"Cooper,.Susan.-.Dark.Is.Rising.3.-.Greenwitch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooper Susan)

'No!'

'Nothing!'

'Not really. I was going to a sort of ecology conference, but I can get out of that . . .' Simon's voice trailed away, as he thought of the little Cornish village where they had found the grail. Whatever adventure might now follow had begun there, deep inside a cave in the cliffs, over sea - and under stone. And at the heart of things now, as he had been then, would always be Great-Uncle Merry, Professor Merriman Lyon, the most mysterious figure in their lives, who in some incomprehensible way was involved with the long struggle for control of the world between the Light and the Dark.

'I'll speak to your parents,' his great-uncle said.

'Why Trewissick again?' Jane said. 'Will the thieves take the grail there?'

'I think they may.'

'Just one week,' Barney said, staring pensively at the empty showcase before them. 'That's not much for a quest. Will it really be enough?'

'It is not very long,' said Great-Uncle Merry. 'But it will have to do.'

*******
Will eased a stem of grass out of its sheath and sat down on a rock near the front gate, despondently nibbling. The April sunshine glimmered on the new-green leaves of the lime trees; a thrush somewhere shouted its happy self-echoing song. Lilac and wallflowers scented the morning. Will sighed. They were all very well, these joys of a Buckinghamshire spring, but he would have appreciated them more with someone there to share the Easter holidays. Half his large family still lived at home, but his nearest brother James was away at a Scout camp for the week, and the next in line, Mary, had disappeared to some Welsh relations to recuperate from mumps. The rest were busy with boring older preoccupations. That was the trouble with being the youngest of nine; everyone else seemed to have grown up too fast.

There was one respect in which he, Will Stanton, was far older than any of them, or than any human creature. But only he knew of the great adventure which had shown him, on his eleventh birthday, that he had been born the last of the Old Ones, guardians of the Light, bound by immutable laws to defend the world against the rising Dark. Only he knew - and because he was also an ordinary boy, he was not thinking of it now.

Raq, one of the family dogs, pushed a damp nose into his hand. Will fondled the floppy ears. 'A whole week,' he said to the dog. 'What shall we do? Go fishing? '

The ears twitched, the nose left his hand; stiff and alert, Raq turned towards the road. In a moment or two a taxi drew up outside the gate: not the familiar battered car that served as village taxi, but a shiny professional vehicle from the town three miles away. The man who emerged was small, balding and rather rumpled, wearing a raincoat and carrying a large shapeless holdall. He dismissed the taxi, and stood looking at Will.

Puzzled, Will scrambled up and came to the gate. 'Good morning,' he said.

The man stood solemn for a moment, then grinned. 'You're Will,' he said. He had a smooth round face with round eyes, like a clever fish.

'That's right,' Will said.

'The youngest Stanton. The seventh son. That's one up on me - I was only the sixth.'

His voice was soft and rather husky, with an odd mid-Atlantic accent; the vowels were American, but the intonation was English. Will smiled in polite incomprehension.

'Your father was the seventh in that family,' the man in the raincoat said. He grinned again, his round eyes crinkling at the corners, and held out his hand. 'Hi. I'm your Uncle Bill.'

'Well I'm blowed!' said Will. He shook the hand. Uncle Bill. His namesake. His father's favourite brother, who had gone off to America years and years ago and set up some sort of successful business - pottery, wasn't it? Will did not remember ever having seen him before; he was sent a Christmas present each year by this unknown Uncle Bill, who was also his godfather, and he wrote a chatty letter of thanks annually as a result, but the letters had never had a reply.

'You've grown some,' said Uncle Bill as they walked to the house. 'Last time we met, you were a little scrawny bawling thing in a crib.'

'You sound like an American,' Will said.

'No wonder,' said Uncle Bill. 'I've been one for the last ten years.'

'You never answered my Christmas letters.'

'Did that bother you?'