Flavii and Angora were walking down a path towards the chalk quarry. Flavii was not going to be a witch. Flavii was planning to be a messenger. People like Lord Flint paid a lot of money to have messages delivered. He trained hard and was a good fighter, could run for miles and not only repeat quite long messages word for word but say then in exactly the same way he was told them. Angora thought he would be a good messenger.
“Did mother tell you what the trouble was?”
he asked Angora.
“No!” replied Angora, “It is probably another of those
training tests! As you are along it needs strength as well as my brains!”
“Hey!” exclaimed Flavii, “I am not so thick!”
though he had to admit to himself that when it came to quick thinking
Angora was probably better than even mother!
As they approached the quarry they cam to a lean-to which had a number of quarry workers sprawled around inside. Towards them hurried a short plump fellow.
“You kids! What are you doing here? It is dangerous!
Be off with you!”
“OK!” said Angora, “But mother will charge you for the
job anyway!”
“What!” exclaimed the man
“Mother said you had some trouble here and sent us to sort it out.
If you have sorted it out or don’t want us to do it, then fine!
There is no need to shout so rudely though! I will tell mother to charge
you more!”
“You are the witches brats?” asked the man.
“I am a witch!” said Angora, “My companion here is an
expert tracker and fighter. Now who are you?”
“I am Albert and I manage this quarry!” said the man.
“Good!” said Flavii, “Then you will be kind enough to
tell us what the problem is?”
“The quarry is haunted. Things keep moving around all by themselves.
Artur there says he felt two ghostly hands touch him! None of the men
will go down there and work.”
“Do things move around when none of you are there?” asked
Angora in a loud voice so the workers were asked as well.
“Dunno miss,” said one of the workers, “We bain’t
bin there since it ‘appened!”
“So it only started today then?” Flavii asked Albert.
“Yes!” he replied.
“You had better show us then!” said Angora.
“I am not going down there until things are sorted.” said
Albert. When he looked across at the men they all looked away. “None
of these are either! You just follow this track. It leads straight down
into the quarry!”
As they walked on Angora and Flavii chatted about
what it could be.
“It isn't a monster because it has not attacked anyone.” said
Flavii.
“And it is not Fey because they would have followed the men up and
continued to play jokes. Could it be a ghost?” asked Angora.
“Might be!” answered Flavii, “If it is though, it is
very powerful to move things and touch people without hurting them. Can
you talk to spirits yet?”
“Only if they talk to me 'cause, though Old Grumpy is teaching me,
he has only taught me the protection and how to listen and answer but
not how to make them talk or find them 'cause that is very hard and it
has taken ages to learn this much and so I only can if they talk to me!”
said Angora using one of her long sentences.
By now they had walked down a steep slope and were peering into the quarry. They could not see anything moving. The quarry was just a huge pit dug into the ground. Its sides looked like cliffs and were all chalk. Over to one side they could see where the men had been working as there were tools there and two carts, one half loaded with chalk.
As they walked across towards the tools two big lumps of chalk rose into the air and started to fly towards them. Flavii said, “Get behind me!” as he swung his shield in front of himself.
Though she quickly did this, Angora peered around Flavii and looked at the ground below the lumps of chalk. She saw small movements and an occasional footprint appear. She whispered to Flavii, “It is someone or something invisible and it is solid!”
“I need to see it if I have to fight it!” said Flavii, “Have you got a spell?” as he asked this he batter the chalk rocks out of the way with his shield and shoulder barged forward. Whatever it was was quick as he only contacted something moving to his right. He turned right shouting, “Show yourself!”
Angora was thinking fast. With all of the white and the sun reflecting off of the chalk, using flour like she did with her mother would be no good. Then the answer hit her! “Keep it busy Flavii! I need to know where it is!” At this Flavii shot her a look! He would like to know where it was too! There was a movement to his left! As he turned another lump of chalk was moving upwards. “Here it is!” he called as he brought his shield down. His shield hit something before knocking the chalk to the ground and then something pushed at him. He pushed back.
Meanwhile Angora got one of her pouches and opened it. When she saw Flavii was pushing against something that was actually pushing him backwards, she ran forward and threw a handful of soot in front of Flavii! Quickly she followed this with some more and they could see a squat two legged outline of a creature with a wide flat head. It had stopped pushing and seemed to be looking at its hands. Then it rubbed the soot all over one hand so it was like a glove. It moved back to where the men were working and pointed down. Then it made gestures as though to shoo people away.
Flavii was not a spell caster. He had no special powers.
He did have what his mother called a 'knack' and that was that he could
find water, even if it was underground. He had stopped moving and was
concentrating. Then he said, “There is a river some way down under
there!”
“Chalk is soft so it will have made quite a cave there, I bet!”
answered Angora.
“So if the men carried on digging then the ground would give way
and they would fall in!” continued Flavii.
“So all it was doing was trying to stop an accident!” finished
Angora.
Using mime they managed to work out where the men could not safely dig and where it was safe to do so. They used soot and stones to make markings and once the thing, whatever it was saw what they were doing it helped. Then the thing kind of waved at them and sank into the ground. They shouted out to the men, “It is safe now! You can come back!”
Slowly Albert led the men into the quarry and Flavii explained where they could not dig. Albert was pleased and gave them a small bag of eyes and told Angora he would get her some white ribbons on market day.
When they got home they told mother all they had seen and done. She divided the eyes out and put them into pots, some for Flavii, some for Angora and two for the home! She did not know what the thing was either but was pleased it had turned out to be friendly!
Old Grumpy came around later. His real name was Cai and he was a shaman but as he often complained, Angora and Flavii called him Old Grumpy. He said the thing was a cave guardian. He said they were invisible and could not speak. He told Angora to “Clear off!” when she asked how it could see if its eyes were invisible.