The concern in Merriman’s bleak, craggy face relaxed into a small smile. “Rufus played a part of his own in the winning of the grail last summer. He has more talent for communicating with ordinary human beings than most four-legged creatures.”
At the end of the grassy headland, most of the villagers turned downhill to the quayside and the main village road. Merriman led Will straight ahead, to the higher road overlooking the harbour. Pausing to let a few other weary Greenwitch-makers pass, they crossed to the narrow grey-painted house that stood tallest of any in the terraced row. Merriman opened the front door, and they went in.
A long hallway stretched before them, hazy in the early-morning light. From an open door on their right Captain Toms said: “In here.”
It was a broad room of bookshelves, armchairs, pictures of sailing-ships; he sat in a leather armchair with his right leg outstretched. Its foot, wearing a carpet slipper over a bandage, was propped on a leather-padded footstool. “Gout,” said Captain Toms apologetically to Will. “Kicks up now and again, you know. Sign of a misspent youth, they say. It immobilises me just as effectively as any gentleman of the Dark could do—if our friend had had any foresight, he needn’t have bothered to grab poor Rufus.”
“That is a gift he lacks, I think.” Merriman spread-eagled himself on a long sofa, with a small sigh of relief. “I am not quite sure why, since he is clearly of some rank. Something he dares not exercise, perhaps? Anyway the theft of the grail, the attention paid to linking up with the children, and especially Barney—they all add up in the same direction.”
Captain Toms ran a finger reflectively over his close grey beard. “You think he plans to have the boy look into the grail, to find him the future. . . . the old scrying? . . . Well, it’s possible.”
Will said: “But is that what he wants first?”
“Whether it is or not, Barney will need careful watching.”
“I shall haunt him,” Will said. “He’ll hate it.” He prowled restlessly round the room, staring at pictures without seeing them. “But where is the Dark? Where is he? Not far away, I think.”
“I have had that feeling too,” Captain Toms said quietly from his armchair. “He is quite close by. Just after sunrise this morning I felt him go past the house, quite quickly, and there has been a faint sense of his nearness ever since.”
“That was when he tried to get to the Greenwitch, before the throwing,” Merriman said. “Lucky for us he failed, or the creature might have responded. The fishermen hustled him off this way—they were most indignant, and rather rough. . . . I followed into the village, until they released him. Then he put a shadow round himself, and I lost the way. But yes, he is near. One senses the ill-will.”
Will stopped his prowling abruptly, stiffening like a pointing dog. Hastily Merriman swung his long legs off the sofa and stood up. “What is it?”
“Do you feel anything? Hear anything?”
“I did, I think. You’re right.” Captain Toms hobbled to the door, leaning heavily on his stick. “Come outside, quick.”
The sound of barking rose even while they crossed the hall, and as they stood together on the steps of the Grey House it grew louder, nearer, the straining hysterical noise of a dog demanding freedom. Overhead the sky was leaden grey, and the daylight had become grim and murky. Along the road from the village, further down the hill where the harbour and the jetties began, a red flurry of speed came hurtling towards them, with the dark figure of a man running after it.
Will said sharply, on a high note of alarm: “But look—the children!”
On the quayside along the edge of the harbour road they saw Simon, Jane and Barney breaking into a run, excited, not yet seeing Rufus but responding eagerly to the sound of his bark. “Rufus!” Barney was shouting gleefully. “Rufus!”
The Old Ones stood poised, waiting.
As Rufus rushed joyfully round the corner towards the children, they saw the dark man raise his hand. In mid-air the dog froze, motionless, and dropped like a log of wood right in the children’s path. Simon, thrown off balance too late to veer aside, tripped helplessly over him and fell hard to the ground. He lay still. Jane and Barney skidded to a halt, aghast. The dark-haired man neared them, paused, raised a hand pointing at Barney—
Only Simon saw. Lying on the ground, facing the hill, drifting back out of the moment of black unconsciousness that had swallowed him when he hit the ground, he blinked his dazed eyes open. And he saw, or thought he saw, three shining figures in a great blaze of white light. They towered and grew, their brilliance blinding Simon’s eyes; they seemed to be swelling towards him, and he closed his eyes against the pain of the light. His head was full of whirling noise still, he was not properly out of unconsciousness. Afterwards he was able to tell himself that it was all imagination: confusion after a blow. But the overwhelming sense of awe that had swept over him never afterwards quite left his memory.
And Jane and Barney, caught out of movement, staring horrified at the dark-haired man almost upon them now, saw only the dreadful change on his face as suddenly he reeled back, spun away from them, beneath the impact of some unseen force. Snarling with malignant fury, he seemed to be fighting a tremendous battle with—nothing. His body was rigid; the fighting was all in his eyes and the cold line of his mouth. There was a long horrible moment of waiting, as the dark figure froze, fiercely twisted under the grey light of the dark sky. Then something in him seemed to snap, and he flung round without another glance at them; rushed away and was gone.
Rufus moved, whining; Simon stirred and sat up. He got to his hands and knees over the dog, and patted his head groggily. Rufus licked his hand, struggling to his four wobbly feet like a newborn calf.
“I feel like that too,” said Simon. Carefully, he stood up. Jane prodded him with a nervous finger. “Are you all right?”
“Not a scratch.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. There was such a bright light. . . .” His voice trailed away, as he tried to remember.
“That was from banging your head,” said Barney. “The man, you didn’t see him, he was right on top of us and then—I don’t know, something stopped him. It was weird.”
“As if he had some kind of fit,” said Jane. “He sort of writhed about, with this awful look on his face, and then he just dashed off.”
“He was the painter. The one who took my drawing.”
“Was he really? Of course, he stole Rufus too, that was why—”
But Barney was not listening. He stood gazing up at the high-sloping road beside the harbour. “Look,” he said in a strange flat voice.
They looked with him, and striding down towards them from the direction of the Grey House came Merriman. His jacket flapped open, his hands were in his pockets, his wild white hair lifted in the breeze that was beginning to stir all around. He said when he reached them, “You’re going to get wet if you stand about waiting for the rain.”
Jane glanced up distractedly at the darkening sky. “Didn’t you see what happened, just this minute?”
“Some of it,” Merriman said. “Are you hurt at all, Simon?”
“I’m fine.”
Barney was still gazing at him with a bemused look on his face. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he said softly. “You stopped him, somehow. He’s from the Dark.”
“Come now, Barney,” Merriman said briskly. “That’s a large assumption. Let us not conjecture where your unpleasant friend came from—just enjoy the fact that he is gone, and Rufus safe and sound back again.”
The red dog licked his hand, feathery tail waving furiously. Merriman rubbed his soft ears. “Go home,” he said. Without a glance round, Rufus made off up the hill beside the harbour, and they watched in silence as he disappeared into the side entrance of the Grey House.
Barney said, “That’s all very well, but I thought you brought us here to help?”
“Barney!” said Jane.
“You are already helping,” Merriman said ge
ntly. “I told you, be patient.”
Simon said, “We came out to look for you. We thought something might have happened.”
“I was just in the Grey House, chatting with Captain Toms.”
“Will Stanton hasn’t come home since the Greenwitch thing, either.”
“Just sight-seeing, I dare say. I expect we shall find him at home when we go back.” Merriman glanced up again at the lowering grey clouds. A long low rumbling came from the sky over the sea. “Come along,” he said. “Home. Before the storm breaks.”
Jane said absently, as they trotted obediently to keep up with his long loping strides, “The poor Greenwitch, all alone there in the sea. I hope the waves don’t smash it all to bits.”
They scrambled up the last narrow steps to the cottage; as they reached the door, white light ripped open the sky, and a huge thumping crash echoed and re-echoed all around the bay.
Merriman said, through the noise, “I don’t think they will.”
* * *
Jane stood again on Kemare Head, but now she was alone, and the storm at its height. It seemed neither night nor day. The sky was grey all around, heavy, hanging; sharp lightning split it, thunder rumbled and thudded, echoing back from the inland moors. Gulls whirled and screamed in the wind. Below, the sea boiled, waves raging, tearing at the rocks. Jane felt herself lean on the wind, lean out over the cliff—and then leap high in the air, out, down, falling through the wind with the gulls swooping round her as she fell.
There was sick horror in the falling, but a kind of wild delight too. The great waves swirled to meet her, and with no shock nor splash nor sense of another element she was still falling, falling slowly, floating down through the green underwater where none of the wild frenzy from the storm above could reach. There was no movement but a slow swaying of weed, from the deepest touch of the great ocean swells. And before her, she saw the Greenwitch.
The great leafy image rested upright against a group of craggy rocks; they gave it shelter. The Greenwitch stood undamaged, just as Jane had seen it before, the square un-human head set on the gigantic broad body. Its leaves and hawthorn blossoms were spread like weed in the gentle tug of the water, rippling to and fro. Small fish darted round the head. The whole structure swayed now and then, rhythmically, when the long reach of the storm-swell pulled at it.
Then as Jane watched, the swaying grew more pronounced, as though the storm were reaching deeper into the sea. She could feel the pull of the waves herself; she moved like a fish, both obeying and resisting them. Greenwitch began to turn and sway, faster, further, drawn so far in each direction that it seemed the whole figure must topple and be carried away. Jane felt a dark chill in the water, a sense of great threatening power, and to her horror the movement of the Greenwitch changed. Limbs stirred of themselves, the leafy head rippled and stirred as if it were a face. Then the coldness suddenly was gone, the sea was muted blue and green again with the weed and the fish swaying in the swell—but now the Greenwitch, she knew, was alive. It was neither good nor evil, it was simply alive, aware of her as she had all along been aware of it.
The huge leafy head turned towards her, and without a voice the Greenwitch spoke, spoke into her mind.
“I have a secret,” the Greenwitch said.
Jane felt the loneliness that she had felt in the thing up on the headland, in the beginning: the sorrow and emptiness. But through it she felt the Greenwitch clutching at something for comfort, like a child with a toy—though this child was hundreds of years old, and through all its endlessly renewed life had never had such comfort before.
“I have a secret. I have a secret.”
“You are lucky,” Jane said.
The living tower of branches bent towards her, nearer. “I have a secret, it is mine. Mine, mine. But I will show you. If you promise not to tell, not to tell.”
“I promise,” Jane said.
The Greenwitch lurched sideways, all its twigs and leafy armlets rippling together in the water, and as it moved away from the shallow niche in the rocks against which it had been leaning, Jane saw something there in the shadows. It was a small bright shining thing, lying within the cleft in the rock, on the white sand; it was like a small glowing stick. It looked like nothing of importance, except that it glowed with this strange light.
As to a small child showing its toy, she said to the Greenwitch: “It’s lovely.”
“My secret,” said the Greenwitch. “I guard it. No-one shall touch it. I guard it well, for always.”
Without warning, the darkness and the chill came again over the water, infusing the whole undersea world. The Greenwitch changed utterly, in an instant. It became hostile, angry, threatening. It loomed over Jane.
“You’ll tell! You’ll tell!”
The leafy head split horribly into a parody of a face, snarling, furious; the branching form seemed to spread, opening, grasping out to envelop her as the Greenwitch lurched inexorably forward. Jane backed away in terror, cowering down. The water was very hot suddenly, fierce, oppressive, full of roaring noise.
“I won’t tell! I promise! I promise! I promise. . . .”
Cold air was on her face. “Jane! Wake up! Come on, Jane, wake up now, it’s all over, it’s not real . . . Jane, wake up. . . .” Merriman’s deep voice was soft but insistent, his hands strong and reassuring on her shoulders. Jane sat bolt upright in the little bedroom, looked at his face, leant her damp forehead on his arm and burst into tears.
“Tell me about it,” said Merriman soothingly.
“I can’t! I promised!” The tears came faster.
“Now look here,” Merriman said when she was calmer. “You had a bad nightmare, and it’s all over. I heard a very muffled sort of shout in here and when I came in you were right down among the bedclothes, must have been as hot as blazes. No wonder you dreamed. Now tell me about it.”
“Oh dear,” said Jane miserably. She told him.
“Mmm,” said Merriman, when she had finished. His bleak, bony face was in shadow; she could read nothing from it.
“It was awful,” Jane said. “The last bit.”
“I’m sure it was. Last night’s doings were too rich a diet for your imagination, I’m afraid.”
Jane managed a small weak grin. “We had apple pie and cheese for supper tonight. That might have helped too.”
Merriman chuckled and stood up, looming against the low veiling. “All right now?”
“All right. Thank you.” As he went out she said, “Gumerry?”
“What is it?”
“I really do feel sorry for the Greenwitch, still.”
“I hope you may retain that emotion,” said Merriman obscurely. “Sleep well now.”
Jane lay tranquil, listening to the rain against the window, and the last rumbles of the dying storm. Just before she drowsed away she thought, in a sudden flash of remembering, that she recognised the small bright object that in her dream had been the Greenwitch’s secret. But before she could catch at the memory, she was asleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
SIMON BURROWED DEEPER INTO THE SMALL COSY CAVE BETWEEN pillow and bedclothes. “Mmmmmff. Nya. Go away.”
“Oh come on, Simon.” Barney tugged persistently at the sheet. “Get up. It’s a super morning, come and see. Everything’s all shiny from the rain last night, we could go down to the harbour before breakfast. Just for a walk. No-one else is awake. Come on.”
Growling, Simon opened one eye and blinked at the window. In the clear blue sky a sea gull turned and lazily drifted, arching down on unmoving wings. “Oh well,” he said. “All right.”
In the harbour, nothing moved. Boats hung motionless at their moorings, their mast-images unrippled in the still water. There was a sea-smell of creosote from nets draped for mending over the harbour wall. Nothing broke the silence but the clatter of a distant milk-van somewhere high up in the village. The boys pattered down rain-patched steps and through narrow alleys, down to the sea. The sunshine on their faces was already warm
.
As they stood looking down at the nearest boats a village mongrel trotted up, sniffed amiably at their heels, and went on his way.
“Rufus might be out too,” Barney said. “Let’s go and see.”
“All right.” Simon ambled after him, content, relaxed in the stillness and the sunshine and the gentle swish of the sea.
“There he is!” The rangy red dog came bounding towards them across the quayside. He pranced about them, tail waving, white teeth grinning as the long pink tongue lolled out.
“Idiot dog,” said Simon affectionately as the tongue curled wetly round his hand.
Barney squatted down and gazed solemnly into Rufus’s brown eyes. “I do wish he could talk. What would you tell us, boy, eh? About the painter from the Dark, and where he took you? Where was it, Rufus? Where did he hide you, eh?”
The setter stood still for a moment, looking at Barney; then he cocked his narrow head on one side and gave a curious noise that was half-bark, half-whine, like a kind of question. He swung round, lollopped a few paces along the quay, then stopped and looked back at them. Barney stood up slowly. Rufus trotted away a few more steps, then again turned and looked back, waiting for them.
“What on earth?” said Simon, watching.
“He wants to show us!” Barney hopped nervously up and down. “Come on, Simon, quick! He’ll show us where the painter hides, I bet you, and we shall be able to tell Gumerry!”
Rufus whined, questioning.
“I don’t know,” Simon said. “We ought to get home. Nobody knows where we are.”
“Oh come on, quick, before he changes his mind.” Barney grabbed his arm and tugged him after the lean red dog, already trotting away now confidently across the quay.