Chapter Text
The plaster walls of the upstairs bedroom were falling to bits already, but it was made even worse by the aggressive application of two flat-edged scrapers. Despite the kerchief tied over Alex's nose and mouth, the dust was collecting in a fine spray across his cheekbones, in his eyelashes and, presumably, his eyebrows as well. Quite possibly he looked like a cross between Father Christmas and Dick Turpin, but the only one there to see was Peter and he looked just as absurd, if not more so.
Alex's hands were filthy too, but if he was careful he could hitch up the top edge of the kerchief to wipe his eyes with the flap underneath, and that was enough to let him carry on without expiring. The heat of the summer had passed its peak and they'd opened the windows, which didn't hurt either.
The sound of methodical scraping was peaceful, an echo of his and Peter's first dig together back in Scotland in their university days. As the junior-most students, they'd done a hell of a lot of meticulous brushing-away of dust; the bedroom walls didn't merit such careful handling – thank goodness – but as he knelt here on the floorboards it felt much the same. Meditative. A chance to reflect on who might have been the last person to touch what his fingers were touching. Not just how the thing had been made but how its last owners might have felt when they looked at it or smelled it.
Though hopefully they wouldn't have been smelling then what Alex was smelling now.
Eventually Peter broke the silence with a sigh, tugged his kerchief down a little and said, "It's bound to be about time for supper."
Alex hummed in agreement.
"I could go and see if Ruth has it almost ready."
"Lazy sod," Alex said, but he waved Peter off without any actual irritation. Peter chucked his scraper into the bucket and hauled himself to his feet with an exaggerated heave of breath. His feet thumped solidly down the stairs.
Alex contemplated taking a break himself, but the bit of wall in front of him had almost come away entirely and so he carried on working at it, getting one corner of the scraper under a loose flap of plaster and levering it upwards all in one chunk. Something behind the plaster crackled. Alex frowned and leaned forward to poke at it more carefully, wedging the point of the scraper in behind the next chunk until he could hear the rustle again. This time when he levered it up, something fell out.
It was an envelope, yellowed with age and then dusted white with dried plaster remains. Alex felt a thrill run through him at the discovery, the familiar excitement of old/new, of history and future knowledge all wrapped up into one. He picked the envelope up, turned it over.
His own name was written on the front.
Alex dropped it in surprise, then cursed himself for carelessness and picked it up again with caution. A soft brush of his thumb cleared away the worst of the plaster over the writing. It still said what he'd thought it said. Alex Langlands and then, underneath, 22 September, 2007.
It was today's date. Alex stared at it in bafflement. Perhaps this was a joke, some sort of unorthodox setup by the producer for a segment on time capsules. But this wasn't supposed to be that sort of show, and anyway he really couldn't see how they'd have managed it – the paper was old, flaking away at the edges, and the ink was faded. Moreover, the wall certainly hadn't been re-plastered recently, so how would they even have put it there? It was the outside wall, so there wasn't a way to come at it any other way… was there?
Eventually he turned the envelope over again and tested the edge of the flap with his thumb. It came loose easily and appeared not to have been sealed at all. Alex hesitated another moment, then opened the flap and slid out the piece of paper inside. It was a single folded sheet; he flattened it out and read the short note written there.
Dear Alex,
Your first chicken's name was Horatio. You once licked a painting by Elias Childe in the Tate just to see if you could.
What you need to know is:
1. Believe it. It's true.
2. Watch out for the hay rick.
3. When Peter says it's real, you'll know.
There was a blot there, as if the pen had been held over the paper slightly too long. But the writer seemed to have decided against saying anything else of significance, because all it said after that was Sincerely yours, Alex.
A chill went up his spine. Horatio the chicken… he supposed that the producers might have asked his mum or his brother about that. There were probably even pictures of Horatio in an album somewhere. But licking the Childe. No one could possibly know that – could they? He'd never told anyone. Or if someone in his family had guessed, however unlikely that was, it was hardly something they would have shared with a television producer.
"Alex!"
Peter's voice sounded from the bottom of the stairs. Alex jumped, nearly toppled over sideways and then caught himself with one elbow against the wall. Some of it crumbled under the weight and another cloud of white powder bloomed in the air. He found a patch of wall that seemed relatively solid and leant his forehead down to rest against it, trying to get his heart to stop hammering.
Peter called his name again before he'd quite managed it, but the pause was enough that he could tug down the edge of the kerchief and shout back. "Is it supper yet?"
"Yes, Ruth says to come down."
"Coming."
Alex folded the letter back into the envelope and wiped it clean with the inside edge of his kerchief. An attempt to do something similar with himself failed utterly, but he took the letter with him downstairs and then out into the yard at the back of the house where Ruth had left them a bucket of water to wash with. Alex set the letter aside – weighed down carefully by a rock – and brushed himself off aggressively, even going so far as to lean over and sluice his head with a dipper of water.
Eventually he decided he'd pass muster and went back inside again. Beside the door were hooks where their coats hung, and after a moment's consideration Alex tucked the letter into the inside pocket of his own. He knew he ought to share this find with Peter and Ruth, ought to get an outside perspective. But the whole thing was strange enough that he wondered whether they'd believe him. He didn't even know if he believed himself.
As he went into the kitchen, the smell of Ruth's stew enfolded him like a blanket. There was no range as yet and so she'd made it over a small fire in the place where the range would go. Alex's mouth nearly watered with anticipation.
He made a conscious effort to force the whole letter situation out of his mind; there were no cameras tonight, but Peter knew him well enough to sense any preoccupation. After a while it was easy enough, because the food was as good as it smelled and the company was better, and Ruth had managed to procure a bottle of local beer just to give them a miniature seasonal celebration.
"I think we're coming along nicely," she said, pouring out the beer into mugs. "If you can get the bedroom ready for plastering in another few days we can film that, and the sheep have settled in nicely."
"We'll have to get a ram in soon," said Alex, and they segued into a discussion of their hopes for sheep breeding that lasted through the rest of the meal.
After supper Ruth proposed an equinox ceremony that she'd read about. "Local legend," she said. "It's supposed to reveal something important about yourself. I'm afraid the records aren't any more specific."
"A vision of our true love," Peter said lightly. "That's the usual thing, isn't it?"
"I expect yours will be a vision of a large pie, then," said Alex, and grinned when Peter turned up his nose in exaggerated offense.
They doused the fire and closed up the show cottage for the night, then put on their coats and traipsed down to the stone circle at the far end of the westernmost field. The night had gone sharply cold and the moon cast a pale and glimmering light down over them. Alex's breath created filmy white clouds in the air; he wouldn't have been surprised to find everything covered with frost in the morning, though it was only September.
The circle was half-hidden from the field by trees, forbidding and full of shadows. But once they stepped inside it, the sky above was clear, perfectly round like the lip of a well from inside. It felt like they could be in a well, somewhere down deep looking up to a sky they couldn't hope to reach. Alex shivered.
Peter stepped close so that their shoulders brushed together. It was a comforting solidity. "You all right?" he asked, voice hushed. Then, a little louder, "Should we have brought a chicken to sacrifice?"
"Really, Peter," said Ruth.
"Pig? Goat? Spider?"
Ruth smacked him; Alex could feel Peter's shoulder shaking against his, half from the impact and half from laughter.
"This is a serious ceremony," she said.
"What about a bunch of carrots?" said Alex.
"Don't you start," said Ruth, but he could hear the laughter in her voice.
"What should we be doing, then?" Peter asked, sobering a little.
"Stand here around the westernmost stone," Ruth said briskly. "Not that one, this one. Join hands."
Alex shuffled towards her and took his hands out of his pockets. He hadn't thought to bring gloves and he felt the cold for one bright, painful moment before they all clasped hands, Peter's warm and a little hesitant to his right, Ruth's smaller – and gloved, sensibly – and more confident in its grasp to his left.
"Close your eyes," Ruth said. Alex took a deep breath and obeyed. They stood for a moment not speaking; Alex could hear all the noises of the night, the calls of owls and the chittering of something in a hedge. The wind whistled high over the field and then curled up under the leaves of the trees that bracketed the stone circle, an eddying sound like waves.
"This is the blessed autumn night," Ruth said, lifting her voice, "when palest stones shall give us light. The longer we live, the more we see; the new, the old, come all to me."
Something changed.
Alex opened his eyes. It was dark – he thought for one stupefied moment that a cloud must have passed over the moon, but there hadn't been a cloud for miles and anyway this wasn't the right kind of darkness, not the mottled wisp of light passing through the cloud but something thicker. It could have been the underside of a blanket spread across the sky, broken only by pinpricks – it took a moment for Alex to recognize them as stars.
The moon was gone.
The only thing that kept Alex from panicking was the fact that he could still feel Ruth's hand in his left hand and Peter's in his right. He held on tight. "Ruth?" It came out more uneven than he'd have liked.
"I don't—"
"Where is the moon?" Peter said. "It was— wasn't it?"
"It was," Alex said. He took a deep breath – the air rushing into his lungs was warm, comforting, but suddenly he realized that this wasn't right either. "It's warmer, too."
"It is," Ruth said, sounding astonished but not frightened. "Flipping heck, how did that happen?"
"The stone," Alex said, not even quite clear himself as to what he meant. He leant forward carefully and found the stone right where he'd expected it, close enough to rest his forehead. "It's—"
"Bugger the stone, where is the fucking moon?" Peter said, the profanity sharp and unexpected in his mouth. Before either of them could answer they heard the sound of footsteps coming across the field. Alex simultaneously wanted to let go so that he could turn and face whoever it was, and wanted to stay exactly where he was for fear that letting go of anyone's hand would send him into something even stranger. In the end all he did was twist his head around – as if they could see anything in this darkness. And then he could see, because one of the people coming through the trees was carrying a lantern, illuminating the stone circle with a warm, yellow glow. And—
"Mr. Acton?"