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

'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 harbour 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 seagulls, 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?'