Mysteries of Llanagog

By Craig Middleton

Curled up in bed shaking with fear and cold, Rachels world looked like it was about to fall apart. The British Isles were in the grip of the Second World War and the streets in which she played were just piles of rubble.
Her parents were glad to see the back of her and so it seemed like a pleasant dream when shed arrived in the Welsh village of Llanagog and was rescued by Lavender Jones. But her adventures were only just beginning because in Llanagog events were about to take place that would change the course of the entire war and she was going to become part of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499013009

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Copyright © 2014 by Craig Middleton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/10/2014

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D oink, doink, doink— the steady grey raindrops that dripped monotonously from the surrounding trees were Charlotte’s only company as she awoke from her sleep and gazed blearily across the valley that she called home. The rain had passed a half hour earlier while she was still in a restless sleep.

Nature had given her spectacularly good eyesight. This was a blessing for Charlotte because it meant that even from way up on her hillside, she could see the comings and goings of the village below. The village of Llanagog consisted of a church, a dozen shops that were squashed together on the one-lane high street, two pubs, village hall, and a few dozen cottages. Charlotte felt secretly part of the village because she had spent countless days watching it.

During summer she would sometimes have to retreat far back into her cave because people would wander all over the valley picnicking and playing and she was afraid of being seen.

She longed to play out in the open but dared not, because she was a dragon. Instinctively she knew that she didn’t belong in the company of people. Charlotte had been surviving on her instincts since the first time that she woke up to find herself alone in the cave. Her instincts meant that she knew how to find food, how to fly, when to sleep, etc. She was lucky to have instincts because she had no long-term memory. Her memory only went back a few years. Charlotte was frustrated because she knew that she should be able to remember her entire life, but couldn’t.

She was about to try and sleep a little longer when something caught her eye. It was the new child in the village. She was collecting daisies and buttercups from the meadow next to the churchyard. The little girl’s beauty captivated Charlotte. She smiled as she watched her. Today she looked different from when she’d first arrived in the village. On that day she looked pale and weak and her body seemed to move stiffly as if she was in pain, particularly in her right arm. Today she was definitely looking healthier and a little happier. And she was even using her right arm a bit to pick the flowers.

She lived in the cottage that backed onto the hill, directly beneath Charlotte’s cave. Charlotte could see clearly into the garden and at times would catch a glimpse of the cottage’s elderly owner Mrs Jones and the girl as they helped themselves to the water from the tap, in the light of their kitchen window. More often than not, they would have hold of an old black kettle. Mrs Jones, it seemed, drank endless cups of tea.

It was clear to Lavender from the very first moment that she saw the little girl that she was not well. Thirty children from London’s East End had arrived on September 10th. They were herded off the bus and left standing in the schoolyard like cattle ready for auction. Lavender had arrived late because no one had bothered to inform her of the children’s arrival that day. In fact it was getting dark and the schoolyard was empty but for a crumpled package rolled up on the tarmac. The package turned out to be Rachel. She had been passed over by the other villagers because she had wet herself and smelt terrible. Lavender had to fight back her own tears and shame when she finally realised what she was looking at. A little girl no more than eight years old curled up asleep with her head resting on her teddy bear for comfort.

The village had been full of rumours about these children from the slums of London—how they were full of lice and other diseases and how criminal they all were. Looking at the girl’s frail body, Lavender could understand why she might be driven to steal food to eat. As gently as she could, she bent down and picked her up with her teddy bear, gas mask, and carry bag and took her home.

Charlotte’s attention was taken from Rachel by a glimmer of light on the opposite side of the valley. She’d noticed it before several times and recognised it as coming from a rather beautiful machine. Charlotte had no idea what it did but it was always in the same spot, in the window, directly opposite her.

Cunningham Leeks was stood at the window of his library, his eye pressed firmly against the brass of his telescope. Like Charlotte, Rachel intrigued him although he was not sure why, because he’d never liked children. He himself had never mixed with other children, being aristocratic and an only child himself. His current home, Stamford Manor, was an impressive building built in the sixteenth century for the Countess of Shrewsbury, who was one of the wealthiest women in the world at the time. In its centre was a great hall. Leading off this was a great winding stone staircase reaching up three floors. A large gallery containing priceless oil paintings and tapestries took up the second floor, the third floor housing the bedrooms and library. The house was only a small part of the estate, which included most of the properties in the village and all the surrounding land for many miles around, including the mines and farms.

It was unclear just how Cunningham Leeks had come to own the estate. Every villager seemed to have a different story about it, but the most sensible theory was that the old owners, the Spencers, had gone broke after the First World War, when their mining empire collapsed.

Cunningham Leeks was from a Dutch mining family; he’d seized the opportunity to buy the manor, including the local mining interest and farms. He knew the Spencers were bankrupt and desperate and so offered a low price and got it. He also knew that with the capture of other European mines by the Germans, British coal would be of a premium; added to this, he was confident in even recovering control of his Dutch mines if the Germans were defeated. Overall, the war had been good for Leeks. He enjoyed having the big house at his disposal; it made him feel important.

He’d attended university at Oxford and had always wanted to be part of the English aristocracy. It was while at Oxford that he’d developed his interest in chemistry. To him there seemed to be infinite possibilities for altering the way life forms functioned, including the human mind and body. He had been particularly inspired when he saw his first human brain pickled in a jar and realised that the brain itself was 80 per cent water and therefore very susceptible to chemical additives such as acid and opiates. He dreamed of making millions by developing drugs that could control some of the large populations of Earth. Years later when he saw the trauma etched on the faces of the first batch of refugee children that had come up from London, he began to see great opportunity for mind-altering drugs for the masses, including children. The war had only just started and he could see that there was going to be a market for mental drugs as time went on, a big market. And so he had seen to it that three boys had been billeted in the servants’ section of Stamford Manor. As he was able to produce his drugs, he could test them on the children and then observe the effects. The isolation of the manor would make it easy for him to assess his results. It also meant that no one or almost no one would observe the bad reactions that might show up.

Charlotte jumped when Leeks swung the telescope away from Rachel and directed it straight at her. She held her breath and froze her body, digging her talons into the ground, tensely aware of a faint grey plume of smoke still drifting in the air in from her nostrils. She watched in horror as Leeks looked away from the telescope and stood with nothing but the window and some air between them. For ages he stood motionless, drilling his gaze into her. Ever so slowly and without taking her eyes off him, she eased back deeper into the cave, not daring to even lift her feet but carefully dragging them backwards across the rocky floor. It was a relief to feel the darkness covering her body, but her mind was tormented with anxiety.

Had he seen something? The shock encounter with Leeks was so intense and draining that she collapsed in a heap and closed her eyes, but as she did so the image of Leeks’ white bony face and his skeletal frame haunted her. Within minutes she began to feel horribly ill. She shivered and sneezed and her eyes were blurry from tears.

She never liked seeing Leeks and in fact would stay right away from the mouth of her cave whenever he was present, but for some reason today she hadn’t seen him arrive at the window. With a great deal of effort she forced the encounter from her mind. As she did so, she realised that she was hungry. Like all dragons, Charlotte ate coal. She made her way a little deeper into her cave until she could feel lumps of coal under her feet.

In a moment, her eyes had adjusted to the almost pitch darkness; however, she could make out a pile of coal.

She had no answer for how the coal had come to be there any more than she had any answer for how she herself had come to be in the cave. She had just woken one day right at the spot where she was now standing. She had no memory of any previous existence at all, just a suffocating feeling of loss overpowered only by a painful hunger. The hunger had been solved when she’d eaten but not her sorrow. She sat and ate; warmth began to spread from her stomach. She closed her eyes again and this time drifted into a restful sleep.

When she woke it was dark outside. She wandered over to the mouth of her cave, feeling strong and ready to fly. She looked towards where she’d seen Leeks earlier, but only a couple of small lights on the ground floor radiated a dim yellow glow. Confident, she moved forward so that she was outside of the cave and standing with her front feet at the tip of the cliff that dropped directly down three hundred yards below her. This was her favourite time of day.

Savouring the cool night air and the safety the darkness gave her, she drew in one massive breath before launching herself off the cliff. She hopped over the edge and let herself drop for two seconds until she opened her wings. She was a master of flight and every take-off felt like a triumph for her as if she was shaking free from some slavery. Her body jolted as the wind caught in her massive wings. She lifted her head and let the wind rocket her way up towards the stars. With several powerful flaps of her wings she went higher and higher.

Up ahead she spotted the outline of some grey rain clouds. Closing her eyes, she waited for the sensation of freezing-cold water to hit her face. In a second she’d pierced the cloud and was sprayed with the tiniest particles of rainwater. It tickled her face and brushed away the last remaining cobwebs, and depression.

The water changed the colour of her scales from green to red. Charlotte admired herself for a moment before taking stock of her position. Even in bright sunlight on a clear day, she would have been almost invisible to anyone on the ground. Still she climbed for a few moments longer, then finally satisfied, she let her wings extend, stretched out her neck, and began to glide.

She looked down on the few scattered lights far below, taking in the pristine air and swaying her body around as she pleased. This was her nightly routine. The joy was as new and fresh as ever. She never tired of it. In great circles she descended back toward the village.

Charlotte wondered whether she would have company tonight. Within minutes she had her answer. The bats had joined her in the sky. The dozen or so bats lived in their own cave near to hers. Their life was not dissimilar to Charlotte’s. During the day they’d hang around in their cave out of sight. Then in the safety of the night they would venture forth to eat and exercise. They had met only a few weeks ago out in the dark night sky. Charlotte had been flying around feeling completely secure and out of reach of the world when she’d detected a sound that she’d never heard before. She’d looked all about her until the sound became clearer and the little black bats appeared just in front of her. Charlotte was startled for a moment until she was able to clearly see their faces.

Although you couldn’t really call them pretty they most definitely didn’t look threatening with their playful expressions. They had flown together for some time just checking each other out, and then without warning they’d flown off as if they had seen enough.

As the nights passed and they had gotten to know each other, a game of tag had developed, the faint sound of flapping wings just below indicating that there would be more games tonight. Charlotte continued to fly around, pretending not to notice the bats; she couldn’t help smiling and giggling. Before too long the game had begun. A young and enthusiastic bat flew straight at her and headbutted Charlotte right in her soft ticklish underbelly. She shrieked in fake surprise, the young bat bolted, both parties laughing with glee. Charlotte gave a couple of seconds’ grace and then the chase began. As Charlotte chased the youngster, the others taunted playfully, getting as close as they dared to Charlotte’s head and tail, teasing her. Charlotte had a score to settle with one of the older bats from the previous night. She ignored this older bat and pretended to be intent on catching the youngster. She flew under and over and tumbled this way and that, all the time with half an eye on her real target. The older bat gradually grew braver, diving in and out of her space. The others did likewise. She waited until the older bat got really cocky and flew head-to-head with her for several seconds. Then with unmatchable speed, Charlotte sped forward so that the bat was level with her tail and she clonked him playfully on the head with the end of her pointy tail! They all laughed together for a few minutes until the bats took off for home.

Charlotte held her wings out and glided downwards for some time as she did so she began to sing. The noise that she made was quite like a whale song except higher pitched and much more melodic. The sound of it spread through the air like ink in water over the whole valley. Her tranquillity was disturbed suddenly as she realised that she had drifted dangerously close to Stamford Manor. She had let herself get carried away. Instantly she was alert; she flew up and away as fast as she could.

Below her, Rachel was in her bed sleeping restlessly. Like Charlotte’s, her peace of mind had been upset earlier that day. She had been in her new home for three weeks and was starting to settle in and forget her troubles but her improvements had evaporated as soon as she’d gotten home from school. It was Friday and she had been looking forward to working in the garden with Lavender; she walked in with a basket full of flowers meant as a gift but Lavender was collapsed in a heap in her favourite chair, a telegram in her in her hand. Rachel knew something bad had happened because Lavender never slept anywhere but in bed and she would never sleep during the day. She quietly went to the kitchen and made sure the stove was safe and then made a hot cup of tea and a sandwich for her aunt and one for herself. She knew that the little bit of noise that she would make in the kitchen would be enough to gently wake Lavender. It was a relief to hear her get up and come shuffling into the kitchen. Rachel turned and got a rather weak smile from Lavender; she smiled weakly back. They sat quietly together nibbling on their food, both pretending to be fine but feeling terrible. After eating she hopped off her chair before Lavender could move, cleared the table, and did the washing-up. Then she took the flowers that