Boneland

Boneland
Alan Garner

A major novel from one of the country’s greatest writers, and the crowning achievement of an astonishing career, ‘Boneland’ is also the long-awaited conclusion to the story of Colin and Susan – a story that began over fifty years ago in ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’…‘A woman was reading a book to a child on her knee.‘“So the little boy went into the wood, and he met a witch. And the witch said, ‘You come home with me and I’ll give you a good dinner.’ Now you wouldn’t go home with a witch, would you?”‘Colin stood. “Young man. Do not go into the witch’s house. Do not. And whatever you do, do not go upstairs. You must not go upstairs. Do not go! You are not to go!”’Professor Colin Whisterfield spends his days at Jodrell Bank, using the radio telescope to look for his lost sister in the Pleiades. At night, he is on Alderley Edge, watching.At the same time, and in another time, the Watcher cuts the rock and blows bulls on the stone with his blood, and dances, to keep the sky above the earth and the stars flying.Colin can’t remember; and he remembers too much. Before the age of thirteen is a blank. After that he recalls everything: where he was, what he was doing, in every minute of every hour of every day. Everything he has read and seen.And then, finally, a new force enters his life, a therapist who might be able to unlock what happened to him when he was twelve, what happened to his sister.But Colin will have to remember quickly, to find his sister. And the Watcher will have to find the Woman. Otherwise the skies will fall, and there will be only winter, wanderers and moon…

ALAN GARNER

Boneland

For the worth of two Marks and a Bob

The dream was wonder, but the terror was great. We must keep the dream, whatever the terror.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VII, line 75

The stones have no rosetta.

Mark Edmonds, Prehistory in the Peak, p.96

Hit hade a hole on þe ende and on ayþer syde,

And ouergrowen with gresse in glodes aywhere,

And al watz hol3 inwith, nobot an olde caue,

Or a creuisse of an olde cragge …

It had a hole on the end and on either side,

And overgrown with grass in clumps everywhere,

And all was hollow within, nothing but an old cave,

Or a crevice of an old crag …

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, lines 2180–4

Table of Contents

Title Page (#ue9ae7993-a9af-53d2-a593-51911f7dc509)

Dedication (#u5ebd0d5d-6c01-5fe4-875d-511b5432c710)

Epigraph (#ud9f04ffa-7390-50b2-9959-c6b062cc807e)

Boneland (#u670e9c04-4039-5185-8867-86773319a7f4)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

‘Listen. I’ll tell you. I’ve got to tell you.’

‘A scratch, Colin.’

‘I must tell you.’

‘Just a scratch.’

‘I will.’

‘There.’

‘I shall.’

‘Done.’

He cut the veil of the rock; the hooves clattered the bellowing waters below him in the dark. The lamp brought the moon from the blade, and the blade the bull from the rock. The ice rang.

He took life in his mouth, spat red over hand on the cave wall. The bull roared. Around, above him, the trample of the beasts answered; the stags, the hinds, the horses, the bulls, and the trace of old dreams. The ice rang. He held the lamp and climbed among antlers necks ears eyes horns haunches, the limbs, the nostrils, the rutting, the dancers; from the cave to the crack. He pushed the lamp at the dark and followed his shoulder, his head twisted, through the hill along the seam of grit, by the nooks of the dead. He slipped out; pinched the lamp, and crawled between slabs into the gash of Ludcruck on snow.

The colours and webs faded and he saw the world. The ice had dropped from the two cliffs flat in the gap. He braced himself against each side of stone, and moved over the fall.

He found them lying together. He tried to touch her and the child through the ice. He saw his echo, but they had no echo. Though the eyes met, they did not speak. They were not him. Where the crag had shed, spirit faces looked down from the scar, rough, knuckled, green; and grass hung over the ledges.

He passed where the cleft opened more than a spear length. The sky was blue, icicles shone; the sun played, but could not reach the floor. He went along, up, around, and left Ludcruck hole by the arch to the hill.

He met the footsteps, woman and child, and walked against them, back above the river, cobbles banging in the melt of summer flood, until a fold of land shut off the sound and he came to the lodge. He opened the hide and went in.

He lay for one day. He lay for two days. He lay for three days.

‘Colin. Colin?’

A face was leaning over him, concentrated, checking. He heard and saw, but did not wake.

Next, he was in the ward, and a panel in the ceiling rattled.

‘Cup of tea, diddums?’

‘No. Thanks.’

‘Coffee, my love?’

‘No. Thanks.’

‘Water, pet?’