Spring (29 page)

A tiny, vicious little breeze swirled at his feet, stirring the ashes of the near-dead bonfire, catching at an ember or two to make them glow again and send up a swirl of smoke which, as if carried by a spirit of ill-intent, billowed up into his eyes, shot up his nose and stung the back of his throat.

It was then, as he backed away, dabbing at his eyes, and wondering what he could still do to find Katherine, certain she was not yet so far away that he could no longer help her, that he thought he saw something definite again.

The smoke that the breeze on the embers had created turned into black, shimmering shadows, which tore away from him towards the two tallest trees, causing the final candle in its jar to burn more brightly.

He looked harder and thought he saw shadows rise up between the trees, whirling thick and more substantial, shaping into something, pulling at something, straining to get it into the henge.

Then he distinctly heard her voice again, a cry of distress receding from him.

‘J . . . a . . . c . . . k . . . help . . . me . . .’

‘Katherine?’ he called out urgently, taking a few steps towards the sentinel trees. ‘Where are you? I can hear you but I don’t know where you are.
Katherine
!’

He ran towards the trees leading into the henge, sure now that was where Katherine must be – certain, too, that the time to reach her was running out.

Before the last candle goes out
, he told himself, because its guttering flame seemed to symbolize that she was still there, alive and needing his help.

It’s going out, like Katherine is
, he told himself wildly
. The flame’s abandoning this place, and she’s going too, she’s being taken now. They . . .

Everything slowed down.

Four steps, three steps, his hands reaching towards the rushing, swirling shadows, as they pulled away at last from his world and withdrew into the henge beyond.

Two steps more, Jack straining, reaching out, shouting her name again, knowing she was there almost within his grasp.

Just one more step . . .

But then it was too late.

The last candle suddenly extinguished, the swirling shadows were finally gone, and all that remained were the last embers of the fire behind him and, ahead, the shimmer of moonlight across the open space within the henge, the silence of the cold night air. Where he was sure Katherine had been there was now impenetrable dark.

W
hen Katherine found herself finally overwhelmed by the shadows and pulled into the henge, her yielding to them on the one hand gave her new strength on the other.

For one moment she found the strength to cry out again for Jack’s help, and that was the single cry he heard. Then she realized she must not call his name again, because if he heard, and followed her, he might be taken also.

She decided to kick out at the very last of the burning candles as a way of warning him of the danger of following her inside the henge.

Seeming to sense her intent, the shadows began pulling at her yet more urgently.
No . . . you . . . won’t . . . stop . . . me!
she screamed silently, and with a final effort made them falter and her foot connected with the jar and, as the candle went out, hot wax spattered her ankle, which made her more angry still.

But on her own behalf she could no longer act at all.

They had her now and she was drawn inexorably on, only able to look back passively and watch the last part of Jack’s search for her as he reached that same dead candle, stared down at it, then back at the bonfire, and then back again in her direction, though seeming to look right through her and not knowing which way to go.

I’m here, Jack. You’re looking right at me . . .

Things began to slow, the sounds of the world she knew started to fade, and her anger to be replaced by a mounting sense of despair, of helplessness and finally of a grief worse than any she had ever felt before, including even that for her dead mother.

They held her firmly, but ceased dragging her onwards, keeping her there in the henge gateway from where she had to witness Jack’s bewilderment. They seemed to want her to watch these last moments as if, now that they had her in their control, they wished her to suffer.

By then, it was not of herself she thought, but Jack. The first time these dark forces had tried to kill him he had only been hurt because he tried to rescue her. Now history threatened to repeat itself and this time he would surely die, because it was
him
they wanted, not her at all. She was no better than bait, and he the fish.

She felt herself pulled further and further away from where he stood hesitating at the entrance.

Go back!
she wanted to shout at him as they led her deeper into the labyrinth of their dark intent and towards the trees on the sinister side of the henge.
Go back!

She wanted to scream out her grief for what she was now losing, which was
everything
– her life with Jack, and their future, and everything that meant.

It was only now she allowed herself to admit to her thoughts of love for Jack.
Jack, I wanted to tell you but . . .

Even that very morning, when they had talked and laughed, and she finally had her chance to say something more . . . she had said none of what she was thinking now.

It felt as if only hours before she had been a girl.

Now, as she felt herself losing him, her grief was a woman’s, and her whole body ached with what she wanted to do but could not, which was reach back in time and tell him
everything
; tell him what she had never been able to; tell him everything right up to this moment now. To cleave to all he was with all she herself was.

Oh, Jack, I couldn’t find a way because I was too scared and I didn’t know what it was I really felt, then and now and for ever, and now I never will be able to tell you, not ever, not even at the end of time . . .

Such thoughts coursed through Katherine Shore’s mind and racked her heart as she watched Jack struggling to work out what had happened, where she had gone, and to find a way to reach her.

She saw him look at the candle she had kicked over and begged him over and over in her mind to understand this was her way of warning him to go back.

But her warning was having the opposite effect on him, because it was not the warning he responded to but his desire to rescue her.

It was merely giving him the strength to carry on – to cross into the henge and so put himself under the Sinistral’s control.

‘
I’m sorry
,’ she whispered aloud, her voice now no more than a breeze in the dry grass, a sorrow in the branches of the trees. ‘
I never wanted you to suffer, I never wanted any of this at all but . . . oh Jack, go back now while you still can. Please . . .’

Still he hesitated, seeking what to do.

‘
I’m sorry
,’ she whispered again as, unable to watch any more what she had lost all power to prevent, she turned away from him all leftward and sinister, the direction in which no human or decent hydden should ever depart a henge, for it leads to dark places and makes any returning much, much harder.

So Katherine turned, and spoke to the shadows that held her. She told them what they wanted to hear because it meant they had won her, and that she was now lost in their darkness.

‘Take me,’ she told them, ‘but not him, never him,
please
.’

The shadows re-formed a final time, clear now, terrifying, overwhelming.

‘Welcome,’ they said. ‘Welcome!’

As one of them led her out of the moonlight, into the darkness beyond, the others separated again and lingered, laughing and cruel, watching Jack’s struggle to find a way of reaching her.

‘
Please, no
,’ she whispered.

But they ignored her and stood waiting for him, dark shimmers among the shadows of the trees.

W
hen Jack saw the candle go out, and the strange shadows that were blacker than night pulling and weaving, stirring and sliding across the open space of the henge towards its left-hand side, he knew he had all but lost track of Katherine.

They had got her and they had won because he knew he must follow her, which was what they wanted. If he did that he knew that he probably would not survive.

So he hesitated as he remembered the warning he had received from the Peace-Weaver.

Then he heard Katherine’s voice, clear as anything: ‘
Go back!
’

Her voice was a pleading in his mind, for his own sake, but he knew that for hers he must ignore it.

He took a few steps forward between the two great conifers, then further still. He saw the shadows stirring, mounting, coming towards him, and he knew he had neither the skill nor weapons enough to defeat them and save Katherine.

‘Master Jack!’

It was a voice he did not recognize, older and male, and it pulled him from the confusion and doubt that had beset him, and stopped him going further forward.

Then again, from off to his right on the far side of the henge, ‘Master Jack . . . ! Do not engage them!’

The hulking shadows already forming around him came no nearer, as if they too had heard the voice. Instead they began to encircle him as if to stop the voice reaching him. He saw the staves which glinted darkly and seemed huge in the night. Their feet moved slowly and silently, their movements were subtle but their force and power self-evident.

He could not quite make out their forms, as if there were many and one, separating and intertwining in shadows of which they themselves were the creators.

He turned to where he had heard the voice, but slowly. He was losing control of his own body.

The shadows turned death-grey in colour, large and ugly in shape, clever in the slow choreography of their moves as they once more began advancing warily towards him.

His slow turn continued as his eyes scanned the far part of the henge from where the voice had come.

What he saw coming from that direction made no sense at all. It was an arcing, turning, flying stave which grew as it came, catching the light of the moon and stars as it twisted, and taking to itself the dull red glow of the last embers of the distant bonfire.

As it came he began to hear it, swish-swish-swishing through the night, ever louder, the light it cast ever brighter.

‘Catch it, Master Jack!’ came the voice again. ‘Raise it to them boldly! Destroy them with its light!’

The shadows took form as the light from the whirling, twisting stave shot across them.

The stave took form as well as Jack reached his right hand for it and he saw it was ancient and made of wood and that the light that came from it was reflections from the intricate carvings that ran down its length.

The shadows briefly broke before the light left them and they formed again.

He caught the stave, or maybe the stave found him. It felt good.

He gripped it, turned it so he could grab its other end with his left hand, and moved towards them.

Yet even then, such was the icy impact of their assault on his mind, breaking through its defensiveness to engender fear. It was a fear compounded by strange confusion as he became aware of shifts and changes in the perspectives of his own world. The dark trees about him grew suddenly taller, the distance across the grass greater, the moon and the stars were shifting in relation to one another and him, as if he were changing position though remaiing in the same spot.

Focus!

That was the first and oldest skill needed for survival. It meant forgetting all else but the reality of the present moment.

Focus!

One thing only seemed solid and certain, and that was the feel of the stave grasped firmly in his two hands, held loosely but ready for action.