Chapter Fourteen – Freedom Farm

“I can’t do it, someone will know.”

“Of course you can do it; you have been practising and you are very good at it. No one will know.”

Adam and D’Scover had Hotlined to a small school on the outskirts of the village of Polcastle. In this cluttered classroom someone had forgotten to shut down the computer overnight. The small building had only three classrooms and no residential caretaker and was perfect for their purpose.

“You can see right through me,” Adam grumbled as he paced round the schoolroom, turning his hands over and over again in the air. “I’ll look like I’m made of tissue paper if I go out there; it’s too bright. Look at me!”

D’Scover looked instead out into the sharp morning sunshine across the empty playground. Night had retreated and the brightness of the clear air was stunning.

“All will be fine, trust me,” he replied. “I have seen what you can do; you just have to have some faith in your abilities. The beauty of moving around in daylight is that nobody expects a ghost in daytime. Any problems like blurring or an interruption to your substance they will write off as a problem with their own eyes brought on by the low and bright winter sun. Anyway, you have no choice; I need you to help me find the girl.”

“What use will I be?” Adam asked. “I don’t know how to use that ball thing and if we’re caught, it could ruin everything.”

“You have been here before,” D’Scover said flatly, “and so it is your fate to be here again.”

“Riiightt . . .” Adam sighed. “You and your fate thing again. OK, but you have to get me out of there quick if you think anyone has sussed me.”

“Agreed,” D’Scover said. He walked towards the door and, in an effortless, vaporous waft, melted through to the outside world. Adam could see him standing in the playground through the mottled sea-blown glass of the school windows. He walked to the same spot himself and, taking a deep yet essentially useless breath, he concentrated hard until he became a shadow of his own form and was able, with a bit of a wriggle, to pass clumsily through the door.

Polcastle was busy, despite summer being a long way off. The day shone bright and clear with unseasonal sunshine, but a sharp and icy wind still blew in from the sea, causing people to pull their jackets tightly round them as they walked. The gusts blew across the village, tossing litter high into the air where it fell under the ruthless examination of the seagulls wheeling in the air. D’Scover strode ahead down the hill towards the centre of the village. Adam trotted behind, keen to keep the focus on D’Scover in the hope no one would notice he was not as solid a presence as he would like.

The village was full of life and people bustled around the many touristy shops as the two of them tried to make their way through the main street. It took all of Adam’s concentration to make sure that he did not allow anyone to bump into him for fear of them realising his great secret. D’Scover seemed to glide through the crowds, each person missing him in an effortless waltz in which he took the lead.

“How do you do that?” Adam called out, always a few steps behind.

“There is no mystery, just a few hundred years of practice,” he replied, “and never forgetting our Prime Rule – concentrate.”

Adam followed him through the village and out the other side up on to a hilly park overlooking the silver-green band of the wide river running out to the ocean. D’Scover made his way up the hill to a bandstand that seemed to overlook this whole corner of the county. Here he stopped and looked around, trying to get his bearings.

“Well?” Adam asked. “What do we do now? Should we go to a graveyard or something? Do we start with dead people?”

D’Scover squinted into the sun and said nothing.

“Do we just wait here? Will she come to us or what? I mean, is she even a she? Is she even a person?” Adam babbled on. “Could she be a dog?”

The dog Adam had been looking at ran up to D’Scover and sat by his foot and stared up at him with a trusting and earnest expression. D’Scover looked down at it and ruffled the hair between its ears.

“Hey!” Adam asked. “How come the dog doesn’t bark? I thought dogs would be able to tell that we’re, well, you know, dead.”

“He does know,” D’Scover said without looking back, “he simply doesn’t care. We pose no threat to him, but he would probably growl at malevolent spirits. Have you never seen an animal stare at a blank space or growl at apparently nothing?”

“Not that I remember,” Adam replied.

“That is because you saw the spirit it was reacting to, you just never realised it,” D’Scover said. “Further proof, if you needed it, that we are all in the place we are meant to be.”

He stood back up and watched as the dog ran off across the field to its owner. Then he cupped his hands together to form a bowl shape. Despite the bright sunshine, Adam could see a glow forming within D’Scover’s curved fingers. When he opened his hands again, there, in one palm, lay the blue sphere that Adam had last seen back in London.

“This will show us what we need to know.” D’Scover held the ball out. Almost at once it began to throb light in a slow but steady rhythm. D’Scover turned around in the park and the throb slowed even more until it was barely detectable.

“It is the depository for a powerful incantation. These are almost impossible to maintain over a long distance hence the containment sphere wrapped round it,” he explained.

“You mean the ball?” Adam asked. “So the finding, reveal, thingamajig is inside?”

“Inelegantly put, but accurate nonetheless.” He turned back the way he had come and the throb increased. “The pulse will speed up as we get closer to our destination, but you must stay close as I may need to move quickly to follow its lead. We are looking for a living person and they could be walking around as well – that always makes matters more difficult.”

D’Scover strode off down the hill, apparently oblivious to the crowds of people with dogs and kites littering the muddy slopes. Adam concentrated hard on his shape once more and tried to remember that running was the most natural thing in the world for a boy to do – a living boy, that is. He stumbled and rolled forward through a small spiky bush. Two dog owners turned and began to come over to where he lay half sunk into the slope of the hill.

“He is fine,” D’Scover called out to them as he pulled Adam upright before anyone could notice his apparent lack of legs. “Children are so clumsy, are they not?”

The men smiled, waved and turned back to their pets.

“Do not try so hard,” D’Scover told him as he once more resumed his long stride. “I find that people do not look at youngsters very much and so most of those we pass shall only notice me. If you relax, it will be easier for you to keep your substance. Do not worry about what your feet are doing. When was the last time you looked at someone’s feet?”

D’Scover was right about people focusing on him, though. A tall and very pale man wandering around a seaside village on a crisp February day with only a light jacket to keep him warm and holding in front of him a glowing blue ball that seemed to pulse is an uncommon sight even in the more artistic parts of Cornwall. All eyes seemed to be on D’Scover and Adam could concentrate on making sure his own legs did not slip into the ground and he didn’t accidentally pass through something instead of around it. Once or twice he failed to notice a bollard or a particularly high kerb and his foot (and in one instance a whole leg) passed straight through it.

Finally they reached the outskirts of the village. They had walked along the coast road and the sea stretched out like a blue slate towards the horizon on their right. The land now banked upwards, but Adam found this no easier than downhill walking; it was all much more difficult than he had imagined it would be and he was finding holding his substance enormously difficult. He had to concentrate hard as he walked down the road and was relieved when the buildings around became fewer and fewer until they were eventually on little more than a country track.

“Have we got much further to go?” Adam called out.

D’Scover turned towards him and Adam could see that the ball was now throbbing to a rapid beat and the mist inside was furiously swirling about like a tiny but very angry sea.

“Wow,” he grinned, “guess not!”

D’Scover stopped outside a large wooden gate that had been painted in many different colours a long time ago. The paint now scabbed over the surface and fell to the floor as he reached out to touch it. The sign hanging loosely from the top bar said FREEDOM FARM.

“I know this place,” Adam told him. “They ran a kind of summer play scheme for kids on holiday – arts and crafts, that kind of thing; one of my crappy foster parents brought me here when I was about six. It’s run by a couple of old hippies, some kind of commune, everything equal and all that. The locals think they’re a bit of a joke; d’you reckon the girl is here?”

“I know that someone here can assist us,” D’Scover said, swinging the gate wide.

The path to the farm was little more than a dirt track and Adam noticed D’Scover no longer bothered to walk over the ruts and instead wafted through them. They had both been holding intense substance for over four hours and Adam was finding it increasingly difficult to appear solid. D’Scover took small short cuts – like wafting through the ruts – and this enabled him to last much longer.

Adam felt as though he was growing more diaphanous and ghostly with each passing minute and he knew it would not be much longer before he had to admit defeat and Disperse. In the safe confines of D’Scover’s office he had been able to hold his form for much longer, but no one living could see him there and so he did not have to pay such attention to detail. Out here in public a transparent hand or missing foot would give the game away. The thought of having to hang on while D’Scover explained it all to the person who was going to help them was terrifying.

“How will we explain to them?” Adam asked.

“We should not have to,” D’Scover replied enigmatically.

“What?”

But there was no time for a reply; ahead of them a young girl of about Adam’s age was running up the track towards them. She stumbled in her haste and her long, streaky brown hair fell over her face as she regained her balance. As she ran, she glanced over her shoulder occasionally to where a tall, willowy woman slowly followed. She called out something to the woman, but the sound was lost to the breeze.

“It’s her!” Adam gasped as his stomach seemed to flip. “She’s the witch from those memories, the Hypnagogias. How’s that possible? How can she look exactly the same?”

“As I suspected,” D’Scover answered somewhat smugly, “her spirit is indeed carried forward.”

He strode on to meet her, but Adam, fearful of losing substance in front of the girl from his dreams, held back for a moment. She reached D’Scover and, gasping for breath, stopped in front of him.

“Follow my lead,” she panted. “I know more or less why you’re here, but we have to do this carefully. Just go along with whatever I say.”

“Of course,” D’Scover replied, unfazed by the whole scene.

“What are your names?” she gabbled quickly.

“I am D’Scover and this is Adam,” he said.

“Good, I’m Edie. Right – no time for anything else, here goes.”

The woman had arrived at their little gathering and smiled a broad grin, slipping her arm round Edie’s shoulders.

“Moon,” Edie said to the woman, “This is Mister D’Scover and this is my friend from school, Adam. Mister D’Scover is the teacher who’s going to escort us to London, for the Environmental Writing Festival. The one I told you about, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Moon replied. “Eden told us that her teacher would call, but she never said you were so . . .” She gave him a cautious smile as she broke off mid-sentence. “Anyway, will you come up to the house, Mister D’Scover? You must be terribly thirsty after your long journey.”

“I am afraid I have very little time, Mrs . . .?”

“Call me Moon, everyone does. Surnames bind us to others when we should be free to express our individuality, don’t you agree?”

“If you insist,” D’Scover replied with reserve. “I am afraid we have run right out of time as we are quite late anyway and so we will have to ask Edie to hurry with her bag.”

“She’s been ready for two days. I’ve never known anyone as keen to go to school as my daughter. I’m sure I never wanted to, but as I was raised here on this farm, I’ve had very little formal schooling. It’s never done me any harm. Ah well,” she waved her long fingers in a dismissive gesture, “each to their own.” She turned back to the girl. “Edie, will you sort your own stuff out? I have to go to the village. I’ll see you in a week?”

“Yes, shouldn’t be more than a week, should it, Mister D’Scover?” Edie asked.

“A week should be sufficient,” he replied.

“OK, no hassle, see you,” Moon replied, flinging her arms round Edie. “Take it easy in that big city, babe. Don’t go coming back with any mad ideas!” she laughed.

With a brief hug and kiss on top of her head, she separated from Edie and walked on up the track, humming an unrecognisable tune.

“Nice woman,” Adam said, desperate to say something.

“Yeah, bit messed up in the head, and not much of a mother, but she’s what I’ve got,” Edie replied, watching Moon walk out of the gate. “So, how do we get to London?”

“Well, you being so young has rather killed my plans,” D’Scover said.

“I’m not that young,” the girl replied indignantly. “I’m older than I look – I’m fourteen.”

“Nevertheless,” D’Scover replied, “I had hoped you would have a vehicle of some sorts, but we have to use public transport now. You cannot travel alone, it is not safe. Travelling with you will require a lot of energy and I will need to Disperse first, we both will. Do you have somewhere my young friend can rest? This has all been a bit of a strain for him.”

“Sure, there are loads of outbuildings. We can go to the barns by the river; no one uses those at this time of the year.” She flicked her long sun-streaked hair over her shoulder and gestured for them to follow her.

“How does she know about us?” Adam whispered to D’Scover as they followed her across a muddy field towards three rickety wooden buildings.

“Because nothing’s been a surprise for me since I was three,” Edie called out to him without looking back. “We can talk in the barn.”

She heaved open the heavy door and the sound of tiny scuttling animals filled the air for a moment before silence rested on the huge space within. The remains of the sunshine forced its way through the pencil-thin gaps in the wooden panels, casting golden stripes across the hay-strewn floor. Edie walked over to a jumble of hay bales and, climbing up behind them, she kicked two down to form a makeshift seat. Jumping into her resting place, she leaned back and looked at the two misfit characters standing in front of her.

“So, Mister D’Scover, and Adam, what’s your story?” she grinned. “Tell me and I’ll see if it all fits together with what I already know.”

“Would you mind telling us your story first?” D’Scover asked. “We have a lot at stake and must first be sure that you are the person we are looking for.”

“Short version?” Edie queried. D’Scover nodded.

“I’ll do my best.” She took a deep breath. “But it’s not exactly a short story. My full name is Eden Joy Freedom, but everyone calls me Edie. My mum says we’re from a long line of healers, but despite her best efforts, she’s never managed to do anything better than stick a plaster on a cut knee. I’ve known I was different since I taught myself to read when I was three and I always knew what people were going to say before they said it. When I was seven, I had my first full vision. It was dark and violent and it changed my life for ever. I saw my history, my real history. I saw my ancestral past through the eyes of all those who’d carried my life force before me. What was worse was that I could hear what people were thinking. Suddenly I knew the world for what it really was: a dark and dangerous place full of mistrust, deception and brutality. When I came around from it, everything had changed. My whole life changed in one day.

“I became interested in finding out why I was different and so, when I was big enough, I did my own research. What I discovered was that instead of healer, the books said witch. I’m happier with it now, but it took time to get used to. I’ve kind of come to accept it and understand that I’ll never be normal. I’m telepathic and my gift is pretty powerful. I have strong visions – flashes of the future – and that’s how I knew you were coming here. That’s about it really.”

“Can you do spells?” Adam asked.

“Not really,” Edie explained. “Witches are actually linked to nature more than the spirit world. We have a strong bond with the Earth and plants, so our powers are all linked to an understanding of the natural world. We can heal because we understand the properties of the living world. I think it’s why our life spirit has continued. I have some control over the flow of water and I’m able to influence localised weather, move clouds, and make gusts of wind and the like. That’s about it.”

“Sounds like a lot!” Adam was impressed.

“Now,” she said, “what about you two? Short version?”

“The short version, miss, is that we are part of a Brotherhood that has existed for almost five hundred years. We deal with the needs of the recently deceased and we need your help to find out about something that has not happened yet,” D’Scover replied.

“Hmm, that is the short version, isn’t it!?” She leaned forward and stared at Adam. “I think that your friend’s having trouble staying with us,” she told D’Scover.

They both looked at Adam who had almost given up trying to hold his substance and the sunlight was throwing light straight through him.

“We need to work out a way of getting all the way to London and he looks about as substantial as a bride’s veil,” she said, nodding towards Adam. “Is there anything you can do about him?”

“Hey!” Adam snapped. “I’m right here!”

“Well, you could’ve fooled me,” Edie giggled. “We can’t go anywhere with him looking like that, can we? People will see right through him – and I mean that literally!”

“He will require some time to get his strength back, an hour at the least, two would be better,” D’Scover said.

“No problem, you can stay in here if you want to,” she offered. “Do you need to rest too? Moon has gone to visit friends and she has some farmers to talk to so she’ll be gone for the rest of the day.”

“It is not essential for me to rest fully yet, but a little time would help in case of any delays later,” he said. “We must talk first about how to get you to London.”

“I . . . don’t think I can hold on much longer,” Adam interrupted.

“Then you must Disperse and we will call you back when we are ready to leave,” D’Scover said.

“Thanks.” Adam stood back, looking for somewhere to perform the Ritual.

“Don’t worry about me,” Edie said. “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen!”

“OK,” Adam said.

He stood to one side, acutely aware of Edie’s watchful gaze upon him, but he didn’t care; he was only just able to maintain himself. He took a deep breath and, as he exhaled, he became fainter and fainter until he was merely a shadow. Muttering his Dispersal Ritual under his breath, he closed his eyes and the Dispersal took hold. His body became droplets of grey before darkening to red and spinning in a whirling mist, scattering itself to the corners of the barn.

“Wow!” Edie said. “Cool! Can he still hear us?”

“If he wants to,” D’Scover told her, “but he is exhausted so probably not.”

“Does he have to do that often?”

“Every few hours,” D’Scover replied. “We all do.”

“We? You mean you ghosts?” Edie asked.

“We prefer not to be called ghosts; that word has a bad reputation. Ghosts are unskilled and unaware, trapped in the wrong place; we are agents for an organisation called the Brotherhood of Shades, or just Shades, if you prefer.”

“Touchy ghosts, sorry, Shades, just what I need.” She patted the hay next to her. “Sit down and tell me how we’re going to get to London.”

D’Scover walked over to her and, despite his obvious distaste at this informality, sat next to her on the dusty bale.

“I honestly do not know. Is there public transport available?” he asked.

“Only the train. I have some money, so the ticket’s not a problem, but you say I’m not safe? I have to admit I was struck by a very powerful vision of being pursued, so I know what you say is true. You’ll just have to travel with me.”

“Sadly I cannot do that. Travel in the conventional way is not possible. We have to use a computer to travel or . . .” He hesitated. “No, we will have to think of something else.”

“What were you going to say?” Edie frowned.

“I was going to say it might be possible to use a living person to carry me back to London.”

“You want someone to hitchhike inside?”

“Put a little more simply than I would have liked, but that is the basis of it, yes.”

“Why don’t you want to do that?” she asked.

“Because it relies on too many random factors. It would mean finding someone who is travelling alone to London and who will not mind having no recollection of their journey. It is just too risky.”

“How important is it that we get to London?” she asked.

“Good point. It is vital that we get you to my office.”

“Do we have any choice?”

D’Scover thought for a moment. “No,” he answered with reluctance.

“Train it is then. I’ll find you someone who’s going our way when we get to the station. Shouldn’t be too hard. I just have to take a peek inside someone’s head and get someone who’s planning on sleeping the whole way.”

“Can you do that?”

“Sure. Can’t you?”

“We are dead, not telepathic – that is an entirely different thing and clearly why we need you. Without you, our best chance would be to remain in partial Dispersal – the vaporous state you saw Adam in – and hope to hear what we need to hear.”

“Well, I can, so it’s decided. I take it you can walk as far as the station?” she asked.

“We can travel a couple of miles in each direction from where we were first placed.”

“What do you mean?”

“We normally travel these days by computer; it is very convenient, but we can still only move a few miles in each direction once we have arrived. I have learned to travel further, but Adam . . .”

“Is newer to the game?” Edie grinned. “Where did you pop in to?”

“The school building.”

“That’s fine, the train station’s only a stone’s throw from there,” she said. “Do you want to do your ghostly thing before we go?”

“It is called Dispersal, and yes, I would like a couple of hours if that is possible? I will need all of my strength if I am going to occupy someone all the way home,” he explained.

“Sure,” she nodded. “What about Adam?”

“I will have to send him back to the office first.”

“OK, I’ll get my bag sorted and come back in two hours,” Edie said as she stood up to leave. “Oh, one more thing. Who’s watching you?”

“You have sensed that?” D’Scover frowned. “I wondered if you had. My office was searched just before we Hotlined here, but I do not know who it was. I was hoping you would be able to help us with that.”

“No, sorry.” She shook her head. “Whoever’s watching you is very gifted. I sense a presence, but I can’t pin down exactly who it is. I kind of had a feeling that it’s a woman, but it’s so hazy, it’s weird actually. Normally I can tell right away what I need to know, but this has got kind of fuzzy, unclear.”

“What do you think that means?” D’Scover asked.

“It means I can’t help,” she shrugged. “I think they’re blocking me as I’ve tried a number of times to pin them down, but can’t. That means that they’re either a natural who doesn’t know they have the ability to block, or they’re extremely skilled and are doing it deliberately.”

“Either way, secrets are being kept and we do not know by whom.”

“Looks that way,” she agreed. “Anyway, you’d better have your rest, dispersing thing. I’ve got packing to do.”

D’Scover waited for Edie to leave and looked around the empty barn. Wisps of straw drifted in the air and, in the silence, small creatures began to relax and scuttle from their hiding places once more. He stood still as a mouse ran through his foot and across the floor. Raising his palms upwards, he began to give himself up to his Dispersal. Within a matter of seconds, he started to break up into deep grey globules that swirled in the dying fragments of sunshine before shattering into the air, causing the dust to whirl about in the space where he once stood.

From her viewpoint just outside a loose panel in the side wall of the barn, Edie watched him vanish before turning and running back towards the farmhouse with a huge grin on her face.