As they walked back to the Wallace Wong Building, Phyllis and Clement were lost in thought. Daisy, trotting along on her leash, was lost in the smells in the gutter.
After a few blocks Phyllis said, ‘Y’know, if Sturdy did bring down the Mantle, it’d be really catastrophic.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Clem. ‘It’d be the end of the gaming world. I’d never be able to hook up with anyone online. Mum’d love that . . . there’d be more time for xylophone practice. Yergh.’
‘It’d be a disaster. Not just for games. Imagine how much information’s stored all over the world, electronically. There’d be government files and military secrets and spy networks . . . they’d all go down. And the hospitals—oh, Clem, all the medical technology to help sick people would be dashed, even lost. People will die!’
‘Planes will fall out of the skies, Phyll, if they lose their navigation instruments.’ Clement started feeling sick in the pit of his stomach.
‘And what about all the social networks? Gee, you know those kids at school who think their lives will end if they can’t get onto Facebook or Twitter? What’ll they do?’
Clement frowned. ‘Mum told me she read there’re people who never talk to other people—face to face, I mean—but only have contact through the net. They’d feel like their world had been destroyed.’
A big sadness swept over Phyllis. ‘It’d be the lonely ones who’d really feel it. If that’s all they’ve got, and it gets taken . . .’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Clement. ‘And the zombie fighters . . .’
They turned the corner into Phyllis’s street. As they approached the front stairs of the Wallace Wong Building, Phyllis said, ‘I hope we can get Myrddin to come.’
‘I hope we can find him again,’ said Clement.
They went up the stairs and into the building.
From across the street, the woman watching made an entry in her notebook. Then she pulled up the collar of her coat and remained there, blending into the chilly, darkening, strangely quiet evening.
‘Okay,’ said Phyllis, settling Daisy into her bag. ‘You ready, Clemeleon Dude?’
‘Just a sec.’ Clement was crouched on the floor with his back to her, his backpack in front of him. She smelt spirit gum. ‘There,’ Clement said. He packed his makeup box into the backpack, stood and hoisted the pack over his shoulders.
Phyllis looked at him with his huge handlebar moustache—he’d removed his ginger goatee. She’d given up asking questions about his get-ups.
‘It’s the same one I wore when we went there last time. Just so he’ll recognise me.’
Phyllis sighed. ‘Time to go.’
‘Ready when you are.’
Daisy scrabbled about in the bag as Phyllis took out her Sphere of Greater Temposity. Phyllis patted Daisy back into comfort, then closed the top of the bag. She directed her gaze to the upper reaches of the stairs and concentrated on one thing and one thing alone.
This time the Pocket almost popped into view. Phyllis blinked—she’d never seen a TimePocket manifest so quickly. Just as it had done when she, Clem and Daisy had gone to Calanais the first time, the edges of the Pocket glinted with a pulsating pattern of yellow sparkles, and its centre appeared dark and velvety.
‘Looks like an Anvugheon,’ Phyllis said, realising that different sorts of Pockets emerged at different times on her basement stairs. ‘Which means we won’t be going too far back in Time.’
‘And for that I’m grateful,’ Clement said. ‘Let’s just get there and get out, and bring Mr Myrddin back.’
‘Into position,’ Phyllis told him.
He went behind her and grabbed hold of the edge of her black coat. ‘Positioned,’ he confirmed.
She put the Sphere to her mouth. Softly she whispered, ‘Sianalac, sianalac, sianalac.’ And, like a rocket, she rushed with Clement up the stairs into the faint but steady breeze.
‘Did you bring a flashlight?’ asked Clem.
‘Yep, just a moment.’ Phyllis fumbled about in the darkness. She felt Daisy inside her bag, licking her hand. ‘Here.’ Phyllis handed Clement the flashlight, and took Daisy out, depositing her on the grass. Then she got out her Date Determinator.
‘I wonder what time it is,’ muttered Clement, turning the light on and casting the beam across the glistening Standing Stones of Calanais. Daisy was already off on a sniff-patrol through the long grass.
Phyllis turned on the Date Determinator and waited while the numbers spun round, whizzing and clicking. When they stopped, and the yellow and emerald lights glowed, she said, ‘It’s only two days ago.’
‘I meant what time of night,’ said Clement.
She looked at her watch and shook her head. ‘Stopped,’ she told him. ‘But I’d say it’s late.’
‘Ah well.’ He jiggled his backpack across his shoulders and pointed the flashlight towards the standing stones. ‘C’mon, we’ve got some stairs to find.’ With a determined stride, he set off through the revolving iron gate into the grounds of Calanais, heading to the well.
Phyllis followed, being careful not to stumble in the dark. A pale moon peeked around a moving bank of clouds, and every now and then the countryside grew a little brighter—as if a dull lamp had been cast across it—before retreating once more into the thick darkness.
As she came to the centre of the stones, and as she remembered the stairs that had emerged in the pool, she thought how this was the only time that she’d been able to see a Pocket from the top. Every other time she’d Transited, she’d approached the Pocket from below. Maybe it’s Myrddin’s doing. Or maybe it’s because of the water that it’s possible to go down into the Pocket . . .
Daisy, still sniffing with her snout to the ground, was close at Phyllis’s heels.
Clement stood by the small pool’s edge, near the tallest monolith. Whenever the moon slid out from behind the clouds, the towering stones cast faint shadows across the dark, almost black, water.
Phyllis sidled up next to him. ‘Hey, look, Clem. See some of the lichen on the stones? It’s glowing.’
Clement saw where Phyllis was running her hand across the soft, springy lichen. ‘Cool,’ he said, lighting up the lichen, then taking the flashlight away again and observing the way it became luminous. ‘It must be from the moon.’
‘Perhaps.’ Phyllis turned her attention to the dark pool.
‘Can you see anything?’ Clement asked after a few minutes.
Daisy sat patiently at the water’s edge.
Phyllis shook her head. ‘Too dark. Don’t shine the light onto the water, though. It reflects back too much.’
‘Okay.’ He turned off the flashlight and waited.
Last time, before the water had drained away to nothing, bubbles had popped up from underneath the surface. Phyllis concentrated hard, willing the bubbles to return.
‘Baaa-aaa-aaaa,’ bleated a sheep, somewhere on the hills. Clement jumped.
Seconds passed, slow, long seconds, stretching like rubber bands that seemed to be pulled out forever. But no bubbles came.
Phyllis squinted into the water. It was too murky, and the surface was too glassy when the moon shone on it, to see anything down there. She tried to detect the outline of stairs, but all she could see was blackness.
‘Anything? Clement asked softly.
She shook her head.
Phyllis urged the water: Bring up the bubbles. Bring them up, and then drain away. Show us the stairs to over seven hundred years ago. Bring forth the watery Pocket . . .
The water lay there, still and unrippled.
Phyllis tried a different tack. She concentrated like she did when she looked for a TimePocket, emptying her mind of everything—every thought and feeling, every memory and snatch of music and glimmer of colour. She mustered up her most intense focus and tried to send a message through the ages, through all of the Time that lay all around her like a slumbering giant . . .
Myrddin, let me come to you. Let us find you. I can help you. I can give you back your Jasper . . .
She sent this message urgently, over and over, strongly, like arrows being fired into the air. She felt herself tingling as she sent out the message; she had never tingled like this before.
And then there was a small pop.
‘Phyll! Look!’
There, on the water’s surface, tiny ripples were spreading.
Daisy cocked her head, watching the water.
Phyllis waited, still tingling, barely breathing. Then, smoothly and silently, another bubble rose up from beneath the murkiness. With another tiny pop it broke the surface and rippled away.
Phyllis’s heart began beating fast. You heard me, she thought. You hear me.
More bubbles came, each of them bigger than the last. Each popped on the surface, growing louder and louder as the bubbles came quicker and quicker.
As before, it was like a cauldron boiling.
‘ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!’ barked Daisy excitedly.
‘We’d better move back,’ Phyllis said. ‘If this is like last time . . .’
She dragged Daisy a few steps back, and Clement stepped away, just as all the water drained speedily down into the depths of Calanais, with a loud squelch and echoing gurgle.
High above, the moon glided out from behind a cloud-ribbon. The lichen on the stones glowed luminously. Down below, glistening green in the pale moonshine, was the stairway.
For a moment, neither Phyllis nor Clement spoke. Daisy whimpered quietly.
Then Clement said, ‘He’s waiting for us, do you think?’
Phyllis gave him her inscrutable smile. ‘Ready?’ she asked.
He twirled the ends of his moustache and poked his glasses up. ‘Most certainly.’
She peered down the stairs. It didn’t take much, this time. Straightaway she saw the faint, shimmering, misty purple lights bordering the Pocket.
‘C’mon,’ Phyllis said. She scooped up Daisy, popped her into the shoulder bag and, with Clem right behind her, descended the stairs.
The envelopation was swift: once again, they were pulled in suddenly, as though they had been grabbed by invisible hands and yanked forward. Once again, they were floating, and the wind was strong and warm. Once again, the Transit only lasted for the merest of seconds.
The high-pitched humming filled Phyllis’s ears and in the next instant she felt firmness beneath her feet. She’d shut her eyes when the wind had picked up, and now she opened them and saw daylight—bright sunshine on the newer-looking stones.
There were the tall wooden platforms Myrddin had built around the stones, and his thatch-roofed, mud-walled house with its ripply-glass windows.
Standing by the main door of the abode was the wizard himself, holding a tall staff crowned by a large, chunky crystal. Corvus the rook perched on his shoulder.
Myrddin swept the folds of his cloak back. ‘I knew you would return,’ he said. ‘I knew you would find me again.’