So, don’t worry, Dad. I’ve got lots of friends. It’s just that they are a bit older than I am. But you always did say that I was very mature for my age. And when school starts in a week I know I’ll meet some of the other kids and find a friend my own age. At least, I hope so.
I must go. It’s nearly five and I have to head back to Wells. I am getting enormous leg muscles from all of this bicycling, but I’m not gaining any weight. Mom has lost a few pounds, too.
I miss you and Brian. Do you think you could find a free week-end to come up and visit? You could have rooms in the Jack O’Clubs Hotel. You wouldn’t have to stay with us and move in on Mom’s space. I really would like to see you. Please come.
All my love to you and Brian. I do miss you very much.
Love,
Elizabeth
or Bess
(That’s what the Judge calls me. He says I look a bit like Queen Elizabeth the First of England and her nickname was ‘Bess’. I kind of like it.)
Elizabeth folded the letter carefully and put it away in her backpack. She rubbed her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears. She really would have to do something about her hair before school started. It was getting so long that it looked scraggly unless she washed it every day.
Getting to her feet, she stretched. Although it would be a long time before it got dark, the days were getting shorter and the shadows lengthened in the graveyard earlier and earlier. There was always a chill in the air in the evenings, no matter how hot the day had been, and lately the early mornings were foggy, hinting of fall.
She shrugged her shoulders into the straps of her backpack and bent to give the old headstone a pat. It was a ritual with her; she gave the anonymous marker a friendly pat whenever she arrived at her favourite spot in the graveyard, and also when she left. As she bent over, her pen fell out of the pocket of her pack and rolled across the grass to the edge of the marker. She knelt to pick it up and as she did, a glint caught her eye. It was just a momentary flash of something shiny in the long grass at the foot of the headstone. She brushed aside the grass and there, half buried in roots and dirt, was a small gold ring.
She picked it up and rubbed away the dirt. It was a small ring, a woman’s or a child’s. A small red stone was set in the centre, flush with the ring itself, and an intricate pattern of engraving spread from the stone across the top of the ring. Something had been engraved on the inside of it, but the letters were too worn to read.
Well, she thought. It’s my lucky day. I wonder if it’s real gold? She slipped the ring onto the little finger of her left hand. It fit as if it had been made for her.
It’s a pretty thing. I guess I should check at the office, though, to see if anyone’s reported losing it. I hope no one has. I’d like to keep it.
Idly, she turned the ring around on her finger, wondering about the person it had belonged to and how it had come to be nestled in the grass at the head of an old grave in Barkerville.
Suddenly, her vision blurred. The air around her became hazy, as if a misty curtain had been drawn in front of the trees. She felt weak. Her head ached behind her eyes and, for a moment, she thought that she was going to be sick to her stomach.
She eased herself down onto the grass beside the grave. I’d better sit down for a while. I must be catching the flu or something.
Carefully, she put her head between her knees, a trick that she knew was good for getting rid of dizziness. She sat that way for several minutes, then, feeling better, she slowly raised her head.
The wooded graveyard had vanished and in its place was an open field studded with tree stumps and scrub grass. The gravestones which had been so numerous were now thinned to a handful, and her special grave, the one she had been sitting beside, was gone.
Elizabeth blinked her eyes, holding them shut for a few seconds. When she opened them the scene remained the same. Puzzled, and slightly frightened, she got to her feet and made her way to one of the nearest tombstones.
The wooden marker was new, the paint unweathered and the wood unsilvered by time. The grave itself was raised and covered with only a thin growth of grass and weeds, bare earth showing quite clearly in spots. Elizabeth was able to read the epitaph clearly:
IN MEMORY
OF
CHARTRES BREW
BORN AT CORFSIN
COUNTY CLARE, IRELAND
31 OF DEC. 1815
DIED AT RICHFIELD
31 OF MAY, 1870
GOLD COMMISSIONER
AND COUNTY COURT JUDGE
Elizabeth knew the grave and knew of Chartres Brew. He had been a friend of the real Judge Begbie. The presence of a familiar grave reassured her slightly.
The rest of his epitaph had been written by Judge Begbie himself. She had memorized it just last week. Slowly, she read the rest out loud: “A man imperturbable in courage and temper, endowed with a great and varied administrative capacity. A most ready wit, a most pure integrity.”
The words were the same. But why was the marker so new looking? Why did the grave look fresh instead of sunken and overgrown the way she had seen it last?
Frightened now, Elizabeth ran from grave to grave, checking for familiar ones. Some markers were weathered, but not badly so. Others seemed recent — one looked as if it had been dug only days ago and was still covered with dried wildflowers. Some graves that should have been there were missing.
She looked for her special place, hoping for more reassurance. The big pine was gone and where it should have been stood a tiny seedling, no more than a foot high. The trees that had shaded the graveyard were also gone and, as she looked around her she realized that both above and below her the hills had been stripped of trees.
Slowly, she sat down and tried to think. What had happened? She had found the ring. Then she’d put it on her finger and . . . . Perhaps if she took it off and started again this nightmare would go away. She pulled the ring from her finger and looked around. Everything remained the same: the bare hills, the smaller, newer-looking graveyard.
Frantically, she shoved the ring back onto her finger. Stupid thing, she thought. Everything was normal until I found it. If I could put it back . . . . But the grave where she had found the ring was not there, and she had no way of knowing exactly where to put the ring.
Unconsciously, she rubbed her hands together, clenching and twisting them the way her mother did when she was upset. Tears began to smart behind her eyes, and she chewed nervously on her bottom lip. Take it easy, she told herself. You’re probably asleep, having a bad dream. You’ll wake up soon and stretch and yawn, pick up your backpack and go home.
She rubbed her hands again, pulling and twisting her fingers. The ring sat comfortably on the little finger of her left hand. She held it with the fingers of her right hand, and in her anxiety began to turn it.
Before the ring had completed one revolution, weakness and nausea gripped her again, and the strange mist gathered and swelled before her. Gasping, she closed her eyes. When the sick feeling had gone, she cautiously opened them again. To her relief, the world was once again the safe, familiar place that she knew. The large pine towered above her once more, her favourite grave was there in its proper place, and the tall trees that sheltered the graveyard whispered softly in the afternoon breeze.
Shakily, Elizabeth got to her feet and made her way to Chartres Brew’s grave. The weathered marker leaned slightly to one side, its epitaph worn and hard to read. There was no sign of freshly dug earth and no newly erected grave markers could be seen anywhere in the cemetery.
She took a deep breath and picked up her backpack. Carrying it under one arm she made her way out of the graveyard and down