*******

'So he poured a little drop of some sort of oil into the grail,' Simon said, 'so that it floated on top of the water, and Barney had to sit down and stare at it.'

 

'Sit down?' Barney said. 'Where?'

 

'At the table. In the caravan. It was all dark, except for this funny kind of green light coming from the ceiling.'

 

'I don't remember any green light. And for goodness' sake, Simon, I'd remember if I'd seen the grail for even a second - and I know I didn't.'

 

'Barney,' Simon said; his voice shook with strain, and 78

 

he leant against the nearest standing stone. 'Will you shut up? You were in a spell of some sort, you don't remember anything.'

 

'Yes I do, I remember everything we did there, but there was hardly anything. I mean we were only there a minute or two, for me to get my drawing. And I never sat down inside-'

 

'Barnabas,' Merriman said. The voice was very soft, but there was a cold fierceness in it that made Barney sit still as stone; he said in a whisper, 'I'm sorry.'

 

Simon was paying him no attention. His eyes were glazed, inturned, as if he were seeing something that was not there. 'Barney looked into the grail for a while, and then the van seemed to go very cold and it was horrible all of a sudden. He started to talk, but' - he swallowed - 'it . . . it wasn't his voice that came out, it was different, and the way he talked was different too, the kind of words. . . He said a lot of things- I didn't understand, about someone called Anubis, and making ready for the great gods. Then he said, "They are here," though he didn't say who he meant. And the painter, the man from the Dark, he began asking questions, and Barney would answer them, but in this funny deep voice that just wasn't like his, but like someone else.'

 

Simon shifted restlessly; they all sat round him among the great stones, listening, intent, silent. The wind sang softly in the grass, and round the towering columns. 'He said, "Who has it?" And Barney said. "The Greenwitch has it." He said, "Where?" and Barney said, "In the green depths, in the realm of Tethys, out of reach." The painter said, "Not out of my reach." Barney didn't say anything for a bit, and then he went into his own voice, you could tell he was describing something he could see. He sounded very excited, he said, " There's this weird great creature, all green, and darkness all round it except in one place where there's a terrible bright light, too bright to look at . . . and it doesn't like you, or me, or anybody, it won't let anyone come near ..." The painter was all wound up, so twitchy he could hardly sit still, he said, "What spell will command it?" And all of a sudden it wasn't Barney any more, his face went empty again and that other horrible deep voice came out, and it said, "The spell of Mana and the spell of Reck and the spell of Lir, and yet none of these if Tethys has a mind against you. For the Greenwitch will be the creature of Tethys very soon now, with all the force of all life that came out of the sea."

 

'Ah,' Captain Toms said.

 

Will said sharply, 'The spell of Mana and the spell of Reck and the spell of Lir. Are you sure that's what he said?'

 

Weary and resentful, Simon raised his head and looked at him with dislike. 'Of course I'm sure. If you heard a voice like that coming out of your brother's mouth, you'd remember every word it said for the rest of your life.'

 

Will nodded gently, his round face expressionless, and Merriman said impatiently, 'Get on, get on.'

 

'The painter came very close to Barney then, whispering,' Simon said. 'I could scarcely hear him. He said, "Tell me if l am observed." I thought Barney was going to pass out. He stared into the grail, and his face got twisted and you could see the whites of his eyes, but then he was all right again and the voice out of him said, "You are safe if you keep from using the Cold Spells." And the man nodded his head and made a kind of hissing noise and looked very pleased. He leant back in his chair and I think he had asked all he wanted to, and he was going to stop. But all of a sudden Barney sat up very straight, and that horrible voice said, very loudly like shouting, "Unless you find the secret of the Thing of Power in this high part of spring, the grail must go back to the Light. You must make haste, before the Greenwitch departs to the great deeps, you must make haste." Then it stopped, and Barney sort of slumped down in his chair, and  - Simon's voice wavered, and he sniffed hard, fiercely raising his head - 'and I grabbed him to make sure he was all right, and the painter was furious and yelled at me. I suppose he thought I'd broken the spell or whatever. So I got cross too, and yelled back that he wouldn't get very far when we told you all about this. And he just sat back then, with a nasty sort of smile, and said that he only had to snap his fingers and we would forget everything that had happened for as far back as he chose.'

 

'And Barney did,' Jane said shakily. 'But you didn't.'

 

Simon said, 'We heard Rufus barking outside the door then, so Barney and I both moved to get him, and the dark man jumped up and snapped his fingers once, click, right by our faces. I saw Barney's eyes go sort of vague, and he moved forwards very slowly and opened the door as if he were sleep-walking. So I copied whatever he did, because obviously I had to take terrific care the painter didn't suspect I could remember what had happened. Rufus had gone. Run away. Barney blinked a bit, and shook his head, and almost at once he was talking as if we had just got there a moment or two before. Like going back in time. So I tried to do the same.'

 

'You didn't do too well,' Barney said. 'You looked awful, I thought you were going to be sick.'

 

'What happened to the grail?' Jane said.

 

'I suppose he's still got it.'

 

'I wouldn't know,' said Barney. 'I don't remember seeing it. I do remember him giving me back my drawing, though. Look.' He waved it at Merriman, who took it and twirled it absently in his fingers as he watched Simon.

 

'Simon,' Jane said. 'Why did the forgetting work on Barney and not on you?'

 

'It was the drinks,' Simon said. 'This really sounds stupid, but it must have been. We drank some orangeade, and there must have been a kind of potion in it.'

 

'Clumsy,' Merriman said. 'Old-fashioned. Interesting.' He looked at Will, and Will looked at him, and their eyes became opaque.

 

'But the orange was sealed in cans,' Barney said incredulously. 'That's the only reason we drank it, because he couldn't have put anything in it. And anyway, you didn't even open yours.'

 

'The spell of Mana,' Will Stanton said, very low, to Merriman. 'And the spell of Reck.'

 

'And the spell of Lir.'

 

'No, Barney,' Simon said. 'You actually went and got those drinks twice, only the first time was one of the things you've forgotten. And though I didn't have any the second time, I did pretend to drink some the first time. So he thought it worked on us both.'

 

Will said to Merriman, 'There is no more time. We must go now, at once.'

 

Simon, Jane and Barney stared at him. There was crisp, unboyish decision in his voice. Merriman nodded, his hawk's face grim and taut; he said unfathomably to Captain Toms, 'Take care of them.' Then he turned his cold grim face to Simon and said, 'You are sure that at the last, the voice that came from Barney said, "Before the Greenwitch departs to the great deeps"?'

 

'Yes,' said Simon nervously.

 

'Then it is still here,' Will said, and to the children's bewilderment he and Merriman turned and ran, ran towards the end of the headland, and the sea beyond. With swift ease of animals they ran, the long lean man and the sturdy boy, an urgent loping running that took away their age and all sense of familiarity in their appearance; faster, faster, faster. And at the rocks ending the headland they did not pause, but went on. Will leapt up light-footed to the crest of Kemare Head and cast himself outwards into the air, into empty sky, arms spread wide, lying on the wind like a bird; and after him went Merriman, his white hair flying like a heron's crest. For an instant the two dark spread-eagled figures seemed to hang in the sky, then with a slowness as if time held its breath they curved downwards, and were gone.

 

Jane screamed.

 

Simon said, choking with horror, 'They'll be killed! They'll be killed!'

 

Captain Toms turned to them, his rosy face stern. He did not lean on his stick; he seemed taller than before. He pointed one arm straight at them with the five fingers spread wide. 'Forget,' he said. 'Forget.'

 

They stood poised for a moment, caught out of awareness, and compassionately he watched the terror drain out of their faces to leave them empty, expressionless. He said gently, 'The mission for all of us is to keep the man of the Dark from the Greenwitch. Will and your great-uncle have gone among the fishermen, one way - we four have another way to watch, from your cottage and the Grey House. Know this, now. Have no fear.'

 

Slowly he lowered his arm, and like puppets the children came back to life.

 

'We'd better get going, then,' Simon said. 'Come on, Jane.'

 

'I go with you, Captain, right?' Barney said.

 

'I'll give you some breakfast,' Captain Toms said, twinkling at him, leaning on his cane. 'It's past time.'

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

Like diving birds they flashed into the water, leaving no ripple in the great Atlantic swells. Down through the green waves, the dim green light; though they breathed as fishes breathe, yet they flickered through the water like bars of light, with a speed no fish could ever attain.

 

Miles away and fathoms deep they sped, on and on, towards the distant deeps. The sea was full of noises, hissing, groaning, clicking, with great fusillades of thumps like cannon-fire as schools of big startled fish sped out of their way. The water grew warmer; jade-green, translucent. Glancing down, Will saw far below him the last signs of an old wreck. Only stumps remained of the masts and the raised decks, all eaten away by shipworms. From the mounded sand sifting over the hull an ancient cannon jutted, lumpy with coral, and two white skulls grinned up at Will. Killed by pirates, perhaps, he thought: destroyed, like too many men, neither by the Dark nor the Light but by their own kind . . .

 

Porpoises played above their heads; great grey sharks cruised and turned, glancing curiously down as the two Old Ones flashed by. Down and down they went, to the twilight zone, that dim-lit layer of the ocean where only a little of the day can reach; where all the fish - long slender fish with great mouths, strange flattened fish with telescopic eyes - glowed with a cold light of their own. Then they were down in the deep sea, that covers more of the surface of the earth than any land or grass or tree, mountain or desert; in the cold dark where no normal man may see or survive. This was a region of fear and treachery, where every fish ate every other fish, where life was made only of fierce attack and the terror of desperate flight. Will saw huge toad-like fish with bright-tipped fishing-lines curving up from their backs, to hang cruelly alluring over wide mouths bristling with teeth. He saw a dreadful creature that seemed all mouth, a vast mouth like a funnel with a lid, and a puny body dwindling into a long whiplash tail. Beside it, the body of another began to swell horribly, as a big fish, struggling, disappeared inside the trap-like mouth. Will shuddered.

 

'No light,' he said to Merriman, as they flashed onwards. 'No joy in anything. Nothing but fear.'

 

'This is not the world of men,' Merriman said. 'It is Tethys' world.'

 

Even in the darkest sea they knew they were observed and escorted all the way, by subjects of Tethys invisible even to an Old One's eye. News came to the Lady of the Sea long, long before anyone might approach. She had her own ways. Older than the land, older than the Old Ones, older than all men, she ruled her kingdom of waves as she had since the world began: alone, absolute.

 

They came to a great crack in the bed of the sea, an abyss deeper than all the ocean deeps. A fine red mud covered the ocean floor. Though they had left all vestige of daylight long behind, miles above their heads, yet there was light of another kind in the black water, by which they could see as the creatures of the deep water saw. Eyes watched them from the darkness, from cracks and crevices. They were reaching the place for which they were bound.

 

As Will and Merriman slowed their rushing course, there in the lost places of the ocean, they could sense all these watchers around them, but slowly, vaguely, as if in a dream. And when at last the sea brought them to Tethys, they could not see her at all. She was a presence merely, she was the sea itself, and they spoke to her reverently, in the Old Speech.

 

'Welcome,' said Tethys to them out of the darkness of the deeps of her sea. 'Welcome to you, Old Ones of the earth. I have seen none of your kind for some little time now, for some fifteen centuries or so.'

 

'And then it was I,' Merriman said, smiling.

 

'And then indeed it was you, hawk,' said she. 'And one other, greater, with you, but this is not he, I think.'

 

'I am new on the earth, madam, but I bring you my deep respect,' said Will.

 

'Ah . . .' Tethys said. 'Aaaaah . . .' And her sigh was the sighing of the sea.

 

'Hawk,' she said then. 'Why have you come again, this hard voyaging?'

 

'To beg a favour, lady,' Merriman said.

 

'Of course,' she said. 'It is always so.'

 

'And to bring a gift,' he said.

 

'Ah?' There was a slight stirring in the shadows of the deep, like a gentle swell on the sea.

 

Will turned his head to Merriman in surprise; he had not known of any gift-bringing, though he realised now how proper it must be. Merriman drew from his sleeve a rolled piece of paper, a glimmering cylinder in the gloom; he unrolled it, and Will saw that it was Barney's drawing of Trewissick. He peered closer, curious, and saw a pen-and-ink sketch, rough but lively; the back-ground of harbour and houses was no more than lightly outlined, and Barney had given all his attention to a detailed drawing in the foreground of a single fishing-boat and a patch of rippled sea. He had even drawn in the name on the boat's stern: she was called the White Lady.

 

Merriman held the drawing at arm's length, and released it into the sea; instantly it vanished into the shadow. There was a pause, then a soft laugh from Tethys. She sounded pleased.

 

'So the fishermen do not forget,' she said. 'Even after so long, some do not forget.'

 

'The power of the sea will never change,' Will said softly. 'Even men recognise that. And these are islanders.'

 

'And these are islanders.' Tethys played with the words. 'And they are my people, if any are.'

 

'They do as they have always done,' Merriman said. 'They go out to the sea for fish at the going down of the sun, and with the dawn they return again. And once every year, when spring is full and summer lies ahead, they make for you, for the White Lady, a green figure of branches and leaves, and cast it down as a gift.'

 

'The Greenwitch,' Tethys said. 'It has been born again already, this is the season. It will be here soon.' A coldness came into the voice that filtered from the shadows. 'What is this favour you ask, hawk? The Greenwitch is mine.'

 

'The Greenwitch has always been yours, and always will. But because its understanding is not as great as your own, it has made the mistake of taking into its possession something that belongs to the Light.'

 

'That has nothing to do with me,' Tethys said.

 

A faint light seemed to glimmer from the blue-black shadow in which she was hidden, and all around them lights began to glow and flash from the fish and sea-creatures waiting there, watching. Will saw the dangling bait-stars over great gaping mouths; strings of round lights like port-holes running the length of strange slender fish. In the far distance he saw an odd cluster of lights of different colours, that seemed to belong to some bigger creature hidden in the shadow. He shivered, fearful of this alien element in which by enchantment they briefly breathed and swam.

 

'The Wild Magic has neither allies nor enemies,' Merriman said coldly. 'This you know. If you may not help us, yet it is not right for you to hinder us either, for in so doing you give aid to the Dark. And if the Greenwitch keeps that which it has found, the Dark will be very much strengthened.'

 

'A poor argument,' Tethys said. 'You mean simply that the Light will then fail to gain an advantage. But I am not permitted to help either Light or Dark to gain any advantage . . . You speak deviously, my friend.'

 

'The White Lady sees everything,' Merriman said, with a soft sad humility in his tone that startled Will, until he realised that it was no more than a delicate reminder of their gift.

 

'Ha.' There was a flicker of amusement in the voice of the shadow. 'We will have a bargain, Old Ones,' Tethys said. 'You may in my name try to persuade the Greenwitch to give up this ... something ... that is of such value to you. Before the creature comes to the depths, this is a matter between it and you. I shall not interfere, and the Dark may not interfere either, in my realm.'

 

'Thank you, madam!' Will said, in quick delight.

 

But the voice went on, without pause, 'This shall be only until the Greenwitch turns, to come to the deep sea. As it always comes, each year, to its proper home, to me ... and after that time, Old Ones, anything that is in its possession is lost to you. You may not follow. None may follow. You may not return here, then, even by the spell which brings you here today. Should the Greenwitch choose to bring your secret down to the deeps, then in the deeps for ever it shall remain.'

 

Merriman made as if to speak again, but the voice from the darkness was cold. 'That is all. Go now.'

 

'Madam -' Merriman said.

 

'Go!' Rage filled the voice of Tethys suddenly. There was a great flashing and roaring in the depths, all round them; strong currents rose, tugging at their limbs; fish and eels darted wildly round them in all directions, and out of the distant shadow a great shape came. It was the dark thing that carried within it the bright lights that Will had seen; nearer and nearer they came, looming larger and larger, white and purple and green, glaring out of a swelling black mass as high as a house. And Will saw with chill horror that the thing was a giant squid, one of the great monsters of the deep, huge and terrible. Each of its waving suckered tentacles was many times longer than his own height; he knew that it could move as fast as lightning, and that the tearing bite of its dreadful beak-like mouth could have annihilated either of them in a single instant. Fearful, he groped for a spell to destroy it.

 

'No!' said Merriman instantly into his mind. 'Nothing will harm us here, whatever the danger may seem. The Lady of the Sea is, I think, merely . . . encouraging . . . us to leave.' He swept a low, exaggerated bow to the shadows of the deep. 'Our thanks, and our homage, lady,' he called in a strong clear voice, and then with Will beside him he swept up and away, past the looming black shape of the huge squid, away to the great open green ocean, the way that they had come.

 

'We must go to the Greenwitch,' he said to Will. 'There is no time to lose.'

 

'If there are the two of us,' Will cried to him as they swept along, 'and we work on the Greenwitch the spell of Mana and the spell of Reck and the spell of Lir, will it give up the manuscript to us?'

 

'That must come afterwards,' called Merriman. 'But those spells will command it to listen, and hear, for only they harness the magic with which the Greenwitch was made.'

 

They flashed through the sea like bars of light, out of the deep cold, up to the tropic warmth, back to the cold waters of Cornwall. But when they came to the place, beneath the waves beating their long swells against Kemare Head, the Greenwitch was not there. No sign remained. It had gone.

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

When Simon and Jane arrived back at the cottage, they found Fran Stanton setting out plates on the dining-room table. 'Hi,' she said. 'Want some lunch? Mrs Penhallow had to leave, but she made some great-looking Cornish pasties.'

 

'I can smell them,' Simon said hungrily.

 

'Lovely,' said Jane. 'Did you have a good time, where you went?'

 

'We didn't go far,' Mrs Stanton said. 'St Austell, round there. Clay-pits and factories and that sort of thing.' She wrinkled her friendly face. 'Still, after all that's what Bill came over for. And there's a real magic about those big white clay pyramids, and the pools so quiet at the bottom of them. Such green water. . . Are you having fun? What's everyone doing?'

 

'Will and Great-Uncle Merry went for a walk. Barney's over at the Grey House with Captain Toms. We're supposed to go there too this afternoon, the captain wants us all to stay for supper,' Jane said, boldly improvising. 'That is if you don't mind.'

 

'Perfect,' Fran Stanton said. 'Bill and I shan't be eating here anyway - I left him seeing some guy near St Austell, and I have to go back tonight to pick him up. This afternoon I came back just to be lazy. Let's eat - and you can tell me all about that Greenwitch deal I wasn't allowed to watch, Jane.'

 

So Jane, with some difficulty, gave a description of the making of the Greenwitch as of a gay all-night party, an outing for the local girls, while Simon wolfed down Cornish pasties and tried not to catch her eye. Mrs Stanton listened happily, shaking her blonde head in admiration. 'It's just wonderful the way these old customs are kept up,' she said. 'And I think it's great they wouldn't let a foreigner watch. So many of our Indians back home, they let the white man in to watch their native dances, and before you know it the whole thing's just a tourist trap.'

 

'I'm glad you weren't offended,' Jane said. 'We were afraid -'

 

'Oh no no no,' said Mrs Stanton. 'Why, I've already got enough material to give a great paper on this trip to my travel group back home. We have this club, you see, it meets once a month and at each meeting someone gives a little talk, with slides, on somewhere she's been. This is the first time,' she added a trifle wistfully, 'I shall have had anywhere unusual to talk about - except Jamaica, and everyone else has been there too.'

 

Afterwards Jane said to Simon, as they scrambled down towards the harbour, 'She's rather sweet really. I'm glad she'll have us to talk about to her club.'

 

'The natives and their quaint old customs,' Simon said. 'Come on, you aren't even a native. You're one of they furriners from London.'

 

'But I'm not so much outside it all as she is. Not her fault. She just comes from such a long way away, she isn't plugged in. Like all those people who go to the museum and look at the grail and say, oh, how wonderful, without the least idea of what it really is.'

 

'You mean people who used to look at it, when it was there.'

 

'Oh lord. Yes.'

 

'Well anyway,' said Jane, 'we'd be the same as Mrs Stanton if we were in her country.'

 

'Of course we would, that's not the point . . .'

 

They bickered amiably as they crossed the quay and started up the hill towards the Grey House. Pausing to get her breath, Jane looked back the way they had come. All at once she clutched the wall beside her, and stood there, staring.

 

'Simon!'

 

'What is it?'

 

'Look!'

 

Down in the harbour, in the very centre of the quay, was the painter, the man of the Dark. He sat on a folding stool before an easel, with a knapsack open on the ground beside him, and he was painting. There was no urgency in his movements; he sat there tranquil and unhurried, dabbing at the canvas. Two visitors paused behind him to watch; he paid them no attention, but went serenely on with his work.

 

'Just sitting there!' Simon said, astounded.

 

'It's a trick. It must be. Perhaps he has an accomplice, someone off doing things for him while he attracts our attention.'

 

Simon said slowly, 'There was no sign of anyone else having been in the caravan. And the farm looked as if it had been empty for years.'

 

'Let's go and tell the captain.'

 

But there was no need to tell him. At the Grey House, they found Barney perched in a small high room overlooking the harbour, studying the painter through Captain Toms' largest telescope. The old man himself, having let them in, remained below. 'This foot of mine,' he said ruefully, 'isn't too grand at climbing up and down stairs.'

 

'But I bet you he could see as much with his eyes shut, if he wanted to, as I can through this thing,' Barney said, squinting down the telescope with one eye closed and his face screwed up. 'He's special. You know? Just like Gumerry. They're the same kind.'

 

'But what kind is that, I wonder?' Jane said thoughtfully.

 

'Who knows?' Barney stood up, stretching. 'A weird kind. A super kind. The kind that belongs to the Light.'

 

'Whatever that is.'

 

'Yes. Whatever that is.'

 

'Hey Jane, look at this!' Simon was bending to the eyepiece of the telescope. 'It's fantastic, like being right on top of him. You can practically count his eye-lashes.'

 

'I've been staring at that face so long I could draw it from memory,' Barney said.

 

Simon was glued to the lens, entranced. 'It's as good as being able to hear anything he says. You might even be able to lip-read. You can see every single little change of expression.'

 

'That's right,' Barney said. He looked casually out of the window; breathed on the pane; drew a little face in the misted patch of glass, and then rubbed it out again. 'The view of his face is terrific. The only trouble is, there's no view of his painting at all.'

 

Jane had taken her turn at the telescope now. She gazed nervously at the face caught out of the distance by the powerful lens: a dark-browed face, grim with concentration, framed by the long unruly hair. 'Well yes, from this angle of course you're just looking at the back of the easel, looking down at his face over the top of the canvas. But that's not important, is it?'

 

'It is if you're an artist, like Barney,' Simon said. He clasped his head, striking an extravagant artistic pose.

 

'Ha ha,' said Barney, with heavy patience. 'It's not just that. I thought the picture might be important.'

 

'Why?'

 

'I don't know. Captain Toms did ask me what he was painting.'

 

'What did he say when you said you couldn't see?'

 

'He didn't say anything.'

 

'Well then.'

 

'Your painter doesn't change his expression one bit, does he?' Jane was still peering. 'Just sits there glaring at the canvas. Funny.'

 

'Not very funny,' Simon said. 'He's a glaring sort of man.'

 

'No, I mean it's funny he doesn't look anywhere else. If you watch Mother when she's painting a landscape, you can see her eyes going up and down all the time. Flickering. From whatever it is she's painting, down to the picture and then back again. But he's not doing that at all.'

 

'Let me have another look.' Barney edged her aside and stared eagerly into the lens, grabbing-his blond forelock out of the way. 'You know, you're right. Why didn't I notice that?' He thumped his knee with his fist.

 

'I still don't see what there is to get excited about,' Simon said mildly.

 

'Well, perhaps it's nothing. But let's go and tell Captain Toms anyway.'

 

They clattered down three flights of stairs, and into the book-lined living-room at the front of the house. Rufus stood up and waved his tail at them. Captain Toms was standing beside one of the bookcases, gazing at a small book open in his hands. He looked up as they rushed to him, and closed the book.

 

'What news, citizens?' he said.

 

Barney said, 'He's still sitting there painting. But Jane just noticed something, he's not painting from life. I mean he just looks at the canvas, without even glancing at anything else at all.'

 

'So he might just as well be painting in his caravan as painting here,' said Simon, his mind now in gear. 'So, he can't really be here to paint, he must be here for some other reason.'

 

'That may be quite right,' Captain Toms said. He parted the books on the nearest shelf, carefully, and slipped his volume back. 'And then again it may not be quite right.'

 

' What do you mean?' Jane said.

 

'The painting and the other reason may be one and the same thing. The only trouble is,' Captain Toms stared up at his books as if willing them to speak, 'I can't for the life of me work out what that thing is all about.'

 

 

*******

Hour after hour they watched, in turn. At length, after an early supper that might equally have been called a late tea, Jane and Simon sat again in the book-clothed living-room with Captain Toms. He puffed contentedly at a friendly-smelling pipe, grey hair wisping out round his bald head like the tonsure of some genial old monk.

 

'It'll be dark soon,' Jane said, looking out at the orange-red sunset sky. 'He'll have to stop painting then.'

 

'Yes, but he's still at it,' Simon said, 'or Barney would have come down from the eyrie.' He prowled round the room, peering at the pictures that hung between book-cases. 'I remember these ships from last year. The Golden Hind ... the Mary and Ellen ... the Lottery - that's a funny name for a ship.'

 

'So it is,' said Captain Toms. 'But suitable. A lottery is a gamble, of sorts - and she was owned by gamblers, of sorts. She was a famous smugglers' ship.'

 

'Smugglers!' Simon's eyes gleamed.

 

'A regular trade it was in Cornwall, two hundred years ago. Smuggling . . . they didn't even call it that, they called it fair-trading. Fast little boats they had, beautiful sailors. Many a fair-trader's boat was built right here in Trewissick.' The old man gazed absently down at his pipe, turning it in his fingers, his eyes distant. 'But the tale, of the Lottery is a black tale, about an ancestor of mine I sometimes wish I could forget. Though it's better to remember. ... Out of Polperro, the Lottery was, a beauty before the wind. Her crew had years of fair-trading, never caught, until one day east of here a Revenue cutter came up with her, both ships fired on one another, and a Revenue man was killed. Well now, killing was a different thing from smuggling. So all the crew of the Lottery became hunted men. 'Tisn't hard to escape capture in Cornwall, and for a while they were all safe. And they might have been for longer, but one of the crew, Roger Toms, gave himself up to the Revenue and turned King's Evidence, telling them it was a shipmate of his called Tom Potter that fired the dire shot.'

 

'And Roger Toms was your ancestor,' Jane said.

 

'He was, poor misguided fellow. The folk of Polperro took him and set him on a boat bound for the Channel Isles, so he shouldn't be able to give evidence against Tom Potter in court. But the Revenue brought him back again, and Tom Potter was arrested, and tried at the Old Bailey in London, and hanged.'

 

'And wasn't Potter guilty?' Simon said.

 

'No-one knows, to this day. Polperro folk claimed he was innocent - some even said Roger Toms fired the shot himself. But they may just have been protecting one of their own, for Tom Potter was born in Polperro, but Roger Toms was a Trewissick man.'

 

Simon said severely, 'He shouldn't have sneaked on his shipmate, even if Potter did do it. That's like murder.'

 

'So it was,' Captain Toms said gently. 'So it was. And Roger Toms never dared set foot in Cornwall again, from that day until the day he died. But no-one ever knew his real motives. Some Trewissick folk say that Potter was guilty, and that Toms gave him up for the sake of all the wives and children, thinking it sure that unless the one guilty man were accused, sooner or later all the crew of the Lottery would be taken and hanged. But most think black thoughts of him. He is the town's shame, not forgotten even yet.' He looked out of the window at the darkening sky, and the blue eyes in the round cherubic face were suddenly hard. 'The very best and the very worst have come out of Cornwall. And come into her, too.'

 

Jane and Simon stared at him, puzzled. Before they could say anything, Barney came into the room.

 

'Your turn, Simon. Captain, d'you think I could go and get some more of that super cake?'

 

'Hungry work, watching,' said Captain Toms solemnly. 'Of course you may.'

 

'Thank you.' Barney paused for a moment at the door, glancing round the room. 'Watch this,' he said, and he reached for a switch and turned on the lights.

 

'Goodness!' said Jane, blinking in the sudden brightness. 'It's got really dark. We hadn't noticed, we were talking.'

 

'And he's still sitting out there,' Barney said.

 

'Still? In the dark? How can he paint in the dark?'

 

'Well, he is. He may not be painting what's in front of him, but he's still putting paint on that canvas, cool as a cucumber. The moon's up, it's only a half-moon but it gives enough of a glimmer that you can still see him through the glass. I tell you, he must be stark raving nuts.'

 

Simon said, 'You don't remember the caravan. He's not nuts. He's from the Dark.'

 

He went out of the room and up the stairs. Shrugging, Barney headed for the kitchen to fetch his cake.

 

Jane said, 'Captain Toms, when will Gumerry be back? '

 

'When he has found out what he went to find out. Don't worry. They will come straight to us.' Captain Toms heaved himself to his feet, reaching for his stick.

 

'I think I might perhaps take a look through that telescope too, now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, Jane.'

 

'Can you manage?'

 

'Oh yes, thank you. I just take my time.' He hobbled out, and Jane went to kneel on the window-seat, staring out at the harbour. A wind was rising, out there; she could hear it beginning to whine softly in the window-frames. She thought: he'll get cold out there soon, the painter from the Dark. Why does he stay there? What's he doing?

 

The wind grew. The moon went out. The sky was dark, and Jane could no longer see the pattern of clouds that had been dimly visible before. All at once she realised that she could hear the sea. Normally the soft swish of the waves against the harbour wall made a constant low music that was part of life; being always there, it was scarcely heard. But now the sound of each wave was distinct; she could hear each smack and splash. The sea, like the wind, was rising.

 

Simon and Captain Toms came back into the room. Jane saw their reflections ghostly in the window, and turned.

 

'Can't see him any more,' Simon said. 'There's no light. But I don't think he's gone.'

 

Jane looked at Captain Toms. 'What should we do? '

 

The old sailor's face was troubled, creased with thinking; he tilted his head, listening to the wind. 'I shall wait a little to see what the weather does, for more reasons than you might think. After that - after that, we shall see.'

 

Barney appeared in the doorway, munching a large piece of bright yellow cake.

 

'Good gracious,' said Jane brightly, to stop herself listening to the sea, 'you must have eaten the whole plateful by now.'

 

'Mmmmf,' Barney said. He swallowed. 'Do you know, he's still there?'

 

'What?' They stared at him.

 

'I haven't been stuffing myself in the kitchen. I popped round the back and crossed the road in front here, to look down from the harbour wall - thought he might see the light if I opened the front door. And he's still there! Right where he was. He really must be cracked, you know, Simon. Dark or not. I mean he's sitting there in the darkness at his easel, still painting. Still painting, in the pitch dark! He's got some sort of light, it's only by the glow that you can see he's there. But all the same, really -'

 

Captain Toms sat down abruptly in an armchair. He said, half to himself, 'I don't like it. It makes no sense. I try to see, and there is only shadow . . .'

 

'The wind's making a lot more noise now,' Jane said. She shivered.

 

'Out there, you can hear the waves really crashing against the headland,' Barney said cheerfully. He crammed the last of his cake into his mouth.

 

Simon said, 'Is there going to be a storm, captain?'

 

The old man gave no answer. He sat hunched in his chair, staring into the empty fireplace. Rufus, who had been lying peaceably on the hearth-rug, got up and licked his hand, whining. A sudden gust of wind whistled in the chimney, and rattled the front door. Jane jumped.

 

'Oh dear,' she said, 'I hope Gumerry's all right. I wish we'd arranged for some great big signal to bring him back if we wanted him. Like Indians and smoke signals.'

 

'Just a fire, you'd need, now it's dark,' Barney said. 'A beacon fire.'

 

'In these parts,' Captain Toms said abstractedly, 'beacon fires date back as far as the men who have always lighted them. A warning, from the beginning of time ...' He leaned forwards, his hands clasped together over the top of his carved walking-stick, and he gazed unseeingly in front of him as if he were looking back into endless centuries, oblivious of the room and the children in it When he spoke again, the voice seemed younger, clearer, stronger, so that they paused in astonishment where they stood.

 

'And when last the Dark came rising in this land,' Captain Toms said, 'it came from the sea, and the men of Cornwall lit beacon fires everywhere to warn of its coming. From Estols to Trecobben to Carn Brea the warning fires sprang, from St Agnes to Belovely and St Bellarmine's Tor, and on out to Cadbarrow and Rough Tor and Brown Willy. And the last was at Vellan Druchar, and there the Light gave battle to the Dark. The forces of the Dark were driven back to the sea, and might have escaped that way, to attack again. But the Lady brought home a west wind, that threw all their hope of escape dry upon the shore, and so the forces of the Dark were vanquished, for that time. Yet the first of the Old Ones gave prophecy, that once more from that same sea and shore the Dark should one day come rising.'

 

He stopped abruptly, and they were left staring at him.

 

Simon said huskily, at last, 'Is ... is the Dark rising now?' '

 

I don't know,' Captain Toms said simply, in his normal voice. 'I think not, Simon. It is all but impossible for them to rise yet. But in that case, something else is happening that I do not understand at all.' He stood up, leaning on the arm of the chair. 'I think perhaps it is time that I went out there, to see what I can see.'

 

'We'll come with you,' said Simon at once.

 

'Are you sure?'

 

'To tell the truth,' Jane said, 'whatever happens out there, I think we'd rather come with you than stay on our own.'

 

'Too true,' Barney said.

 

Captain Toms smiled. 'Get your jackets, then. Rufus, you stay here. Stay.'

 

Leaving the red dog resentful on the hearth-rug, they went out of the Grey House and crept down the hill, slowly, at the captain's painful pace. At the bottom, where the downhill road joined the quay, the old man drew them gently into the shadow of a warehouse at the back of the harbour. Standing huddled there, whipped by the wind blowing in from the sea, they could see the painter from the Dark not twenty yards from them, at the edge of the sea; the light around him made him clear.

 

As Jane looked at him for the first time, she gasped, and heard the same instinctive strangled sound from the others. For the painter had no torch to make the pool of brightness that surrounded him. The light came from his painting.

 

Green and blue and yellow it glowed there in the darkness, in great writhing seething patterns like a nest of snakes. Seeing it now for the first time Jane felt an instant dreadful revulsion from the picture, its shape and colour and mood, yet she could not take her eyes from it. The man was still painting, even now. With the wind grabbing at his clothes, and tilting his easel towards him so that he had to hold it still with one hand, he was yet daubing away frenziedly with a brush full of these strange horrible colours, and to Jane's bemused eye it seemed that all the colours came from the brush itself without the least pause for taking up new paint.

 

'It's horrible!' Barney said violently. He spoke with great force, unthinking, but the wind whipped the words out of his mouth as soon as they were uttered. The painter, standing to windward, would not have heard him even if he yelled at the top of his lungs.

 

'Now I see!' Captain Toms suddenly thumped his stick on the ground, staring at the picture. 'That's it! Now I understand! He has painted his spells! Mana and Reck and Lir . . . the power is all in the picture! I had forgotten it could be done. Now I see, now I see . . . but too late. Too late . . .'

 

Jane said fearfully into the wind, 'Too late?'

 

And the wind rose howling in their ears, lashing at their faces, flinging salt spray into their eyes. There was no rain, nor any lightning or thunder; they heard only the wind and the crashing of the sea. They staggered backwards against the wall, pinned to it by the gale; out on the quay the painter hunched his broad shoulders forwards, leaning into the wind to hold himself upright. He flung away his brush; paints and papers rushed away from him and were gone on the wind; all that he held was the strange glimmering canvas. He raised it above his head, and shouted some words in a tongue the children did not understand.

 

And suddenly they heard a sound like nothing they had ever heard from the sea before: a great sucking, hissing noise, echoing from side to side of the little harbour. The wind died away. There was all at once a strong, very strong smell of the sea: a smell not of decay but of foam, and waves, and fish and seaweed and tar and wet sand and shells.

 

For a second the moon sailed out from behind a broken cloud, and they saw a great sideways impossible wave roll back to each side of the harbour. And up out of the water came a towering dark shape, twice as high as a man, looming over the painter, bringing with it even more overpoweringly the tremendous smell of the sea.

 

The painter flung up his arms holding the canvas, thrusting it at the great black shape, and cried out in a voice that cracked with strain, 'Stay! Stay, I charge you!'

 

Captain Toms spoke softly, wonderingly, half to himself. 'Watch for the Greenwitch,' he said.

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

They huddled in the dark warehouse doorway, watching. No wind blew now, and the sudden stillness was unnerving, broken only by the rumbling waves. The murmur of passing motor-cars came now and then from the main road higher in the village, but the children did not heed them. Nothing in the world seemed to exist but this thing that loomed before them, rising higher each moment out of the swaying sea.

 

The thing could not be clearly seen. It had no features, no outline, no recognisable shape. They perceived it only as a great mass of black absolute darkness, blotting out all light or star-glimmer, rearing up over the weird glowing patch that marked the man of the Dark. It was, Jane thought suddenly, far larger than the image of leaves and branches that she had seen cast down into the sea from the point of Kemare Head. And yet, she thought again, the Greenwitch had seemed huge in the dark of that night, rearing up, waiting, shadowed by the flickering beacon fire ...

 

The painter said in a loud clear voice, 'Greenwitch!'

 

Simon felt Barney shiver convulsively, and he moved closer to him. A hand briefly, gratefully, clutched his arm.

 

'Greenwitch! Greenwitch!'

 

A great voice came out of the towering massive darkness. It seemed to fill all the night; a voice like the sea, full of shifting music. It said, 'Why do you call me out?'

 

The painter lowered his dreadful canvas. The light in it was beginning gradually to fade. 'I have need of you.'

 

'I am the Greenwitch,' the voice said wearily. 'I am made for the sea, I am of the sea. I can do nothing for you.'

 

'I have a small favour to ask,' the painter said: sweetly ingratiatingly, but with a strain in his voice as if it would crack into a thousand glittering fragments.

 

The voice said, 'You are of the Dark. I feel it. I am not permitted to have any dealings with either the Dark or the Light. It is the Law.'

 

The painter said quickly, 'But you have taken something that the Law does not permit you to take. You know it. You have a part of one of the ancient Things of Power, that you should not have, that no creature of the Wild Magic should have. Greenwitch, you must give it to me.'

 

The sea-voice of the blackness cried out as if in pain, 'No! It is mine! It is my secret! My secret!' And Jane flinched, for suddenly it was the voice of her dream: plaintive, crying, a child's complaint.

 

The painter said fiercely, 'It is not yours.'

 

'It is my secret!' cried the Greenwitch, and the mass of black darkness seemed to rise and swell. 'I guard it, none shall touch it. It is mine, for always!'

 

At once the painter dropped his tone into gentleness, a soft wheedling. 'Greenwitch, Greenwitch, child of Tethys, child of Poseidon, child of Neptune - what need have you of a secret, in the deeps?'

 

'As much need as you,' the Greenwitch said.

 

'Your home is in the deeps.' The painter was still gentle, persuasive. 'There is no need for such secrets there. That is no place for such a thing, woven of different spells that you know nothing of.'

 

The huge voice of the darkness said obstinately, almost pettishly, 'It is mine. I found it.'

 

The painter's voice, shaking, began to rise. 'Fool! Wild fool! How dare you play with things of the High Magic!'

 

The light was fading faster out of his painting now; the children could see nothing around it but the blackness of the Greenwitch against the faint grey glimmer of sky and sea. There were only these two voices, ringing through the empty harbour.

 

'You are a made creature only, you will do as I say!' Arrogance sharpened the man's tone, gave it an edge of command. 'Give the thing to me, at once, before the Dark shall blast you out of this world!'

 

The children felt Captain Toms gently but urgently drawing them all back against the wall, into a corner almost cut off from the spot where the two figures confronted one another on the quay. Nervously they moved as they were told.

 

From the blackness that was the Greenwitch came a hair-raising sound: a long low lamenting, like a moan, rising and falling in a mumbling whine. Then it stopped, and the creature began muttering to itself, broken words that they could not make out. Then there was silence for a moment and all at once it said very clearly, 'You have not the full power of the Dark.'

 

'Now! I command you!' The painter's voice was shrill.

 

'You have not the full power of the Dark,' the Greenwitch said again, with a growing, wondering confidence. 'When the Dark comes rising, it is not as one man, but as a terrible great blackness filling the sky and the earth. I see it, my mother shows me. But you are alone. You were sent by the Dark with one small mission only, and you gamble now to make yourself a great Lord, one of the masters. By completing one of the Things of Power for yourself, you think to become great. But you are not great yet, and you may not command me!'

 

Softly, Captain Toms said, 'Tethys has seen what we could not see.'

 

'I have all the power required!' said the painter loudly. 'Now, Greenwitch, now! Do as the Dark demands!'

 

The Greenwitch began to make a new sound, a low rumbling so ominous that the children shrank back against the wall. It was somewhere between the growl of a dog and the purring of a cat, and it said, Beware, beware ~~~

 

The painter cried out furiously, 'By the spell of Mana and the spell of Reck and the spell of Lir!' and they saw by the last faint glow that he swung up his canvas and its luminous painted magic over his head again, facing the blackness of the Greenwitch. But he could do nothing. The rumbling from the Greenwitch rose into a roar, the air was tight with rebellion and fear, and Jane heard in her mind over and over again the cry Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! and never knew whether it had been cried aloud or not.

 

They were conscious of nothing but a great seething. Resentful fury roared in their ears, throbbing with the slow thunder of waves against rock. And suddenly the whole world was luminous with green light, as for one terrible moment the Greenwitch in all its wild power loomed out of the sky, every live detail clear with a brilliance they never afterwards mentioned even to one another. With a shriek the painter flung himself backwards, and fell to the ground. And the Greenwitch, crying rage from a great mouth, spread terrible arms wide as if to engulf the whole village - and disappeared. It did not go down into the sea. It did not vanish like a burst balloon. It faded, like smoke, dissipating into nothing. And they felt no sense of release from fear, but a greater tension as if there were a storm in the air.

 

Barney whispered, 'Has it gone?'

 

'No,' Captain Toms said gravely. 'It is all through the village. It is with us and around us. It is angry and it is everywhere, and there is great danger. I must take you home at once. Merry had good reasons for choosing those cottages - they are as safe as the Grey House, in the protection of the Light.'

 

Barney was looking at the still figure on the quay. He said fearfully, ' Is he dead?'

 

'That is not possible,' Captain Toms said quietly. He looked down at the painter. The man lay on his back, breathing evenly, his long hair spread like a black pool around his head. His eyes were closed, but there was no sign of injury. He looked as though he were asleep.

 

From the road leading into the harbour they heard the engine of a car, growing closer, rounding the corner. Simon stepped out to wave it down, but there was no need. As the car's lights swung on to the group on the quay it slowed abruptly, brakes screaming, and pulled to a halt. From behind the blazing headlamps an American voice called, 'Hey! What goes on?'

 

'It's the Stantons!' The children rushed to the car doors, and two puzzled figures climbed out. Captain Toms turned quickly; his voice was clear and commanding.

 

'Evening - you've picked a good time to appear. We've just found this fellow lying here, on our way to the cottage - looks as if a car's knocked him down. Hit and run, I reckon.'

 

Bill Stanton knelt beside the prostrate painter and felt for his heart; raised one eyelid; gently felt along his arms and legs. 'He's alive ... no blood anywhere ... no obvious breaks . . . maybe it's a heart attack, not a car. What should we do? Is there an ambulance here?'

 

Captain Toms shook his head. 'No ambulance in Trewissick, we're not too good for emergencies. And only one policeman with a motor-bike ... You know, Mr Stanton, the best thing we could do is get him in your car, and you drive him to the hospital in St Austell. Poor fellow might be dead by the time we get P.C. Tregear out.'

 

'He's right,' said Fran Stanton, her soft voice concerned. 'Let's do that, Bill.'

 

'Fine by me.' Mr Stanton looked round the quayside, his eyes searching, quickly efficient. 'We'll have to be very careful lifting him . . . I wonder . . . ah! ' He prodded Simon, nearest him. 'See that pile of planks over there? Two of you kids bring one, quick.'

 

In a struggling group they slid the painter on to the narrow plank; then, with slow lifting and tilting, manoeuvred it to leave him lying on the back seat of the car.

 

'Do up the seat belts round him, Frannie,' said Mr Stanton, climbing back into the driver's seat. 'He should be okay. . . Will you call the policeman, captain, and have him follow us? Shouldn't like anyone to think it was us knocked the guy down.'

 

'Yes, of course.'

 

Fran Stanton paused with the car door open. 'Where's Will?'

 

Her husband took his hand off the ignition key. 'That's right, it's late. He and Merry can't still be out walking. Where is he, kids?'

 

They stared at him, speechless.

 

The brightness died out of Bill Stanton's amiable round face; in its place came suspicion and concern. 'Hey now, what is all this? What's going on here? Where's Will?'

 

Captain Toms cleared his throat. 'He -' he began.

 

'Nothing to worry about, Uncle Bill,' said Will, behind them. 'Here I am.'

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

'Very good,' said Merriman, watching, as the Stantons' car hummed round the corner from the harbour and away into the main village street. 'They should just have time to get clear.'

 

'You make it sound as though somebody was going to drop a bomb,' Simon said.

 

Jane said nervously, 'Gumerry? What's going to happen?'

 

'Nothing, to you. Come along.' Merriman swung round and began striding fast and long-legged across the quay towards the cottages; the children scurried after.

 

'See you later, Merry!' Captain Toms called.

 

They stopped, turning in consternation; he was beginning to limp back to the Grey House. 'Captain? Aren't you coming with us?'

 

'Captain Toms!'

 

'Come along,' Merriman said without feeling, and pushed them before him. They shot him quick glances of irritation and reproach. Only Will marched along without sign of emotion.

 

'I'm so glad you're back.' Jane slipped round to her great-uncle's side. 'Please, what's going to happen? Really?'

 

Merriman glanced down at her from his deep-shadowed eyes, without slackening his pace. 'The Greenwitch is abroad. All the power of the Wild Magic, which is without discipline or pattern, is let loose tonight in this place. The power of the Light, since we have so arranged it, will give protection to the cottages and to the Grey House. But elsewhere . . . Trewissick is under possession, this night. It will not be an easy place.' His deep voice was tense and grave, filling them with alarm; they trotted nervously at his side and up the winding zig-zag alleys and stairs to the cottage door. Then they fell into the lighted room like mice diving below-ground from a hunting owl.

 

Simon swallowed, regaining his breath, feeling slightly ashamed of his haste. He said belligerently to Will, ' Where were you?'

 

'Talking to people,' Will said.

 

'Well, what did you find out? You were gone long enough.'

 

'Nothing much,' Will said mildly. 'Nothing but what hasn't already happened.'

 

'Wasn't much point in your going then, was there?'

 

Will laughed. 'Not really.'

 

Simon stared at him for a moment and then turned irritably away. Will glanced at Jane, and winked. She gave him a quick rueful grin, but studied him afterwards, behind his back. Simon wanted to quarrel, and you wouldn't, she thought. You're like a grown-up, sometimes. Who are you, Will Stanton?

 

She said, 'Gumerry, what should we do? Would you like Simon and me to keep watch, upstairs?'

 

'I should like you all to go to bed,' Merriman said.  'It's late.'

 

'Bed!' The outrage in Barney's voice was louder even than the others'. 'But everything's just getting really exciting!'

 

'Exciting is one word for it.' Merriman's bony face was grim. 'Later you might have another. Do as you are told, please.' There was a flicking edge to the words that did not inspire argument.

 

'Good night,' Jane said meekly. 'Good night, Will'

 

'See you in the morning, everyone,' Will said casually, and he disappeared into the Stanton half of the house.

 

Jane shivered.

 

'What's the matter?' Simon said.

 

'Someone walked over my grave ... I don't know, perhaps I've caught a chill.'

 

'I'll make you all a hot drink and bring it up,' Merriman said.

 

Upstairs, Simon paused in the little corridor linking the bedrooms, clutching his head in a kind of despairing fierceness. 'This is ludicrous! Crazy! One minute we're in the middle of some awful great.. . . watching that, that thing ... and then Gumerry turns up, and before you know it he's tucking us up with cups of cocoa.'

 

Barney gave a huge yawn. 'Well yes ... but I'm ... tired . . .'

 

Jane shivered again. 'I am too, I think. I don't know. I feel funny. As if - Can you hear a sort of buzzing noise, very faint, a long way off?

 

'No,' Simon said.

 

'I'm sleepy,' Barney said. 'G'night.'

 

'I'm coming too,' said Simon. He looked at Jane. 'Are you going to be all right, on your own?'

 

'Well, if anything happens,' Jane said, 'I'm going to come running in to hide under your bed so fast you won't even see me.'

 

Simon managed a small grin. 'You do that. There's one thing certain, absolutely none is going to get any sleep tonight.'

 

But when Merriman came tapping gently at Jane's bedroom door in a little while, there were three steaming mugs still on his tray. 'I might have saved myself the effort,' he said. 'Simon and Barney are fast asleep already.'

 

Jane was sitting in pyjamas and dressing-gown beside the window, looking out. She said, without turning round, 'Have you magicked them?'

 

Merriman said softly, 'No.' Something in his voice made her turn, then. He was standing in the doorway, his eyes glittering out of black pools of shadow beneath the jutting white-wire eyebrows. He stood so tall in the low little room that his bushy white hair touched the ceiling. 'Jane,' he said. 'Nothing has been done to any of you, or will be. I promised you that in the beginning. And no harm can come to you here. Remember that. You know me well enough, I do not put you into mortal danger, now or ever.'

 

'I know. Of course I do,' she said.

 

'Then sleep sound,' Merriman said. He stretched out a long arm, and she reached out and touched his fingertips; it was like a bargain. 'Here, have some cocoa. No potions in it, I promise. Just sugar.'  Jane said automatically, 'I've cleaned my teeth.'

 

Merriman chuckled. 'Then clean them again.' He put down the mug and went out, closing the door.

 

Jane took her cocoa and sat beside the window again, warming her fingers on the hot smooth sides of the mug; the room was cold. She looked out of the window, but the reflection of the bedside lamp was in her way. Impulsively she reached out and switched it off, then sat waiting until her eyes grew accustomed to the dim-lit dark.

 

When at last she could see again, she did not believe what she saw.

 

From the cottage, high up there on the hillside above the sea, she had a clear view of all the harbour and much of the village. Here and there were pools of yellow light from the lamp-posts: two on the quayside, three across the harbour, up on the road past the Grey House; others, more distant, at points within the village. But the pools of light were small. All else was darkness. And in the darkness, wherever she looked, Jane could see things moving. At first she could tell herself that she was imagining it, for whenever she saw movement from the corner of an eye and shifted her gaze to stare, it was gone. She could never see it clearly, in direct view. But this did not last for long.

 

It was changed by a single figure of a man. He came up out of the water at the edge of the harbour, climbing a flight of stairs with a strange gliding motion.

 

He was dripping wet; his clothes clung to him, his long hair was plastered flat and dark round his face, and as he walked a trail of water dripped all round him and was left like a path. He walked slowly up towards the main street of Trewissick, looking neither to left nor right. When he came to the corner of the little canning factory, whose new extension jutted from the old brick buildings set higgledy-piggledy along the quay, the man in the wet clothes did not slow his pace, nor turn aside. He simply walked through the wall as if it had not been there, emerging in a second or two on the other side. Then he  disappeared into the darkness of the main street.

 

Jane stared into the blackness. She said softly, desperately, 'It's not true. It's not true.'

 

The night was very still. Jane clutched her mug like a talisman of reality; then suddenly jumped so hard that she spilt half the cocoa on the window-sill. She had caught a movement right below her, at the cottage door. Hardly daring to look, she willed her eyes to move downwards, and saw two figures leaving the door. Merriman was

unmistakable; though he was hooded and muffled in a long cloak, light from a street-lamp showed Jane the high brow and fierce beak-like nose. But it was a moment before she realised that the second figure, cloaked and hooded in the same way, was Will Stanton. She knew him only by a trick of his walk, which until then she would not have thought she could recognise.

 

They walked out unhurried into the middle of the quay. Jane felt a frenzied urge to throw open the window and shriek a warning, to bring them back from unknown perils, but she had known her strange great-uncle too long for that. He had never been like other men; he had always had unpredictable powers, seemed somehow larger than anyone they had ever known. He might even be causing these things.

 

'He is of the Light,' said Jane aloud to herself, gravely, hearing the true impossible seriousness of the words for the first time.

 

Then she said thoughtfully, amending it a little, 'They are of the Light.' She looked at the smaller hooded figure, discovering in her mind a curious reluctance to believe that there was anything supernatural about Will. His cheerful round face, with the blue-grey eyes and straight mouse-brown hair, had seemed a subtly comforting image from the beginning of this adventure. There would be nothing very comforting about Will if he were like Merriman Lyon.

 

And then she forgot Merriman, Will and everything around her, for she caught sight of the lights.

 

They were the lights of a ship, out at sea: bright lights like stars, moving a little as with the waves. They swayed and bobbed out there in the darkness, but they were far too close in. Though they were clearly the lights of a ship of some size, they were close to the rocks of Kemare Head; dreadfully, dangerously close. She heard voices, crying faintly; one of them seemed to call: 'Jack Harry's lights!' And forcing her gaze away from the sea she saw that the harbour was suddenly filled with people: fishermen, women, boys, running and waving and pointing out at the sea. They crowded past and around the still figures of Merriman and Will as if neither of them was there.

 

Then there seemed to Jane to be a strange blurring of the scene, a moment's vagueness; when her eyes cleared, everything was as it had been the moment before, and though she thought that the crowd of villagers seemed somehow different, in clothes and appearance, she could not be certain. Before she could think further, horror seemed to take hold of the crowd. An eerie flickering light grew over the harbour. And suddenly boats set about with great flaming torches were pouring in past the harbour wall, strange broad boats full of oarsmen, some bare-headed with flowing red hair, some wearing stubby helmets crested with a golden boar and jutting down into a fierce iron nose-guard over the face. The boats reached shallow water; the oarsmen leapt from their oars, seized swords and blazing torches and tumbled out, crowding, splashing, rushing ashore with blood-curdling yells that Jane could hear with dreadful clarity even through the closed window. The villagers scattered, screaming, fleeing in all directions; some few fought the invaders off with sticks and knives. But the red-headed men were intent on one thing only; they hewed and hacked with their swords, slicing at any they could catch with more fearsome brutality than Jane had ever believed possible in human beings. Blood ran bright over the quayside, and streamed down into the sea, clouding out dark and murky in the waves.

 

Jane stumbled to her feet, feeling sick, and turned away.

 

When she forced herself back to the window, shivering, the screams and yells had died almost to nothing. The last fugitives and howling invaders were racing out along the furthest roads, and an ominous red glow was rising all over the village, all over the sky. Trewissick was burning. Flames licked round the houses on the hill across the harbour, and glared bright red in the windows; in a great whoosh of fire the warehouse at the far side of the harbour burst into flames. Brick and stone seemed incomprehensibly to burn as fiercely as if they were wood. Fumbling desperately with the catch, Jane flung open the window, and met a great crackling and roaring from the fire and the great billowing clouds of bright-lit smoke. The reflection of the flames danced on the water of the harbour. In her agitation it did not occur to Jane to notice that she did not smell burning, and felt no heat.

 

Down on the quayside, as if they saw nothing that had happened from the beginning, Will and Merriman stood cloaked and still.

 

'Gumerry!' Jane shrieked. She could think of nothing but that the fire might reach the cottages. 'Gumerry!'

 

Then the noise outside in the sky was suddenly gone, altogether gone, and she heard her own voice, and found that what she had felt as a high tremendous scream was no more than a whisper. And as she sat watching, disbelieving, the flamed died and disappeared, and the red glow in the sky faded away. There was no more blood, nor any trace of it, and everything in the harbour of Trewissick was as if the red-headed, ravening men from the sea had never come.

 

Somewhere, a dog howled into the night.

 

Cold, frightened, Jane clutched her dressing-gown tighter around her. She longed to fetch Simon, yet she could not take her eyes from the window. Still unmoving, the dark cloaked figures of Will and Merriman stood over the edge of the sea. They made no sign of having noticed anything that had happened.

 

There was a glimmering, glittering sheen on the water of the harbour, and Jane saw that over her head the moon had floated free of clouds. A different light brightened the world, cold but gentler: all was black and white and grey. And into it, out of the air, came a voice. It was not a man's voice, but thin and unearthly, chanting one sentence three times on one high heart-catching note.

 

The hour is come, but not the man.

The hour is come, but not the man.

The hour is come, but not the man.

 

Jane peered all round the harbour, but could see no-one: only the two unmoving figures below.

 

Again the dog howled somewhere unseen. Again she felt a strange buzzing, humming sound in the air, and then she began to hear other voices crying far off in the village.

 

'The Lottery! The Lottery!' she thought they cried. Then a man's voice, clearer, 'The Lottery is taken!'

 

'Roger Toms! Roger Toms!'

 

'Hide them!'

 

'Bring them to the caves!'

 

'The Revenuers are coming!'

 

A woman sobbed: 'Roger Toms, Roger Toms ...'

 

The harbour filled with people, milling about, anxiously staring out to sea, scurrying to and fro. This time Jane thought she could see faces in the crowd that were like the faces of Trewissick that she knew: Penhallows, Palks, Hoovers, Tregarrens, Thomases, all anxious, all perplexed, casting fearful glances both to land and sea. They seemed to have no real contact with one another; they were like sleep-walkers, sleep-runners, folk desperately turning about in a bad dream. And a great shriek went up from the whole crowd as the last spectre came rushing at them from the sea.

 

It was not horrible, yet it was more heart-stopping than any. It was a ship: a black ship, single-masted, square-rigged, with a dinghy behind. Silent and unnerving it came gliding into the harbour from the sea, scarcely touching the water, skimming the surface of the waves. It carried no crew. Not a single form moved anywhere on its black decks. And when it reached the land, it did not stop, but went on, sailing silently over harbour and rooftops and hill, away out of Trewissick, to the moors. And as if the phantom ship had swept away with it all sign of life, the crowd vanished too.

 

Jane found she was clutching the edge of the window-sill so hard that her fingers hurt. She thought miserably: this is why he wanted us to sleep. Safe and empty with a blanket over our minds, that's where he wanted us. And instead I am in the middle of more nightmares than I ever imagined could come in one night, and the worst nightmare of all is that I am awake . . .

 

Nervously she peeped round the curtain again. Merriman and Will strode to the centre of the quay. A third figure, cloaked and hooded, joined them from the other side of the harbour. Standing very tall, facing the village and the hills, Merriman raised both arms in the air. And although nothing could be seen, it was as though a great wave of rage came roaring at them, rearing over them, out of the dark haunted village of Trewissick.

 

Jane could stand no more of it. With an unhappy little moan she dived across the room and into her bed. Tight over her head she pulled the covers, and lay there stuffy and shivering. She was not afraid for her own safety; Merriman had promised her that the cottage was protected, and she believed him. Nor was she afraid for those figures down in the harbour; if they had survived so strange a succession of monstrosities, they could survive anything. In any case nothing could harm Merriman. It was another fear that possessed Jane: a dreadful horror of the unknown, of whatever force was sweeping through land and sea, out there. She wanted only to cower into her own corner animal-like, away from it, safe.

 

So this she did, and found, oddly, that because the fear was so large and formless, it proved more ready to go away.

 

Gradually Jane stopped shivering; grew warm. Her taut limbs relaxed; she began to breathe slowly and deeply. And then she slept.

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

Down in the harbour with Will and Captain Toms at either side, shadowy hooded figures, Merriman raised both arms higher in a gesture that was half-appeal, half-command, and he called into the darkness over Trewissick in his deep resonant voice the words of the spell of Mana and the spell of Reck and the spell of Lir.

 

From all around, rage beat at them like waves, a great gale of unseen force.

 

'No!' cried the great voice of the Greenwitch, thick with fury. 'No! Leave me alone!'

 

'Come forth, Greenwitch!' Merriman called. 'The spells command it.'

 

'One coming is all they may command,' the voice roared. 'And out of the sea I came, they commanded me and I came. No more, no more!'

 

'Come forth, Greenwitch!' Will's clear voice sang out through the darkness like a beam of light. 'The White Lady bids you hear us. Tethys gave us leave to call you, before you should go to the deep.'

 

Fury enveloped them like a tidal wave. At their backs, the sea growled and murmured; the land quivered beneath their feet.

 

But then, though they could not see it, the presence was all around them, seething, resentful.

 

Merriman said: 'The secret is not yours, Greenwitch. You know you should not keep it.'

 

'I found it. It was in the sea.'

 

'It would not have been there, but for a battle between the Light and the Dark. It fell, it was lost.'

 

'It was in the sea, in my mother's realm.'

 

'Come, my friend,' Captain Toms said gently, in his rounded Cornish voice. 'You know that it is not of the sea, but is a part of a Thing of Power.'

 

The Greenwitch said, 'I have no friend. It matters nothing to me what happens between the Light and the Dark.'

 

'Ah,' Merriman said. 'You will find out that it may matter, if this Thing of Power shall belong fully to the Dark. Half of it they have already, half they seek to have from you. If they gain it, and have the power of the whole, things will go hard with the world of men.'

 

The voice around them mumbled, 'Men have nothing to do with -'

 

'Men have nothing to do with me?' Will's voice cut light and clear through the night. 'Do you believe that, Greenwitch? Men have everything to do with you. Without them, you would not exist. They make you, each year. Each year, they throw you to the sea. Without men, the Greenwitch would never have been born.'

 

'They do not make me.' The great voice was bitter. 'They serve themselves only, their own needs only. Though they make me in the form of a creature, yet they are making no more than an offering, as once in older days it might have been a slaughtered cock, or sheep, or man. I am an offering, Old Ones, no more. If they thought I had life they would kill me as they killed the cocks and the sheep and the men, to make a sacrifice. Instead they make me as an image, out of branches and leaves. It is a game, a substitute. I am given real life only by the White Lady, life enough to take me down to the deeps. And this once too I have had a different life wake in me, because I was drawn out to the earth, out of the sea, by . . .' the voice grew reflective; a note of cunning crept in . . . 'by the Dark.'

 

'Put that out of your mind,' Merriman said at once. 'None is more self-serving than the Dark. Tethys has told you that.'

 

'Self-serving!' The bitterness was back in an instant, and far deeper. 'You are all self-servers, Light, Dark, men. There is no place for the Wild Magic except its own . . . no care . . . no care . . .

 

In spite of themselves the three Old Ones swayed backwards as the force of fury rose again abruptly, and the rage of the Greenwitch throbbed all around them like a great heart fiercely beating.

 

Staggering, Merriman caught himself upright, sweeping his long cloak around him, the hood falling back to leave his wild white hair glistening in the lamplight. 'Has no-one showed care for you, Greenwitch? No-one?'

 

'No-one!' The huge voice rang through the village, around the hills, over the moors behind; like distant thunder it rumbled and re-echoed. 'No creature! None! Not . . . One . . .' The fierceness died, the thunder grew less. For a long moment they were listening only to the wash of the uneasy sea against the cliffs, out where the swells broke. Then the Greenwitch said in a whisper, 'None except one. None except the child.'

 

'The child?' Will said involuntarily. A thin note of raw incredulity tipped his voice; for a moment he thought the Greenwitch meant himself.

 

Merriman said softly, ignoring him, 'The child who wished you well.'

 

'She was up at the headland at the making,' the Greenwitch said. 'And they told her of the old saying, that whoever touches the Greenwitch before it be put to cliff, and makes a wish, shall have that wish. So then she could have made any wish she chose.' The voice grew warm, for the first time. 'She could have wished for anything, Old Ones, even for the first lost part of your Thing of Power to come back to you. Yet when she touched me she looked at me as if I were human, and she said, "I wish you could be happy."

 

The soft thunder died away; the harbour was silent, bursting with the memory that filled it.

 

'I wish you could be happy,' the Greenwitch said softly.

 

'So she -' Will began; but stopped, as Merriman's hand touched his arm. The air around them was growing bright, light, mild; Trewissick, for this one night, would catch every mood of the Greenwitch like a burning-glass. The echoing voice murmured softly to itself, and it seemed to Will that with every moment the earth and sea in that place grew gentler.

 

Into the dim-lit spring night a cold voice said, 'The girl too is self-serving, just as the rest of them.'

 

There was a silence. Then out of the shadows at the back of the quay stepped the painter, the man of the Dark. He stood in a pool of yellow lamplight, facing them, a chunky black silhouette.

 

'Self-serving,' he said to the air. 'Self-serving.' Then turning to Merriman he said, 'I have the mastery of it, not you. The spells that called it from the ocean were mine. The creature is mine to command, Old One, not yours.'

 

Will felt a low rumbling around them, and saw the lights faintly quiver.

 

Merriman said, 'This is not now a matter for command, but for gentleness. The spells that brought it out of the sea can accomplish no more now.'

 

The painter laughed scornfully. He swung round in a half-circle, arms outstretched. 'Greenwitch!' he shouted. 'I have come back for the secret. I give you one last chance, before the wrath of the Dark will descend!'

 

The rumbling sound rose into a huge snarl, like a roll of thunder, then died down again.

 

'Be careful,' said Captain Toms softly. 'Be very careful.'

 

But the command in the voice of the man of the Dark now was like ice; it was the cold absolute arrogance that through centuries past had brought men down to terror and grovelling obedience. 'Greenwitch!' the man called into the night. 'Give your secret to the Dark! Obey! The Dark is come again, and for the last time, Greenwitch! The hour is come!'

 

Will clenched his fists so that the nails cut into his palms; even an Old One could feel the force of such a command bite into the mind. He watched without a breath, wondering; he did not know how such a challenge would touch the Wild Magic, a force neither of the Light nor of the Dark nor of men.

 

The air around them sang with the ferocity of the Dark messenger's will, spinning their wits into uncertainty - and then gradually, subtly, a change began. The force that was in the air faltered, and changed imperceptibly back to the spell-web that had possessed this small part of the earth since the Greenwitch had struck the painter down. The Wild Magic was resisting all challenge, invincible as the Boar Trwyth. Will took a great breath; he began to guess what was to come.

 

Standing alone on the quay, the painter whirled round, staggering, groping into the air, as if in search for something he could not see. Out of the darkness, high above the village, a weird clear voice called, as it had called before:

 

The hour is come, but not the man.

The hour is come, but not the man.

The hour is come, but not the man.

 

And into the silence after the ringing words a whispering began, a gradual murmuring of many voices, calling, whispering: Roger Toms! Roger Toms! And shadows came flocking into the harbour, from all sides, all the shades and spirits and hauntings of that one haunted night: the past folk of Trewissick from all the centuries that the little sea-town had ever seen, focused into one black point of time. Roger Toms! Roger Toms! they called, softly at first, growing gradually louder, louder. It was a calling and an accusing and a judgement, and it whispered relentlessly round the harbour and over the sea.

 

Silently, unobtrusively, the three Old Ones drew their hoods over their heads and moved together to one side of the harbour, in the shade of the wall, to stand there unseen.

 

Out in the centre of the quay, alone, the dark painter turned in a slow circle, incredulously seeing and hearing the past come falling upon him, making him into its long shame. With immense effort he raised his arms, pushing feebly at the air.

 

But there was no pushing away the unreasoning rage that the Wild Magic had brought out of the village, to make a scapegoat of its attacker. 'Roger Toms! Roger Toms!' the voices called angrily, stronger, more demanding.

 

The painter shrieked into the night, 'I am not he! You mistake me!'

 

'Roger Toms!' came a great triumphant shout.

 

'No! No!'

 

They were all around him, crying and calling, pointing, just as the villagers of the present had crowded and called and pushed about the Greenwitch, as it was taken newly- made to tumble headlong from the cliff.

 

And from out of the night, over the roofs of Trewissick from the dark inland moors, came sailing again the phantom ship of Cornwall, single-masted, square-rigged, with a dinghy behind, that had sailed up out of the midnight sea in the haunting. Silently it skimmed over houses and roads and quayside, and this time it was not empty, but had a figure at the helm. The drowned man, dripping and intent, whom Jane had seen glide up out of the sea, stood high on the deck at the wheel, steering his black dead vessel, looking neither to left nor right. And with a glad shriek all the great crowd of shades rushed on to the ship, dragging with them the struggling painter.

 

'Roger Toms! Roger Toms!'

 

'No!'

 

The phantom sails filled again with a wind that no man alive could feel, and the ship sailed away, out to sea, out into the night, and on Trewissick quay the Old Ones were left alone.

 

 

*******

Jane slept deeply at first, but halfway through the night dreams began to edge into her sleep. She saw the painter, painting; she saw again all the fearful things that she had seen from her window that night. She dreamed of Roger Toms and the fair-traders, with the ship called the Lottery fleeing from the Revenue men and the shots ringing out between the two; and in her dream the Lottery became the black phantom ship that had sailed unthinkably up out of the sea and away across the land.

 

She thought, as she tossed in her sleep, that she heard voices calling Roger Toms! Roger Toms! And then as they faded, gradually into her dream came the Greenwitch. She could not see it, as she had seen it in a dream once before; this time it was obscure, merely a voice, lost in the shadows. It was unhappy. Poor thing, Jane thought, it's always unhappy.

 

She said, 'Greenwitch, what are all these horrible things?'

 

'It is the Wild Magic,' the Greenwitch said miserably into her dreaming mind. 'This is how it besets the minds of men, calling up all the terrors they have ever had, or their forefathers have ever had. All the old hauntings of Cornwall, which men there have always feared, that is what these have been.'

 

'But why tonight?' Jane said.

 

The Greenwitch sighed, a great gusty sigh like the sea. 'Because I was angry. I am never angry, but the man of the Dark made me so. And the rage of those who are part of the Wild Magic is not a good thing to bring out. The village bore it, the village has been possessed . . .'

 

'Is it over now?'

 

'It is over now.' The Greenwitch sighed again. 'The Wild Magic has carried away the man of the Dark. The messenger of the Dark. He was a creature alone, trying to cheat his masters. So they did not protect him, and so the Wild Magic has taken him to outer Time, from which he may never properly come back .. .'

 

Jane cried, 'But he has the grail! What about the grail?'

 

'I know nothing of a grail,' the Greenwitch said indifferently. 'What is a grail?'

 

'It doesn't matter,' Jane said, with effort. 'Did he take your secret, in the end? Did you give it him?'

 

'It is mine,' the Greenwitch said quickly. 'I found it. And now no-one will let me keep it.'

 

'Did you give it to the Dark?'

 

'No.'

 

'Thank goodness,' Jane said. 'It really is terribly important, Greenwitch. To the Light, to everyone. Really. To the people who made you, to my brothers and me, to all of us.'

 

The Greenwitch said, 'To you?' Its great melancholy voice echoed round her like waves booming in a cave. 'My secret is important to you?'

 

'Of course it is,' said Jane.

 

'Then here,' said the huge voice. 'Take it.'

 

Jane never knew afterwards what she had been at that moment doing in her dream: standing or sitting or lying, indoors or out, in day or night, under sea or over stone. She remembered only the great wave of astonished delight 'Greenwitch! You will give me your secret?'

 

'Here,' said the voice again, and there in Jane's hand was the small misshapen lead case, that had fallen into the sea at the end of the adventure that had achieved the grail - and that held inside it the only manuscript able to unravel for them the secret of the grail. 'Take it,' the Greenwitch said. 'You made a wish that was for me, not for yourself. No one has ever done that. I give you my secret, in return.'

 

'Thank you,' said Jane, in a whisper. All around her was darkness; it was as though nothing existed in the whole world but herself, standing in emptiness, and the great disembodied voice of this strange wild thing, a creature of the sea made of branches and leaves from the earth. 'Thank you, Greenwitch. I shall find you a better secret, instead.' A quick image came flashing into her mind. 'I shall put it in the same place where you found this one.'

 

'Too late,' said the great sad voice. 'Too late...' It boomed and re-echoed, fading gradually away. 'I go to my mother now, to the great deeps.' Away into the darkness the echoes died, a last whisper lingering. 'Too late . . . too late ...'

 

' Greenwitch!' Jane cried in distress. ' Come back! Come back!' She ran blindly into the darkness, reaching out helplessly. 'Come back!'

 

And in the same moment, the dream dissolved, and she woke.

 

She woke into the small white room bright with sunshine, gay as the cheerful yellow curtains at the windows, and the yellow quilt pulled up to her chin on the bed. The curtains shifted gently in a small breeze from the window she had left part-open the night before.

 

And clenched in Jane's hand was a small misshapen lead case, patched with green stains, like a rock that has been a long time under the sea.

 

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

Tousle-headed from sleep, rumpled pyjamas flapping, the children rushed unceremoniously into Merriman's bed-room.

 

'Where is he?'

 

'Try downstairs. Come on!'

 

Merriman and Will, looking as though they had been up and dressed for hours, were calmly eating their breakfast in the long low living-room. As Simon, Jane and Barney tumbled into the room Merriman lowered a large rustling stretch of newspaper, and peered at them over a pair of gold-rimmed half-spectacles perched startlingly on his high-arched nose.

 

He said, looking at the battered leaden cylinder that Jane mutely held out to him, 'Ah.'

 

Will put down his toast, grinning all over his round face. 'Well done, Jane,' he said.

 

Jane said, 'But I didn't do anything. It just - it just appeared.'

 

'You made a wish,' said Will.

 

She stared at him.

 

'Aren't we going to open it?' Barney said impatiently. 'Come on, Gumerry.'

 

'Well,' Merriman said. He took the small lead case from Jane's hand and set it on the table, dark eyes glittering in his deep-lined face. 'Well now.'

 

Jane was still staring, her gaze flickering between Will and her great-uncle. 'You knew I had it. You knew.'

 

'We hoped,' Merriman said gently.

 

Simon put a finger on the case as if he were saying a prayer. 'It's been in the sea so long. Look at it, there's weed and stuff all over it ... won't the water have got in? That would be my fault, from last summer. I opened it just once, to see what was inside, and then closed it again. Imagine if the manuscript's all ruined in there, if I didn't close it tightly enough ...'

 

'Stop it,' said Jane.

 

Merriman took up the case in his long wiry fingers, and gently he tugged and turned the green-splashed grey metal until suddenly one end of it came away in his hand like a cap. Inside, a small roll of heavy parchment projected from the longer part of the case like a pointing finger.

 

'It's all right!' Simon said hoarsely. Hastily he cleared his throat and put his shoulders back, though it was hard to recover dignity in pyjamas.

 

Barney hugged himself, jiggling with impatience. 'What does it say? What does it say?'

 

Very slowly, and with immense care, Merriman drew the rolled manuscript from the little leaden case. He said, as he unrolled it gently on the table, flat under one large hand, 'We shall be able to do this twice, at the most, unless it is to crumble into dust. So this is the first time.'

 

His long fingers held the cracking brown parchment open on the white cloth. It was covered with two blocks of heavy black marks. The children stared, dismay chasing horror over their faces.

 

'But it doesn't say anything! That's not even a language!'

 

'It's gibberish!'

 

Jane said slowly, more cautious, 'What is the writing, Gumerry? Is there any kind of alphabet like that?'

 

She looked without hope at the series of black marks: upright strokes, slanting strokes, single and in groups, like the random doodling of a tidy madman.

 

'Yes,' Merriman said. 'There is.' He lifted his hand so that the manuscript rolled itself again, and Will, who had been looking over his shoulder, went quietly back to his chair. 'There is an ancient alphabet called Ogham, not intended for our kind of writing - this is something like that. But still it is a half-writing, a cipher. Remember, it cannot mean anything until we have the grail - it was written to go with the inscription on the grail, to show its meaning plain. The one will give light to the other.'

 

Barney wailed, 'But we haven't got the grail!'

 

'The Dark,' Simon said bitterly. 'The painter.' Then he stiffened, his face full of wild hope. 'But we can get it, we can go and take it from his caravan. They took him to -'

 

'Morning! Morning!' Mrs Penhallow came bustling in with a tray. 'I heard your voices, m'dears, so here's your breakfasts.'

 

'Super!' said Barney at once.

 

Very gently, Merriman let his newspaper droop over the manuscript and its case.

 

'Well,' Jane said, pulling helplessly at her rumpled dressing-gown. 'We aren't exactly dressed, but thank you.'

 

'My goodness, who minds about that, on holiday? Now you just help yourselves and relax, and I'll use the time to do your rooms.' Leaving the tray, she bounced out into the kitchen; then reappeared with broom and dusters. When she was safely creaking away up the stairs behind the cottages' connecting door, Simon let out a long breath and burst out again, taut and excited.

 

'They took him to hospital, so we can go to the caravan, he won't be there! He -'

 

Will hissed sharply between his teeth, holding up a hand in warning. A stumbling and mumbling came at the other door into the room, and through it appeared Bill Stanton, yawning, blinking, tying the belt of an improbable dressing-gown striped like a deck-chair. He looked at the Drews, covering the last of his yawns. 'Well,' he said. 'I'm glad someone at least looks the same way I do.'

 

Simon sat down hard in his chair and began fiercely slicing bread.

 

Barney said, 'Did you get on all right last night, Mr Stanton?'

 

Will's uncle groaned. 'Don't talk about it. What an evening I That crazy guy we were taking to hospital ran away.'

 

'Ran away?' The room was suddenly very quiet.

 

Mr Stanton sat down and reached greedily for the tea-pot. 'I hope he's all right,' he said. 'But he sure gave us enough trouble. He was as quiet as anything there in the back seat, I'd have sworn he was still out like a light. Never made a sound. Then when we were about halfway to St Austell, very bleak part of the road, something ran out in front of the car, and I hit it.' He took a long drink of tea, and sighed gratefully. 'So I stopped, and hopped out to take a look. I mean, you don't want to leave an animal in pain, do you? And while I was out there in the dark, this fellow in the back seat jumped up and opened the door on the other side, and was off out over the fields before Frannie knew what was happening.'

 

'But he was hurt,' Jane said. 'Could he run?'

 

'Ran like a hare,' Mr Stanton said, pushing back the hair wisping over his bald head. 'We could hear him crashing about, through hedges I suppose. We looked for him for quite a while, but we didn't have a light and it's none too friendly out there in bad weather in the dark. So in the end we drove on to St Austell and told the police what had happened. Fran thought we should, after getting Captain Toms to tell the Trewissick cop. Though it turned out in the end he didn't, eh, Merry?'

 

'We tried,' Merriman said blandly. 'P.C. Tregear was out of the village.'

 

'Well, the St Austell constabulary thought we were nuts,' said Mr Stanton, 'and they were probably right. In the end we came back here. Very late.' He drank some more tea, and sighed again. 'English-born though I am,' he said plaintively, 'I do wish our good Mrs Penhallow would make coffee for breakfast now and again.'

 

'What was the animal you hit?' Barney said.

 

'We never found a sign of it. I suppose it was a cat. It looked bigger - might have been a badger perhaps. By the time we were through' - he chuckled - 'we'd decided it was just a good old Cornish ghost.'

 

'Oh,' Jane said faintly.

 

'Well, enough of that,' Mr Stanton said. 'We all did our Good Samaritan bit, and I presume the guy's all right somewhere. Hey, this is your last day, kids, isn't it? Looks like it's going to be a nice one. Frannie was wondering if we could all take a picnic on to that big beach the other side of Kemare Head.'

 

'That sounds delightful,' Merriman said swiftly, before they could react. 'A little later this morning, hmmm? There's one thing I want to show them all first.'

 

'That's fine. It's going to take me a while to recover from last night. I don't think Fran's even awake yet.'

 

'What do you want to show us, Gumerry?' said Jane, more from politeness than enthusiasm.

 

'Oh,' Merriman said. 'Just an old farm.'

 

 

*******

They bounced through the village in Merriman's big car: Jane and Captain Toms in front, the boys behind, with a happy, fidgeting Rufus. All the windows were open; with no wind, and the sun rising high already, it promised to be an uncommonly hot spring day.

 

Simon said, 'But he'll be there waiting for us! He's bound to be, that's why he ran away! Gumerry, how can we possibly just drive up in a car?'

 

A note of frantic worry was rising in his voice; Will looked at him with sympathy, but said nothing.

 

Merriman said at last, without turning his head, 'The man of the Dark will not trouble us again, Simon.'

 

Barney said, ' Why not?'

 

Simon said, 'How do you know?'

 

'He tried once more, once too often, to challenge the rights of the Greenwitch,' Merriman said, swinging the car round a corner. 'And the Wild Magic, to which the Greenwitch belongs, carried him away.' He fell silent, in the kind of silence that they knew meant an end of questioning.

 

' Last night,' said Simon.

 

'Yes,' Merriman said. Jane, glancing sideways at his eagle-bleak profile, wondered for a cold moment what exactly had happened to the painter of the Dark, and then, remembering what she had seen, was glad that she did not know.

 

And before they realised they had gone so far, the big car was turning off the road on to a narrow side-lane, roofed by low-branching trees, past a notice that read: PENTREATH FARM.

 

Simon said nervously, 'Shouldn't we walk?'

 

Wilfully misunderstanding, Merriman waved one hand airily. 'Oh no, don't worry, this old bus has stood a lot worse bumps than this in her time.'

 

Simon tried to swallow his uneasiness. He stared out of the window at the green banks of grass and the thick-swelling trees; at the lacy branches brushing the windows. Unconsciously he clenched his hands together as they approached the last turn in the lane before they would see the painter's caravan, and at the last swing of the car tightened his grip and fought the impulse to close his eyes.

 

And squinting unhappily out at the green bush-scattered field, he saw that the caravan was not there.

 

'Stop a moment,' he said, in a high unfamiliar voice. Merriman stopped the car without question, and Simon tumbled out, with Barney close behind him. Together they hurried to the spot where, they both knew very well, the glittering gipsy caravan had stood; where the horse had moved lazily cropping the grass; where the man of the Dark had used Barney's mind for his own ends. There was no sign that anything or anyone had been there for months. Not a blade of grass was bent, not a branch flattened. Rufus, who had jumped out of the car after them, moved restlessly over the ground with his nose down, casting about in circles, finding no scent. Then he paused; lifted his head, shook it from side to side in a strange undog-like manner, like someone with a ringing in his ears, and made off at a swift trot round the next corner in the road.

 

'Rufus!' Simon shouted. 'Rufus!'

 

'Let him be,' said Captain Toms clearly from the car. 'Come back here, and we shall follow him.'

 

On down the lane the big car purred, and then they were round the last corner and facing the farm.

 

The low grey building seemed even more decrepit than Simon had remembered. He looked with more attention now at the beams of wood nailed cross-shaped over the front door; at the new growth of creeper reaching over windows unhindered; at other windows, here and there, black and broken like missing teeth. Long grass rose lush and new round rusting pieces of farm equipment left in the yard: a skeletal old plough, a harrow, the remnants of a tractor with its great tyres gone. In the pen of a deserted pig-sty, nettles grew tall and rank. Somewhere behind the farmhouse, Rufus barked shrilly, and a flurry of pigeons flapped into the air. There was a wet smell of growing things.

 

Captain Toms said softly, 'The wild is taking Pentreath Farm, very fast.'

 

Merriman stood in the middle of the farmyard, looking about him, perplexed. The lines in his face seemed deeper-carved than before. Captain Toms leaned against the car, gazing at the farm, one hand absently tracing patterns in the damp earth with his stick.

 

Will peered in through one of the front windows of the farm, straining to see through the murk. 'I suppose we should go inside,' he said, without much conviction.

 

'I don't think so,' Simon said. He stood at Will's shoulder, and for once there was no tension between them, but only the studying of a common problem. 'Somehow I'm sure the painter never went in there. It looked absolutely untouched last time. He seemed just to be living in the caravan on his own. He was a separate sort of man.'

 

'Separate indeed.' Merriman's deep voice came to them across the yard. 'A strange creature of the Dark, that they sent out as a thief only, to take the grail and hide it. It was a good moment to choose, for we were off our guard, thinking them too preoccupied with licking their wounds after a great defeat . . . But the creature of the Dark was willing to betray his masters, having greater ideas. He knew the tale of the lost manuscript, and he thought that if he could secretly get that for himself as well, and thus complete one of the Things of Power, he could by a sort of blackmail make himself one of the great lords of the Dark.'

 

Jane said, 'But didn't they know what he was doing?'

 

'They were not expecting him to over-reach his commission,' Merriman said. 'They knew, better perhaps than he did himself, how hopeless a fate lay waiting any lone figure who might venture on such a quest. We think they were not watching him, but simply waiting for his return.'

 

'The Dark is indeed preoccupied, for a time,' Captain Toms said. 'They have damage to repair, from certain happenings midwinter last. They will make little showing of themselves, until the time of their next great rising.'

 

Simon said slowly, 'Perhaps that's what the painter meant when he said to Barney, Am I observed? Do you remember? I thought he was talking about you, but he must have meant his own masters.'

 

'Where is Barney?' Will said, looking round.

 

'Barney? Hey, Barney!'

 

An unintelligible shout came from somewhere beyond the far side of the farmhouse.

 

'Oh dear,' said Jane. 'Now what's he up to?'

 

They ran in the direction of the shout, Merriman following more slowly with Captain Toms. A great rambling tangle of weeds and nettles and brambles rose at the side of the old house, and all around the outbuildings beyond.

 

'Ow!' Barney howled from somewhere inside the thicket. 'I'm stung!'

 

'What on earth are you doing?'

 

'Looking for Rufus.'

 

They heard a muffled barking; it seemed to come from the further of the two outbuildings, an old stone barn with a perilous half-fallen roof.

 

'Ow!' Barney yelped again. 'Mind the nettles, they're fierce . . . Rufus just goes on barking and doesn't come out, I think he must be stuck. He went this way . . .'

 

Captain Toms limped forward. 'Rufus!' he called, very loud and stern. 'Here! Come here!'

 

There was more muffled excited barking from the ramshackle barn, ending in a snuffling whine.

 

Captain Toms sighed, and pulled his grey beard. 'Foolish beast,' he said. 'Stand clear a minute. Look out, Barney.' Sweeping his heavy walking-stick from side to side as if it were a scythe, he moved gradually forwards, thrashing a path through the nettles and undergrowth to the crumbling stone sides of the barn. Rufus' barking, inside, became more frenzied still.

 

'Shut up, dog,' called Barney, at the captain's elbow now. 'We're coming!' He wriggled round to a rotting wooden door, hanging sideways from one hinge, and peered in through the V-shaped gap between door and wall. 'He must have got in here and knocked something over that blocked gap... I can get in here, if I ...'

 

'Do be careful,' Jane said.

 

"Course,' said Barney. He squeezed in round the tilted door, pushing aside something that fell with a crumbling clatter, and disappeared. There was a burst of joyful barking inside the barn, and then Rufus came leaping out through the gap, tongue lolling, tail waving. He pranced up to Captain Toms. He was very dirty; small damp pieces of rotten wood speckled his red coat, and cobwebs clung stickily round his nose.

 

Captain Toms patted him absent-mindedly. He was looking at the barn, with a faint puzzled frown on his face. Then he glanced questioningly at Merriman; following his gaze, Jane saw the same look in her great-uncle's eyes. What was the matter with them? Before she could ask, Barney's head poked out of the gap in the barn door. His hair was dishevelled and one cheek was smeared grey, but Jane's attention was caught only by the unsmiling blankness of his face. He looked as though he had had a very bad shock.

 

'Come out of there, Barney,' Merriman said. 'That roof's not safe.' Barney said, 'I'm just coming. But please, Gumerry, could Simon come in here just for a minute first? It's important.'

 

Merriman glanced from Captain Toms to Will and back to Barney. His stern-lined face was tense. 'All right. For a moment.'

 

Simon slipped past them to wriggle his way through the gap. Behind him Will said diffidently, 'Would you mind if I came too?'

 

Jane winced, waiting for the inevitable snub; but Simon only said briefly, 'Fine. Come on.'

 

The two boys wriggled in after Barney. Simon flinched as a splintered edge scraped his arm; the gap was narrower than it looked. Scrambling to his feet, he stood coughing as Will came in after him. The dust was thick on the floor, and it was hard at first to see clearly in the half-light from dirty, overgrown windows.

 

Blinking, Simon saw Barney beckoning him.

 

'Over here. Look.'

 

He followed Barney to one end of the barn, clear of the piled timber and logs that filled much of the floor. And then he stopped.

 

Before him, ghostly in the shadows of corner and roof, stood a gipsy caravan, of exactly the same shape and pattern as the one in which they had met the painter of the Dark. There were the tall outward-sloping sides, the insets of carved wood beneath the eaves of the over-hanging wooden roof. There, at the far end, were the shafts for the horse, and at this end the divided door - in two halves, swinging, like a stable door - reached by a wooden stairway-ladder of six steps. And the top step was the step on which, at the end, they had stood . . .

 

But of course it could not be the same. This caravan was not shiny-neat, or newly painted. This caravan had dusty worn sides in which only odd patches of ancient paint remained, flaking away. This caravan had one broken shaft, and the top half of its split door hung from half a hinge. It was old and beaten, unused, unloved; the glass in its windows was long broken. It could not have been moved from its place for the many years since the roof of the old barn had begun to sag, for at the further end of the barn the roof-beams lay rotted with all their remaining weight resting on top of the caravan.

 

It was a relic, an antique. Simon stared. It was as if he were meeting the great-great-grandfather of a boy he knew well, and finding that the old man had exactly the same face as the boy, but immensely, impossibly aged.

 

He opened his mouth and looked at Barney, but could think of nothing to say.

 

Barney said flatly, 'It must have been here for years and years and years. Since long before we were born.'

 

Will said, 'How well do you remember the inside of the painter's caravan ? '

 

Simon and Barney both jumped at the sound of his voice; they had forgotten he was there. Now they turned; Will stood near the door of the barn, half-hidden in shadow, only his amiable blank face blinking at them in clear light.

 

Barney said, 'Fairly well.'

 

'And you, Simon?' Will said. Without leaving time for an answer, he went on, 'Barney doesn't remember seeing the grail at all. But you remember everything, from the moment when he first took out the box it was in.'

 

'Yes,' Simon said. With a vague, detached interest, he realised that for the first time he was listening to Will as though he were older, without resentment or argument.

 

Will said nothing more. He crossed from behind them to the steps at the end of the old caravan, pushing aside with his toe the dust and debris that lay cluttered everywhere. He went up the steps. He took hold of the top loose-hanging half of the caravan door, and it came away in his hands, as the rust-eaten hinge crumbled into dust. Then he tugged sharply at the bottom half of the door, and it swung reluctantly towards him with the slow creak of an old farm gate.

 

'Barney,' he said. 'Do you mind going inside?'

 

"Course not,' Barney said boldly, but his steps towards the caravan door were reluctant and slow.

 

Simon said nothing to help him. He was looking at Will, whose voice, as once before, had a crispness and certainty that raised inexplicable echoes in his head.

 

'Simon,' Will said. 'What did the painter say, word for word, when he first directed Barney to the place where he found the grail?'

 

Half-closing his eyes, concentrating fiercely, Simon pushed his mind backwards and looked to see what was in it. 'We were both about halfway inside,' he said. Like a sleep-walker he went forwards up the ricketty old steps, his hand on Barney's shoulder gently propelling him, and with Will following, the two of them walked into the little room that made the inside of the van.

 

'And the man said, because Barney had said he was thirsty, "In that cupboard by your right foot you will find some cans of orangeade. And . . . and you might bring out a cardboard box you'll find in there too." So Barney did that.'

 

Barney turned his head and looked nervously at Will, and the Will who was somehow not quite Will beamed encouragingly, as if he were after all no more than the amiable foolish-looking boy they had met at the beginning of this small strange holiday. So Barney looked down at his right foot, and saw beside it a low cupboard with no handle and the clutter of years mounded against its door; and he crouched on his knees and cleared away the rubbish and scrabbled with his fingernails to find enough leverage to open the small door. When at last it swung open, he felt inside and brought out a battered, damp, evil-smelling cardboard box.

 

He set it on the floor. All three of them stared at it in silence. Faintly from outside the barn they heard Jane's light voice cry anxiously, 'Are you all right? Hey, do come on out!'

 

Will said softly, 'Open it.'

 

Slowly, reluctantly, Barney took hold of the top of the box. The ancient rotting cardboard came away in his hand, and a brightness was in their eyes, a golden radiance that seemed to fill the decrepit, crumbling remnants of what had once a long time ago been a caravan. And there shining beneath their eyes was the grail.

 

 

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

In the farmyard, in front of the house, a great round piece of granite was set into the ground: an old mill-wheel, worn and grass-fringed. On its bright-flecked grey surface they set the grail, and gathered round as Merriman took from his pocket the battered little cylinder that held the manuscript. He slid out the small roll of parchment, its edges cracked and flaking, and unrolled it to lie on the uneven stone.

 

'And this is the second time for looking,' he said.

 

The children picked up stones from the grass and laid them gently on the edges to hold the parchment flat. Then instinctively they drew to one side, to let Merriman and Captain Toms study the grail and manuscript together.

 

Barney, next to Merriman, suddenly realised that Will was standing quiet and unmoving behind him. He ducked quickly aside. 'Here,' he said. 'Come on.'

 

The golden grail glittered in the sunlight; the engraving on its sides was clear and clean, but the smooth beaten gold of the inside surface, as Simon had said, was blackened and dark. Will looked now at the close, delicate engraving for the first time in his life, seeing the panels filled with vivid scenes of men running, fighting, crouching behind shields: tunic-clad, strangely-helmeted men brandishing swords and shields. The pictures woke deep memories in him of things he had forgotten he had ever known. He looked closer, at the words and letters interwoven between the figures, and at the last panel on the grail, completely filled with words in this same cipher-language that no living scholar had been able to understand. And like the other two Old Ones, he began methodically to look from the marks on the old manuscript to the marks on the grail, and gradually the interweaving became clear.

 

Will found himself breathing faster, as the meaning of the inscription began to take shape in his mind.

 

Staring at the manuscript, Merriman said slowly, painfully, as if he were spelling out a hard lesson:

 

On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,

Must the youngest open the oldest hills

Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.

There fire shall fly from the raven boy,

And the silver eyes that see the wind,

And the Light shall have the harp of gold.

 

He stopped, his face tight with concentration. 'Not easy,' he said to himself. 'The pattern is hard to keep.'

 

Captain Toms leaned on his heavy stick, peering at another panel of the grail. He said softly, his accent cradling the words:

 

By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,

On Cadfan's Way where the kestrels call;

Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,

Yet singing the golden harp shall guide

To break their sleep and bid them ride.

 

Will knelt down beside the granite slab and turned the grail again. Slowly he read aloud:

 

When light from the lost land shall return,

Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,

And where the midsummer tree grows tall

By Pendragon's sword the Dark shall fall

 

Merriman stood upright. 'And the last line of all will be the spell,' he said, looking hard at Will; the deep-set dark eyes bored into his mind. 'Remember. Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu, ac y mae'r arglwyddes yn dod. The mountains are singing, and the Lady comes. Remember.'

 

He leaned down to the rock, moved aside the stone weights and took up the small curling manuscript in one big hand. As if the Drews did not exist at all, he looked down at Will and Captain Toms.

 

'You have it all?' he said.

 

'Yes,' said Will.

 

'Safe remembered,' Captain Toms said.

 

In one sharp movement Merriman clenched his fist, and the little roll of stiff, broken-edged parchment crumbled instantly into tiny fragments, small as gravel, light as dust. He opened his long fingers and swung his arm wide, and in a dusty shower the pieces flew away in every direction, into oblivion.

 

The children cried out sharply.

 

'Gumerry!' Jane stared at him, appalled. 'You've ruined the whole thing!'

 

'No,' Merriman said.

 

'But you can't understand what the grail says, without it. No-one can.' Simon's face was creased with perplexity. 'It'll be just as much of a mystery as it was before!'

 

'Not to us,' Captain Toms said. He eased himself down to sit on the granite slab, and took up the grail, turning it in his fingers so that the sunlight glinted on the engraved sides. 'We know, now, what is in the hidden message of the grail. It will shape the next twelve months of our lives, and help us to save men from great terror, very soon, for all time. And now that we have it in our minds, we shall never forget.'

 

'I've forgotten it already,' Barney said plaintively. 'Everything except a bit about a golden harp, and a grey king. How can you have a grey king? '

 

'Of course you have forgotten it,' Captain Toms said. 'That was the intention.' He smiled at Barney. 'And we do not even need an enchantment to help you forget, as our friend from the Dark did. We can rely on the mortality of your memory.'

 

'And you don't have to worry about whether anyone else will remember,' Simon said, slowly understanding, 'because no-one else will ever hear or see.'

 

Jane said sadly, 'It seems a pity that the poor Greenwitch's secret should just be thrown away.'

 

'It has served its purpose,' Merriman said. His deep voice rose a little, gained a hint of ceremony. 'Its high purpose, for which it was made so very long ago. It has set us the next great step along the road to keep the Dark from rising, and there is nothing more important than that quest.'

 

'That last bit you said, from the grail and the manuscript,' Barney said. 'What language was it in?'

 

'Welsh,' Merriman said.

 

'Is the last part of the quest in Wales?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'Are we going to be part of it?'

 

Merriman said, 'Wait and see.'

 

 

*******

They lay in variously abandoned attitudes in the sun- shine on the beach, recovering from an enormous picnic lunch. Simon and Barney were lazily tossing a ball to and fro, without bothering to stand up. Bill Stanton was eyeing them, and the near-by cricket bat, with nostalgic optimism.

 

'Just wait,' he said to his sun-bathing wife, 'we'll show you just exactly how it's played, in a little while.'

 

'Great,' said Fran Stanton sleepily.

 

Jane, lying on her back blinking up at the blue sky, propped herself up on her elbows and looked out to sea. The sand was hot against her skin; it was a beautiful, sunny, breezeless Cornish day, of a rare and special kind.

 

'I'm just going for a little walk,' she said to nobody in particular, and over the dry sand she went, across the long golden beach, towards the rocks that glistened with low-tide seaweed at the foot of Kemare Head. The headland reared up above her, grassy slope changing to jagged grey cliff; at the very tip, the cliffs towered in a sheer wall against the sky. Jane's head was full of memories. She began to walk over the rocks, wincing a little as her bare feet, not yet toughened by summer, pressed against rough rock. Out here, last year, she and Barney and Simon had reached the peak of their adventure, the achieving of the grail that had lain for hundreds of years in a cave, the entrance covered totally by water at all but the lowest tides. Out here, they had fled from the pursuing Dark, with the grail and the little lead case they had found inside it. And out here, she thought as she reached the furthest point of the rocks, with the waves breaking white at her feet, just here, in the flurry of saving the grail, the little lead case had plummeted into the waves and down to the bottom of the sea.

 

And the Greenwitch had found it there, and made it a precious secret.

 

Jane looked at the deep green water beyond the breaking waves. 'Good-bye, Greenwitch,' she said softly.

 

She unclasped a small silver bracelet that she wore on her wrist, weighed it experimentally in her hand, and drew back her arm to throw it into the sea.

 

A voice said gently behind her, 'Don't do that.'

 

Jane gasped, and nearly lost her balance; swinging round, she saw Will Stanton.  'Oh!' she said. 'You made me jump.'

 

'Sorry,' Will said. He balanced his way forwards to stand beside her; his bare feet looked very white against the dark seaweed patching the rocks.

 

Jane looked at his pleasant round face, and then at the bracelet in her hand. 'I know it sounds stupid,' she said reluctantly, 'but I wanted to give the Greenwitch another secret to keep. Instead of the one we took. In my dream' - she paused, embarrassed, but went gamely on - 'in my dream, I said, I will give you another secret, and the Greenwitch said in that big sad booming voice, " Too late, too late," and just disappeared .. .'

 

She was silent, gazing at the sea.

 

'I only said don't,' Will said, 'because I don't think your bracelet would really do. It's silver, isn't it, and the sea-water would turn it all black and dirty-looking.'

 

'Oh,' Jane said, forlorn.

 

Will shifted his footing on the wet rock, and felt in his pocket. He said, glancing briefly at Jane and then away, 'I knew you'd want to give the Greenwitch something. I wondered if this would do.'

 

Jane looked. Lying on Will's outstretched palm was the same small green-patched lead case that had held the manuscript, the Greenwitch's first secret. Will took it and pulled off the cap, shaking out a small object into her hand.

 

Jane saw a strip of yellow metal, gleaming, with some words engraved on it very small.

 

'It looks like gold,' she said.

 

'It is,' said Will. 'Low carat, but gold. Last for ever, even down there.'

 

Jane read out: 'Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea.'

 

'That's just a line from a poem,' Will said.

 

'Is it really? It's perfect.' She ran her finger along the bright gold. 'Where did you get it?'

 

'I made it.'

 

'You made it?' Jane turned and stared at him with such astonishment that Will laughed.

 

'My father's a jeweller. He's teaching me to engrave things. I go and help in his shop sometimes after school.'

 

'But you must have done this before you came down here, before you ever knew we were going to meet the Greenwitch,' Jane said slowly. 'How did you know what to make, what to write?'

 

'Just a lucky chance, I suppose,' Will said, and there was a polite finality in his tone that reminded Jane instantly of Merriman: it was the voice that forbade any questioning.

 

'Oh,' she said.

 

Will put the small golden strip into the case and fitted the cap on tightly. Then he handed it to her.

 

'Here's your secret, Greenwitch,' Jane said, and she flung it into the sea. The little case vanished into the waves, their foam curling round the weed-fringed rocks. In the sunlight the water glittered like shattered glass.

 

'Thank you, Will Stanton,' Jane said. She paused, looking at him. 'You aren't quite like the rest of us, are you?'

 

'Not quite,' said Will.

 

Jane said, 'I hope we shall see you again, some day.'

 

Will said, 'I'm pretty sure you will.'

 

 

*******

Mr and Mrs Penhallow stood waving from the steps of the cottage, as they left: Merriman to put the four children on the London train, the Stantons on a visit to Truro for the day.

 

'Good-bye!'

 

'Good journey to you! Good-bye!'

 

The cars disappeared across the quay; overhead, sea-gulls wheeled and cried.

 

'Perfessor did find what he came for, this time, I do believe,' Mr Penhallow said, sucking pensively at his pipe.

 

'That liddle gold cup from last year, that was stole in London? Aye. But there was more, I fancy.' Mrs Penhallow gazed at the point where Merriman's car had rounded the corner, with speculation in her eyes.

 

'More of what?'

 

''Twas no accident he came down here at Greenwitch time. He've never done that before. This was Cap'n Toms' first Greenwitch makin' at home for a good many years, too... I don't know, Walter, I don't know. But something strange have been going on.'

 

'You'm dreaming,' Mr Penhallow said indulgently.

 

'That I'm not. But that young Jane was, one night. That same night everyone was dreaming, the night the whole village was hilla-ridden... Such talk there was next morning, of things best forgotten. . . And that morning, I was right near the bedrooms, going about my business, when young Jane woke up. And she let out such a hoot, and was out of her room like a wild thing running to her brothers.'

 

'So she'd been dreaming, sure,' Mr Penhallow said. 'A bad 'un, by the sound of it. What of that?'

 

'Twasn't her dreaming that stays with me,' Mrs Penhallow looked out at the quiet harbour, and the drifting gulls. 'Twas her room. Clean as a pin it was the night before, she'm a neat little maid. But everywhere in that room, that morning, there was a great mess of little twigs and leaves, hawthorn leaves, and rowan. And everywhere a great smell of the sea.'

 

************************************

Here ends GREENWITCH, third book of the sequence named THE DARK IS RISING. The next book will be called THE GREY KING. There will be five books.

 

***********************************************************************************************

"The Dark is Rising" series by Susan Cooper

Book 1       Over Sea, Under Stone

Book 2       The Dark is Rising

Book 3       Greenwitch

Book 4       The Grey King

Book 5       Silver on the Tree