The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [95]
‘Sssh,’ he whispered. ‘I know what you’re thinking, now, Heartbreaker, when we breathe together like this…You want this to go on for ever, and it will, so long as we’re in the vortex, but I don’t want to take you all the way in. It’d be too much for you yet.’
The chill of evening air slipped between us as he lifted himself off the stone. Drowsily I watched him moving round it, whispering again to the four quarters. I tipped my head back and looked upwards, with a deep sense of peace. The moon lifted itself above the branches. It was no longer screaming: now it smiled.
Mr Cromley came back and sat on the stone. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Marvellous,’ I said. ‘What did you do to me?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘You did it all yourself. Remember, what you will shall be.’
He helped me sit upright. I’d expected to feel woozy, but I was amazingly clear-headed. I could’ve done anything. Miss Chapman? She thought she was something, but if she treated me like a slut again…
‘Take it easy,’ said Mr Cromley. ‘You’ve only had a taster.’
‘Did your uncle teach you that?’
‘Yes, but it’s only basic technique. If we went further…’
‘Is this why you came to Avebury?’
He shook his head. ‘An experienced ritualist can act anywhere. It gives me a thrill, that’s all, to use the energies of once-sacred places: they can be very powerful. I’m sure there’s something here, something the circle-builders left behind. Maybe something they were afraid to take with them. Next time…’ But then he shook his head. ‘Perhaps not. You’re very young.’
‘You told me that back then, I’d have been an old married woman by now.’
He laughed. ‘What I meant was that next time we’d be going further in all sorts of ways. It’s customary to…you know. Have sex. It feeds the energies in the circle.’
Silence hung between us. There was a pulse beating between my legs. I took his hand. ‘Feel that.’
His fingers slid over the silky surface of my knickers. He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, ‘Maybe I could persuade Alec to be there as well. He has a keen interest in ritual magic’
Seemed to me the night was full of whispers as he moved down the length of the stone.
CHAPTER 23
Steve’s eyes, deep black holes containing the immensity of all space, are haunting my sleep again. I mention it casually to John while he works on my feet.
‘I keep telling you,’ he says, ‘belief’s a powerful thing. Creates crop circles, starts wars.’ He pulls on my toes, one by one, rotating them in their sockets. ‘Way I see it, all of you in the helicopter that afternoon were in the space between worlds. One of you died in the vortex, the rest came out. Whether that’s mysticism or psychology, I don’t give a flick. Nobody’s unchanged after an experience like that.’
As I leave his cottage, he presses something into my hand. A purple crystal.
‘What’s this for?’
Amethyst. Helps you sleep. Also very powerful protection, if you think you’re under psychic attack.’
‘Don’t be daft. Who’d be attacking me?’ I try for a light, sceptical laugh.
‘You tell me.’
Utter, utter crap.
It comes as a shock to find a letter at home, forwarded from London. It’s from Steve’s father, accusing me of putting the crash footage on YouTube.
I storm down to Big Avebury to buy a stamp and post my reply, an indignant rebuttal pointing out that as I no longer work for Mannix TV I don’t have access to their video. The post office is already shut for the day.
I sit on a bench in the churchyard to calm down. It’s a balmy evening, warm for late April. A lawn mower buzzes from one of the gardens off the high street, and the scent of cut grass fills the air. A man on the opposite side of the road is trying to unload