Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising 2 - The Dark is Rising

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The Dark is Rising

Book 2 of 5 in "The Dark is Rising" series

Scanned August 2002 reader51 v1.0

Contents

Part One: The Finding

Midwinter's Eve Midwinter Day

The Sign-seeker The Walker on the Old Way

Part Two: The Learning

Christmas Eve The Book of Gramarye

Betrayal Christmas Day

Part Three: The Testing

The Coming of the Cold The Hawk in the Dark

The King of Fire and Water The Hunt Rides

The Joining of the Signs

Part One: The Finding

Midwinter's Eve

'Too many!' James shouted, and slammed the door behind him. 'What?' said Will. 'Too many kids in this

family, that's what. Just too many.' James stood fuming on the landing like a small angry locomotive, then

stumped across to the window-seat and stared out at the garden. Will put aside his book and pulled up

his legs to make room. 'I could hear all the yelling,' he said, chin on knees.

'Wasn't anything,' James said. 'Just stupid Barbara again. Bossing. Pick up this, don't touch that. And

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Mary joining in, twitter twitter, twitter. You'd think this house was big enough, but there's always people.'

They both looked out of the window. The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey

sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the

roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the

flat fields of Dawsons' Farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that

refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.

'Four days to Christmas,' Will said. 'I wish it would snow properly.'

'And your birthday tomorrow.'

'Mmm.' He had been going to say that too, but it would have been too much like a reminder. And the

gift he most wished for on his birthday was something nobody could give him: it was snow, beautiful,

deep, blanketing snow, and it never came. At least this year there was the grey sprinkle, better than

nothing.

He said, remembering a duty: 'I haven't fed the rabbits yet. Want to come?'

Booted and muffled, they clumped out through the sprawling kitchen. A full symphony orchestra was

swelling out of the radio; their eldest sister Gwen was slicing onions and singing; their mother was bent

broad-beamed and red-faced over an oven. 'Rabbits!' she shouted, when she caught sight of them. 'And

some more hay from the farm!'

'We're going!' Will shouted back. The radio let out a sudden hideous crackle of static as he passed the

table. He jumped. Mrs Stanton shrieked, 'Turn that thing DOWN.'

Outdoors, it was suddenly very quiet. Will dipped out a pail of pellets from the bin in the farm-smelling

barn, which was not really a barn at all, but a long, low building with a tiled roof, once a stable. They

tramped through the thin snow to the row of heavy wooden hutches, leaving dark foot-marks on the hard

frozen ground.

Opening doors to fill the feed-boxes, Will passed, frowning. Normally the rabbits would be huddled

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sleepily in corners, only the greedy ones coming twitch-nosed forward to eat. Today they seemed

restless and uneasy, rustling to and fro, banging against their wooden walls; one or two even leapt back in

alarm when he opened their doors. He came to his favourite rabbit, named Chelsea, and reached in as

usual to rub him affectionately behind the ears, but the animal scuffled back away from him and cringed

into a corner, the pink-rimmed eyes staring up blank and terrified.

'Hey!' Will said, disturbed. 'Hey James, look at that. What's the matter with him? And all of them?'

'They seem all right to me.'

'Well, they don't to me. They're all jumpy. Even Chelsea. Hey, come on, boy - ' But it was no good.

'Funny,' James said with mild interest, watching. 'I dare say your hands smell wrong. You must have

touched something they don't like. Same as dogs and aniseed, but the other way round.'

'I haven't touched anything. Matter of fact, I'd just washed my hands when I saw you.'

'There you are then,' James said promptly. 'That's the trouble. They've never smelt you clean before.

Probably all die of shock.'

'Ha very ha.' Will attacked him, and they scuffled together, grinning, while the empty pail toppled rattling

on the hard ground. But when he glanced back as they left, the animals were still moving distractedly, not

eating yet, staring after him with those strange frightened wide eyes.

'There might be a fox about again, I suppose,' James said. 'Remind me to tell Mum.' No fox could get at

the rabbits, in their sturdy row, but the chickens were more vulnerable; a family of foxes had broken into

one of the henhouses the previous winter and carried off six nicely-fattened birds just before

marketing-time. Mrs Stanton, who relied on the chicken-money each year to help pay for eleven

Christmas presents, had been so furious she had kept watch afterwards in the cold barn two nights

running, but the villains had not come back. Will thought that if he were a fox he would have kept clear

too; his mother might be married to a jeweller, but with generations of Buckinghamshire farmers behind

her, she was no joke when the old instincts were roused.

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Tugging the handcart, a home-made contraption with a bar joining its shafts, he and James made their

way down the curve of the overgrown drive and out along the road to Dawsons' Farm. Quickly past the

churchyard, its great dark yew trees leaning out over the crumbling wall; more slowly by Rooks' Wood,

on the corner of Church Lane. The tall spinney of horse-chestnut trees, raucous with the calling of the

rooks and rubbish-roofed with the clutter of their sprawling nests, was one of their familiar places.

'Hark at the rooks! Something's disturbed them.' The harsh irregular chorus was deafening, and when

Will looked up at the tree-tops he saw the sky dark with wheeling birds. They flapped and drifted to and

fro; there were no flurries of sudden movement, only the clamorous interweaving throng of rooks.

'An owl?'

'They're not chasing anything. Come on, Will, it'll be getting dark soon.'

'That's why it's so odd for the rooks to be in a fuss. They all ought to be roosting by now.' Will turned

his head reluctantly down again, but then jumped and clutched his brother's arm, his eye caught by a

movement in the darkening lane that led away from the road where they stood. Church Lane: it ran

between Rooks' Wood and the church- yard to the tiny local church, and then on to the River Thames.

'Hey!'

'What's up?'

'There's someone over there. Or there was. Looking at us.'

James sighed. 'So what? Just someone out for a walk.'

'No, he wasn't.' Will screwed up his eyes nervously, peering down the little side road. 'It was a

weird-looking man all hunched over, and when he saw me looking he ran off behind a tree.Scuttled , like

a beetle.'

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James heaved at the handcart and set of up the road, making Will run to keep up. 'It's just a tramp, then.

I dunno, everyone seems to be going batty today - Barb and the rabbits and the rooks and now you, all

yak-twitchety-yakking. Come on, let's get that hay. I want my tea.'

The handcart bumped through the frozen ruts into Dawsons' yard, the great earthen square enclosed by

buildings on three sides, and they smelt the familiar farm-smell. The cowshed must have been mucked out

that day; Old George, the toothless cattleman, was piling dung across the yard. He raised a hand to them.

Nothing missed Old George; he could see a hawk drop from a mile away. Mr Dawson came out of a

barn.

'Ah,' he said. 'Hay for Stantons' Farm?' It was his joke with their mother, because of the rabbits and the

hens. James said, 'Yes, please.'

'It's coming,' Mr Dawson said. Old George had disappeared into the barn. 'Keeping well, then? Tell

your mum I'll have ten birds off her tomorrow. And four rabbits. Don't look like that, young Will. If it's

not their happy Christmas, it's one for the folks as'll have them.' He glanced up at the sky, and Will

thought a strange look came over his lined brown face. Up against the lowering grey clouds, two black

rooks were flapping slowly over the farm in a wide circle.

'The rooks are making an awful din today,' James said. 'Will saw a tramp up by the wood.'

Mr Dawson looked at Will sharply. 'What was he like?'

'Just a little old man. He dodged away.'

'So the Walker is abroad,' the farmer said softly to himself. 'Ah. He would be.'

'Nasty weather for walking,' James said cheerfully. He nodded at the northern sky over the farmhouse

roof; the clouds there seemed to be growing darker, massing in ominous grey mounds with a yellowish

tinge. The wind was rising too; it stirred their hair, and they could hear a distant rustling from the tops of

the trees.

'More snow coming,' said Mr Dawson.

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'It's a horrible day,' said Will suddenly, surprised by his own violence; after all, he had wanted snow. But

somehow uneasiness was growing in him. 'It's - creepy, somehow.'

'It will be a bad night,' said Mr Dawson.

'There's Old George with the hay,' said James. 'Come on, Will.'

'You go,' the farmer said. 'I want Will to pick up something for your mother from the house.' But he did

not move, as James pushed the handcart off towards the barn; he stood with his hands thrust deep into

the pockets of his old tweed jacket, looking at the darkening sky.

'The Walker is abroad,' he said again. 'And this night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond

imagining.' He looked at Will, and Will looked back in growing alarm into the weathered face, the bright

dark eyes creased narrow by decades of peering into sun and rain and wind. He had never noticed

before how dark Farmer Dawson's eyes were: strange, in their blue-eyed county.

'You have a birthday coming,' the farmer said.

'Mmm,' said Will.

'I have something for you.' He glanced briefly round the yard, and withdrew one hand from his pocket;

in it, Will saw what looked like a kind of ornament, made of black metal, a flat circle quartered by two

crossed lines. He took it, fingering it curiously. It was about the size of his palm, and quite heavy; roughly

forged out of iron, he guessed, though with no sharp points or edges. The iron was cold to his hand.

'What is it?' he said.

'For the moment,' Mr Dawson said, 'just call it something to keep. To keep with you always, all the time.

Put it in your pocket, now. And later on, loop your belt through it and wear it like an extra buckle.'

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Will slipped the iron circle into his pocket. 'Thank you very much,' he said, rather shakily. Mr Dawson,

usually a comforting man, was not improving the day at all.

The farmer looked at him in the same intent, unnerving way, until Will felt the hair rise on the back of his

neck; then he gave a twisted half-smile, with no amusement in it but a kind of anxiety. 'Keep it safe, Will.

And the less you happen to talk about it, the better. You will need it after the snow comes.' He became

brisk. 'Come on, now, Mrs Dawson has a jar of her mincemeat for your mother.'

They moved of towards the farmhouse. The farmer's wife was not there, but waiting in the doorway was

Maggie Barnes, the farm's round-faced, red-cheeked dairymaid, who always reminded Will of an apple.

She beamed at them both, holding out a big white crockery jar tied with a red ribbon.

'Thank you, Maggie,' Farmer Dawson said.

'Missus said you'd be wanting it for young Will here,' Maggie said. 'She went down the village to see the

vicar for something. How's your big brother, then, Will?'

She always said this, whenever she saw him; she meant Will's next-to-oldest brother Max. It was a

Stanton family joke that Maggie Barnes at Dawsons' had a thing about Max.

'Fine, thank you,' Will said politely. 'Grown his hair long. Looks like a girl.'

Maggie shrieked with delight. 'Get away with you!' She giggled and waved her farewell, and just at the

last moment Will noticed her gaze slip upward past his head. Out of the corner of his eye as he turned, he

thought he saw a flicker of movement by the farmyard gate, as if someone were dodging quickly out of

sight. But when he looked, no one was there.

With the big pot of mincemeat wedged between two bales of hay, Will and James pushed the handcart

out of the yard. The farmer stood in his doorway behind them; Will could feel his eyes, watching. He

glanced up uneasily at the looming, growing clouds, and half-unwillingly slipped a hand into his pocket to

finger the strange iron circle. 'After the snow comes.' The sky looked as if it were about to fall on them.

He thought:what'shappening ?

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One of the farm dogs came bounding up, tail waving; then it stopped abruptly a few yards away, looking

at them.

'Hey, Racer!' Will called.

The dog's tail went down, and it snarled, showing its teeth.

'James!' said Will.

'He won't hurt you. What's the matter?'

They went on, and turned into the road.

'It's not that. Something's wrong, that's all. Something's awful. Racer, Chelsea - the animals are all

scared of me.' He was beginning to be really frightened now.

The noise from the rookery was louder, even though the daylight was beginning to die. They could see

the dark birds thronging over the treetops, more agitated than before, flapping and turning to and fro.

And Will had been right; there was a stranger in the lane, standing beside the churchyard.

He was a shambling, tattered figure, more like a bundle of old clothes than a man, and at the sight of him

the boys slowed their pace and drew instinctively closer to the cart and to one another. He turned his

shaggy head to look at them.

Then suddenly, in a dreadful blur of unreality, a hoarse, shrieking flurry was rushing dark down out of the

sky, and two huge rooks swooped at the man. He staggered back, shouting, his hands thrust up to

protect his face, and the birds flapped their great wings in a black vicious whirl and were gone, swooping

up past the boys and into the sky.

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Will and James stood frozen, staring, pressed against the bales of hay.

The stranger cowered back against the gate.

'Kaaaaaaak ... kaaaaaak ...' came the head-splitting racket from the frenzied flock over the wood, and

then three more whirling black shapes were swooping after the first two, diving wildly at the man and then

away. This time he screamed in terror and stumbled out into the road, his arms still wrapped in defence

round his head, his face down; and he ran. The boys heard the frightened gasps for breath as he dashed

headlong past them, and up the road past the gates of Dawsons' Farm and on towards the village. They

saw bushy, greasy grey hair below a dirty old cap; a torn brown overcoat tied with string, and some

other garment flapping beneath it; old boots, one with a loose sole that made him kick his leg oddly

sideways, half-hopping, as he ran. But they did not see his face.

The high whirling above their heads was dwindling into loops of slow flight, and the rooks began to settle

one by one into the trees. They were still talking loudly to one another in a long cawing jumble, but the

madness and the violence were not in it now. Dazed, moving his head for the first time, Will felt his cheek

brush against something, and putting his hand to his shoulder, he found a long black feather there. He

pushed it into his jacket pocket, moving slowly, like someone half-awake.

Together they pushed the loaded cart down the road to the house, and the cawing behind them died to

an ominous murmur, like the swollen Thames in spring.

James said at last, 'Rooks don't to that sort of thing. They don't attack people. And they don't come

down low when there's not much space. They just don't.'

'No,' Will said. He was still moving in a detached half- dream, not fully aware of anything except a

curious vague groping in his mind. In the midst of all the din and the flurry, he had suddenly had a strange

feeling stronger than any he had ever known: he had been aware that someone was trying to tell him

something, something that had missed him because he could not understand the words. Not words

exactly; it had been like a kind of silent shout. But he had not been able to pick up the message, because

he had not known how.

'Like not having the radio on the right station,' he said aloud.

'What?' said James, but he wasn't really listening. 'What a thing,' he said. 'I s'pose the tramp must have

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been trying to catch a rook. And they got wild. He'll be snooping around after the hens and the rabbits, I

bet you. Funny he didn't have a gun. Better tell Mum to leave the dogs in the barn tonight.' He chattered

amiably on as they reached home and unloaded the hay. Gradually Will realised in amazement that all the

shock of the wild, savage attack was running out of James's mind like water, and that in a matter of

minutes even the very fact of its happening had gone.

Something had neatly wiped the whole incident from James's memory; something that did not want it

reported. Something that knew this would stop Will from reporting it too.

'Here, take Mum's mincemeat,' James said. 'Let's go in before we freeze. The wind's really getting up -

good job we hurried back.'

'Yes,' said Will. He felt cold, but it was not from the rising wind. His fingers closed round the iron circle

in his pocket and held it tightly. This time, the iron felt warm.

The grey world had slipped into the dark by the time they went back to the kitchen. Outside the

window, their father's battered little van stood in a yellow cave of light. The kitchen was even noisier and

hotter than before. Gwen was setting the table, patiently steering her way round a trio of bent figures

where Mr Stanton was peering at some small, nameless piece of machinery with the twins, Robin and

Paul; and with Mary's plump form now guarding it, the radio was blasting out pop music at enormous

volume. As Will approached, it erupted again into a high-pitched screech, so that everyone broke of with

grimaces and howls.

'Turn that thing OFF!' Mrs Stanton yelled desperately from the sink. But though Mary, pouting, shut off

the crackle and the buried music, the noise level changed very little.

Somehow it never did when more than half the family was at home. Voices and laughter filled the long

stone-floored kitchen as they sat round the scrubbed wooden table; the two Welsh collies, Raq and Ci,

lay dozing at the far end of the room beside the fire. Will kept away from them; he could not have borne

it if their own dogs had snarled at him. He sat quietly at tea - it was called tea if Mrs Stanton managed to

produce it before five o'clock, supper if it was later, but it was always the same hearty kind of meal - and

kept his plate and his mouth full of sausage to avoid having to talk. Not that anyone was likely to miss

your talk in the cheerful babble of the Stanton family, especially when you were its youngest member.

Waving at him from the end of the table, his mother called, 'What shall we have for tea tomorrow, Will?'

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摘要：

TheDarkisRisingSusanCooper©1973Book2of5in"TheDarkisRising"seriesScannedAugust2002reader51v1.0 ContentsPartOne:TheFindingMidwinter'sEve MidwinterDayTheSign-seeker TheWalkerontheOldWayPartTwo:TheLearningChristmasEve TheBookofGramaryeBetrayal ...

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