Triskellion by Will Peterson Page A

I’m afraid. Chuck ‘em on the Land Rover and we’ll get them fixed up.”
    Adam helped the commodore wrestle the bikes on to the back of the Land Rover while the dog, who the commodore called Merlin, continued to sniff somewhat suspiciously at Rachel. The bikes loaded, Rachel was about to turn and walk back down the lane, but the commodore stopped her in her tracks.
    “Where are you off to, young lady? You’re not walking anywhere after a close shave like that. Hop aboard, I’ll take you and your brother up to the hall.”
    “What?”
    “Get the quack to give you the once over. Least I can do.”
    Rachel and Adam both looked dumbfounded and the commodore registered their blank stares. “Sorry, the doctor. Get the doctor to check you. Shock and so on. In you get.”
    Rachel and Adam felt reluctant to go, but the man was so commanding, so clearly used to having people do as he said, that they fell in with his orders and climbed into the back seat of the Land Rover without a word. Merlin jumped into the front, followed by Commodore Wing, who slammed the door and fired the diesel engine back into life. Gears crunched and they roared off down the lane as if nothing had happened.
    Rachel looked at her watch, then back over her shoulder towards the moor and the chalk circle. Five to four. They’d miss Gabriel.
    She’d miss Gabriel.
    As the dust churned up by the Land Rover’s knobbly tyres began to settle on the road, Gabriel stepped out from his hiding place behind the wall. He smiled, delighted that things were falling into place so nicely.
    He watched and waited for the vehicle to turn the bend at the bottom of the hill, then began to walk down the lane after it.

T he Land Rover crunched up the long gravel drive towards the biggest house Rachel and Adam had ever seen. Sheep grazed on the grounds at either side of the road and Waverley Hall loomed impressively beyond. Adam would have called it a castle, but it didn’t have battlements as such, just columns and balustrades and carved animals over the main entrance, all made from a yellowish stone. Drawing closer, Rachel could see the big, wine-coloured vintage car they had seen in the village, parked outside the front of the house. As the statues over the door became clearer, she could see a winged unicorn and a dragon. They glowered down from either side of a carved tree, its twisted roots and branches entwining themselves around the mythical beasts. On the trunk of the tree was a large shield engraved with the symbol of the Triskellion.
    Despite the change from rage to effortless charm, the commodore’s warmth had quickly dissolved. What little conversation there was in the Land Rover had been strained tosay the least. Rachel had attempted a few polite questions, which had been answered with coughs, snorts and one or two clipped words.
    “Have you lived here long?” Rachel had asked.
    “Family’s been here eight hundred years or so.”
    “Since Sir Richard de Waverley?” Rachel had said, keen to show off her recently acquired local knowledge.
    “Who?” Commodore Wing had snapped back.
    “Sir Richard de Waverley. The crusader. In the church?”
    “Oh yes … of course,” the commodore had said.
    The rest of the journey had continued in silence.
    As they climbed down from the Land Rover, a small man with very brown, hairy forearms and wearing a cap scuttled over to the car and opened the door. He was a little too slow for the commodore, who was already halfway out.
    “Take those bicycles round to the stables and fix ‘em up, will you, Fred?” The small man stared at the children. “Good man,” the commodore said, before limping off up the steps to the house with the dog following closely behind. The small man nodded vigorously and scurried round to lift the bikes off the back of the vehicle. He grunted with the effort and pulled faces at Rachel and Adam, who watched him with some amusement.
    “Are you coming in?” the commodore shouted from the