Greenwitch

  “Friend of mine’s picking me up, and we’re driving down. But I tell you what, Frannie and I’ll come and spend a few days on our way back to the States. If you’ll have us, that is.”

  “I should hope so,” said Will’s mother. “After ten years and about three letters, my lad, you don’t get away with one mouldy twenty-four hours.”

  “He sent me presents,” Will said. “Every Christmas.”

  Uncle Bill grinned at him. “Alice,” he said suddenly to Mrs Stanton, “since Will’s out of school this week, and not too busy, why don’t you let me take him to Cornwall for the holiday? I could put him on a train back at the end of the week. We’ve rented a place with far more space than we need. And this friend of mine has a couple of nephews coming down, about Will’s age, I believe.”

  Will made a strangled whooping sound, and looked anxiously at his parents. Frowning gravely, they began a predictable duet.

  “Well, that’s really very good of—”

  “If you’re sure he won’t be—”

  “He’d certainly love to—”

  “If Frannie wouldn’t—”

  Uncle Bill winked at Will. Will went upstairs and began to pack his knapsack. He put in five pairs of socks, five changes of underwear, six shirts, a pullover and a sweater, two pairs of shorts, and a flashlight. Then he remembered that his uncle was not leaving until the next day, but there seemed no point in unpacking. He went downstairs, the knapsack bouncing on his back like an overblown football.

  His mother said, “Well, Will, if you’d really like to—Oh.”

  “Good-by, Will,” said his father.

  Uncle Bill chuckled. “Excuse me,” he said. “If I might borrow your phone—”

  “I’ll show you.” Will led him out into the hall. “It’s not too much, is it?” he said, looking doubtfully at the bulging knapsack.

  “That’s fine.” His uncle was dialling. “Hallo? Hallo, Merry. Everything okay? Good. Just one thing. I’m bringing my youngest nephew with me for a week. He doesn’t have much luggage”—he grinned at Will—“but I just thought I’d make sure you weren’t driving some cute little two-seater. . . . Ha-ha. No, not really in character . . . okay, great, see you tomorrow.” He hung up.

  “All right, buddy,” he said to Will. “We leave at nine in the morning. That suit you, Alice?” Mrs Stanton was crossing the hall with the tea-tray.

  “Splendid,” she said.

  Since the beginning of the telephone call, Will had been standing very still. “Merry?” he said slowly. “That’s an unusual name.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” said his uncle. “Unusual guy, too. Teaches at Oxford. Brilliant brain, but I guess you’d call him kind of odd—very shy, hates meeting people. He’s very reliable, though,” he added hastily to Mrs Stanton. “And a great driver.”

  “Whatever’s the matter, Will?” said his mother. “You look as though you’d seen a ghost. Is anything wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Will. “Oh no. Nothing at all.”

  * * *

  Simon, Jane and Barney struggled out of St Austell station beneath a clutter of suitcases, paper bags, raincoats and paperbacks. The crowd from the London train was dwindling about them, swallowed by cars, buses, taxis.

  “He did say he’d meet us here, didn’t he?”

  “’Course he did.”

  “I can’t see him.”

  “He’s a bit late, that’s all.”

  “Great-Uncle Merry is never late.”

  “We ought to find out where the Trewissick bus goes from, just in case.”

  “No, there he is, I see him. I told you he was never late.” Barney jumped up and down, waving. Then he paused. “But he’s not on his own. There’s a man with him.” A faint note of outrage crept into his voice. “And a boy.”

  * * *

  A car hooted peremptorily once, twice, three times outside the Stantons’ house.

  “Here we go,” said Uncle Bill, seizing his holdall and Will’s knapsack.

  Will hastily kissed his parents good-by, staggering under the enormous bag of sandwiches, thermos flasks and cold drinks that his mother dumped into his arms.

  “Behave yourself,” she said.

  “I don’t suppose Merry will get out of the car,” said Bill to her as they trooped down the drive. “Very shy character, pay no attention. But he’s a good friend. You’ll like him, Will.”

  Will said, “I’m sure I shall.”

  At the end of the drive, an enormous elderly Daimler stood waiting.

  “Well well,” said Will’s father respectfully.

  “And I was worrying about space!” said Bill. “I might have known he’d drive something like this. Well, good-by, people. Here, Will, you can get in front.”

  In a flurry of farewells they climbed into the dignified car; a large muffler-wrapped figure sat hunched at the wheel, topped by a terrible hairy brown cap.

  “Merry,” said Uncle Bill as they moved off, “this is my nephew and godson. Will Stanton, Merriman Lyon.”

  The driver tossed aside his dreadful cap, and a mop of white hair sprang into shaggy freedom. Shadowed dark eyes glanced sideways at Will out of an arrogant, hawk-nosed profile.

  “Greetings, Old One,” said a familiar voice into Will’s mind.

  “It’s marvellous to see you,” Will said silently, happily.

  “Good morning, Will Stanton,” Merriman said.

  “How do you do, sir,” said Will.

  * * *

  There was considerable conversation on the drive from Buckinghamshire to Cornwall, particularly after the picnic lunch, when Will’s uncle fell asleep and slumbered peacefully all the rest of the way.

  Will said at last: “And Simon and Jane and Barney have no idea at all that the Dark timed its theft of the grail to match the making of the Greenwitch?”

  “They have never heard of the Greenwitch,” Merriman said. “You will have the privilege of telling them. Casually, of course.”

  “Hmm,” Will said. He was thinking of something else. “I’d feel a lot happier if only we knew what shape the Dark will take.”

  “An old problem. With no solution.” Merriman glanced sideways at him, with one bristly white eyebrow raised. “We have only to wait and see. And I think we shall not wait for long. . . .”

  Fairly late in the afternoon, the Daimler hummed its noble way into the forecourt of the railway station at St Austell, in Cornwall. Standing in a small pool of luggage Will saw a boy a little older than himself, wearing a school blazer and an air of self-conscious authority; a girl about the same height, with long hair tied in a pony-tail, and a worried expression; and a small boy with a mass of blond, almost white hair, sitting placidly on a suitcase watching their approach.

  “If they are to know nothing about me” he said to Merriman in the Old Ones’ speech of the mind, “they will dislike me extremely, I think.”

  “That may very well be true” said Merriman. “But not one of us has any feelings that are of the least consequence, compared to the urgency of this quest.”

  Will sighed. “Watch for the Greenwitch” he said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I THOUGHT WE’D PUT YOU IN HERE, JANE,” MERRIMAN SAID, opening a bedroom door and carefully stooping to go through. “Very small, but the view’s good.”

  “Oh!” said Jane in delight. The room was painted white, with gay yellow curtains, and a yellow quilt on the bed. The ceiling sloped down so that the wall on one side was only half the height of the wall on the other, and there was space only for a bed, a dressing-table and a chair. But the little room seemed full of sunshine, even though the sky outside the curtains was grey. Jane stood looking out, while her great-uncle went on to show the boys their room, and she thought that the picture she could see from the window was the best thing of all.

  She was high up on the side of the harbour, overlooking the boats and jetties, the wharf piled with boxes and lobster-pots, and the little canning factory. All the life of the busy har
bour was thrumming there below her, and out to the left, beyond the harbour wall and the dark arm of land called Kemare Head, lay the sea. It was a grey sea now, speckled with white. Jane’s gaze moved in again from the flat ocean horizon, and she looked straight across to the sloping road on the opposite side of the harbour, and saw the tall narrow house in which they had stayed the summer before. The Grey House. Everything had begun there.

  Simon tapped on the door and put his head round. “Hey, that’s a super view you’ve got. Ours hasn’t any, but it’s a nice room, all long and skinny.”

  “Like a coffin,” said Barney in a hollow voice, behind the door.

  Jane giggled. “Come on in, look at the Grey House over there. I wonder if we’ll meet Captain Thing, the one Gumerry rented it from?”

  “Toms,” Barney said. “Captain Toms. And I want to see Rufus, I hope he remembers me. Dogs do have good memories, don’t they?”

  “Try walking through Captain Toms’ door and you’ll find out,” said Simon. “If Rufus bites you, dogs don’t have good memories.”

  “Very funny.”

  “What’s that?” Jane said suddenly. “Hush!”

  They stood in a silence broken only by the sounds of cars and sea gulls, overlaid by the murmur of the sea. Then they heard a faint tapping sound.

  “It’s on the other side of that wall! What is it?”

  “Sounds like a sort of pattern. I think it’s Morse. Who knows Morse?”

  “I don’t,” Jane said. “You should have been a Boy Scout.”

  “We were supposed to learn it last year at school,” Barney said hesitantly. “But I don’t. . . wait a minute. That’s a D . . . don’t know that one . . . E . . . er . . . W . . . and S, that’s easy. There it goes again. What on earth—?”

  “Drews,” Simon said suddenly. “Someone’s tapping ‘Drews.’ Calling us.”

  “It’s that boy,” said Jane. “The house is two cottages joined together, so he must have the exact same room as this one, on the other side of the wall.”

  “Stanton,” said Barney.

  “That’s right. Will Stanton. Tap back to him, Barney.”

  “No,” Barney said.

  Jane stared at him. His long yellow-white hair had fallen sideways, masking his face, but she could see the lower lip jutting mulishly in a way she knew well.

  “Whyever not?”

  “He’s stopped now,” Barney said evasively.

  “But there’s no harm in being friendly.”

  “Well. No. Well. Oh, I don’t know . . . he’s a nuisance. I don’t see why Great-Uncle Merry let him come. How can we find out how to get the grail back with some strange kid hanging round?”

  “Great-Uncle Merry probably couldn’t get rid of him,” Jane said. She tugged her hair loose and took a comb from her pocket. “I mean, it’s his friend Mr Stanton who’s renting the cottages, and Will’s Mr Stanton’s nephew. So that’s that, isn’t it?”

  “We can get rid of him easily enough,” Simon said confidently. “Or keep him away. He’ll soon find out he’s not wanted, he looks fairly quick on the uptake.”

  “Well, we can at least be polite,” said Jane. “Starting now—it’s suppertime in a few minutes.”

  “Of course,” Simon said blandly. “Of course.”

  * * *

  “It’s a marvellous place,” Will said, glowing. “I can see right over the harbour from my room. Who do the cottages belong to?”

  “A fisherman called Penhallow,” said his uncle. “Friend of Merry’s. They must have been in the family for a while, judging by that.” He waved at a large yellowed photograph over the fireplace, ornately framed, showing a solemn-looking Victorian gentleman in stiff collar and dark suit. “Mr Penhallow’s grand-daddy, I’m told. But the cottages are modernized, of course. They can be let either separately or together—we took both when Merry decided to invite the Drew kids. We’ll all eat in here together.”

  He waved at the cheerful room, a pattern of bookcases and armchairs and lamps, very new and very old, with a large solid table and eight dignified high-backed chairs.

  “Have you known Mr Lyon a long time?” Will said curiously.

  “Year or two,” Bill Stanton said, stretching in his armchair, ice clinking in a glass in his hand. “Met him in Jamaica, didn’t we, Fran? We were on holiday—I never did find out whether Merry was vacationing or working.”

  “Working,” said his wife, busy setting the table. She was calm and fair, a tall, slow-moving person: not at all what Will had expected from an American. “On some government survey. He’s a professor at Oxford University,” she said reverently to Will. “A very very clever man. And such a sweetie—he came all the way to Ohio to spend a few days with us last fall, when he was over giving a lecture at Yale.”

  “Ah,” said Will thoughtfully. He was prevented from asking more questions by a sudden noise from the wall beside him. A large wooden door swung open, narrowly missing his back, revealing Merriman in the act of closing another identical door beyond it.

  “This is where the two cottages connect,” Merriman said, looking down at Will’s surprise with a faint grin. “They lock both doors if the two are let separately.”

  “Supper won’t be long,” said Fran Stanton in her soft drawl. As she spoke, a small stout lady with a grey knot of hair came into the room behind her, bearing a tray rattling with cups and plates.

  “Evenin’, Perfessor,” she said, beaming at Merriman. Will liked her face instantly: all its lines seemed carved by smiling.

  “Evening, Mrs Penhallow.”

  “Will,” said his uncle, “this is Mrs Penhallow. She and her husband own these cottages. My nephew Will.”

  She smiled at him, setting down the tray. “Welcome to Trewissick, m’dear. We’ll make sure you do have a wonderful holiday, with those other three scallywags.”

  “Thank you,” Will said.

  The dividing door burst open, and the three Drews came piling in.

  “Mrs Penhallow! How are you?”

  “Have you seen Rufus about?”

  “Will Mr Penhallow take us fishing this time?”

  “Is that awful Mrs Palk still here? Or her nephew?”

  “How’s the White Heather?”

  “Slowly, slowly,” she said, laughing.

  “Well,” Barney said. “How’s Mr Penhallow?”

  “He’m fine. Out on the boat now, o’ course. Now you just bide a moment while I get your supper.” She bustled out.

  “I can see you three know your way about the place,” said Bill Stanton, his round face solemn.

  “Oh yes,” said Barney complacently. “Everyone knows us here.”

  “We shall have a lot of friends to see,” said Simon rather too loudly, with a quick sideways glance at Will.

  “Yes, they’ve been here before. They stayed for two weeks last summer,” said Merriman. Barney looked at him crossly. His great-uncle’s craggy, deep-lined face was impassive.

  “Three weeks,” said Simon.

  “Was it? I beg your pardon.”

  “It’s lovely to be back,” Jane said diplomatically. “Thank you very much for letting us come, Mr Stanton, Mrs Stanton.”

  “You’re very welcome.” Will’s uncle waved a hand in the air. “Things have worked out fine—you three and Will can all have a great time together, and leave us square old characters to ourselves.”

  There was a very small silence. Then Jane said brightly, without looking at her brothers, “Yes, we can.”

  Will said to Simon, “Why is it called Trewissick?”

  “Er,” said Simon, taken aback, “I really don’t know. Do you know what it means, Gumerry?”

  “Look it up,” said his great-uncle coolly. “Research sharpens the memory.”

  Will said diffidently, “It’s the place where they have the Greenwitch ceremony, isn’t it?”

  The Drews stared at him. “Greenwitch? What’s that?”

  “Quite right,” Merriman said. He looked down at them,
a twitch beginning at one side of his mouth.

  “It was in some book I read about Cornwall,” Will said.

  “Ah,” Bill Stanton said. “Will is quite an anthropologist, his father was telling me. Watch out. He’s very big on ceremonies and such.”

  Will seemed to look rather uncomfortable. “It’s just a sort of spring thing,” he said. “They make a leaf image and chuck it into the sea. Sometimes they call it the Greenwitch and sometimes King Mark’s Bride. Old custom.”

  “Oh yes. Like the carnival,” Barney said dismissively. “In the summer.”

  “Well no, not quite.” Will rubbed his ear, sounding apologetic. “I mean, that Lammas carnival, it’s more a sort of tourist affair, isn’t it?”

  “Huh!” said Simon.

  “He’s right, you know,” Barney said. “There were far more visitors than locals dancing about the streets last summer. Including me.” He looked at Will rather thoughtfully.

  “Here we be!” cried Mrs Penhallow, materialising in the room with a tray of food almost as big as herself.

  “Mrs Penhallow must know all about the Greenwitch,” said Fran Stanton in her soft American voice. “Don’t you, Mrs Penhallow?” It was a well-meaning remark intended to keep the peace, in a situation which seemed to her a little prickly. But it had the reverse effect. The small round Cornishwoman set down her tray abruptly on the table, and the smile dropped from her face.

  “I don’t hold with talk of witches,” she said, politely but finally, and went out again.

  “Oh my,” said Aunt Fran in dismay.

  Her husband chuckled. “Yankee, go home,” he said.

  * * *

  “What is this Greenwitch affair really, Gumerry?” Simon said next morning.