Doctor Illuminatus Read online

  “Walk down the old bridge,” the young man said. “It ain’t deep where the bridge’s fell in.”

  Collecting up his fishing gear, Tim headed along the bank. As he neared the bridge piers, he saw that the water between them was shallow where large slabs of masonry had formed a natural weir.

  “Can yer bring it over?” the young man asked, waving one of his sandaled feet in the air. “I ain’t got me boots on.” He looked indifferently at the stone bridge abutments. “Been thinkin’ of putting a plank across but, well, you know . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Leaving his rod and landing net on the bank, Tim picked the trout up, sliding his fingers into its gills, and waded across the river. The current in the center was quick and strong where it ran over the rubble of the bridge but, as the water was shallow, it posed him no problem.

  “Here you are.” Tim held the fish out. “It’s quite heavy.”

  The young man took it, smiled and said, “I’ve got the money up in the camp. C’mon up and I’ll pay yer.”

  For a moment, Tim hesitated. How many times, he thought, had he been warned against going off with strangers? His parents, his teachers, the crime prevention officer visiting his school had all pressed home the maxim — Don’t say hello: just go. Yet this young man seemed innocuous enough: it wasn’t as if he was weird or anything, driving an unmarked van and holding out a bag of sweets or offering him a lift home. He was, Tim considered, just a hippy who lived in the woods and, if the worst came to the worst, he could always leg it. Rawne Barton was less than a half a mile away, even if it was on the other side of the river.

  Keeping his wits about him, Tim followed the young man along a well-beaten path that wound through the woods in the direction of the quarry face. As they went, he noted landmarks along the way — a rock with a streak of quartz in it, a fallen log, a stand of hazel with the nuts just beginning to swell. If he did have to make a run for it, this would be the way to go.

  After a hundred meters or so, the path rounded a bend and opened out into a clearing at the foot of the quarry cliff. There, between massive boulders, were several tents, a distinctly unroadworthy single-decker bus and an equally derelict red van that had, judging by the vague outline of a crown on the side, once been a Royal Mail delivery vehicle. Sitting around a campfire were three other men, two young women dressed in long blouses and skirts to their ankles, and a stark-naked toddler of about two. A nondescript mongrel, which was dozing on its side by the fire, got up on their approach, barked twice in a desultory fashion, wagged its tail half-heartedly, had a good scratch and lay down again.

  “Don’t mind Woof,” said the young man. “Got less bite than bark ’n’ not much o’ that, neither.” He held the fish up. “The boy caught it.” He faced Tim. “They call me Splice. You got a name?”

  Although he was loath to identify himself to these strangers, Tim gave his name.

  “Right, Tim. Take a seat while I get the money.” Splice handed the fish to one of the women and walked off in the direction of the bus. Tim sat down on the nearest boulder to the path, the better to make his escape.

  “My name’s Filomena,” said the young woman with the fish, smiling at him. “And this,” she went around the circle of seated hippies, “is Gazer, Reedy, Abby, Dark Horse and Starlight. She’s Abby’s little girl. We’re all Moonbeamers.”

  “What are Moonbeamers?” Tim asked.

  “We are members of the Moonbeam tribe,” replied Reedy, a thin man wearing leather trousers and a loose shirt, who looked a few years older than the others. “We are guardians of the moonbeams.”

  “What he means,” explained Gazer, who had a close-shaven head and a silver earring in the shape of a crescent moon hanging from his left lobe, “is that we belong to an organization of those who ride moonbeams.”

  “Right,” Tim said, thinking to himself that they only rode moonbeams when they were stoned out of their minds.

  Splice appeared from the door of the bus and, approaching the fire, flicked a coin to Tim, who caught it.

  “Thank you,” he said, rising to his feet and pocketing the coin.

  “You’re welcome to hang loose for a bit,” Dark Horse remarked.

  “I’d best be getting back,” Tim replied, searching for a plausible excuse to leave and conveniently finding it. “I left my fishing rod on the riverbank.”

  “As you like,” commented Dark Horse. “Do as you will is the law of the Lord.”

  “You are welcome here any time you wish,” said Filomena, running a sharp, thin-bladed knife down the belly of the fish. Its intestines and carrot-colored roe spilled out onto the earth at her feet.

  “Thank you,” Tim said again, and he set off down the path.

  As he went, he felt their eyes staring at his retreating back. Reaching the bend in the path, he turned and waved, but all he could see was the toddler staggering after him, the fish’s guts hanging from her outstretched hands.

  Once she had trimmed the grass and begun to tidy up the clearing on the knoll, Pip came to wonder at the amazing diversity of the plants it contained. She had taken her copy of Culpeper’s Herbal with her and enjoyed identifying the various species that seemed to be growing in distinct plots; none encroached upon the next by more than a matter of centimeters. The perennials were well established, but the annuals and biennials that must have naturally re-seeded themselves had seemingly done so within strictly defined plots, something Pip had never seen before. It was almost as if, even though Sebastian’s uncle was long since dead, someone had still been tending to their planting and sowing. Many of the plants Pip already knew without having to look them up — dog mercury, pennyroyal and the figwort which Sebastian had pointed out — but others she had never seen except in books: heart-of-the-earth, fumitory, water pimpernel, galingale and viper’s bugloss which had the most exquisite, orchid-like flowers she had ever seen on a wild British plant.

  It was idyllic being in the copse. Birds sang and flew over her head or darted from branch to branch. A blackbird with jet plumage and an orange beak that was so bright it looked as if it was made of polished amber sat on a bough in the turkey oak and sang sweetly for minutes at a time, its tune rising and falling, not one sequence of notes repeated. Butterflies and bees visited the flowers and, when she turned over a stone, an almost black toad puffed itself up as if in portly indignation and waddled off to find another safe hiding place. The air filled with the scent of blossom and, when she brushed against an aromatic leaf, its perfume wafted over her. The only sound or sight of any other human was Tim briefly calling out as he passed on his way up the river and, later, when she spied him in the distance talking to someone on the other bank.

  Although Sebastian had said as much, she felt utterly safe on the knoll. The woods, like woodland anywhere, had a timeless quality to them.

  For nearly two hours Pip worked with her attention undivided, and by five o’clock she felt she had done as much as she dared. Conscious that this place was not only special but also of vital importance to Sebastian, she was reluctant to do too much without his agreement. Standing at the edge of the clearing, she surveyed what she had achieved. The passageways through the plants were now tidy and well defined, the grass short. Where surrounding trees had started to grow over plants at the clearing’s edge, they were cut back. Satisfied that she had achieved all she had set out to, and placing the herbal and gardening tools in her basket, Pip set off for the house.

  Just as she was about to lift up the strand of barbed wire at the edge of the wood, Pip had the uneasy feeling that someone — or something — was watching her. She paused, still partially hidden in the shade of the copse.

  Pip could see as far as the coach house, where she could just make out Tim turning the corner, his rod and landing net over his shoulder. She watched him disappear and began to scan the field. It was empty, no other person in sight. Yet, she thought, the grass was long — anyone could be crouching in it. Backtracking a short way, she came upon a sycamore tree
. The lowest boughs were within reach so she dropped her basket and swung herself up, climbing from branch to branch to a height of about five meters. From this vantage point, she could see down into the meadow. Nothing was concealed anywhere in the grass.

  Collecting her basket, Pip left the copse and set off across the field, keeping to the center as much as possible, as far away as she was able from the hedges. If, she reasoned, someone were to come after her, she would see them in good time and take to her heels.

  As she reached the middle of the field, Pip felt confident — then it occurred to her. At this point she was the farthest from either the safety of the house or that of the copse. Suddenly, she felt nervous and glanced over her shoulder.

  Along the edge of the copse, a faint mist was rising from the grass. It was not gray, as if it were water vapor or smoke, but seemed to be marbled with many different, indefinable colors. It hovered for a moment, then began to drift in her direction.

  She started to walk quickly towards the house, not daring to look back, not wanting to risk breaking into a run for fear of tripping and falling.

  Suddenly, Pip was struck a glancing blow on the top of her head. Her hair was firmly tugged. Something sharp hit her scalp. Dropping her basket, she instinctively raised her arms to defend herself. A moment passed, then something soft brushed her hands. She looked up. It was the blackbird.

  Banking high above her, it turned again and dived, its twig-like feet coming at her with its talons spread like a bird of prey’s. Snatching at her hair, it tore a tuft free, rising into the air, shrilling its pink-pink-pink alarm call.

  Casting all caution aside, Pip started to run. But the bird did not repeat its attack. Instead, it flew in circles in the sky above her.

  Pip had not gone ten steps when her foot was snagged by a tussock of tangled grass. She stumbled, but kept going.

  In her ears, there grew a hissing noise. At first she thought it was the sound of the long grass brushing against her jeans, but it increased in volume and pitch until it seemed to fill her head.

  Out of the blue, the air was filled with a maelstrom of insects — butterflies, bees, gnats, grasshoppers, mosquitoes, dragonflies, wasps, lacewings and shield bugs. They beat against her face, crawled over her neck, tangled themselves in her hair and sought to get in her mouth, nostrils and ears. A large beetle at least two centimeters long hit her hard in the throat and fell inside her T-shirt. She could feel its spiny legs scrabbling for purchase on her flesh, the plates of its carapace trying to close over its wings.

  Screaming, Pip ran headlong towards the coach house, which was now just a blur through the insect blizzard. She flailed her arms about her, but in vain. Still they came, their wings obscenely stroking her, their legs sickeningly scratching at her skin. When they started to bite and sting, Pip slapped at herself, feeling their tiny bodies explode to release a putrid stink of insect blood and bile.

  Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the insect swarm simply vanished. Pip found herself at the corner of the coach house, her head reeling, her fingers sticky and the beetle moving inside her clothing.

  Tearing her T-shirt out of her jeans, she held it taut away from her body. The insect tumbled heavily onto the ground at her feet, its reddish-brown wing cases polished, the rear end of its abdomen grotesquely pointed, its thorax black and furry-looking with antennae like minuscule fans.

  Lifting her foot, Pip was about to stomp on the creature when it opened its wing cases and with a loud buzzing clumsily took off to fly over the coach house and out of sight.

  Still shaking, Pip went to the garden tap by the stables and rinsed the remains of the insects from her hair, face and arms.

  “Insects!”

  “Yes,” Pip said, annoyed at Tim’s reaction. “Insects. Every insect you could name.”

  “All together?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “So dragonflies that usually eat other insects, and wasps that often attack bumblebees, were all flying in the same cloud?”

  “What else do you want me to say? Yes!”

  “Makes no sense,” Tim said.

  “I don’t care if it makes sense or not. They did it. Maybe it was like when there’s a forest fire and the lions run with the antelopes . . .”

  “You saw a fire?” Tim asked sarcastically.

  Pip reached for her T-shirt where it lay over her dressing-table seat. “Here!” She tossed it over to her brother. It was besmirched with spots and smears of green, yellow and dull crimson. “Look at the stains! You see a felt-tip pen?” she said, returning his sarcasm. “That’s designer insect.”

  “OK!” Tim replied. “It happened. But why? What did you do? I mean, if you kick over a beehive, the bees gang up and go for you. Or a wasp nest. But every insect . . .”

  “And the blackbird,” Pip reminded him. “That came straight at me. A laser-guided bomb wouldn’t have been more accurate. And it tore a chunk of my hair out.”

  Tim grinned and said, “Don’t worry, it doesn’t show.” He picked up the T-shirt and sniffed at it. “Like the designer insect perfume.” He held the garment against himself. “We could start a whole new fashion trend with this. The squashed-insect motif. Armani and Gucci, here we come.”

  Pip, who was beginning to lose her temper with Tim, saw the funny side and laughed.

  “The thing is,” Tim went on, “why you?” Shrugging, Pip said, “I don’t know.”

  “You say you were in the copse for at least two hours.”

  “At least. I was already there when you went by with your rod, and later on I saw you talking to someone across the river. Who was that? Another fisherman?”

  “No. A hippy,” Tim replied. “There’s a camp in the woods there. Well, three tents, an old bus and a van. Four men, two women, a flea-ridden mutt and a snotty little kid. They bought a big trout I landed.” He paused, then went on, “Did you do anything in the clearing that might have disturbed the insects?”

  “Like what? All I did was a bit of pruning and cutting. Nothing bothered me. There were insects there — butterflies and bees on the flowers, grasshoppers, ants. A blackbird singing . . .”

  She stopped in mid-sentence and looked at Tim. He looked at her.

  “‘You will be safe here because de Loudéac cannot enter this place,’ ” they chorused.

  “But the minute you step outside that barbed wire, you’re fair game,” Tim said. “And you say the insects vanished the minute you reached the coach house?”

  “Yes.”

  “That must mean that the house and its surroundings are safe too. Maybe because Sebastian lives here. Maybe his father put a protective spell on the place. Whatever.”

  “What about the stinging butterfly?” asked Pip, remembering the insect that had bitten her on her first night at Rawne Barton.

  For a moment, Tim was silent.

  “Maybe,” he said at length, “it wasn’t a butterfly. Maybe that was a genuine mistake . . .”

  “It was a butterfly!” Pip snapped. “And I was in the garden. Close to the house.”

  Tim tried to explain it away. “Maybe it only looked like a butterfly. Some insects mimic others for their own protection. Knowledge gained courtesy of the National Geographic channel.”

  “Tim! It sucked my blood.”

  “But you said the bite soon vanished. Maybe it wasn’t a bite. Maybe it was an allergic reaction. Some caterpillars bring you out in a rash, so . . .”

  “National Geographic?” Pip asked, ironically.

  “No. That was from watching the BBC Natural History Unit.”

  Pip looked out of her bedroom window. The evening was drawing in. From downstairs the mouth-watering aroma of roast chicken wafted up.

  “I’ve just thought,” Pip said with a tremble in her voice, turning from the window, “if the wood and the house are safe, that means that everywhere else is un-safe.”

  “Not necessarily,” Tim replied. “What about this. You’ve only been attacked when you�
�ve been alone. Nothing’s happened when I have been around. What’s more, if the insects attacked you in the field, why didn’t they attack me too? I was alone.”

  “Until you met the Weirdos of Quarry Wood. Maybe you met the hippy just as the insects were gathering to attack you, but you didn’t notice because you were concentrating on your fishing.”

  “No,” Tim said. “I’d’ve noticed.” He stood up. “We’d better go down. Supper must be about on the table.” He moved to the door and held it open for his sister to go ahead of him.

  “So polite!” she remarked sardonically.

  “Not at all,” Tim answered. “If there’s a python on the stairs, it’ll get you first.”

  Pip gave her brother a filthy look.

  “Sorry!” he apologized. “But seriously, I think from now on you don’t go anywhere outside the immediate vicinity of the house unless you’re accompanied by someone. Me. Mum or Dad. Sebastian. Whoever. Agreed?”

  Pip nodded. This was not, she thought, turning into the kind of summer she had planned.

  The following day, the summer weather that had lasted since before the house move finally broke, replaced by a day of somber skies and squally showers. Pip spent the morning in her room, listening to CDs and reading a file of printouts Tim had downloaded from an Internet site. It had lots of information about the alchemical properties and uses of herbs and gemstones.

  It was, she discovered, amazing how magical attributes were credited to so many plants and minerals. Cloves could be used to exorcise spirits, a common broom protected against evil, the ash tree resisted magical forces and purslane aided in the detection of illusions. As for minerals, amber could make a woman confess her sins, diamonds would go dark in the presence of guilt or evil, while a lotion of amethyst guarded against witchcraft.

  Thumbing through the pages, a small but indistinct picture caught her eye. Removing the page from the file, she left her room and went into Tim’s. He was bending over the keyboard of his computer with a joystick to one side, engrossed in Flight Simulator, a not uncommon sight.