Alistair stopped dead in his tracks at the sound of Katie's scream. Spinning on his heels he made as if to run right back in her direction, but spied his metal detector leaning against a tree nearby, right where he'd left it he now recalled. He ran over to the tree where the machine rested and grabbed the metal detector on the fly, never stopping. A good weapon if necessary, he reasoned, thinking he could use it like a quarterstaff if necessary.
Katie stood stock still, her face white as a sheet, staring into a place within the woods. Her hands were folded into two fists pressed hard against her face just above her chin. Her eyes were open wide and she was shaking all over. At the sound of Alistair's approach she jumped as if severely startled and appeared as if she contemplated running towards their parked Land Rover. Finally recognizing Alistair, she ran to him and buried herself in his arms crying.
"It was her!" she sobbed. "I saw her."
"Her? Who, Katie? Who did you see."
"The girl in my dream. The one the soldier killed, I mean, the one whose knife she used. Oh, you know what I mean!" She sobbed even more.
"There now, Katie. Shadows and such, that's all. Come on, we'll go home and..."
Suddenly Katie ceased her crying. "No, Alistair. We will not 'go home.' I want to know what's going on with me... With her." She pushed herself out of his arms. "And I want to know now."
Alistair sensed there was no arguing with her that moment, and he, himself, was wondering too. "Tell me what you saw."
"Alright," she agreed. "The girl was about my age, give or take a year. She was there." Katie pointed to a place at the edge of the clearing away from the Land Rover near a thin line of trees. "She stood absolutely still, one hand pointing at the trees, and her other hand beckoning to me. I was startled at first to see her there, and shocked when I realized I could see the trees she pointed to through her body. She, the apparition I mean, dropped her hands and started walking, well, floating actually right towards me. That's when I screamed. You came and she disappeared, but as she disappeared I saw her point towards the trees again and say "Help me. Then I was running and your arms were there and..." Katie paused. "Thank you."
Alistair smiled. "Anytime." Then his smile faded and his face took on a more serious look. "Let's go home."
"No, Alistair, please. Let's walk to where she pointed. I must know. I simply have to know."
Alistair sighed. "Alright, Katie. Together." Katie nodded and without hesitation seized Alistair's free hand, the one not holding the metal detector, and they both walked to the place to which the apparition pointed. The trees there stood uncaring about the approach of the two strangers. They formed a jagged, almost single line of staggered trunks. Alistair and Katie walked between two with a wide gap into another clearing, the sight of which caused her to stop and draw in a sudden breath. Alistair stopped the same time as Katie and turned to see what had caused her reaction.
"Alistair! My dream! See the boulder over there? Just like my dream: a clearing among trees with a boulder. The girl in my dream when she died lay there pointing to a place where the dirt was disturbed near the boulder."
"I'm not surprised," commented Alistair matter-of-factly. Now it was Katie's turn to stare. "That's where my father found the golden armband."
"Do you think...?" began Katie; but Alistair only shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose. We found the ring near Hadrian's Wall in the place you dreamed about and now you confirm the exact place where we found the armband. You'll have me believing in spooks and dreams before the day is out, I fear." Alistair said this lightheartedly, but Katie was not amused.
"I'd rather have neither if you don't mind." Then she forgot her minor irritation. "Alistair, use your metal detector!" she pleaded excitedly.
"What for, Katie? We've done this before," Alistair protested.
"Please, Alistair, one more time." She put on her face for the first time in years her well-designed "teenager begging her boyfriend" look. She felt guilty about it, but only a little, as Alistair's resistance melted away.
He turned the machine on, put the headphones on his head, and began to walk a slow pattern designed to cover the smallish area from corner to corner. About 15 minutes into his pattern, the dial indicator on the machine suddenly surged up to the "metallic" range, the indicator light illuminated, and he distinctly heard the sound in his headphones which signaled solid metal lying near the surface begging to be unburied. He turned the machine off and hurried back to the other clearing in which he left his backpack and digging tools. Soon he returned bearing backpack and tools. Katie decided to wait and not begin digging with her hands despite her intense curiousity.
Alistar set about digging where the machine said metal could be found. About six inches below the dead growth and dirt line, his trowel struck something very metallic, because only a piece of metal would make that kind of 'ting!' sound he heard. He began to work the trowel much more carefully, and then pulled out a paintbrush to push the soil away from the object slowly revealing itself.
"Old pair of scissors," he noted fueling a wave of disappointment in his research partner. "No, hold on. Something else." His revision pushed the disappointment in Katie away as her interest climbed once again. Alistair brushed away at his mini-dig and find. "Hmmm. I think I can free it now."
Up it came out of the dirt, an oddly formed, very rusted object looking like a slightly opened pair of scissors lacking the customary scissor's handle, but unlike any pair of scissors, ancient or modern, he or she had ever seen. "Katie, I don't think this is a scissors."
Katie leaned in to look at the object more closely. "No, it can't be a scissors. The blades are wrong... Hmmm, the blades." Katie looked at Alistair. "I think this is a dagger."
"Yeah, could be," Alistair conceded. "But a double-bladed dagger? Or maybe..." He hesitated as he turned the object over in his hand. "Maybe two daggers." He turned it over again. "Yes, two daggers I think, fused together. Handles would have been wood covered in leather, or layers of wrapped leather, both secured with leather cord. The leather and wood wouldn't last in this soil, but the metal could last for centuries. As it is, these...daggers...nearly have disintegrated from exposure. There's not much left."
Katie leaned back, an odd expression crossing her face. "Do you have the artifacts?" she asked pointing to Alistair's backpack.
"I do. I thought I should have them with us if we discovered anything similar."
"Good, please give me the armband." He did, placing the fused daggers back on the ground and holding the ring in his hand in their place since Katie didn't ask for it." He waited while she re-examined the runes. "Okay, Alistair, Would you mind passing over the ring?"
"Sure." He gave her the ring as she handed back to him the armband. At that moment the artifacts must have caught a bit of light from the sun as they were passed between them because a glow suddenly surged forth from the artifacts and then quickly faded. The two only barely noticed.
Katie looked at the ring and then slipped it on her left hand's ring finger to keep it safe while she leaned over to grasp the daggers. Alistair, idled while watching Katie examine the ring, casually slipped the armband on his own arm, smiled when Katie slipped the ring on her finger, then recognized by her movement that Katie wanted the daggers. He reached down to save her the stretch, grasped the rusted artifacts and handed them to her. Two hands, one Alistair's and the other Katie's, touched the daggers at the same time.
The world around them exploded in a brilliant flash of cold white light.
More to come.
[This message has been edited by Civis Romanus (edited 11-04-2009 @ 04:31 PM).]