort made me pant.
Reaching the brow, I gazed across the hilltop. Instead of the tower, a circle of uneven standing stones now stood gauntly outlined against the grey sky. And with the tower had disappeared both my backpack and Dad’s urn.
More ridiculous thoughts popped in and out of my aching head. Was I dreaming? Hallucinating after a bump on the head? A church tower couldn’t just vanish into thin air.
I approached the stones. They looked real enough. With a tentative hand I touched the nearest one. Cold, damp and hard. I walked around the others touching them all in turn. Every one of them felt real, the grass growing rank and tall around their bases, as though they’d been planted there a long time. Weird.
I pinched the back of my hand hard, but nothing changed except the back of my hand hurt. Could you have dreams as real as this one? Could you get stuck in them? The idea that I might be hallucinating resurfaced. The only thing to do now was to go back down the hill into the town, to the staid normality that was Nathan, who’d probably think I’d gone mad. Perhaps I had. Perhaps I was imagining all of this. Perhaps the shaking I’d given my brain as I rolled down the hill was playing tricks on me? That was an awful lot ofperhapses.
Then I remembered my phone. In a hurry, I pulled it out of my coat pocket. Ninety-five percent battery but zero signal. An annoyed shake made no difference. Still only zero bars showing. Typical. You have a mobile phone just in case of an emergency and the moment you need it, it decides not to work.
I put the phone back in my pocket. Thinking about Nathan and a shower, I set off toward town, plunging downhill into a sea of mist so thick it was hard to find the path. Well, impossible. I ended up sliding on my bottom part of the way, bumping into trees I wasn’t expecting to find and making a bit of a hash of the descent. I felt both grumpy and hungry, even a little tearful– not at all like me. I put it down to the shock of my fall.
The land at the foot of the hill leveled out. I should have been approaching the A361 road and houses on the edge of town by now, but no sign of civilization appeared. Just more grass, more trees and even more mist. An eerie silence, too. A glance at my phone told me it was now nearly a quarter to nine. Surely I should have seen cars and heard the town waking up even though it was a Sunday? Maybe even a church bell or two. My stomach twisted with anxiety.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, the faint sound of a single bell tolled through the mist. Relief washed over me, quickening my steps almost to a run. I’d been thinking I’d come down on the wrong side of the hill in the confusion after my fall, but the sound of the bell reassured me I must be nearly back. It rang out again and again, but the mist stole the sound, playing with it and making it impossible to tell where it was coming from. I broke into a run. Any minute now I’d see the buildings of the town and be safe.
From what?
More trees loomed out of the mist like ghostly specters. I tripped over a root and went sprawling face down in the dirt. For a moment I lay there, hands and face pressed to the ground. The bell sounded no closer. Where had the town gone? And where was the sound of that bell coming from? I struggled to my feet and ran a few more paces. This time I fell into a swampy pool.
Luckily for me it wasn’t deep. I struggled out, wet now as well as muddy and sheep-shitty, and very annoyed. What was Nathan, who was fastidiously clean, going to say when he saw me? Thoughts of Nathan and a hot shower, and things he might do to comfort me after my adventure, spurred me on.
Watching out for more swampy pools, I jogged toward the bell for a few more minutes. But I was too late. The ringing ceased, and silence enveloped me. I stood still, ears straining, hoping it would start up again.
