Page 67 of Fool Me Twice
“It’s not a religion.It’s a peaceful place you can go for reflection.And drink the waters, and wash your feet in them.If you want.”
“You’ve been, then?”
“Once.When I first got here.”Kai smiled crookedly.“When I still had some spare cash.It was nice.”
“All right, I’ll bite.You wanna come with?I’ll pay for you.”
Kai pursed their lips, like they were thinking it over.“Nah,” they said at last.“Better if you go on your own.Then you can concentrate on letting the quiet in.”
“You’re sure?”Zig stood and stretched, stiff from sitting on the cold ground.“How much is it to get in this place?”
“Five pounds, when I went.”
Zig nodded, and pulled out a tenner.“Here you go.In case you want to go some other time.”
Kai didn’t reach for it.“That’s too much.”
“No, it ain’t.I’m earning, and the daft bastard I’m living with won’t let me pay rent.Take it.”
“Thanks.”Kai squirrelled the money away inside the sleeping bag.“You take care, okay?Hope you like the well.”
“Cheers.”Zig turned to go, then, recalling his unsent text, turned back.“Kai...you ever worry your past’s gonna catch up with you?”
“My past don’t care enough to catch up with me.”
Ouch.“That’s a bit shit.”
“Or, looked at another way, pretty lucky.Sure you don’t wanna talk about it?”
Zig shook his head.“Think I’ll try that quiet you mentioned.See if I can get me head straight.Cheers, though.I’ll see you, okay?”
“See ya,” Kai said.
Zig walked down the path feeling a tiny bit lighter, to Kai’s shout of, “Try the water, it’s lovely!”
The Chalice Well turned out to be literally about a minute’s walk from the bottom of the path up the tor.Zig wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before.Was it like one of those mysterious magic shops in books, that only appeared when you really needed them?
Nah, couldn’t be.They’d miss out on all the tourist trade that way.
Even on this freezing December day, there were a few people waiting in line to pay their money and get spiritual.Zig joined the queue, which moved slower than he’d expected.Maybe that was all part of the experience—getting out of the pace of modern life.Or maybe they weren’t all that efficient.
When he got to the front and paid over his fiver, Zig found that part of the reason for the wait was the mini-lecture on turning off all phones and other devices so as not to disturb the airwaves.Which didn’t quite make sense to him—surely the air was full of radio waves whether anyone was receiving them or not?—but he dutifully switched off his phone.In any case, Si was working, and Kai knew where he was.Nobody else was likely to try to call him.At least, nobody he wanted to hear from.
Zig wandered down the path and into the gardens.Down a short slope, there was a man-made pool shaped like a Venn diagram with two overlapping circles.Water fed into it from a sort of rockery, with a staircase of wide, flat stones for the stream to trickle down.
There were people sitting on a bench nearby, talking softly as though they didn’t want to disturb anyone listening to the hypnotic sound of the running water.Zig stood there for a moment, taking it in.Was this the peacefulness Kai had been on about?There was plenty more of the place to see.
The water from the pools ran out through a shallow, rust-coloured channel to another small pool and emptied into a drain shaped like a leaf.There was a crescent-shaped stone in the middle, and someone had placed acorns and pine cones on it, like it was some kind of woodland altar.Or a food bank for squirrels, maybe.Did squirrels sleep all through the winter, or did they wake up every so often for snacks?Zig had no clue.
Walking on, through mostly bare trees and empty flower beds, Zig tried to picture the place in summer.It’d be an explosion of colour and growth, most likely.The lawns were well-kept, and the beds weed-free, although it was winter.He found himself liking the barren look it had now, though.The land didn’t feel dead—only asleep, and under it all was a sense of potential, waiting for the warmer weather to wake it up and bring it to fullest life.Zig blinked.Huh.Look at you, being all poetical.Kai would kill themself laughing.And Si...Si would know what he meant.Zig was sure of that.The bloke who’d researched an author he’d never read so he could take Zig on a tour—yeah, he’d understand, all right.
He waited until the couple in front of him had moved on before approaching the spring that trickled down a rough-built stone wall, even rustier than the pools by the entrance.One of them had filled a bottle with the water, which...Was that to drink?Zig frowned.Kai had said to try the waters, hadn’t they?He bent forward and cupped a cautious handful, bringing it to his lips.
Fuck, that’s bitter!Zig swallowed with a grimace, wiped his hand on his jeans, and grabbed his phone to tell Kai they were a git.Lovely, my arse.Then he remembered: no disturbing the airwaves here.Right.It could wait.Smiling, he wandered on, up a slope to an area sparsely planted with trees and benches, only one of them occupied, by an older couple so wrapped up they were pretty much egg-shaped.
He could see the tor from here, the tower visible through the bare branches.Somehow it looked farther away than he knew it was.Kai was probably still there, out of sight.Zig hoped people were being generous to them.
Sitting on one of the empty benches, cold leeching through the still-damp seat of his jeans, Zig realised he hadn’t thought about his dad once since he’d been here.Even now, the thought didn’t bother him as much as it had.The threat—if it was a threat—seemed more distant, somehow.More manageable.After all, what could Dad actually do to him?
