Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [72]
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Daylight woke me. As the fog of sleep cleared I had a vague sense that something dreadful had happened or was about to happen. I half raised myself and saw Maunder’s huge body slumped on the floor beside the bed. A swirl of confused thoughts filled my head. I was back in my own body! But my body was dead and sealed in the cave. I should be Maunder – but now Maunder appeared dead! My body felt familiar, yet unfamiliar, lighter, yet still a perfect match for my spirit. On my wrist was the bracelet – but it was loose now – I could slide it on and off. Gradually my careering mind slowed and steadied. I was Una – and I was Rhiannon. My stricken spirit and her dying body had been drawn to each other, had merged and become one. Perhaps, we always were one. Born of the same cell, we became two halves of the same self. I let the realisation take hold, then closed my eyes and searched for her spirit. Like an entity of pure joy I found her revelling in the intoxicating freedom of her life in the ocean. At once I was certain of two things: that she would never come back and, nevertheless, I would always wait for her. I wept. And when I had finished, I dried my eyes and swore I would never weep again.
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Maunder’s body was dead – stone dead. It took me an hour to drag it outside and down to Mrs Ball’s herb garden. It took a further four hours to dig a hole big enough to bury it behind the sage bush. That done, I returned to the cottage to await Mrs Ball’s return.
Mrs Ball did not return for two days and when she did it was with the excise men of the Plymouth garrison. She was astonished to find Una (as she believed me to be) recovered. I told her and the men of the garrison that Maunder had left me for dead and was probably miles away by now. A search was mounted but, of course, he was never found. Maunder’s followers were rounded up and marched to Plymouth, where many were hanged when the Honourable Robert Stapleton, seeing which way the wind was blowing, informed against them. The rest were transported to Australia.
Once they had gone, I searched the abandoned hovels for the plunder from the cave. Not for myself, I wanted no part of their booty, but I did not want it to fall into Stapleton’s hands. I took everything of value to the one place I thought he would never look, the top of Devil’s Rock, where wind and weather had carved out a deep crevasse. It took three nights to haul it all up there but there was no one to disturb me. And when I was satisfied I would find no more, I filled the remainder of the hole with loose stones and built a cairn on top.
One piece I did keep, a locket my father had given to my mother the Christmas before our departure from Wales. The two miniatures it contained were much damaged by salt water but I could still make out my dear parents’ faces. It is all I have to remind me that I once had love and happiness.
Drinking and gambling soon reduced Stapleton to penury and the estate was sold to cover his debts. The new owners had no enthusiasm for farming the fields around the Orme and so we were allowed to remain in the old cottage where I cared for Mrs Ball until she passed away.
After the old woman died, I could not bear to remain alone in the cottage. I left and took work where I could get it in the great houses of Devon and Cornwall. Ten years passed, then twenty and thirty but, as the years went by, I found I grew no older. Others grew up, had children, raised families, aged and passed on, but year after year my sixteen-year-old face stared back at me from every mirror. At first I thought it a blessing to always have my youth, but I soon learnt it was a curse. If I remained in one place for any great length of time, people would