The Jack Hansard Series: Season Two

Episode 3.3

I walked around the central donut-shaped stone and peered at Ang through the hole. A familiar fizzing of the senses had already primed me to look closer. There was a faint distortion in the image, like the subtle wavering of heated air; the shimmer of reality thinned out and caught in a breeze.

'This is a bridge,' I announced. 'The knockers must be hidden on the other side.'

'Aye. Knew you'd spot it eventually, gwas.'

The arrangement didn't much surprise me. A bridge is any place where reality – the universe, the ether, quantum particles or whatever – is stretched and easily warped. If you know how, you can cross a bridge to see what's on the other side. I'd met Ang this way. Her clan of coblynau had created a neat little pocket dimension for themselves across a bridge, and effectively shut it off from the rest of the world.

'On the count of three?' I suggested. 'One, two, thr–'

I unravelled my edges, bit by bit. Applied a soft focus to my being, and slipped into the spaces where reality warps.

'–ree.'

Momentarily giddy, I could see tendrils of fog curling out of the hole in the stone. Ang was poking her head through.

'Can't see nuthin' yet, gwas. D'ye want to– Ack!'

She disappeared through the hole.

'Ang!' I dove after her in what I believe would have been an extremely graceful and acrobatic manoeuvre if it weren't for the table strapped to my back which cracked into the edges of the stone, and ultimately resulted in me struggling to disentangle myself while falling backwards and backwards and backwards into fog until I finally flumped awkwardly onto the ground.

Several narrow, pointed faces looked down at me. I was relieved to find their expressions curious rather than angry.

'Dynnargh dhis. Awright there, big 'un?'

The speaker wore a brimmed hat with an oversized flashlight mounted on the front. His simple shirt and trousers were much like Ang's usual costume minus the waistcoat, and with the addition of a brown neckerchief.

'Branok, me,' he introduced himself as I lurched to my feet, and then promptly ignored me in favour of Ang. 'Wasson, maid. Haven't seen y'round before. One of our Cousin Jack's, are yer?'

Ang blinked owlishly at him, her face a rictus of suspicion. 'My name be Ang. 'E's the one called Jack.'

'Jack Hansard. Mystic pioneer and tradesman of occult goods,' I said, extending a hand downwards. Branok shook it politely and turned straight back to Ang.

'Cor. Goron's maid, aren't ye? 'E'll be made up y've come, no mistake.'

'I ain't his nobody!' she replied hotly. 'Where is the lyin' knocker? I'll knock his head fer sayin' such things!'

'Ah, right. Weel. 'E be along dreckly, I s'pect.'

There was a brief exchange in Cornish between Branok and his friends with much nodding and shaking of heads. Rather than try to fathom what they were arguing about, I took stock of our surroundings. We were in a small, wooded glen; a stark contrast to the barren moorland we'd criss-crossed to find Mên-an-Tol.

This was a near perfect circle of grass and wildflowers bathing in a beaming shaft of yellow sunlight. A dense thicket of trees enclosed it like a wall. Foxgloves, snowdrops, and bluebells were all in flower, completely out of season with each other. And despite being late in the day (on the outside, at least) the sun shone bright and warm, catching on droplets of fine dew which hung from every leaf and stem. The flowers sparkled.