Chapter 3 (The Mystery of the Trees)
Richard stood in his bedroom looking down at his mobile phone. The Doctor had “diddled it” with his screwdriver so that he could make calls from here to anywhere in the world. He had brought up his contacts and was looking down at Cheryl’s name, his finger hovering over it.
On the one hand he wanted to call her. On the other he daren’t. It’d be like getting a telephone call from a ghost. He couldn’t put her through that. If he was going to reveal the truth to his wife he had to do it in person.
They were heading back to Earth now, but Grantham was a good few hours away from Huxley. If he was going to do it he needed to make sure he actually went home first.
“Ready, Richard?” asked the Doctor, popping his head around the door.
“Yeah,” said Richard, putting his phone away quickly. “What year is it?”
“The year? Does it matter? The woods are the woods,” smiled the Doctor.
“It matters,” said Richard.
The Doctor smiled sadly at him. “Thinking of popping over to Huxley to see your good wife?”
Richard shrugged. “I thought about it.”
“You’re from 2015, Richard,” said the Doctor. “We’re about to land in 2007 - eight years before your fake death. Eight years before you left with me.”
“Good,” said Richard.
“Good?”
“If it was 2015 I’d be too tempted to go and see her. I need time to work this out. How I’m going to do it and everything.”
The Doctor smiled and patted him on the back. “This is what this holiday is about - clearing all of our heads and coming to terms with our losses.” The Doctor’s face dropped again. “And it’s about planning for the future.”
Richard nodded and smiled. “You’re right. A good few nights out under the stars will do us some good.” He hefted his rucksack onto his back and made his way out of his room. “Just a shame there’s no mini bar and TV though.”
The Doctor laughed.
Holly was stood in the console room in a fawn-coloured waterproof jacket, jeans and a black bobble hat. She was idly flicking the controls until the TARDIS groaned out in defiance at her.
“Calm down, lady,” she said.
“Don’t press the green, round button,” said the Doctor as he emerged with Richard. “You’ll jettison half the ship over Leicestershire.”
Holly quickly pulled her hand away.
The Doctor switched on the scanner. They were hanging in space, Earth glowing like a beautiful green and blue jewel amongst a blanket of glittering stars.
“You could take me to all the planets in the universe,” said Richard, “but nothing is as beautiful as my own planet.”
“Indeed,” said the Doctor. And then he thought. “Well, apart from maybe Mook.”
“Mook?” said Holly with a frown.
“Mmm-hmm. It changes colour with the mood of its inhabitants.”
“Wow!” said Holly. “Can we go there instead?”
The Doctor laughed. “I don’t think Mook could cope with our range of emotions at the moment.”
“Earth it is,” said Holly.
Nicole came in with two cups of tea and a plate of custard creams. Arthur Jenkins was sat on the sofa, but wasn’t relaxing. He was leaning forward looking nervous. She was prepared to listen to him, but she wasn’t about to go rushing off. She may have been worried about Andy, but she most certainly had common sense woven into her brain.
“Thank you,” said Arthur as she handed him the cup. He took a sip. “Oh, lovely. Earl Grey?”
Nicole nodded. “My husband’s favourite.” She sat down in an armchair. “Now, what’s this all about?”
Arthur put his cup down on the floor and sighed. “You were the only one I had any contact information for. I believe Felicity had a parcel delivered here once. When I realised Felicity had taken the map I knew I had to find one of you.”
“Wait a minute, back up please,” said Nicole, her hands outstretched. “What map?”
Arthur nodded. “Your husband and another eleven Scout leaders have gone to private woodlands in Grantham, yes?”
“Yes, for a survival camp weekend. There’s an instructor and everything so they’re safe.”
“I only wish that were true, Mrs Sibley.” He took another sip of his tea. “My late wife and I used to live near Grantham – near Belvoir castle. Lovely little cottage with apple trees in the front garden.”
Nicole shook her head. “Mr Jenkins, please, you said they were in danger?”
Arthur nodded. “We adopted Felicity in our middle ages. She was a lovely child but was always extremely curious. We didn’t live too far from the woodlands, but they were owned by Lord Harrington.”
“He died the other year, didn’t he?” Nicole remembered reading about it when she and Andy were looking up info about the survival course.
“Yes. Up until then nobody was allowed to go into the woods. Even now you still need special permission from his estate, but Harrington kept the whole place locked down. It was not opened up for anyone at all.”
“Let me guess,” said Nicole, “Felicity snuck in?”
Arthur nodded. “One summer’s day she went off playing with her friend. They were gone for hours. When it started to get dark I went looking for her. I found that they’d cut a hole in the wire fence that surrounded the perimeter of the woods. I didn’t have a choice – I had to go in and find her.”
“But she was alright, wasn’t she? I mean she’s okay now.”
Arthur closed his eyes. “I found Felicity deep in the woods. She was unconscious and stayed like that for days in hospital. When she woke up she couldn’t remember anything except for one thing – green eyes. She said there were green eyes watching her from the trees.”
Nicole felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “What about her friend?”
“We never found that poor unfortunate girl,” said Arthur. “It destroyed her parents. It destroyed us.”
“But surely the police mounted an investigation,” said Nicole.
Arthur shook his head. “Harrington put a stop to it.”
“What?” Nicole could barely believe what she was hearing.
“He had some pull with the authorities, apparently. He wouldn’t let anyone set foot inside his woods. He said he’d press charges if we didn’t leave the area immediately. He threatened to have been prosecuted for that initial search for Felicity.”
“And you moved here?”
“We had no choice. We got threats, letters...all manner of pressure. We cut our losses. We moved away. Twelve years ago that was. Felicity got better and we moved on with our lives.”
“But what about Felicity? I mean she seems well-liked with the Scouts and everything. She seems...well, okay from what I remember at least.”
Arthur shook his head and finished his tea. “I knew it was bad when Harrington died. He had no heirs or descendents and so the land passed on to the council. A few months later they began to allow these courses to take place.”
“But no bad things have happened,” said Nicole. “There’ve been open for these survival camps for a few months already and nothing’s been reported.”
“Nothing has been reported yet,” said Arthur. “It was Felicity who persuaded Joy Castle to organise this trip.”
“So she could look for her friend?”
“Stupidly, I got a map of the area. I had always intended to go up there and investigate myself. And then Martha died and my priorities changed. But Felicity found the map with the red cross showing the location of where I’d found her.”
“So she’s on a mission,” said Nicole, suddenly worried about her husband’s safety.
“She’s on a mission,” said Arthur. “And we need to go out there and bring them back before it’s too late.”
It had been a good few hours, but they had finally arrived. The sun was high in the sky now and was beating down on the cars. Graham had wound down the windows to let a bit of air in.
Andy gazed out of the window as the huge wood loomed up in front of them. They reached a turn off down a small side road that led between two fields and towards the woods. Soon the road ended and they reached a wooden gate.
“Here we are,” said Graham as the rest of the group parked up their cars.
“It’s massive!” said Andy as they got out of the car and gazed at the woods.
“You’re telling me!” said Graham.
“Good ride?” said Felicity, getting out of her Beetle and hoisting her pack onto her back.
“Not bad. Good to stretch the legs though,” said Andy.
“We’ll be doing plenty of that this weekend,” said Graham as he opened the boot up and got out their packs.
“It’s beautiful,” said Mark gazing up at the trees. “Reminds me of when we used to go camping as kids.”
“Yep,” said Felicity, looking around her. “It definitely brings back memories.”
“Okay everyone,” came Joy’s booming voice, breaking the relative silence of the countryside. Andy wasn’t certain, but he thought he saw a few birds evacuate the nearby trees. “Gather round. Just a few rules whilst we’re here.”
There came a clearing of a throat and a man with long, blonde hair, dark beard and green shirt and cargo shorts emerged from the woods, holding a knife and smiling at them.
Joy looked like someone had just interrupted a very important speech. “Is it Mr Carter?”
“Just call me Tom,” said the man as he approached the wooden gate.
“Nice to meet you, Tom,” said Joy, smiling at him.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your talk,” smiled Tom, allowing Joy to continue.
“No, not at all,” said Joy, stepping back. “Ladies and gentleman, if you haven’t already guessed, this is Tom Carter. He’s our guide and instructor on this survival camp. He will show you exactly what to do, where to do it and how to do it. I’ll just sit back and let him do all the work.” There was a hint of sarcasm in Joy’s voice, but she then turned back to Tom and smiled at him.
Tom greeted the group, gave his health and safety talk and then began to lead the group down a track that led from the gate and down into the trees. They walked for about fifteen minutes until they came across a small, wooden bridge that spanned a narrow stream and then led onto a dirt track that curved around tall, oak trees before turning to a clearing.
Sat in the clearing was a wooden structure. It consisted of a number of logs fixed together to make a large, shelter which was covered with canvas with a hole in the top to allow smoke to come from a fire that I had already been lit in the middle.
This was going to be their home for the rest of the day and night.
Andy stood and looked around him. There was nothing about them. No traffic noise, no unnatural light. Nothing but bird song and the cracking and popping of the logs on the fire.
“Blood marvellous, isn’t it?” said Graham dumping his pack on the ground.
“Just a bit,” said Andy. “I could get used to it here.”
“Definitely,” said Graham. He turned to Flick who was looking around her and peering into the distance. “Don’t you reckon, Flick?”
“What?” she said, realising someone had been trying to talk to her.
“You could live out here.”
“I don’t know about living out here,” said Flick. “But yeah, it’s peaceful.” She smiled at them and then headed into the shelter.
Andy was momentarily distracted by a faint sound from somewhere in the distance. It sounded like a high-pitched grinding sound followed by a large thud. He frowned and tried to concentrate on the sound, but no sooner had it started up it had disappeared. He shook his head, smiled to himself and then made his way towards the shelter and the rest of the group. It must have been the wind.
To be continued...
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