Alan Garner Classic Collection

They left the shimmering road for the green wood, and The Wizard was soon lost behind them as they walked among fir and pine, oak, ash, and silver birch, along tracks through bracken, and across sleek hummocks of grass. There was no end to the peace and beauty. And then, abruptly, they came upon a stretch of rock and sand from which the heat vibrated as if from an oven. To the north, the Cheshire plain spread before them like a green and yellow patchwork quilt dotted with toy farms and houses. Here the Edge dropped steeply for several hundred feet, while away to their right the country rose in folds and wrinkles until it joined the bulk of the Pennines, which loomed eight miles away through the haze.

The children stood for some minutes, held by the splendour of the view. Then Susan, noticing something closer to hand, said, “Look here! This must be one of the mines.”

Almost at their feet a narrow trench sloped into the rock.

“Come on,” said Colin, “there’s no harm in going down a little way – just as far as the daylight reaches.”

Gingerly they walked down the trench, and were rather disappointed to find that it ended in a small cave, shaped roughly like a discus, and full of cold, damp air. There were no tunnels or shafts: the only thing of note was a round hole in the roof, about a yard across, which was blocked by an oblong stone.

“Huh!” said Colin. “There’s nothing dangerous about this, anyway.”

All through the afternoon Colin and Susan roamed up and down the wooded hillside and along the valleys of the Edge, sometimes going where only the tall beech stood, and in such places all was still. On the ground lay dead leaves, nothing more: no grass or bracken grew; winter seemed to linger there among the grey, green beeches. When the children came out of such a wood it was like coming into a garden from a musty cellar.

In their wanderings they saw many caves and openings in the hill, but they never explored further than the limits of daylight.

Just as they were about to turn for home after a climb from the foot of the Edge, the children came upon a stone trough into which water was dripping from an overhanging cliff, and harmigh in the rock was carved the face of a bearded man, and underneath was engraved:

DRINK OF THIS

AND TAKE THY FILL

FOR THE WATER FALLS

BY THE WIZHARDS WILL

“The wizard again!” said Susan. “We really must find out from Gowther what all this is about. Let’s go straight home now and ask him. It’s probably nearly tea-time, anyway.”

They were within a hundred yards of the farm when a car overtook them and pulled up sharply. The driver, a woman, got out and stood waiting for the children. She looked about forty-five years old, was powerfully built (“fat” was the word Susan used to describe her), and her head rested firmly on her shoulders without appearing to have much of a neck at all. Two lines ran from either side of her nose to the corners of her wide, thin-lipped mouth, and her eyes were rather too small for her broad head. Strangely enough, her legs were thin and spindly, so that in outline she resembled a well-fed sparrow, but again that was Susan’s description.

All this Colin and Susan took in as they approached the car, while the driver eyed them up and down more obviously.

“Is this the road to Macclesfield?” she said when the children came up to her.

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Colin. “We’ve only just come to stay here.”

“Oh? Then you’ll want a lift. Jump in!”

“Thanks,” said Colin, “but we’re living at this next farm.”

“Get into the back.”

“No, really. It’s only a few yards.”

“Get in!”

“But we …”

The woman’s eyes glinted and the colour rose in her cheeks.

“You – will – get – into – the back!”

“Honestly, it’s not worth the bother! We’d only hold you up.”

The woman drew breath through her teeth. Her eyes rolled upwards and the lids came down until only an unpleasant white line showed; and then she began to whisper to herself.

Colin felt most uncomfortable. They could not just walk off and leave this peculiar woman in the middle of the road, yet her manner was so embarrassing that he wanted to hurry away, to disassociate himself from her strangeness.

“Omptator,” said the woman.

“I … beg your pardon.”

“Lapidator.”

“I’m sorry …”

“Somniator.”

“Are you …?”

“Qui libertar opera facitis …”

“I’m not much good at Latin …”

Colin wanted to run now. She must be mad. He could not cope. His brow was damp with sweat, and pins and needles were taking all awareness out of his body.

Then, close at hand, a dog barked loudly. The woman gave a suppressed cry of rage and spun round. The tension broke; and Colin saw that his fingers were round the handle of the car door, and the door was half-open.

“Howd thy noise, Scamp,” said Gowther sharply.

He was crossing the road opposite the farm gate, and Scamp stood a little way up the hill nearer the car, snarling nastily.

“Come on! Heel!”

Scamp slunk unwillingly back towards Gowther, who waved to the children and pointed to the house to show that tea was ready.

“Th – that’s Mr Mossock,” said Colin. “He’ll be able to tell you the way to Macclesfield.”

“No doubt!” snapped the woman. And, without another word, she threw herself into the car, and drove away.

“Well!” said Colin. “What was all that about? She must be off her head! I thought she was having a fit! What do you think was up with her?”

Susan made no comment. She gave a wan smile and shrugged her shoulders, but it was not until Colin and she were at the farm gate that she spoke.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It may be the heat, or because we’ve walked so far, but all the time you were talking to her I thought I was going to faint. But what’s so strange is that my Tear has gone all misty.”

Susan was fond of her Tear. It was a small piece of crystal, shaped like a raindrop, and had been given to her by her mother, who had had it mounted in a socket fastened to a silver chain bracelet which Susan always wore. It was a flawless stone, but, when she was very young, Susan had discovered that if she held it in a certain way, so that it caught the light just … so, she could see, deep in the heart of the crystal, miles away, or so it seemed, a twisting column of blue fire, always moving, never ending, alive, and very beautiful.

Bess Mossock clapped her hands in delight when she saw the Tear on Susan’s wrist. “Oh, if it inner the Bridestone! And after all these years!”