Brightening, she gazed from one to the other of them. “Could we really?”
“Of course we could,” Merriman said. “Mrs Penhallow will give the truants their breakfast if they arrive in the meantime. You two start off—I’ll have a word with her, and catch you up.”
Jane beamed. “Oh, that’s much better. Waiting’s awful. Thank you, Will.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Will cheerfully. “Lovely morning for a walk.”
Into Merriman’s mind he said unhappily, “The Dark has them, I think. You feel it?”
“But without harm,” came the answer cool into his thoughts. “And perhaps to our gain.”
* * *
Barney stood at the door of the caravan, blinking in the sunlight. “Well,” he said, “aren’t we going to get them?”
“What?” Simon said.
“The drinks, of course.”
“What drinks?”
“What’s the matter with you? The drinks he just offered us. He said, there are cans in the little cupboard, you can help yourselves. And something about a cardboard box.” Turning to go in, he glanced at his brother in amusement. He stopped abruptly.
“Simon, what is the matter?”
Simon’s face was white and strained, the lines of it drawn downwards in a strange adult expression of concern and distress. He stared at Barney for a moment, and then he seemed to make a great effort and wrench himself on to the same level of conversation. “You get them,” he said. “The drinks. You get them. Bring them out here. It’s nice in the sunshine.”
There was a sound behind them inside the caravan, and Barney saw Simon jump as if he had been stabbed; then again he saw the same straining for control. Simon leaned back against the wall of the caravan, his face up to the sun. “Go on,” he said.
Puzzled, Barney went into the caravan, its interior bright with the sunshine streaming in through the windows. The dark painter was sipping a cup of coffee, leaning on the table.
“This one?” Barney waved a foot at the little cupboard under the sink.
“That’s right,” the man said.
Down on his knees, Barney took out two cans of orange soda then peered round the dark little cupboard. “You said a cardboard box, but I can’t see one.”
“Not important,” said the painter.
“There’s something, though—” Barney reached in, and took out a piece of paper. After one glance he sat back on his heels and looked up at the man without expression. “It’s my drawing. That you took.”
“Well,” said the man. “That’s what you came for, isn’t it?” His dark eyes glinted coldly at Barney beneath the scowling brows. “Take it, and drink your drink, and go.”
Barney said, “I’d still like to know why you ran off with it.”
“You irritated me,” the man said shortly. He put down his coffee cup and motioned Barney towards the door. “No brat criticises my work. Don’t start again.” His voice rose ominously as Barney opened his mouth. “Just go now.”
Simon said from the doorway, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Barney. Rolling up the drawing, he picked up the two cans and went to the door.
“I’m not really thirsty,” Simon said.
“Well, I am.” Barney drank deep.
The painter stood watching them, scowling, barring their way back into the caravan. Outside in the sunshine his big horse moved one placid step forward, rhythmically ripping at the grass.
Simon said, “May we go now?”
The man’s eyes narrowed; he said swiftly, “I have no hold over you. Why ask me?”
Simon shrugged. “Just now Barney said, let’s go home, and you said, not yet. That’s all.”
A kind of relief seemed to flicker over the other’s dark face. “Your brother has his precious drawing, so go, go. Up to the left of the farm”—he waved a hand at the grassy lane disappearing on round the corner—“you’ll find a short cut back to the village. The path’s a little overgrown, but it will take you to Kemare Head.”
“Thank you,” Simon said.
“Good-by,” said Barney.
They went on across the field, without looking back. It was like coming out of a dark mist.
“D’you think it’s a trap?” Barney whispered. “Someone might be lying in wait for us at the farm.”
“Too complicated,” Simon said. “He doesn’t need traps.”
“All right.” Trotting alongside, Barney peered at him curiously. “Simon, you really do look awful. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Do shut up about it,” Simon said, fierce and low. “I’m fine. Just get a move on.”
“Look!” said Barney in a moment as they rounded the corner. “It’s empty!”
A low grey stone farmhouse faced them, obviously deserted: nothing moved anywhere, old pieces of machinery lay rusting in the yard, and several windows gaped black and jagged-edged. The thatched roof of an out-house was sagging ominously; brambles waved wild green arms where the woods were stealing in towards the house.
“No wonder he’s living in a caravan. D’you think he’s really half Gipsy?”
“I doubt it,” Simon said. “Just a handy explanation for looking different. And for the caravan. I don’t know why but Gumerry will. There’s the path.” He headed for a break in the tangled growth near the old house, and they pushed their way along a narrow, bramble-crossed track.
“I’m ravenous,” Barney said. “Hope Mrs Penhallow’s got eggs and bacon.”
Simon glanced round, his face still drawn. “I’ve got to talk to Gumerry. We both have. I can’t explain yet, but it’s terribly urgent.”
Barney stared. “Well, won’t he be at home?”
“Might be. But they’ll have had breakfast ages ago, they’ll be out looking for us.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. We could try the Grey House, to begin with.”
“Okay,” Barney said cheerfully. “This path must come out pretty near there. And we can—” He stopped dead, staring at Simon. “Rufus! We didn’t bring him back! Simon, how awful, I clean forgot about him! Where did he go?”
“He ran away. That’s one of the things I have to explain about.” Wearily Simon went on up the path. “It’s all part of the same thing. And we’ve just got to find Great-Uncle Merry as soon as we possibly can, or something’s going to go horribly wrong.”
* * *
“There’s no sign of them up here.” Will came clambering back across the rocks at the tip of Kemare Head.
“No,” Merriman said. He stood still, the sea wind blowing his white hair back like a flag.
“They might have climbed down into the next bay, to the rocks at the bottom,” Jane said. “Let’s go and see.”
“All right.”
“Wait,” Merriman said. As they turned in surprise he raised an arm and pointed inland, back along the headland towards the silent grey group of standing stones that overlooked Trewissick Bay. For a moment Jane noticed nothing. Then she saw a patch of brownish red moving towards them very fast, a patch that resolved itself in a few moments into the form of a desperately-running dog.
“Rufus?”
The red setter skidded to a halt in front of them, panting, trying to bark in odd little gasping coughing sounds.
“He’s always rushing up from nowhere trying to tell people things,” said Jane helplessly, crouching to rub his head. “If only he could talk. Want to come with us, Rufus? Want to come and help find Barney and Simon?”
But it was very soon clear that Rufus wanted nothing but to persuade them to go back along the headland the way they had come. He jumped and whined and barked, and so they followed him. And as they came closer to the standing stones, the great grey monoliths of granite in their lonely group up on the windy grass, they saw coming towards them from the village Simon, Barney and Captain Toms. They were moving slowly, the old man still hobbling with a stick; Jane could sense the suppressed impatience in the boys’ deliberate
pace.
Merriman stood beside the standing stones as they came up to him. He looked only at Simon, and he said, “Well?”
* * *
“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 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 lam 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 sleepwalking. 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 orange soda, 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 himsel
f 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. . . .