It was a Saturday in early spring, and I woke to the normal sounds of the MHICE stable block at weekends, which thankfully did not include the weekday sounds of the construction of our new research building.

It had turned out that the House and Rotunda were on the only areas of land within the grounds that could support such structures, and so the New Wall had been partly demolished and the rather pleasant area of woodland to the West had been partly felled to allow the lorries and machinery to gain access to the site. Unfortunately the road from the west had proven impassable due to the outgrowing branch of a large and very protected oak tree, and so everything had to approach from the East, past the House, which shook at the passage of each and every one of them.

As civilised living at the House was impossible, it had been closed, and the students sent off on various projects. As usual I had drawn the short straw and the other directors had departed for Australia or various ski slopes, or a cruise. During my solitary dictatorship I had decided that I would be absent for the entire month of April – if not longer. One of the technicians has shown a good affinity with the small animals usually my responsibility, and had already taken over the day to day running of the poultry yard, and was becoming very competent in the warren.

I am thinking of passing on responsibility for security to Ian McGreagor, as he already has the computerised part of it at his fingertips and it should not be too difficult to involve the rest of him – particularly the feet.

There is the added advantage that his father is able to distort time and reality, so if anything ever went wrong, we would probably never know about it. That was assuming that James Brown ever returned. He had not been seen around the place for some time and he left in mysterious circumstances, but perhaps he was simply as averse to heavy construction going on close by as I have proven to be.

After breakfast I thought about going out, up to the stone circle perhaps. Our usual neighbours, and regular passers by in case there should be some reason to call in, have been called away to conduct a war, and it is very quiet at night. Almost the sort of quiet where the man replies ’Yes, too quiet.’ and suddenly has an arrow in his chest. Not that there is anyone out there – that’s the point, there isn’t the usual surveillance and it is rather lonely. It did mean that areas usually off limits were now accessible, and I had already packed some lunch and filled up two water bottles when the postman delivered the mail. He pressed the bell to Morse out PCL – very fast, he being retired from Special Forces, and I used the new ability to open the gates remotely to let him in, and I could watch his progress caught on camera.

The parcel was my annual delivery of all the new items in the catalogue of a rather good plant supplier, but this year, instead of the usual easily portable box, I had been sent a fairly hefty container. I dumped the rest of the mail in the general office to deal with on Monday, and got a sack barrow to transport my goodies off to the walled garden set conveniently close to the stables, so it could, in former times, benefit from the products of the stable block. It is a well established garden, with fruit trees trained against the walls, raised beds of excellent soil, several greenhouses and a potting shed, and a couple of technicians to see that it stays tidy, but they do not interfere with the plants or seeds.

So eager was I to discover what was in the box that I did not change out of my modern Morrison kilt, but went just as I was dressed for my jaunt up to the stone circle, and even took my back pack along so I would not have to break off work in the greenhouses for lunch. The weather was still rather chilly, so I kept the plaid as well, so that I could happily look around the beds to see where there was space, as I have some perennials growing too.

I detected nothing at all amiss as I dragged the barrow across the cobbled yard and went through the wrought iron door, but I stopped suddenly as before me was not the neat and well ordered garden, but a wasteland of bramble, thistle and nettles. I looked back and saw that the stable block looked derelict, and the gate was rusty and one of the hinges had given way so it had fallen awry and immovably half open. The sky was dark, the air decidedly cold, and it looked as though bad weather was on the way. I could not get the sack barrow back through the gate, so I hauled it along the weedy path, past a collapsed greenhouse to the potting shed, which despite having one wall fallen out looked fairly stable as it was built as a lean too against the garden wall.

As I returned to the gate I became aware of being watched, and slowed down. The watcher emerged from cover and waited for me to approach. She was wearing Army uniform, ribbed jersey and green trousers, with the rank of Captain. She was also me. Rather slimmer, I noticed, and so did she. She grinned.
‘Hello. Did you bring me here?’
‘Not me.’ I declared. ‘I was wondering if Mister Brown might have something to do with it.’
‘Ah. I’ve not seen him for a while.’ She turned and moved towards the gate. ‘Let’s go and see if he’s at home here.’
I followed her, moving carefully around the rusty ironwork, and we walked towards the rotunda. We had not gone far when the Captain stopped and turned to me.
‘There’s a man in the shadows over there.’ She said quietly.
‘He’s moved – I think he’s one of us.’
‘Us?’
‘One of me’
She rotated and stared at the man. He was frowning at us.
‘Hello.’ Said the Captain, ‘was it you who brought us here?’
‘Not guilty.’ He declared, ‘am I seeing things?’
‘You aren’t seeing things that aren’t here, as far as I can tell. We seem to be the same person. You resemble my father.’
‘Is this something to do with Mister Brown, do you think?’
‘We were going to find out – this is getting silly’
Along the path from the gazebo came another woman, dressed in a blue gown and rather floppy hat. She clutched a book which was A4 in size but not very thick, and she looked rather worried.
‘What happened?’ she enquired.
‘No idea,’ said the man, not unkindly ‘lets go to the Rotunda to see if Mister Brown is there.’
She did not seem at all reassured by that, but we set off once more, and this time we reached the place where the topiary chessmen should stand. There were some rather sad looking bushes in this reality, and two men standing by the entrance to the building. When they saw us coming they walked to meet us.
‘The place is a ruin, open to the sky’ said the man in the pinstripe kilt suit. He must have gone to a good school.
‘You all wear kilts.’ I realised.
‘What else is there?’ they enquired.
‘Well – trousers is an option.’ I ventured.
There was an in taking of air which seemed to indicate that trousers were not considered suitable attire.
‘It is going to rain,’ said the woman in the blue gown. ‘We’d better find shelter.’
‘Perhaps some part of the House is habitable,’ said one of the men.
‘Let’s hope the natives are friendly.’
‘There might not be any. The place seems very neglected, it might be abandoned.’
‘Then why are we here?’
The man in black made a warning sound, and we all fell silent, listening. The sound of footsteps on gravel came closer.