'I'm not a bandit,' Matt said, standing up and extending a hand. 'I prefer the term desperado. I've always had a cowboy thing going on.'
'Ahhhhh!' Crowther roared, throwing his arms into the air as if he were going to attack Matt. 'Get out, damn you!'
Caitlin jumped up to throw herself between Matt and Crowther. 'Professor, just a minute, I asked him to stay—'
'Is that supposed to calm me down? Someone with a tenuous grip on her own mental health finds a kindred spirit? I should beat you all to death with my staff now and be done with it!'
It took Caitlin a good twenty minutes to convince Crowther. He raged about waifs and strays and hangers- on compromising their security, and in the end Caitlin had to call on the services of a shrieking, neurotic Briony. Only then did Crowther back down, unable to cope with her psychosis.
Realising he was powerless to change anything,
Crowther retired to the other side of the stones to brood, while Mahalia climbed on to the roof of the hut to throw stones at the wildlife. Carlton sat with Caitlin and Matt, listening to their conversation and smiling easily. Matt was surprised to hear Caitlin's stories of the intensity of the plague - he'd heard a couple of rumours in the local village but had seen nothing. That gave Caitlin some hope that its spread wasn't as fast as she'd feared.
It was Mahalia who spotted the professor sneaking off, from her vantage point on top of the hut. She dropped down and encouraged the others to follow him, but somehow he gave them all the slip. Half an hour later, his anguished cry rang across the valley. Their blood chilled, fearing the worst, Matt led Caitlin into the field, but they found the professor staggering towards them, looking haggard. Blood trickled down either side of his face.
'What happened?' Caitlin said. She reached out to examine his wounds, but Crowther knocked her hand away. Yet the action shifted his hair and she saw, or thought she saw, a hole drilled into the side of his head. 'Who did that to you?' she asked, concerned.
'Nobody did it to me,' he snapped. 'I've been finding out the information we need - someone has to.' He barged past them, but despite his demeanour they both saw his hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Back at the camp, he sat next to the fire to warm himself, though it wasn't particularly cold. 'I know how to cross over,' he said in a thin voice. 'I had an idea before, but now I know it all.' He jabbed a finger towards Caitlin. 'You're the key.'
'Me? But why me?'
'I presumed you were,' Crowther continued as if she hadn't spoken. 'And I know where we have to go for the cure once we get to wherever it is we're going. Somewhere called the House of Pain.'
Matt laughed, eliciting a glare from Crowther. 'It couldn't be called the House of Fun, could it? You're making this up.'
'I'm going to ignore you,' Crowther said, 'and just talk to her.' He indicated Caitlin. 'I was told—'
'Who told you?' Caitlin interrupted.
'That doesn't matter.' His voice was wearier now. 'But the road will be long ... and hard.'
The shadows stretched out as the day drew to a close and soon Crowther was ready to begin his preparations. He took them to the centre of the circle where they could watch the sky for the exact moment of sunset. None of them were prepared to back out, despite Crowther's ominous information; even Mahalia was insistent.
'So you really know what you're doing?' Matt asked in a tone that suggested he didn't think the professor knew at all. Crowther ignored him, but Matt persisted. 'People always said these stone circles had something mysterious about them,' he continued. 'Everybody thought it was just superstition.'
This time Crowther couldn't resist. 'There you have it. The clues have been before us for centuries, but in our arrogant belief that earlier people were ignorant, uneducated, superstitious barbarians, we ignored the truth that was hidden away in the old stories. Things that seem inherently stupid on the surface are metaphor and symbol. The stones coming to life, moving around, that means...'
'I'm not so sure that's a metaphor,' Caitlin whispered.
Everyone followed her gaze to the stones, which now appeared to have a thin blue light limning their edges in the setting sun. The stones themselves had taken on a ghostly quality, which could well have been a trick of light and shadow, but made it seem as if they were in one place, then another, then back again.
'The stones are dancing,' Caitlin said with Amy's voice.
'What's going on?' Matt asked.
'Reality warp,' Crowther said in a hushed voice. 'This is where we got the legend that the stones here could never be counted correctly ... different answers on different days. Reality here is thin, warping with the stresses of the energies concentrated in this spot.'
'What kind of energy?' Matt asked. 'Radiation?'
'Earth energy, spirit energy - it's called the Blue Fire, and it's in everything. If I could see it, it would be so much easier to find the patterns that would help us to open the door,' Crowther complained.
'People can see it?' Matt said.
'Some. Those who've learned, or who have special abilities. You need to manipulate the Blue Fire to break through to the other side, but most normal people don't have the perception to do that.' He delved into the depths of his knapsack and pulled out a small plastic bag of some dark substance.
'What's that?' Mahalia asked suspiciously.
'Amanita muscaria. The fly agaric mushroom. These are from Mexico. You wouldn't believe the trouble I had tracking them down.'
'Magic mushrooms?' Matt said.
'I'm not eating those,' Caitlin/Amy whimpered. 'It's poison!'
'There are dangers involved in everything,' Crowther said curtly. 'Ancient Siberian shamen used these mushrooms to induce out-of-body experiences and mystical and prophetic visions. There was a cult of the sacred mushroom in Mexico. The pre-Columbian Indians, circa 1500 bc, called it God's Flesh. Academics have even stated that Amanita muscaria was a significant part of the founding of Christianity alongside Jesus Christ himself. All our religions ... civilisation itself... would not have come about if not for this tiny fungus.'
'I knew a girl in Southampton who freaked out on them,' Mahalia said.
'They're not meant for everyone.' Crowther opened the bag and poured the shrivelled mushrooms into his palm. 'It's special because it activates the "God zone" in our brain and allows us to contact the divine, the place where higher forces live, the home of dreams, visions and imagination ... the Otherworld. We're going to open the doors of perception.'
Mahalia shook her head. 'I don't like drugs. They stop you keeping an eye on the world. They're a luxury for the weak and the lazy.'
'We're not talking about hedonism, little girl,' Crowther said witheringly. 'We're talking about the only possible way we have of getting from here to there. Well, for you and me at least - she'll be fine.' He nodded to Caitlin, who shied away in a little-girl manner. Crowther leaned towards her. 'I'm not going to make you take them,' he said loudly and insensitively. He turned over the fungi thoughtfully. 'One codicil: Aldous Huxley said, "once the doors of perception are unlocked, the path to hell is as open as the path to heaven.'"
'Oh, give it here if it'll shut you up.' Mahalia grabbed some of the mushrooms and stuffed them into her mouth. Carlton watched her chew and swallow, then followed suit. Matt was next, a little reluctantly, and then Crowther took his portion.
'What now?' Matt asked.
'Now?' Crowther grabbed Caitlin and made her stand in the focal point of the circle. 'You wait there,' he said to her, 'and do what I say the second I say it.' To Matt, he said, 'Meanwhile, we wait for the hallucinogen to take effect ... and we hope.'
A sense of awe had descended on the entire stone circle, pregnant with possibility. No birds sang; the trees barely stirred in the breeze. The sun slipped to the horizon, bringing gold to the face of the stones, ploughing long shadows into the heart of the ring.
'A fairy circle,' Mahalia said in a whisper, the first stages of the trip evident in her voice.
'Exactly,' Crowther said. 'Metaphors and symbols, all hiding a deeper truth.' They listened to the silence for a few moments and then the professor added, 'We are Psychonauts, embarking on a journey beyond reality. Few have been this way before us.'
'Let's hope we come back,' Matt said.
'Look.' Caitlin/Amy pointed past the shimmering ethereal stones to a hazy area in the field beyond. Ghostly but unthreatening figures appeared and then faded, walking through their echo-lives oblivious to Crowther and the others.
'The dream zone,' Crowther said. 'Reality is thinning.'
Caitlin glimpsed people in ancient dress, images she distantly recalled from storybooks, some dressed in clothing styles she didn't recognise, others that looked barely human. And briefly she saw five people staring back at her - a man with dark hair, another whose torso was covered with tattoos, a thin Asian man, a woman with brown hair and another with dyed-blonde hair. They appeared to be trying to communicate with her, but they were gone before Caitlin appreciated their presence. Caitlin looked round; Mahalia had seen them too.
'Magic,' Matt said dreamily. 'Everywhere.'
'In the local stories, this place was supposed to be the favourite haunt of Oxfordshire fairies and Warwickshire witches,' Crowther said. 'The last Oxfordshire fairies were seen disappearing down a hole under these stones in the eighteenth century. It was reported, written down - an eyewitness account. Amazing.'
The air had grown unseasonably warm, and a hazy, cosseting feeling enveloped them all; they felt at peace yet excited about what lay ahead. Distant music floated in and out of their hearing, merging with the sound of the wind.
But just as they began to enjoy the warm, joyful atmosphere, Carlton began to whimper. Caitlin didn't have to ask what was wrong: she could feel exactly what Carlton was sensing: a dull psychic warning of impending danger. If they hadn't been in that spot, tripping, they would never have perceived it, but now it was like an alarm bell tolling.
'What's going on?' Matt asked fearfully.
'Don't get worked up,' Crowther cautioned. 'The drug will magnify your emotions. You'll panic.'
'Don't get worked up?' Amy was gone, and now the neurotic, frightened presence of Briony dominated. 'You know what's coming.'
'What is it?' Matt said, urgently.
'Things have been tracking us,' Caitlin said. 'Tracking me. They won't give up.'
'Stay calm.' Crowther laid a heavy hand on Caitlin/ Briony's shoulder.
'What things?' Matt searched the area. The sun was now just a thin line of red at the horizon, and the shadows surged everywhere amongst the trees.
'The Whisperers.' Caitlin/Briony hugged her arms around herself.
'Can you feel that?' Matt stood up, ready to roam to the edge of the circle to search the growing dark until Crowther grabbed his jacket and pulled him back down.
And then they all could feel it: a wave of black despair washing across the land, rising inexorably up to the higher ground where the stones looked out. The Whisperers were coming.
'What are they?' Caitlin/Briony asked desperately. 'How can they make us feel this way?'
Mahalia grabbed Crowther's arm and said ferociously, 'How much longer before this thing works?'
'I don't know. I don't know if it will work.'
Mahalia whirled around. 'We're too exposed here. We need to find shelter ... somewhere we can defend.'
'They shouldn't be able to step into the circle,' Crowther said. 'The Blue Fire will keep them out.'
'But if we don't cross over, they can just wait outside the stones until we starve,' Mahalia said.
A thin purple light was visible far away down the valley, but drawing quickly closer.
'Come on!' Caitlin screamed. It felt as if all her occupants were struggling to gain control.
The remaining sun was just the slightest sliver, as if the sky was cut and bleeding. Yet oddly the blue glow edging the stones was growing brighter, running in veins and capillaries down the very rock as if infusing them with life. The air became charged with magic.
A ragged breathing rose above the stillness. Mahalia drew one of the knives from her harness and turned in the direction of the sound. Purple mist drifted languorously through the trees and soon after a figure came stumbling through it. But this was not one of the Whisperers. It had the shape of a man, though the purple light was leaking out of him as if he were a fractured steam pipe.
Carlton whimpered; Mahalia crouched low to the ground, ready to fend off any attack.
The figure reached the edge of the stones and they recognised him as the hermit who had tried to drive them away from the Motor Museum. But he was no longer as he had been.
'My God! What have they done to him?' Crowther breathed, transfixed.