The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,159

told you that, lad,’ said James, surprisingly, and we all turned to look at him.

‘What do you mean – have you been in it?’ demanded Wayne. ‘Did you grab the treasure?’

‘No, you daft ha’porth, there wasn’t ever any treasure in it.’

‘I think you’d better tell us how you know, James, before we all die of curiosity,’ Ned said.

James scratched his head. ‘All right, but it was something and nothing. It was this way … There was a drought one summer when I was a lad and the waterfall was about half what it usually is, so your uncle Theo and me decided to have a look in the cave. But we weren’t daft,’ he added, giving Wayne a scathing look, ‘we used proper ropes and tied them round a tree up at the top. There was a bit more of the ledge back then anyway, so it wasn’t that difficult to get along to the entrance.’

He paused to make sure he had our full attention. ‘It’s narrow to get into, but then opens up a bit, and we could see straight away that there wasn’t any treasure there. But there had been something – or someone – there in the past because we saw there were a few bits of mouldering bones and the rusty imprint of a sword and helmet. Looked like someone managed to crawl in there to hide and never left.’

I shivered. ‘How horrible!’

‘I dunno, he was probably wounded and the effort of getting there finished him off,’ said James. ‘And he lay there peaceful enough for maybe hundreds of years. We didn’t disturb anything, just got ourselves out again. We decided to keep it quiet, so no one else would go poking around.’

‘Till Wayne,’ Ned said.

‘And I did say plainly in the book it was just another legend,’ Elf said defensively.

‘Like the other one about Nathaniel’s treasure being hidden at Old Grace Hall, that inspired you to dig up my lawn,’ Ned said grimly.

‘You can’t prove that was me!’ said Wayne quickly. ‘Nobody saw me.’

‘You’re a complete fool, Wayne,’ I told him.

‘You said it,’ agreed Ned.

Wayne hauled himself up, dripping and dishevelled. ‘I’m off home before I catch my death,’ he said belligerently, as if we were about to do a citizen’s arrest for illegal stupidity, then squelched off towards the turnstile.

‘Wet in more ways than one, poor boy,’ said Elf. ‘Well, James, I suppose I’d better get back to my ice-cream making and you to planting up the bicycle carrier.’

‘We’ll go back up to the top of the falls and remove what’s left of that rope, so no one sees it and gets any silly ideas,’ Ned said. ‘Come on, Ellwood!’

He sounded cheerful and, really, there was no reason why the incident should dampen our day.

‘We were wrong about the end of the plagues,’ I said, following him up the steep path past the source of the falls. ‘We forgot Plague of Idiots.’

Ned unknotted what was left of the rope, already half-frayed by the rocks, and coiled it over one shoulder like a mountaineer before we started back down again.

‘I’ll burn this on Gertie’s bonfire when I get back.’

‘Well, don’t let her see you, or she’ll say you’re a spendthrift for not using it to insulate a pot, or something. You know what she’s like on the subject of waste.’

‘I did hear her telling you the other day that if you left your crusts you’d never have curly hair,’ he said, halting on the flat rock by the river’s source to ruffle my hair with one big hand. ‘Bit late, though.’

‘I’d only saved a bit for Guinevere – she’s a peahen of character,’ I said. I looked across at the gushing water and the dark, jagged slit of the cave entrance and sighed. ‘Do you think whoever died in there felt comforted by the magic of this place?’

‘I expect so. I think he must have been local to know about it.’

We watched the spray flung into the air to catch the last of the sun’s rays, before it dipped behind the high hills and the atmosphere around us seemed to change and shimmer too …

I had that feeling again that something winged fluttered just out of sight – and was that a faint, tinkling laugh, or just the sound of the water?

I turned to ask Ned if he’d heard it too – and found him looking down at me with such an expression of love that my heart seemed to stop and then start again,