Chapter
7 – Thursday morning
Rainie
hadn’t slept much. She had been far too upset after her confrontation with George.
On top of that Toby had come home late and George had been very upset with him.
Maybe a little too upset. Rainie understood his tempers had been frayed but
Toby didn’t know that. There had been a row. Rainie was well aware that the harsh
words were meant for her, not her brother and she had felt sorry for him. George
was probably the only person he had never had a row with before. Now she had
woken up far too early and as angry as she was when she’d gone to sleep. She
didn’t really know who she was angry with. Herself for being utterly gullible,
or appearing to be in the eyes of her Grandfather. Angry with George for
keeping all this from her. Angry with
Dheera for being manipulative. Angry with her brother for… just for…. being a
useless brother who never stood up for her when Josie put her down. Rainie
threw the duvet off and left it fall in a heap on the floor, nearly getting her
foot tangled in it and tripping. She felt tears well up but fought against
them. This wasn’t going to get her down. It wouldn’t get the better of her. She
sat down on the floor. “Pull yourself together, Rainie” she encouraged herself.
Let’s play favourite things. She could hear her mother’s voice say. She missed
her mother terribly. Reciting all the good things about life in general and
hers in specific she grabbed her jeans and t-shirt from the floor, where she’d
thrown them yesterday. She hadn’t cared and she still didn’t. Rainie stamped
down the stairs making as much noise as possible. She didn’t have a clue what
time it was, but she hoped it was early and she hoped everyone would wake up
and feel just as angry as she was. She waited at the bottom of the stairs for the
sound of a door opening, for an admonishing reaction. She wanted to yell at
someone badly. When none came she left the house, slamming the door for good
measure. Just like the day before, she pushed her pedals hard, as if it could
get rid of the angry energy taking control of her body. Rainie knew that the sensible
thing was to let go. She just didn’t want to. Anger got things done. Made
people sit up and listen. Stop treating her as a little girl to be handled with
care or manipulated at will. Going to the woods to find her calm was out of the
question now. She didn’t want to run into Dheera.
The
half an hour ride into town had calmed her down considerably. While Rainie was
cycling away from Sunnyside she hadn’t thought of a destination. She just knew
she had to get away from George. It had surprised her. Running off steam really
seemed to work. She waited patiently outside the library for it to open and saw
the line of visitors slowly grow. Who would’ve thought the library such a
popular place on a Thursday morning. She slipped in first, past the lady who
had used three different keys to unlock the doors from the inside. When she had
calmed down she decided to give George the benefit of the doubt, no matter how
far-fetched her story had sounded, and do some research. Rainie politely asked
the middle aged man at the counter for advise on locating old newspaper
articles. He took his time to get out of his seat and walk slowly round to the
front where Rainie was standing, before asking her to show him her library card
and then taking a rectangular plastic orange card from the desk and ordering
her to follow him. Rainie had to bite her tongue not to start yelling at him to
hurry up. Just her luck that she had found the slowest moving man on earth to
show her where to find what she needed to see most. The idea had come to her
when she neared town. She needed an objective view. There were bound the be
newspaper articles about the events that had taken place at the Longbarrow,
after all Stones that keel over after five thousand years attract some
attention. Probably more so in the local papers, than the national ones. She
was bound to find them. “What year do you want to read?” even his speech was
slow Rainie now noticed. The man showed her the filing system, the number codes
surprisingly similar to the one her mum used and how to locate the microfilms.
He showed her how to operate the machine and then finally left her to it.
Rainie felt herself tense up and realised she was a little afraid to find out George’s
story was true. Rainie went to the card box to locate the microfilm she really
needed, feeling only slightly bad about having lied. Took the film from the
drawer and placed it in the machine. She switched the light on and the screen
in front of her lit up. Sliding the handle left and right, up and down Rainie
could scan all the headlines with ease and quickly flick through to the month
of August. Nothing. No even the tiniest, smallest article. Did she have the
month wrong? Rainie wondered. Unlikely, she decided and stood up to find the
film of a different local paper. She did this three times, even checking the
months June, July and September until conceding she wasn’t going to find
anything in the old papers. Rainie felt a little frustrated. How was she going
to check the facts, if there didn’t seem to be any? She suppressed a yawn and
looked at her watch. To her surprise she saw that it had gone one. She
stretched her arms and switched the machine off. She took the orange plastic
card out of its slot and returned it to the front desk. She left her bike where
it was and headed straight for the café diagonally across, where she ordered a
hot chocolate and blueberry muffin before taking place in a comfy chair. She
had chosen her spot carefully. The wall directly behind her and as far away
from a window as possible. She took her
phone out of her pocket. Switched it on and called her mum.
“Hi
sweetheart” The moment she heard her mum’s voice, tears welled up. She blinked
them away quickly. She swallowed and replied “Hi mum. I miss you.” She really
wanted to ask about the missing letters but didn’t want to sound …. “I miss you
too. Did you find the photos for school?”
“Yes,
yes I did.” Rainie was drawing flowers on the table with her finger. As nonchalantly as possible she said “I found
a picture of me and Toby near some standing stones. Do you remember where it
was it taken?” Rainie’s heart beat fast. Silence on the other end of the line,
then her mum asked: “Was that the year George died?”
Rainie
nodded her head and said “yes, I belief so”.
“Then
it must have been nearby. We didn’t leave the county that summer. Let me
think…..” Rainie waited “I remember. You had seen something on TV about
standing stones and were adamant we should visit all the stones. In the end we
only went to the one. Once you had seen them you thought they were quite
boring. But I think the burial chamber freaked you out. You kept asking if
grandad would go to a place like that once he’d died. You were quite upset
about it, so we told you he would be cremated and that calmed you down.”
“I
can’t remember anything about that.” Rainie said.
“Well
you were only four. It’s to be expected.” Mum said reassuringly. “Anything else
you need to know about the picture?”
“The
location of the stones, remember?”
“Oh,
yeah. Right. Let me ask your dad, he’s got a better memory.” Rainie heard her
parents converse in the background. Mum had a habit of putting her hand over
her phone, so she couldn’t hear what was being said.
“He
can’t remember either, but we’ll have a think and I’ll text you as soon as I
know. I have to go now, sweetheart. Love you.”
“Love
you too mum. Bye.”
It
seemed even more unlikely now that anything major had happened at the stones. Her
parents couldn’t even recall the name of the Stones they’d been to. Unless of
course George was correct about the brain wipe. Maybe an internet search would
bring up something. She rummaged in her bag, looking for spare change, but was
disappointed not to find any. The library was out of the question then. Her
only other option was to cycle back home and use the internet there. As long as
she remembered to use the incognito search, her parents would be none the
wiser. Her phoned beeped. Rainie looked at the message from Hannah: Knocked for
you. Where are you? She quickly texted back: Outside Nero’s. You comin? Hannah
replied in a string of emoticons. She smiled. It would be good to spend some
time with her. She didn't have to wait long. After ten minutes a car stopped
just in front of where she was sitting on a bench. She could see Hannah on the
back seat, her mother smiling and waving to Rainie. Hannah got out saying goodbye
to her mum and walked over to Rainie. "What are you up to and please don't
tell me any nonsense, you owe me."
"I
owe you what?" asked Rainie surprised.
"I
just bailed you out big time with your Grandfather" Rainie raised her
eyebrows, clearly puzzled.
Hannah
explained "I went over to Sunnyside earlier to see if you wanted to come
round and go shopping this afternoon.
Lucky for you Toby opened the door and whispered you needed an excuse,
just in time before George came to the door. So I quickly told him that mum had
send me over to tell him that you were at ours and you were having your hair
cut, so he was not to worry. I also asked if you could stay for tea and he said
it was fine." Rainie looked at her friend, mouth open, processing the
rapidly spoken words.
"Did
you have a fight with George?" Hannah asked, having barely paused. Rainie
was grateful for the alibi Hannah handed her, but couldn't possibly tell her
friend the truth. So she stuck with a non-committal "sort of". Hannah
looked at her expectantly, but Rainie wasn't going to give in, instead she
asked "Did grandad say anything else?"
"Not
much, he’s picking you up at seven and then he just went back inside the house,
Toby said you left the house slamming doors clearly upset about
something." Hannah replied. Clearly still prodding for information.
"It's
nothing. Thanks for bailing me out though." Rainie looked at her friend
and could tell that she wasn't going to leave it like that. She had never lied
to her best friend, hoping she would get away with a half-truth she said: "I
came across a photo of me and Toby when we were little. I was four, so Toby
must have been five or just turned six. It was taken near some standing stones
and I wanted to know more about it. I asked George and he said he had fought
hard for the stones to be obliterated because they were trouble." Hannah
looked at her with raised eyebrows, her forehead slightly creased. "I
know, weird right?" said Rainie, carefully picking her way across the
truth. “I guess I was just really cross about his attitude. You know with him
being all for the plan to build those bungalows too?” Hannah nodded and said
“Old people can be so black and white”.
“I
left early to do some research. I spoke to mum and found out the stones are
here in Kent. She couldn’t remember what they were called. I went to the
library and think they must be Coldrum Longbarrow. They look very similar to
the stones in the photo.”
“Cool”
Hannah interrupted. Rainie nodded and continued “I looked through some old
newspapers to see if some sort of incident had taken place there, but couldn’t
find anything.”
“Well,
newspapers are biased, maybe they chose not to publish something that happened.
Did you check the internet?” then chanted “No secret is safe from the
internet.” Rainie laughed.
“I
was about to, but I’ve not enough money left to log onto a computer in the
library and then you messaged me, so…”
“So”,
Hannah finished Rainie’s sentence, “here’s what we’re going to do. First shopping
for an hour, then back to mine. While mum gives you a
haircut I can browse the internet looking for stories about your stones.”
Two hours later Rainie and Hannah were reading all about how a group
called Pagan Link had performed rituals at Coldrum to prevent the build of the
Channel Tunnel and about another group, the Warrior’s Call who had carried out
a Pagan rite twelve years ago at the site to invoke the Spirits of Albion to
help prevent fracking. However, they found nothing more recent and definitely
nothing involving a four-year-old. Hannah suggested “Perhaps George was
involved with those groups and got arrested” Rainie dismissed it. “George is
all about progress, she would have been the first one to start digging once
they announced the Tunnel plans and I have never heard her talk about fracking
being a problem”. Rainie stood up, feeling strangely relieved. They weren’t
going to find anything and George’s recount of the events with Dheera ten years
ago were probably exaggerated. Rainie thanked her friend for her help and
Hannah’s mother for the haircut. She couldn’t postpone returning to Sunnyside
and face the music.
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