Little Eden Read online

  As they descended, the roar of the water became louder, and they found themselves walking next to an underground and very fast-flowing stream. Suddenly, they could feel a biting cold around their feet. The water was lapping a little over the uneven walkway as it gushed through the tenebrous channel alongside.

  “Ow!” Sophie exclaimed.

  “You ok, old girl?” Jack asked, from behind.

  “Yes! It’s just the water!” Sophie replied. “It’s colder than any water I’ve ever felt before.”

  “Nearly there!” Robert said reassuringly.

  “Not sure ‘nearly there’ helps much!” Sophie replied. “It’s where we are going that I don’t want to go to!”

  The entrance to the crypt wasn’t very far. The pathway took them away from the stream and onto dry ground. They soon reached a highly decorated iron gate, which was not locked. A few more steps down took them inside the crypt.

  “It smells of old pianos” Lucy remarked.

  “It’s the smell of death!” Jack said in her ear and grabbed her from behind. She screamed! Turning around and hitting him playfully on the shoulder, she nearly dropped the small box she was holding, that contained her aunt’s ashes.

  “Sorry, old girl! That was in bad taste,” Jack admitted.

  “Yes, it was. But then, you usually are!” she replied, but smiled.

  Robert lit one of the huge, half-used, church candles which lined the walls of the dank mausoleum. As he lit more of them, the darkness receded and the chamber began to transform from an eerie pitch black to heavenly shining white. Sophie lit the candles on the other side of the wall and tomb after tomb was slowly revealed, each one more beautiful than the last. Glowing white marble sepulchres and alabaster angels were unveiled from the shadows, and blazing medieval effigies were born into the light. Twinkles of candle flame danced and sparkled over the multitude of brass plaques, making the whole room shimmer, as if it had come alive with angelic light.

  “Wow,” Sophie murmured, as she bathed in the lustre enveloping her. “This is amazing!”

  “Not so scary now?” Lucy asked Sophie. “Are you okay? Do you want to go back?”

  “No! It’s okay.” Sophie replied. “It’s not in the least scary in here after all, is it? It’s as if all these ancestors are friendly - not one of them isn’t glad to see us! Why didn’t you ever bring us here as kids Robert?”

  “We came down here once,” Jack said. “Do you remember, Robbie? You wanted to impress that girl - what was her name?”

  “If memory serves, old chap,” Robert smiled, “She was more impressed with you than with me or my ancestors!”

  Jack laughed, and shrugged nonchalantly, “Can’t help my natural charm, old boy!”

  The friends started to walk between the tombs. Some were very close together, but others seemed to have their own little space, as if saying, Look at me! The girls stroked their hands over the cold yet seductive glimmering marbles and read some of the inscriptions.

  “I love this one!” Lucy said. She was standing next to one of the largest tombs and placed her little box down upon it. Two translucent alabaster angels were devotedly bowing over effigies of a husband and wife who were holding hands. The carving of their features was so exquisite - they looked as if they could wake up at any moment and carry on with their lives. “Not only is it divine to look at but there’s a poem,” Lucy said. “Listen…

  Once the breath of her life was gone, I could no longer breathe. Once the sound of her voice was gone, I could no longer hear. Once the touch of her love was gone, I could no longer feel. Once I am buried by her side, I shall live with her eternally.

  And then it says…

  Here lyeth the bodye of Henrietta Bartlett-Hart 1739-1801. Adored and much-loved daughter of Lady Nancy Franklin-Grey and Rt. Hon Mr Elliott Bartlett Esq. At eternal rest beside his loving wife, devoted husband Mr Owen Hart Esq. of Tara, Ireland 1738-1802.”

  “That is so sweet!” Sophie said. “Perhaps some people do love each other for a lifetime? At least he only had to live a year without her. Weren’t they the ones who started the Little Eden Trust?”

  “Yes,” Robert answered, looking on. “Henrietta and her twin brother Jeremiah put the whole of the town into Trust in 1799. Jeremiah was a Quaker and a philanthropist. Henrietta remodelled a great deal of Little Eden. Most of Castle Street was rebuilt, as well as the theatre, and she opened the Chateau parkland to the public for the first time. She built Hart and Bartlett Crescents too. Her legacy has certainly lasted, just as she had hoped it would.”

  “Oh!” Sophie exclaimed as she read the effigy for herself. “So, they were the ones who put the two surnames together! I remember now - that you were not always double-barrelled! You were just Bartlett once.”

  “We were just Bartholomew to start with when we first came over from France,” Robert explained.

  “You have quite a collection of relatives down here, old chap,” Jack said. “I like this one…

  Robert “Bobby” Bartlett-Hart 1801-1879.

  Here lie my bones and those of my beloved wives, Miss Bettina French, des’ 1824. Lady Patricia Dumpling, des’ 1841. Miss Charlotte Montgomery with our dear children, Henrietta, Georgina & Roberta des’ 1862.

  My faithful mistresses, Nana O’Donnell, des’ 1826, Idumanti Ishwari, des’ 1866.

  May we be family for Eternity.

  …now there is a man after my own heart!” Jack laughed. “How many women?”

  Lucy frowned. “I don’t think its decent putting them altogether like that, if you ask me.”

  Sophie sighed. “I think they will be quarrelling over who gets to marry who in the next life and probably for eternity! Till death us do part is written into marriage vows for a reason. To swear eternal love is always a huge mistake. There’s no escaping them in the next life!” She looked around again and asked, “What’s the oldest tomb, Robert?”

  “It’s hidden.” Robert replied. “Father showed me it once. I can’t remember exactly where…er…yes…here, it’s hidden behind this big one!” He squeezed behind a stupendously monumental marble and disappeared from view. The others peered, the best they could, around the imposing tomb, and tried to catch a glimpse of the concealed grave. Robert hovered a candle over an almost perished, life-sized, wooden effigy of a long-forgotten woman. She was wearing (they could just make out) what seemed to be a nun’s apparel, and in her hands, she was holding a large open book, which was resting on her chest. A delicate crown sat upon her head, which was now covered in cobwebs and dust. There were still some golden flakes of paint just glinting in the deepest carvings. The imposing lady had a broken sword and a half-rotted shield by her side, and her feet were still resting on a sleeping lion.

  “Meet Alienor Bartholomew!” Robert said. “The founder of Little Eden way back in 600 AD.”

  Sophie felt a sudden chill up her spine, which caused a wave of nausea to ripple through her whole body, and her face drained to a deathly pallor. The others looked at her in alarm! She began to shake her hands as if she had too much energy running through her, and she began to tremble.

  “Oh, crikey,” Lucy said. “I know that look! What? What is it Sophie? What have you seen? Did you hear something? Is there something or someone here with us?” Lucy looked around in fright.

  “No! Yes! I mean, there is something here with us!” Sophie said. She paused again and looked, transfixed, at the empty space in front of her. Jack and Robert looked anxiously around too, although they didn’t really know what they expected to see! The temperature around them had dropped at least a degree and they all started to shiver. Robert moved uneasily out of his hidden place to join the others. He started to feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising up.

  Lucy reached out for Sophie’s hand. “What happened?”

  “Can you feel that?” Sophie asked.

  “The cold
? Yes, it’s gone icy in here,” Lucy nodded. “Is it a ghost?” she asked - hoping to God that it was not!

  The candles suddenly flashed and began to burn brighter. The subterranean room became effervescent with an unnatural light that seemed to sparkle and hum. Sophie shuddered again and closed her eyes.

  “Who can you see?” Lucy whispered.

  Sophie regained her composure, and opening her eyes she looked around the glittering room. The others watched and waited. They saw her smile slightly and then frown, as if trying to focus on something. She began to laugh a little and then grinned. She nodded, “It’s okay folks! It’s not a ghost - it’s a spirit guide.”

  “Well!” Lucy said, still petrified. “That’s okay then!”

  “But, who is it?” Robert asked.

  Sophie smiled and replied, “It’s just Alienor Bartholomew come to visit us, or, depending what time frame you are in, it’s also Aunt Lilly!

  Chapter 3

  ~ * ~

  Sophie beamed at her friends and was excited now! The others couldn’t see any spirit or apparition, but they could still feel the icy cold chill. Robert stepped sideways and suddenly realised that they were in a genuine cold spot. It was most definitely a degree or so warmer just a few paces to his left and to his right, and he kept shifting about to check that he wasn’t imagining it!

  Sophie closed her eyes again and pointed towards one of the ornate sepulchres. “Alienor Bartholemew’s spirit is standing round about…there!” she said. “I can see her with my third eye, but not with my eyes open. Can anyone see anything? Robert can you?”

  Robert looked thoughtful and replied, “I can’t see anything, but we are definitely in a cold spot.

  Jack shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t feel or see anything! Are you sure there’s a ghost?”

  “It’s not a ghost!” Sophie replied. “It’s a visitation! Alienor is acting as a spirit guide.”

  “Oh, well!” Jack chuckled, none the wiser. “That makes all the difference!”

  “I’m bloody freezing!” Lucy said. “I can’t see the spirit, but I keep seeing little flashes of white and blue light, like tiny bubbles, that ping away almost as soon as you look at them. Who can you see?” Lucy asked her sister. “Is it Alienor or Aunt Lilly?”

  “They keep switching from one to the other like a hologram,” Sophie told her. “But now you have asked that, Alienor seems to be staying. You know me - I get the psychic information in pictures, like a movie in my mind, so bear with me whilst I work out what’s going on. Wait!” she said suddenly. “Hang on! Alienor is showing me something. She’s taking me into the past.” Sophie screwed her eyes up tight so that she could shut out the candle light from around her and concentrate on the vision inside her mind. “I can feel a time-portal opening out at my feet.”

  “Oh!” Robert unexpectedly exclaimed, and they all looked at him wondering what he was going to say. “I feel as if I am standing on boggy ground and I’m wearing riding boots. I can actually feel them!” He looked down at the dry stone floor and at his handmade brogues. To his normal eyes the floor and his feet were exactly as they should be. But, with his eyes shut, the strange dream-like sensations that the sixth sense conjures in the mind, gave him the impression that the lower half of his body had disappeared and been replaced with someone else’s legs and feet. He realised however, that they were not someone else’s. This was not a possession. They were his own, past life, legs and feet!

  “Yes!” Sophie responded. “I can feel that too! In the past we are in a boggy field: there’s grass and water everywhere. I can see fields that seem to go on forever and an expanse of pale blue sky shot through with a sunset of pink clouds. Oh! I can see a standing stone too. I’m right next to it!” She put out her hand and Jack watched in disbelief as she patted the air and said, “It’s not very large. It’s mossy and wet. Oh! There are more of them - I’m standing inside a circle of stones.”

  “Is Alienor showing you Little Eden, but in the past?” Lucy asked. “Is it when she was here in 600?”

  “Yes, I think it must be!” Sophie nodded. “I think we have been taken back to the time before Little Eden became a village or a town. I can’t perceive anything else that makes it look like the Little Eden we know today. There is no castle, no Chateau. In fact, no buildings of any kind.”

  At this point Robert interjected: “I feel as if, in the past, I’m leading a white horse and I’m wearing leather riding clothes. I am getting the impression that there is a woman with me and she is riding on the horse.”

  “Yes, I can see that too,” Sophie agreed. “The woman is Alienor. I can see more people on horseback too. The horses are amazingly decorated; one has a huge feather on its head and it looks as if the bridle has jewels inlaid on it. There are a few ladies on horseback, in beautiful dresses, and men too, all dressed in leathers!”

  Sophie hurriedly jumped to one side and exclaimed in alarm, “Crikey! What was that?” She focused her third eye downwards, away from the horses, to see what it was that had brushed up against her leg. “Oh, it’s a dog!” she said with relief. “It seems friendly enough, but it’s all soggy and muddy! Ooo, it smells like wet dog too!”

  “I can smell that!” Lucy said, wrinkling up her nose in disgust. “What else can you see or sense?” Lucy was eager to get more of the psychic picture that was unfolding for Sophie and Robert. “Tell us!”

  “The scene is moving on…it’s moving forward in time,” Sophie told them. “Yes! Yes! Now I can see a moat has been made and the boggy land has been drained. There are sheep, and pigs, and newly planted trees to make orchards. There are chickens, deer, and doves - and flowers, thousands of flowers! Sophie nodded to herself as she made sense of each picture that came into her mind. “The people here sell flowers - there is a big flower and bird market where the old market cross is now.”

  “I feel dizzy!” Lucy said all of a sudden, and steadied herself against a marble pillar. Jack took her arm and held her close to him. “What else can you see? What is she trying to tell us?” Lucy asked her sister.

  “I think we’ve had enough of all this!” Jack said, a little concerned that Lucy looked so pale in the candle light. “You okay, old girl?” He was starting to wonder whether his friends were not slightly mad.

  “I’m okay!” Lucy told him. “I can’t see psychic things like Sophie but I can feel them. I got dizzy, that’s all - like being on uneven ground.”

  “Oooo, that’s weird!” Sophie remarked. “I can sense the whole crypt is changing and I’m surrounded by wooden walls, not stone! The floor is made of planks too. They’re sort of raised up like a pontoon.” Sophie felt the floor with her feet, and moved a little from side to side, and then bounced up and down a few times.

  Jack just raised an eyebrow in wonder. He really didn’t know what to think!

  “I know why I thought it felt like a pontoon - because it’s a floating floor. There’s a spring right underneath where we are standing and it’s bubbling up right here!”

  Everyone looked down at the floor, but to them, in the present time, it still looked like solid stone, and as dry as a bone! The only water was outside the crypt, flowing down the underground stream in the passageway beyond.

  Suddenly, Robert sneezed and made everyone jump! “Sorry!” he said, as Lucy put her hand to her heart, trying to catch her breath. “Something made me sneeze!” Robert reached for his hanky, but then he remembered that he had given it to Sophie earlier at the Chappelle. He hoped they did not notice him wipe his nose on his sleeve!

  I can smell smoke!” Lucy said, as she sniffed the air.

  “I can smell that!” Jack exclaimed. “Although, it smells more like hashish to me! Where is it coming from? Is someone coming up the passageway?” Jack went to look through the gate, but the passageway was pitch dark and he couldn’t hear any footsteps.

  “They are burning herbs in the wo
oden church back in the 600’s,” Sophie explained. “They use it like incense to cleanse the space. It’s sage - that’s why it smells a bit like hash.”

  “Is it real smoke?” Jack asked, looking around him trying to figure out why he could smell something that didn’t seem to be there in reality.

  “No, of course not!” Sophie replied laughing. “You’re picking up a spirit-smell coming through a time portal. It’s called clairolfaction. It’s like clairvoyance only instead of sight, it’s smells that you pick up. It’s actually the most common of the clairsenses. People smell the past a lot - pipe smoke, and baking, perfume too!”

  “I thought clairvoyance was seeing into the future?” Jack said.

  “Past, present, future,” Sophie replied, “It’s all the same really!” She put up her hand to stop anyone saying anything more, and cocking her ear to the air, she added, “Listen! I can hear prayers being said. Can anyone else hear that?”

  They all listened carefully, pushing their ears up and putting their heads on one side, as if that position might help them hear better; eventually they all shook their heads. They couldn’t hear anything except the faint rush of water and the odd flicker of a candle flame. “I can smell the past but I can’t see or hear it!” Lucy said, with a frown - wishing she could see it in her mind’s eye as Sophie could.

  Sophie could see people entering the simple wooden chapel. “I can see a group of nuns praying; they are Sisters of the Rose. Robert! Alienor wants to talk to you. She is right beside you. Can you feel or hear her?”

  Robert closed his eyes and concentrated. “I can sense what she is saying, but it’s telepathic rather than audible. Tell me what you think she is saying and see if we are getting the same message?” he suggested to Sophie.

  “I can’t hear her speaking out loud either,” Sophie replied. “But I know what she is saying…she says; The dark forces are gathering in greed. We are all at a crossroads. In the year of our Lord Twenty Thousand and Twelve the planets will change their course to re-shape the future of mankind. Robert must learn to use his sword. The dragon portal must be defended. Robert must make the choice.”