Chapter 9 #3
‘John’ came up the stairs not particularly fast and muttering.
He passed right through all of us as we headed downwards and I could have sworn I heard him say ‘righteous oaf’ as he went.
I would have inserted a few more epithets in there, but I was too relieved to be unmolested.
We went back to our dingy cellar, where I unwound the blanket from my head and collapsed on a stool.
The others left us alone. Maybe they didn’t want to have to face Lachlan, who was looking grim-faced. He lit a candle. ‘That’s it for that idea, then,’ he said, pushing the candle onto the middle of the table between us. ‘I really did think I’d got it.’
‘Got what?’ I was wriggling back into my jeans under cover of the skirt and the table. It was way too breezy for a shift and a skirt and I had no idea how all the other women weren’t freezing.
‘Why we’re here.’ He lowered his voice with a glance towards the other three. ‘I was so sure that you were here to talk to the earl, either to get or give some information.’
‘What kind of information though?’ I paused in the middle of putting my boots back on to watch his face through the flame. His stubbled cheeks were highlighted by the flickering light and his eyes looked enormous. The rest of his face was planes and angles, all of which looked depressed.
‘I’m not sure. Something that I know, something that could be important to him, with you to pass the information on was where I was coming to, but if he can’t see you either, that’s going to be tricky.
So, maybe it’s not that. But if not, then what?
’ He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe this really isn’t anything to do with either of us.
Any of us. Perhaps we are all here by accident. ’ He shook his head.
‘It’s weird though.’ I began picking at the table.
It was so roughly hewn that it was only one stage removed from the actual tree it had been.
‘Look. We can touch the table.’ I rapped it with my knuckles to illustrate my point.
‘We can touch everything that isn’t alive.
We can open doors, we can pick things up…
but we can’t touch, be touched or be seen. ’
‘Your point?’ Lachlan leaned forward now so we were almost nose to nose over the candle.
‘If we’re not here – because nobody can see us – then how come we have to eat and wee and the animals know we’re here?’
He gave me an angled-head look that seemed to be thoughtful. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said slowly. ‘We’re in a kind of between state.’
‘And… and—’ I warmed to my theme ‘—there must be a reason for it, surely? Or, not a reason, but a solution? I mean, maybe we could write a note to the earl? Get into that room and find some paper and a pen and write what we need him to know? When we find out what that is, obviously.’
‘Oh, now there’s a good thought.’ Lachlan was still assessing me. ‘Maybe it’s not about us, it’s about what we know. We need to work out what we need to say first and then find a way to get the information to him.’
‘Yes.’
‘Could be trickier than we think.’ Lachlan was looking at my hands now; I was still picking at the table. ‘They don’t leave pens and ink lying around. It’s not like at home where there’s a biro in every drawer – here you have to make your own ink and use quill pens.’
‘Oh,’ I said, deflated.
‘No, no, it was a good thought. But maybe some other way?’ He laid a hand over mine, stopping me from shredding my nails on the unfinished wood surface. ‘We could carve the message into wood? Or stone?’
‘Like the Ten Commandments?’ I felt better again. I was having ideas.
‘Why not? There’s plenty of both about, and we can steal a knife. Maybe we could use a sword?’
We stopped talking, suddenly aware that the other three had also stopped their conversations and were listening in.
‘You want to write the Ten Commandments?’ David asked, clearly baffled.
‘Something like that.’ Lachlan grinned at me and then winked.
‘Because Pax can’t prostitute herself?’ David went on.
‘If there’s ever a prize for Weird Conversational Topics, you two are in with a fighting chance of first prize,’ Mal said. ‘I want you to know that.’
I absolutely did not know what to say to that and Lachlan was clearly also similarly speechless.
David saved us all by suggesting that we have something to eat before the cheese set and the meat wandered off, so we all settled into an odd kind of domesticity, which enabled me to finish getting my twenty-first-century clothes back on.
Lachlan seemed happier now, as though having given ourselves some kind of purpose gave him focus.
As though he were personally in charge of getting us back.
He seemed to need to be having ideas and coming to conclusions – maybe it was a side effect of lecturing in history?
Sifting through available information and coming to conclusions must be part of the job, I thought, watching him help David tear the thick-crusted bread into manageable chunks.
Then I decided I was way too invested in Lachlan and went to help Mal with the fire.