Ancient Echoes Read Online Free PDF

lingering on each sketch, each paragraph of observation, glancing at the columns of dates.
    ‘This is very impressive. What are the dates?’
    ‘Jack’s visions. His encounters with Greyface and Greenface. As near as I can get them.’
    In the seven years Jack had known Angela, he’d had twenty encounters with the bull-runners, and her record was accurate. Before that, Rachel Chatwin’s letters to her own mother were a fair indication of when the ‘fits’ had occurred. Rachel herself had experienced something strange, a frightening vision of being pursued by huge, red-furred wolves, during the birth of her son.
    Angela stared across the table at Jack. ‘I suppose it has to be from the past. If the faces are on the fresco, then you’re picking up the ghosts of the hidden city.’
    Without looking at her, still staring at the notes in her folder, Garth said, ‘Who says all lost cities come from the past?’
    Angela reacted with a pulled face of surprise. ‘What?’
    Garth patted the journal. ‘May I borrow this? I’ll take good care of it.’
    ‘OK. But I want it back. Jack is my life’s work, although he doesn’t know it yet.’
    ‘Thank you. I’d like to keep the other sketches, Rachel. If that’s OK?’
    Jack’s mother was more than willing.
    ‘Anything! If it helps us understand what’s happening inside this strange head!’ She ruffled Jack’s brown hair and the boy pulled away in embarrassment.
    Garth said, ‘I’ll look after them, I promise. I’ll bring them back in a week or so.’
    ‘What about Glanum?’ Jack said. ‘The excavation.’
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘You were going to tell me how you found it. Is it a Roman city?’
    ‘There’s some Roman in it, certainly. And some Greek. And Byzantine. And Celtic. Bronze Age, Persian … It’s an odd place. You get the idea? It doesn’t fit at all with what you might be expecting. As you’ll find out when you come and visit.’
    The man leaned across to Jack. ‘What does the fifth of May 1965 mean to you?’
    Jack almost laughed. ‘It’s when I was born.’
    ‘I know. I just saw it on Angela’s list of dates. Do you know what that date means to me?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘It’s the day I dowsed Glanum for the first time.’ He leaned close to Jack. ‘Now ain’t that peculiar?’
    Jack was confused. Exburgh’s hidden city hadn’t come to light until nine years ago, in 1971, its discovery due to John Garth, who had been looking in the backstreets and on building sites for five years or more. The man talked in riddles. Garth stood and shrugged into his coat, fixing his hat and working the envelope of sketches into Angela’s folder. He glanced at Jack, half amused. ‘I said “dowsed” it … “sensed” it. Not “found” it. I was a long way away at the time – on your birthday. Thank you for the cheese, the bacon, and the beers, Rachel,’ he said to Jack’s mother. ‘It was good to meet you. I expect I’ll see you again. Angela? You’re an inspiration. And now I’m to take you home.’
    ‘I’d like to talk to Jack for a while …’
    ‘I promised your father …’
    Rachel said, ‘I’ll run her home. It’s OK.’
    Agreeing to that, Garth shook Jack’s hand. ‘Come down to the Hercules pit tomorrow. The excavation behind the shopping centre. I need you there. Can you get a morning off school? No?’ He frowned. ‘Then come after school. To the church. St John’s. I’ll be waiting for you. To give you a guided tour of a very ancient echo. Yes?’
    ‘I’ll be there. Thanks.’
    ‘Don’t let me down.’
    Without being asked, Angela followed Jack up to his room. As he fussed with his computer – a very simple model compared to Simon’s – she closed the door. He was conscious of his discarded clothes, the piles of superhero comics, the posters of his favourite Heavy Metal bands above his narrow bed. Was she looking round? She’d been here before. Oddly, he felt uncomfortable with her in his private space this