He didn’t want to lie down right away but sat very close to her on the sofa while she read, her arm round his shoulders and his weight growing warm and heavy against her side as his breathing slowed.
“My dad used to read to me if I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep,” she said softly, turning the last page. “Grandpa Frank, I mean. It was a lot like this; everything quiet.” And themselves cozy and bonelessly content, alone together in a puddle of warm yellow light, with the night far away.
She felt Jem’s sleepy interest rise.
“Was he like Grandda? Grandpa Frank?” She’d told the kids little things about Frank Randall, not wanting him to be forgotten, but she knew he’d never be much more than a faint ghost beside the vivid warmth of their other grandfather—the grandfather they might have back. She felt a sudden small tearing in her heart, a vivid second of understanding for her mother.
Oh, Mama . . .
“He was different,” she said softly, her mouth brushing his bright hair. “He was a soldier, though—they had that in common. And he was a writer, a scholar—like Daddy. All of them were—are—alike, though: they’d all take care of people. It’s what a good man does.”
“Oh.” She could feel him falling asleep, struggling to keep a hold on consciousness, the dreams beginning to walk through his waking thoughts. She eased him down into the nest of blankets and covered him, smoothing the cowlick on the crest of his head.
“Could we see him?” Jem said suddenly, his voice drowsy and soft.
“Daddy? Yes, we’ll see him,” she promised, making her own voice solid with confidence.
“No, your daddy . . .” he said, his eyes half open, glazed with sleep. “If we go through the stones, could we see Grandpa Frank?”
Her mouth dropped open, but she still hadn’t found an answer when she heard him start to snore.
BE THOSE THY BEASTS?
WHILE IT WAS undeniably true that standing stones didn’t bite, Roger thought, that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.
It had taken them only a day and a half to find the stone circle. He’d made a quick sketch of standing stones on the back of his hand with a bit of charcoal, to assist communication, and it had worked surprisingly well. While the scattered people they’d found had regarded them with immense curiosity—and not a few private glances accompanied by whirling motions of the forefinger beside the head—no one had found the visitors more than odd, and everyone had known where the stones were.
They’d come across a tiny village, in fact—consisting of a church, a public house, a smithy, and several houses—where the last household they’d approached had even sent one of their younger sons along to guide Buck and Roger to their goal.
And there they were now: a scatter of stumpy, lichened, wind-scored pillars beside a shallow lake filled with reeds. Ageless, harmless, part of the landscape—and the sight of them filled Roger with a fear that shivered as coldly over his skin as though he stood there naked to the wind.
“Can ye hear them?” Buck muttered under his breath, his own eyes fixed on the stones.
“No,” Roger muttered back. “Can you?”
“I hope not.” But Buck shuddered suddenly, as though something had walked across his grave.
“Be those thy be-asts?” the boy asked, grinning at Roger. He pointed at the stones, explaining—Roger thought—the local legend that the stones were in fact faery cattle, frozen in place when their drover had too much drink betaken and fell into the lake.
“Sooth,” the boy assured them solemnly, making a cross over his heart. “Mester Hacffurthe found es whip!”
“When?” Buck asked sharply. “And where liveth Mester Hacffurthe?”
A week ago, maybe twa, said the boy, waving a hand to indicate that the date was not important. And he would take them to Mester Hacffurthe, if they liked to see the thing.
Despite his name, Mester Hacffurthe proved to be a slight, light-haired young man, the village cobbler. He spoke the same impenetrable Northumbrian dialect, but with some effort and the helpful intervention of the boy—whose name, he said, was Ridley—their desire was made clear, and Hacffurthe obligingly fetched the faery whip out from under his counter, laying it gingerly before them.
“Oh, Lord,” Roger said at sight of it—and, with a raised brow at Hacffurthe to ask permission, touched the strip carefully. A machine-woven, tight-warped strip some three inches wide and two feet long, its taut surface gleaming even in the dim light of the cobbler’s shop. Part of the harness of an RAF flier. They had the right stones, then.
Careful questioning of Mr. Hacffurthe, though, elicited nothing else helpful. He had found the faery lash lying in the shallows of the lake, washing to and fro among the reeds, but had seen nothing else of note.
Roger noticed, though, that Ridley twitched slightly when Mr. Hacffurthe said this. And after they had left the cobbler’s house, he paused at the edge of the village, hand in his pocket.
“I thank ’ee, Master Ridley,” he said, and pulled out a broad tuppenny piece that made the boy’s face light up. Roger put it into Ridley’s hand, but, when the boy would have turned to go, laid his own hand on the lad’s arm.
“One thing more, Master Ridley,” he said, and, with a glance at Buck, drew out the identity disks.
Ridley jerked in Roger’s grasp, his round face going pale. Buck made a small sound of satisfaction and took Ridley by his other arm.
“Tell us about the man,” Buck suggested pleasantly. “And I might not break thy neck.”