The Puzzle Ring Read online

  ‘Elizabeth and Mary were cousins? I didn’t know that. And did Elizabeth really cut off Mary’s head?’

  ‘Oh, yes, poor Queen Mary. She was nine years younger than Elizabeth, and far prettier. Her English cousin was always jealous of her. They had very different childhoods, of course. Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded when Elizabeth was only three, and Elizabeth lived the next twenty-odd years of her life in and out of prison, in fear for her life.’

  Hannah listened wide-eyed. She had known nothing of this.

  Lady Wintersloe was pleased to see her so interested. ‘Mary had inherited her throne when she was only six days old, and then she was sent over to France as a little girl to marry the French prince. She was petted and spoilt all her life, and made Queen of France when she was only sixteen or so. For a few years Mary was one of the richest and most powerful women in the world.’

  Hannah wondered what it must have been like for Elizabeth, motherless at such a young age and having Henry the Eighth as her father. Hadn’t he had six wives, and chopped off the heads of two of them? Along with the heads of lots of other people. It must have been lonely and terrifying. Seeing her young and pretty cousin as queen of both Scotland and France must have been a bitter pill for Elizabeth to swallow.

  ‘Then Elizabeth inherited the throne when she was twenty-five, and ended up rich and powerful and loved by all,’ Lady Wintersloe continued. ‘While poor Mary lost her throne when she was twenty-five and ended up living the next twenty-odd years as Elizabeth’s prisoner, poor and afraid. Really, their lives are like reverse images of each other. I’ve often thought it was uncanny.’

  ‘But there was a time when they were both queens together?’

  Her great-grandmother nodded. ‘Only a few years. When her first husband died, Mary was Queen of France no more and so came back to Scotland. I can’t remember how old she was then. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. She only ruled here for five years. She stayed here once, did you know? In the castle before it was burnt. And Lord Montgomery fought for her when the lords rebelled, and was with her when she was defeated at Carberry Hill. Our family seems always to fight for lost causes.’

  ‘So when did the castle get burnt down?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘The summer of 1567,’ her grandmother replied promptly. ‘The same year Mary abdicated. After the battle, Lord Montgomery fled back here but the lords who had fought against Mary did not want anyone trying to rescue her. So they came and burnt the castle down.’

  Hannah wondered when Eglantyne had been burnt as a witch. It had been in winter, she remembered, just before Christmas. It must have been 1566 then.

  Hannah sat, hand on her chin, watching the flames flicker and dance, thinking about her father’s clues. She knew most of them off by heart now.

  ‘Belle, what does “gibbous” mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you know, I have no idea. Something to do with the moon.’

  Roz came in just at that moment, carrying two icepacks wrapped in tea-towels. She laid them tenderly on Hannah’s knees.

  ‘Mum, do you know what “gibbous” means?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘When the moon is waxing. You know, halfway between the half-moon and the full moon.’

  ‘So when the moon is three-quarters full,’ Hannah said, half to herself.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Hannah sat back, her brain so busy she hardly noticed Linnet bringing in cabbage leaves or her mother trying hard not to roll her eyes. She doodled with Lady Wintersloe’s fountain pen in the margin of the newspaper. She drew a tree, and a gate, and a hill with a thick crisscross of pen strokes upon its peak, and then she drew circles within circles. As she doodled she thought. She remembered Lady Wintersloe telling her that her father had believed the cave in Fairknowe Hill could be used as a gateway to another world, and another time. Donovan had said too that the rift in the yew tree had been barred and padlocked to stop people from running through it on their way to the fairy hill. Through the winter gate I must go, her father had written. And Linnet had told her to beware of the green hill at the quarter points of the year, at midwinter and midsummer, and the spring and autumn equinoxes, and the cross-quarter days between, for they were the days when the gateway opened. She remembered her father’s notes on leylines and how they had said there were ‘thin places’ where two worlds meet and time stands still.

  As Hannah doodled and daydreamed, the conviction that her father really had gone back in time to the days of Mary, Queen of Scots, grew upon her strongly, until she could not bear to sit still any longer. She got up, despite her sore, stiff knees, and began to pace back and forth. Questions whirled through her mind. Was it even possible? And if she was to break the curse, as she had vowed, must she too go back in time? Which brought her again to the biggest question of all. How?

  ‘Mum, is it possible to travel back in time? Scientifically speaking, I mean?’ Hannah asked, as they sat in the drawing room after dinner.

  Roz looked surprised. ‘Do you know, your father once asked me exactly the same question! How like him you are, darling.’ Her hand briefly touched the wedding ring about her neck.

  ‘So what did you tell him?’

  ‘Well, theoretically, it is possible. One of the consequences of Einstein’s special law of relativity was that it changed the whole way we understand time and space.’ Roz leant forward, her face beginning to glow with eagerness. ‘Once upon a time people used to think time and space were separate forces, but now we know they’re a single entity, like a piece of fabric.’ Roz showed Hannah the cloth of her skirt. ‘See how the fabric is made from threads weaving in and out of each other? That’s what space-time might look like.’

  ‘So it is possible?’ Hannah was excited.

  Roz smiled. ‘Only theoretically. We haven’t got the technology to build a time-travel machine, and I doubt that we ever will. Though when you think of the leaps we’ve made just in the past ten years—’

  Hannah interrupted her. ‘But what if there was some way of travelling back in time without having to build a machine. Something . . . natural.’ She had wanted to say ‘magical’ but knew her mother would immediately become scornful.

  ‘Again, just like your father! It’s really quite uncanny. I guess the answer is yes, Hannah, it’s possible. Some scientists have worked out that there are things called wormholes, which could connect different parts of the space–time continuum. If you could find a way to travel through a wormhole, you’d find yourself in quite another time or place.’

  Hannah listened intently, her face rapt.

  ‘What’s amazing about this is that scientists now think wormholes could be found anywhere, at any time. One could be a mere millimetre away from us right now, only we can’t see it because it’s in a different dimension.’ Roz was speaking rapidly now, waving her hands about, her cheeks pink. The permanent line between her brows had almost smoothed away.

  ‘So time-travel tunnels could be anywhere?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Yes! Isn’t it amazing? Though, of course, we don’t know how to access them.’

  Hannah thought of the dark cleft in the side of the fairy hill. She had explored the passageway one afternoon, with Donovan, and found nothing but graffiti-scrawled rock. But that had not been at any of the thin times, the turning points of the year. Hannah was determined to explore it the next time a thin time came along, which was the upcoming winter solstice, the day after her birthday.

  Dreamily Lady Wintersloe said, ‘You know, T S Eliot said “The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree are of equal duration.” Even though one lives such a short time, and the other for so long.’ She was often vague and faraway in the evenings, after Linnet had given her medicine.

  Roz burst into words again. ‘It’s such an exciting time we live in! We’re so lucky! So many mysteries being cleared up, so many misunderstandings. Did you know that they may have discovered the theory of everything, which so many scientists have dreamt of for so long? They’re calli
ng it M Theory.’

  Hannah thought it sounded like the name of a band. ‘Why?’ she asked.

  Roz laughed. ‘Who knows? M could stand for master or mother or mystery or even music . . .’

  Or magic? Hannah asked herself silently. She yawned. It had been another long and busy day, and she was very tired.

  ‘But the idea is that at the very heart of everything is a tiny vibrating string, like a guitar string. It’s the very stuff of the universe, and it’s in everything,’ Roz said.

  So, Hannah thought, music lies at the very heart of all things, like Linnet’s flame of magic. And, half asleep, she suddenly began to see how her father had managed to cross the threshold between times. Sing a song of spells, there is a reason in rhyme, like ringing the bells, to unlock the gate in time . . .

  Midwinter Bairns

  For Hannah’s birthday, Lady Wintersloe invited all of her friends over for dinner. She had given Hannah an antique topaz ring, which glowed golden on her finger like captured sunlight.

  ‘It comes from the Cairngorm Mountains, not far from here,’ Lady Wintersloe said.

  ‘Cairngorms drive away darkness and evil,’ Linnet said. ‘It’ll help keep you safe and well, my chick.’

  Roz lifted up her eyes in silent exasperation. She was irritated by what she called superstitious nonsense, though she was too polite to let Linnet see.

  Roz had given Hannah a new winter coat, for her old raincoat was far too thin for the Scottish winter, and a book on the human body which showed all the nerves and muscles and bones. Hannah, who had wanted an electric guitar, took this as a sign her mother thought she was spending too much time reading fairy stories. She tried to look grateful, and thought she could always lend it to Max. He would adore it.

  Linnet had made Hannah a new strap for her guitar, embroidering it beautifully with flowers and leaves and thistledown heads. She pointed her gnarled finger at one flower after another, saying, ‘Elderflowers, for protection from evil; and rue, the herb of grace; and carnations, to keep you safe; and thistledown, to help lighten your load.’

  Rather oddly, Linnet had also given Hannah an old walking-stick. It had a most beautiful handle made from deer antler, and the wood glowed a soft golden colour with a mottled effect that made it look like snakeskin.

  ‘Why, that’s my father’s old stick,’ Lady Wintersloe said in surprise. ‘I haven’t seen it for a while.’

  ‘Hannah is spending so much time out tramping the hills with Donovan that I thought she needed a good stick,’ Linnet said.

  Lady Wintersloe nodded her neat white head. ‘Of course. I remember her father always liked that stick. Don’t go losing it, Hannah, it’s very old and very precious.’

  Linnet winked one cloudy green eye. ‘It’s made of rowan,’ she said. ‘Cut from the tree outside my kitchen door. If you’re ever in any trouble, twist the handle three times.’ No one but Hannah seemed to hear her. Sometimes it was as if Linnet had the ability to speak straight into Hannah’s mind with no one else the wiser. Or perhaps Hannah’s hearing was growing sharper due to all the time she spent with the hag-stone pressed up against her ear.

  Max bought her a new guitar songbook, Scarlett gave her some shiny lip gloss (which Hannah thought might have been an unsubtle hint), and Donovan gave her an encyclopedia of witches and fairies which she found absolutely fascinating and much easier to read than most of her father’s heavy tomes.

  Linnet had cooked a feast of all Hannah’s favourite foods and, after dinner, the four friends lay in front of the fire and talked.

  ‘The twenty-first of the twelfth,’ Max said, poking a twig into the fire and watching its tip turn translucent gold. ‘Cool birth date.’

  ‘Yeah. The same forwards as backwards. It’s called a palindrome. That’s why Dad called me Hannah. It’s a palindrome too. See?’ She wrote her name on a piece of scrap paper.

  The others at once began to write their own names backwards.

  ‘I’m Xam!’ Max shouted. ‘How cool is that? Xam! Bam! Pow!’

  ‘I’m N-A-V-O-N-O-D,’ Donovan spelt out. ‘That doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘You’re N-O-D if we just call you Don,’ Max said. ‘We could call you Noddy.’

  ‘No thanks,’ he replied.

  ‘Let’s try yours,’ Max said to Scarlett. He wrote it out carefully and at once began to laugh. ‘Ttelracs. That is so weird. It sounds like some kind of computer virus.’

  ‘It does not!’ Scarlett flushed red with annoyance.

  They wrote the names of everyone they knew backwards, shrieking with laughter at the results. Then, as the fire began to die down and shadows bent over the library, the talk turned back to their birth dates.

  ‘Did you know that means we four kids were all born within four days and four kilometres of each other?’ Donovan said dreamily. He had his chin propped in his hand and was staring into the fire as if he saw strange and beautiful things there.

  Hannah nodded, thinking of Lady Wintersloe and her belief that one of these three was really the child of true blood, heir to the realm under the hill. ‘Yes. Belle told me. It’s an amazing coincidence, isn’t it? I didn’t realise that all our birthdays were quite so close, though. Were we really born within four days of each other?’

  ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow. The twenty-second of December. Then Max was born on the twenty-third, and Scarlett a day later, on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘That is so weird,’ Hannah said. ‘And only four kilometres apart?’

  ‘Well, you were born here, weren’t you?’ Scarlett said. ‘Lady Wintersloe has often told us the story.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘You came early, and so fast your dad only had time to bring the car round,’ Max said. The twig he was poking in the fire suddenly flared into life, and he yelped and dropped it, sucking his finger where he’d burnt it.

  ‘You were born in the front hall,’ Donovan said. ‘Your mum didn’t even have time to get into the car.’

  ‘Linnet delivered you,’ Scarlett said.

  Hannah scowled and looked away. Why had she never heard this story?

  ‘You never heard any of that?’ Max was flabbergasted.

  ‘Mum doesn’t like to talk about my dad. You know.’

  The other three nodded.

  ‘Linnet delivered me too,’ Max said. At Hannah’s exclamation, he went on, ‘Yeah, it’s true. I was born here too. My mum’s car broke down out on the road, and she came looking for shelter. It was snowing like anything, and the house was all lit up because everyone was still sitting around waiting to see if your dad came home, and Mum went into labour right here on your doorstep.’

  ‘And you were born here and never left,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘Where was I then? I was only two days old,’ Hannah said.

  ‘I guess you must’ve still been here then,’ Max said. ‘I know your mum packed you up and left, once they declared your dad dead or gone, or whatever they do, but that must’ve been later.’

  ‘You’d have been here together as babies,’ Scarlett said. ‘You probably had baths together.’

  ‘Ewwww!’ Hannah and Max said together.

  ‘So what about you?’ Hannah asked Scarlett. ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘Oh, nothing so dramatic,’ Scarlett said rather peevishly. ‘I was born at home, at the shop. Mum doesn’t like hospitals. She had me in the bath. Disgusting. It was on Christmas Eve. Don’t you think that’s so inconsiderate? To have me in the bath, on Christmas Eve? I never get as many pressies, and I have to think about it every time I go to the bathroom.’

  ‘Well, we were all born at Christmas time too,’ Max pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but I was born on Christmas Eve!’ Scarlett said. ‘Anyway, I’ve always wondered . . .’

  ‘What?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Well, it’s just seems so odd. I can’t imagine really giving birth to someone in a bath. And I’m so much older than the boys. Six years between me and Cooper. And they’re all brown-haire
d and brown-eyed and I’m so fair.’ She twirled her blonde ponytail. ‘And Mum always says what a great Christmas pressie I was, because she’d never thought she could have babies.’

  ‘So?’ Max demanded.

  ‘Well, I always wondered if I was, you know, adopted.’

  There was a little silence. ‘Could be, I guess,’ Donovan said cautiously. ‘But wouldn’t they tell you?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ Scarlett heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘I’ve heard of people who only found out they were adopted when their parents died and left them out of their will.’

  Max gave a little snort of derision. ‘Well, your parents spoil you rotten so I can’t see that happening.’

  Scarlett tossed her head.

  ‘Four of us, born within four days and four kilometres of each other . . . it feels somehow fateful.’ Hannah stared around at her friends, all rosy in the soft flicker of the fire.

  ‘Statistically speaking, there were probably a hundred kids born in this area during that period,’ Max said.

  ‘But so close?’ Donovan asked. ‘I’ve got to admit, it feels a bit eerie.’

  ‘And you were born the same day my father disappeared.’ Hannah stared at Donovan, who turned his head so she could not see his face. ‘Tomorrow.’

  There was a short silence. Somehow Hannah found the courage to say, ‘It was the curse, you know, that made him disappear. The Curse of Wintersloe Castle.’

  No one said a word.

  ‘He was trying to break it. He was trying to find the broken bits of the puzzle ring. He said he found one part, but I don’t know what he did with it. I’ve searched everywhere.’

  Donovan gazed at her with serious, blue-grey eyes. ‘What do you mean, he said?’

  ‘I found his notebook, hidden in the little tower room, you know, the one with the weathervane on top. It’s been locked up since the day he disappeared, but I found the key. The room is filled with books on curses and fairies and time travel. He’s made a real study of it. He was determined to break the curse.’

  ‘So he really believed in it?’ Max was torn between scorn and scepticism.