The Owl Service. Alan Garner

       CHAPTER 2

      Roger splashed through the shallows to the bank. A slab of rock stood out of the ground close by him, and he sprawled backwards into the foam of meadowsweet that grew thickly round its base. He gathered the stems in his arms and pulled the milky heads down over his face to shield him from the sun.

      Through the flowers he could see a jet trail moving across the sky, but the only sounds were the river and a farmer calling sheep somewhere up the valley.

      The mountains were gentle in the heat. The ridge above the house, crowned with a grove of fir trees, looked black against the summer light. He breathed the cool sweet air of the flowers. He felt the sun drag deep in his limbs.

      Something flew by him, a blink of dark on the leaves. It was heavy, and fast, and struck hard. He felt the vibration through the rock, and he heard a scream.

      Roger was on his feet, crouching, hands wide, but the meadow was empty, and the scream was gone: he caught its echo in the farmer’s distant voice and a curlew away on the mountain. There was no one in sight: his heart raced, and he was cold in the heat of the sun. He looked at his hands. The meadowsweet had cut him, lining his palm with red beads. The flowers stank of goat.

      He leant against the rock. The mountains hung over him, ready to fill the valley. “Brrr—” He rubbed his arms and legs with his fists. The skin was rough with gooseflesh. He looked up and down the river, at the water sliding like oil under the trees and breaking on the stones. “Now what the heck was that? Acoustics? Trick acoustics? And those hills – they’d addle anyone’s brains.” He pressed his back against the rock. “Don’t you move. I’m watching you. That’s better – Hello?”

      There was a hole in the rock. It was round and smooth, and it went right through from one side to the other. He felt it with his hand before he saw. Has it been drilled on purpose, or is it a freak? he thought. Waste of time if it isn’t natural: crafty precision job, though. “Gosh, what a fluke!” He had lined himself up with the hole to see if it was straight, and he was looking at the ridge of fir trees above the house. The hole framed the trees exactly … “Brrrr, put some clothes on.”

      Roger walked up through the garden from the river.

      Huw Halfbacon was raking the gravel on the drive in front of the house, and talking to Gwyn, who was banging lettuces together to shake the earth from the roots.

      “Lovely day for a swim,” said Huw.

      “Yes,” said Roger. “Perfect.”

      “Lovely.”

      “Yes.”

      “You were swimming?” said Huw.

      “That’s why I’m wearing trunks,” said Roger.

      “It is a lovely day for that,” said Huw. “Swimming.”

      “Yes.”

      “In the water,” said Huw.

      “I’ve got to get changed,” said Roger.

      “I’ll come with you,” said Gwyn. “I want to have a talk.”

      “That man’s gaga,” said Roger when they were out of hearing. “He’s so far gone he’s coming back.”

      They sat on the terrace. It was shaded by its own steepness, and below them the river shone through the trees. “Hurry up then,” said Roger. “I’m cold.”

      “Something happened just now,” said Gwyn. “There was scratching in the loft over Alison’s bedroom.”

      “Mice,” said Roger.

      “That’s what I said. But when I knocked to scare them away – they knocked back.”

      “Get off!”

      “They did. So I went up to have a look. There’s a pile of dirty plates up there: must be worth pounds.”

      “Oh? That’s interesting. Have you brought them down?”

      “One. Alison’s cleaning it. But what about the scratching?”

      “Could be anything. These plates, though: what are they like? Why were they up there?”

      “I couldn’t see much. I asked Huw about them.”

      “Well?”

      “He said, ‘Mind how you are looking at her.’ ”

      “Who? Ali? What’s she got to do with it?”

      “Not Alison. I don’t know who he meant. When I told him I’d found the plates he stopped raking for a moment and said that: ‘Mind how you are looking at her.’ Then you came.”

      “I tell you, the man’s off his head. – Why’s he called Halfbacon, anyway?”

      “It’s the Welsh: Huw Hannerhob,” said Gwyn. “Huw Halfbacon: Huw the Flitch: he’s called both.”

      “It suits him.”

      “It’s a nickname,” said Gwyn.

      “What’s his real name?”

      “I don’t think he knows. Roger? There’s one more thing. I don’t want you to laugh.”

      “OK.”

      “Well, when I picked up the top plate, I came over all queer. A sort of tingling in my hands, and everything went muzzy – you know how at the pictures it sometimes goes out of focus on the screen and then comes back? It was like that: only when I could see straight again, it was different somehow. Something had changed.”

      “Like when you’re watching a person who’s asleep, and they wake up,” said Roger. “They don’t move, nothing happens, but you know they’re awake.”

      “That’s it!” said Gwyn. “That’s it! Exactly! Better than what I was trying to say! By, you’re a quick one, aren’t you?”

      “Can you tell me anything about a rock with a hole through it down by the river?” said Roger.

      “A big slab?” said Gwyn.

      “Yes, just in the meadow.”

      “It’ll be the Stone of Gronw, but I don’t know why. Ask Huw. He’s worked at the house all his life.”

      “No thanks. He’d give me the London Stockmarket Closing Report.”

      “What do you want to know for, anyway?” said Gwyn.

      “I was sunbathing there,” said Roger. “Are you coming to see how Ali’s managed with your plate?”

      “In a sec,” said Gwyn. “I got to drop these in the kitchen for Mam. I’ll see you there.”

      Roger changed quickly and went up to Alison. His bedroom was immediately below hers, on the first floor.

      She was bending over a plate which she had balanced on her knees. The plate was covered with a sheet of paper and she was drawing something with a pencil.

      “What’s this Gwyn says you’ve found?” said Roger.

      “I’ve nearly finished,” said Alison. She kept moving the paper as she