Read Dark Spell for Free Online

for some reaction. “What happened to you down there?”
    Callie swallowed, unsure if her voice would work.
    “Claustrophobia. I suppose I panicked.”
    “I didn’t know you had claustrophobia.”
    “Neither did I.”
    They sat in silence for a while. Callie gradually loosened her grip on her knees. As they watched, a group of tourists reached the steps at the entrance to the mine.
    “They won’t get far in the dark,” Callie said, still sounding a bit odd.
    “But the lights came on again – remember? When you were crawling out of the top bit.”
    “No they didn’t. It was still dark when I got out.” She gave a shaky laugh. “And I certainly wasn’t crawling. I was running as fast as I could.”
    She’s confused,
Josh told himself.
She was so frightened back there she doesn’t remember what she did.
    Callie had unlaced her hands from around her knees now, and was rubbing at her sooty left hand and wrist.
    “Let’s get out of here,” she said, getting to her feet.
    “Should we tell Mrs Dunlop about the lights?” Josh wondered aloud.
    Callie shook her head. “Let’s just go. You said they came back on. Someone else can tell her if they go off again.”
    Back on the street, Josh would have liked to pause and look at the circular grating again, but Callie kept up a determined pace and ignored it.
    “Do you want to have a walk round the cathedral?” he asked.
    “No,” said Callie firmly. “I’ve had enough of ruins for today.”
    “Fudge doughnut?”
    “Much better idea.”
    By the time they had eaten the doughnuts and licked the last of the custard off their fingers, Callie seemed, outwardly at least, back to normal.
    “What time is it?”
    Josh checked his phone. “Nearly one.”
    “Rats! I’ve got to go. I promised George I’d go down to Fife Ness with him this afternoon. You know – the place on the coast where he’s got his birdwatching patch. He wants help with some birding thing. Dunno what, but I’ll have to get the next bus to The Smithy. Do you want to come? You probably don’t, it won’t be very exciting. You’d be better staying in town.”
    “No, I’ll come. I like George. He’s cool.”
    “You must be joking.”
    “No, he is. He knows lots of stuff. About birds for instance, and plants. I don’t know anybody in Edinburgh who knows things like that. It’s interesting.”
    Callie laughed. “Wait until I tell him he’s cool. He’ll love that.”
    ***
    As they walked through The Smithy garden, Josh said, “Are you sure they won’t mind me just turning up for lunch?”
    “Course not.” She shoved open the front door and Luath came to greet them, wagging his plume of a tail. “He still remembers you, or he’d bark.”
    Josh tried to remind himself how friendly Luath was, instead of noticing afresh how big he was.
    “Rose? George? I brought Josh for lunch.”
    “Oh well done, dear. I wondered when we’d see him,” said Rose, appearing, inevitably, from the kitchen. “Goodness, why are you both so grubby? You look as though you’ve been down a tunnel. Why are you laughing?”
    ***
    Josh ate so much of Rose’s chicken pie and strawberry fool that he could hardly bear to get out of the car at Fife Ness.
    “Come on, you pig,” Callie teased as he levered himself up with a groan. “Or shall I see if I can borrow a golf trolley to push you round on?”
    “Yes, please,” he said, squinting into the sunlight at the golf course off to their left. “If a golf ball comes this way and hits me, I might just explode.”
    “Exercise, that’s what you need,” said George.
    Josh doubted it, but he dutifully followed George and Callie.
    “Right,” said George, opening the holdall he’d been carrying. “Hatchet or saw?” He held them up for Josh to inspect.
    “Er… hatchet please. I think. What are we doing?”
    “Stalking holidaymakers,” said Callie with an evil grin.
    “Not quite that exciting,” said George, handing another hatchet to Callie and keeping