Freya's Quest Read online

  I journeyed along the narrow country lanes of Lakeland, not taking too much care. I made my way around Bassenthwaite Lake, the shadow of Skiddaw ever present and omnipotent. Then I found myself travelling through the small settlements of Braithwaite and Stair, the mountains rising steeply above me. Onwards through the tranquil Vale of Newlands I drove, with the wind in my hair. Then over the hause for a spectacular view of Buttermere, dwarfed by the high ridge beyond.

  I stopped for lunch at an inn, eating chips and sipping vodka. Then I took a short walk southwards, admiring a spur which tapered down to the blue-green water at the other end of the lake. I consulted my map to discover this mountain was Fleetwith Pike.

  I returned to the pub and slotted some coins into the payphone. It took a while for John to pick up.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Who?’ He seemed disgruntled, as if I’d disturbed him in his work.

  ‘Freya.’

  ‘Oh,’ he perked up. ‘Got anywhere yet?’

  ‘Yes. I’m in. And I’m gaining his trust.’

  ‘Good. Find out as much as you can. But remember what I said. Don’t get too involved.’

  ‘Bit late for that….’

  I could feel his exasperation on the other end of the line, just as the pips started. But I did not have any more spare change, so I had to hang up.

  I set off once more, travelling over Honister Hause, meeting the quarry-scarred Pike at close quarters. A white memorial cross was a conspicuous feature upon its lower slopes. I shuddered at the thought of someone having fallen off. This sobered me up a little and I took extra care with my driving.

  However, despite my renewed concentration, I nearly had an accident at Rosthwaite, a small settlement within Borrowdale, on the way back to Keswick. As I was approaching the narrowest point in the road between two ancient cottages, a bunch of motorcyclists roared past, only clearing the wall by inches. If something had been coming the other way, they would’ve had no chance.

  Overwhelmed with shock, I pulled over at the entrance to a farmer’s field for a breather. I watched them zoom off into the distance. One skidded to a halt, did a U-turn and returned to where I was parked. The rider flicked up the helmet visor.

  It was Emily!

  ‘Hi,’ she said, smiling. ‘Recognized the car. Didn’t think Dylan’d let you drive it, though. Hope we didn’t scare you too much!’

  I scowled at her.

  She lit a cigarette, chuckling.

  She was dressed in full leathers, yet they appeared a lot more scuffed and worn than before. There was also a picture of a gremlin’s face emblazoned on the back of her jacket. She saw me regarding it and turned her back towards me so I could get a better view. ‘Do you like it?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I’m a fully fledged member of the chapter now. I’ve been earning my right to wear their motif all week. They’ve been setting me lots of zany stunts. I’m sorry you had to get mixed up in one of them by mistake!’

  I shrugged again, lost for words.

  ‘Follow me.’ She didn’t wait for an answer, simply flicked down her visor, kick-started her machine into life and took off up the road.

  When I realized her pace was very sedate, I pulled out and followed along as she’d asked. She made me drive into a car park near the Jaws of Borrowdale. She then assisted me in pulling up the roof of the car. I locked up and we sauntered over to the Bowderstone. Emily told me the huge boulder was an “erratic” dumped by an ancient glacier, and had been a tourist attraction since at least the eighteenth century. We sat down and watched some climbers bouldering on its face. She produced a flask from inside her jacket and we shared her coffee.

  ‘I’m going away soon, Freya.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’ll be sad. I’m only just getting to know you. You’re the only potential friend I’ve got round here.’

  ‘I’m sorry….I like you, too….It’s just time for me to move on.’

  She wriggled uncomfortably on the rock we were perched on, placing her hand upon her right buttock.

  ‘Are you getting cramp?’

  ‘No, you’ll see soon enough. I’m in the middle of a process, you see. The tattoo and piercing parlour’s nearly finished work now. One final touch from them and the hairdresser tomorrow. Then I’ll be ready for him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dylan, of course.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she quickly added. ‘It’s not what you think. Anyway, I’ve got Judd now.’

  I was about to ask more, but she was pulling me to my feet. ‘Come on, let’s go. We’ve got one last afternoon together. Let’s make the most of it.’

  I trailed behind her. When I arrived back at the car park, she was already straddling her bike, revving it for effect.

  ‘Come on, on you get,’ she called, holding out her helmet for me to put on.

  ‘Oh, no. I’m not getting on that thing with you again.’

  ‘Look, I promise to go slow.’

  ‘What about my car?’

  ‘You can pick it up later.’

  Her bewitching smile sealed it. After all, I had nothing else to do. I climbed on board and donned her helmet.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll be all right. Shouldn’t get any cops out here.’

  Before I could answer, we were away.

  ‘Hang on tight!’

  And I needed to as well. I should’ve known I couldn’t trust her. She picked up speed immediately and we gathered momentum throughout the journey towards Keswick. I gripped her slender waist so tightly I could hear her rasping breath. I kept my eyes shut, feeling her long, silky hair caressing my face. I hadn’t had time to pull down the visor. Now I was happy I hadn’t, as her hair had a soothing influence upon me. She slowed down only as we approached and went through the town. I was happy for this little respite. Once on the open road again, she gunned the engine and let out one of her banshee cries.

  I was frightened, yet exhilarated.

  I opened my eyes only when the bike wheels screeched as she did a large turn off to the left. I was jolted out of position. My hands lost their grip. Emily squeezed in her arms to trap me in position again, to make sure I didn’t fall off.

  I knew where we were now: on the minor road back towards the Lodge. She picked up speed again. I wondered whether my stomach or my bladder was going to give out first with each new twist and turn. I felt glad when she slowed again. We took off up a forest road, dirt thundering up in our wake.

  It took me a while to realize we had come to a halt. She let go of my arms and I fell off onto the ground. She was soon standing over me, pulling off my helmet, grinning.

  I yanked her down on top of me and we rolled around in the dirt for a while. I cursed her as we playfully wrestled. She held me firmly, then got to her feet. She dusted herself down, before helping me up.

  ‘You bastard, you promised me….’

  ‘To go slow, I know….But you didn’t really believe I was going to, did you?’

  I smiled nervously and gazed around, not wanting to make eye contact.

  She had driven us to the back entrance of the Lodge. There was the high stone wall, with the gated archway bordered by turrets. The sun was doing its best to penetrate the trees, but I still had to squint to recognize my surroundings.

  Emily had slumped against the wall, laughing. I shook my head at her, but she continued. Finally, I had to give in to her. I couldn’t remain angry for long. Anyway, I was feeling quite queasy, so I sank down beside her.

  She did not give me long to recover. She pulled me up with her. ‘Give me a leg up,’ she said, pointing to the gate. I cupped my hands dutifully for her foot. She launched herself upwards and shimmied over the gate in what looked like a well-practised move. I heard her feet hit the floor on the other side and the drawing of the heavy bolt.

  The gate opened and she motioned me forward. ‘Come on. I want to show you something.’

  Thankfully,
she wanted me to walk with her, rather than take to the motorbike again. I followed her along the track we had come down after the dinner party. However, it wasn’t long before we had forked off along a tiny trod through a mature passageway of yew trees. I hadn’t noticed this on my previous visit. Once it must have been a well-manicured garden feature. Now it was heavily overgrown, with branches flicking into my face and catching on my hair. Each time I became entangled, she delicately extracted me and we sallied further into the darkened tunnel.

  The sun pierced my eyes as we came out into a clearing. It took a while for my vision to adjust. I was amazed at what lay before me. It was a folly, built in the same stone as the house: a circular, domed edifice, supported by Corinthian columns, now partly camouflaged by creepers.

  She took me by the hand and led me inside. Then she crouched down on the floor and drew me down with her. ‘This is my secret little place. Where I come to get away from it all. Meditate even.’

  ‘Right! It is rather romantic, I must say.’

  ‘Dylan and Sera used to come here together to play. When they were children. The main house was still a ruin then. Janis and Eric perhaps came as well, I don’t know. I wasn’t even born, or maybe only a baby at the time.’

  ‘How did you discover it? It’s not exactly easy to find.’

  ‘Dylan brought me. Just the once. He dressed me in white.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was to symbolize my virginity. I really don’t know.’

  She bent over and dusted her hand across the marbled floor. Weird geometric shapes were revealed under the grime, pitted and weathered. They reminded me of those on the medallion. ‘Perhaps he got excited by all these old ritualistic markings.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, studying the pattern intensely, intrigued.

  ‘No, I don’t think you do, Freya. He fucked me that night. I was only fifteen. I wanted to do it with him, don’t get me wrong. But not like that. He was rough and unkind. And I was scared.’

  I turned away from her and shifted my pose, disconcerted.

  ‘I think he knew he’d done wrong. Couldn’t help making it up to me over the years since. He showered me with gifts and was always warm and loving after that. Especially in bed.’

  ‘Why tell me this?’

  She could sense my increasing agitation. ‘I’ve never told anybody else. I wanted to get it out of me before I go. So I can move on. I like you, Freya. Maybe I’m also trying to warn you that Dylan has a darker side.’

  I scoffed, not taking any of it in.

  Emily got up and walked back through the columns. I shifted to follow. She returned before I could leave, carrying some leaves and twigs. She set about making a fire. Once it was lit, she pulled out a tin box from inside her jacket, opened it and took out a spoon. Then she poured powder from a paper wrap onto the spoon and added a little water from a small plastic bottle.

  I watched in silence as she heated the spoon over the flame. I hadn’t a clue what she was up to, until she pulled out a syringe from the tin box and sucked up the golden-brown contents of the spoon which had now fully liquefied.

  She pulled off her jacket and laid it over the fire, stamping on it to extinguish the flames. She was only wearing a T-shirt underneath. I could now see the full devastation of her forearms, a mass of scar tissue and some recent lacerations. There were lots of needle marks in the cavities of her elbows. She was hunting for a vein, tapping her fingers against her skin.

  ‘Bugger,’ she said, peeking under her T-shirt to study her breasts instead. ‘Nothing doing there either.’

  I looked at her in disbelief.

  ‘Care to join me?’

  ‘No, I do not!’

  ‘Sorry about this. Cover your eyes, if you want.’ She leaned to one side and pulled down her tight-fitting trousers to reveal the upper part of her thigh and right buttock. I could glimpse the edge of a recently applied tattoo protruding from underneath her panties.

  I was transfixed. I couldn’t turn away, as she stabbed herself with the needle and pushed down the plunger. Then she discarded the syringe on the stone floor and slumped against the column. She stared towards me, eyes wide and her breath uneven.

  ‘Yes,’ was all she said, as the heroin surged through her body.

  I thought she’d sunk into unconsciousness or worse. My anxiety rose. I leant over her and put my ear down to her mouth. I couldn’t hear her breathing, but I saw her chest rising and falling.

  Suddenly I felt her stroking my hair. I looked up at her taut face, her eyes feral. Yet she apparently still comprehended the world around her. She pulled me down against her right breast, stroking my hair.

  ‘Look up, look up,’ she whispered. ‘This is what I really wanted you to see.’

  I lay back against her and gazed up at the domed ceiling.

  What I saw was truly awe-inspiring. The dome was covered in a magnificent painting. Its colours were rich and vibrant, protected from the elements unlike the rest of the building. It depicted a devil-like creature, partially enveloped in flames. He was devouring a young black-haired maiden from behind, as she reached out, breasts exposed, to another figure on the other side of the picture. This other side was white and radiant, with a naked long-blonde-haired nymph – or maybe she was an angel? – reaching out a hand towards the stricken woman.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. And remarkably well preserved.’

  ‘It’s not as old as you think….Seraphina painted it.’

  ‘Really – now that is interesting.’

  There was a long pause as we both contemplated the painting. Totally absorbed.

  ‘When I get high, the figures seem to move. Amazing!’

  Then Emily floated off into blissful unconsciousness.

  - IX -

  I HAD FELT VERY relaxed lying upon Emily’s breast, absorbed by the sight of the painting on the ceiling. So much so, in fact, that I must have drifted off to sleep. When I awoke, there was a chill in the air and I was alone. I struggled to my feet, trying to concentrate, forgetting where I was for a moment, then worrying where Emily had gone.

  I passed through the columns and gazed up at the sky. It looked like late afternoon light, so I couldn’t have been alone for very long. Emily must still be around somewhere.

  I was about to go back through the tunnel of yew trees, when I saw a flight of steps under the foliage. The plants had been trampled on recently, and as I neared the edge, I could hear a faint thrashing lower down the slope. Perhaps this was what had woken me up.

  I stepped tentatively down the first flight of stairs to a landing. There was a carved balustrade on either side, matching the decoration of the ramparted lawns nearer the main house; and the outline of an urn on a small plinth, shrouded, ghost-like, under the greenery.

  I continued on, down several more flights of stairs, until I gained a level rampart running at right angles to the stairway. I was about to go along this, when I heard more sounds from below. I peered over the wall and saw Emily lower down, brandishing a stick and thrashing at the stinging nettles. She was climbing out of a hollow onto a steep rise on the other side. Now she had gained an overgrown path that meandered through deciduous trees.

  I was going to shout down to her, but decided against it. I sensed she wanted to be alone, otherwise she would have taken me with her in the first place. Intrigued at her clandestine manoeuvres, I brushed away the tree branches which barred my way onwards down the stairs.

  I reached the bottom and found myself on a little stone bridge. As I surveyed the hollow around me more closely, I realized I was surrounded by ornamental lakes, clogged up with years of reed-growth and leaves. They stretched out in both directions for over a hundred feet, descending in flights of pools from right to left. I could make out carved fountain heads and one waterfall was still running, albeit only at a trickle.

  I would have liked to have lingered longer, but Emily had disappeared and I wanted to see where she had
gone.

  I followed in her footsteps, up the banks of the hill. As I trod through the trees, the rise seemed conical shaped, perhaps even man-made. After about twenty feet, the trees became thicker and the light faded. I fumbled my way through. This was worse than the yew-tree tunnel, I thought, as my hair, face and clothing tangled on the branches.

  And then, unexpectedly, I stumbled through into a large forgotten clearing. Now it was my legs that fought with brambles and burrs.

  I stopped, perplexed.

  Ahead of me lay more ruins. Yet this edifice was so different. There was a tall tower, with a doorless entrance at its base. To its right, a half-fallen-down wall ran for about seventy feet. Though ruined, the arched windows left me in no doubt this wasn’t another folly, but a Gothic chapel. A maturing oak was growing from inside, the canopy spreading skyward where the roof used to be.

  The strangest thing of all was the stonework. It was as elegantly dressed as the main house and the folly. But it was of black granite. Dark and lugubrious, with an air of foreboding.

  I felt hands upon my shoulders. I jumped backwards.

  ‘What are you doing here?!’

  It was only Emily, but I’d nearly burst my bladder in fright.

  ‘I’m sorry, Em.,’ I said, recovering gradually. ‘I heard you ahead and followed.’

  ‘Spying on me, eh?’

  ‘Well….’

  ‘I didn’t want you to come here. Not yet, anyway. I wanted to be alone.’

  I apologized again.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I suppose you might as well look around now you’re here.’

  Relief overtook me. Yet she didn’t expand on her motives for coming here so furtively.

  She walked me over to the tower. There was a carved head of a horned goat – again reminiscent of the medallion – over the old doorway. As we went inside, a flurry of activity erupted overhead.

  I panicked again. I looked above me and gripped Emily tightly. The floors had all rotted away long ago, but I could not see the sky because of a mass of bats.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Emily shouted in my ear. ‘They’re more scared than we are.’