Rachel and her twin Adam find and assemble three missing blades to form an otherworldly Triskellion that reveals that their village is built upon the sacrificial deaths of a medieval Knight and his lover. Rachel is a young city girl who has just finished school and is hoping to be able to enjoy her summer. Rachel and her twin brother, Adam, travel to the little English village of Triskellion on a train. Their parents have been fighting a lot lately and they didn't want the children around so they sent them to Triskellion to spend the summer with their Granny Root. When they arrive in Triskellion, there is no one there to greet them but they find two bikes and a map that leads to their Granny Root's cottage so they make their way there. On their way to the little cottage, they pass through an eerily abandoned-looking village where hostile people turn them away from their restaurants and stores and they are even beaten up by some local bullies. When they meet Granny Root, they realize that they're in for a long summer of little to no technology as the only machines Granny Root has is an old wireless and an old television.
Click here to see the rest of this review...
On her first night at the cottage, Rachel wakes up to see a strange boy out in the distant fields, waking inside of an odd chalk circle. The next day, she and Adam explore the chalk circle which their Granny explains is thousands of years old. They end up wandering a forest where Adam finds a neat tree top settlement. Here, there are platforms and houses up in the trees that are connected to each other by rope bridges. As they explore the tree houses, they notice a commotion below. A bunch of people wearing furs and antlers on their heads call themselves the Green Men and are punishing the very same bullies that beat up Adam. Scared, Rachel and Adam run away. On their way back to the cottage they run into an old man with a metal detector. The old man, Honeyman, tells them he is looking for old coins and he offers to show the kids his collection. Honeyman tells them that the chalk circle they saw is the famous triskellion (three half-moon blades arranged to look like a trifoliate flower) of which the village is named after. He explains that the triskellion was cut in the Bronze age and there are a lot of treasures like coins buried nearby, left by people who made sacrifices to the old gods.
Later, Rachel and Adam visit a church where they find the tomb of a famous crusader, Sir Richard de Waverley. The Reverend of the church shows them an artifact which looks like part of a triskellion blade. Rachel and Adam learn that the composition of the blade is unknown but the church keeps the blade safe in their vault because they are afraid scientists might take the blade away for analysis and never return it. He tells them that the other two parts of the triskellion blade are still missing.
Rachel and Adam meet a boy named Gabriel and a man named Commodore Gerald Wing when they attend a cricket match. Gabriel catches very hard and fast balls from the cricket team with ease. The Commodore seems to think his talents unnatural. Some of the players at the cricket match turn out to be the same bullies that Rachel and Adam saw getting punished in the woods. When they find out Rachel and Adam witnessed the incident, they chase them all the way to the train station. Rachel and Adam take the train intent on going home but the train is stopped when a tree fails across the rails so they end up staying in Triskellion.
One day, Gabriel asks Rachel and Adam to meet him at the chalk circle. On their way there, Rachel and Adam are almost run over by the Commodore who is driving a jeep. He apologizes, claiming he couldn't see them and offers to take them up to his estate to make sure they're not injured. Rachel finds out the Commodore is a descendant of Sir Richard de Waverley. The Commodore shows them around his ancient halls. While visiting the Commodore, Rachel is compelled to steal a large steel key.
Upon meeting with Gabriel, Rachel is shocked that he was the one who influenced her thoughts and made her steal the key. That night, the three kids sneak back into the Commodore's house. Gabriel finds a survey map but just as they prepare to escape, they are caught by the Commodore. Gabriel has disappears, leaving Rachel and Adam to be escorted away.
Luckily, the Commodore proves forgiving and lets the children off the hook after speaking to their Granny. The next day, Rachel and Adam meet up with Gabriel again and he asks them to introduce him to Honeyman. Honeyman seems to be expecting Gabriel. Upon unfolding the map, they notice bees landing on the map and doing a “waggle dance” which is apparently a way bees can communicate how to travel to a certain location. Honeyman is convinced the bees are telling them where to find the other two missing triskellion pieces. Honeyman and the kids begin searching for the missing pieces.
While Rachel and Adam are searching, Rachel is attacked by some crows and Adam runs off to get help. Adam finds a cottage in the woods and he meets Hilary, who is the Commodore's son. After telling Hilary about what they were doing in the woods, Hilary locks Adam up in a dark mausoleum while he goes off in search of Rachel. While locked in the mausoleum, Adam suddenly gains a strange sort of clarity that he can dig his way out. He digs until he becomes exhausted and runs out of oxygen. He has a strange feeling that the earth is moving underneath him, helping him to find a way to the surface.
Meanwhile, Gabriel has found Rachel and helped get rid of the crows. They are hunted by Hilary, who has a gun and seems intent on killing them. Rachel has a sudden feeling of dread as she has a twin psychic connection with Adam and senses he is in danger. Gabriel, who also has psychic powers helps Rachel to find Adam. They find an ancient tree and begin digging near the roots. Suddenly, they pull Adam out and he is holding one of the golden triskellion blades.
A few weeks later a crew from a TV show called Treasure Hunters arrives in Triskellion to begin a dig. The lead archaeologist, Laura, asks Rachel and Adam to help her on her dig. She tells them that Sir Richard de Waverley never existed and that Commodore Wing and his family likely made him up. For one of the video clips to be included on the show, a group of Green Men are asked to do a traditional dance around the triskellion chalk circle. At the end of the dance, one of the dancers attacks Adam, telling him that he wants the piece of the triskellion blade they have.
After getting rid of the dancers and making sure Adam is okay, Laura and her crew continue digging. They discover a burial chamber under the chalk circle. Against Laura's will, the sarcophagus they discover in the chamber is opened to reveal the well-preserved corpses of two people holding the third triskellion blade. One of the people is an ancient male, the other is an ancient female from the Bronze age.
Meanwhile, Hilary appears on the scene and even though Rachel and Adam don't like the man, they have no proof that he has ill intentions. Hilary tells Laura that the three triskellion blades are meant to fit with each other and form a sort of Bronze Age navigational tool. Laura also finds out that there is an inscription on the tomb says that “Wing and Root shall never bear fruit” and she interprets this to mean that the two families, Wing and Root should never have children. Rachel, Adam and Hilary think that maybe this warning was ignored and that they are actually all related. After testing the DNA of the corpses, Laura finds out that one of them is male and came from far away while the other one is a local female and was pregnant with twins at the time of her death. She also learns that they both died from eating Yew berries which are poison.
The Reverend barges in and accuses Rachel and Adam of stealing the blade from the church. He brings them back to the Commodore and Granny Root who also act very strange and agitated and Rachel suspects that the two were lovers in their youth and Rachel and Adam are the result of the union. The Reverend gets very angry but suddenly, a thousand bees come down and attack him, killing him by stinging him to death. Rachel and Adam leave and are met by Gabriel and Honeyman. Honeyman reveals he was the one who stole the blade from the church.
Rachel and Adam return to the archeological dig to steal the third triskellion blade. There, Rachel sees an artist's clay model of how the ancient woman must have looked like and is surprised to see that the woman looks a lot like her.
Gabriel reunites with Rachel and Adam and they assemble all three triskellion blades. Gabriel suddenly transforms into the figure of the ancient male and then the ancient female also appears. They explain that their children went on to produce the male and females of the village. When Adam asks where the male comes from, he points to the sky, suggesting he is not of this world. Which means that Adam and Rachel, who are descendants, are also partly "alien". Gabriel then transforms back and the children find themselves in the middle of a flattened field.
The story ends with Rachel and Adam's mother arriving on the scene to take them home and Rachel wondering what to do with her new-found knowledge.
Best part of story, including ending:
I didn't like this story because the resolution/conclusion to the story was too ambiguous. I didn't understand why it was so important that the triskellion blades be assembled. Was it just so that Rachel and Adam can find out that the ancient male and female produced the male and female lines of the village? Somehow that resolution just feels anti-climactic.
Best scene in story:
My favorite scene was when Adam discovers the tree top houses that the Green Men live in. It just sounded like a unique and interesting way to live. If the Green Men were friendlier, I think it would have been fun for Adam and Rachel to explore their settlement further.
Opinion about the main character:
I like that Rachel has a curious mind and that she was able to help solve the puzzle of how to find the triskellion.
