The Owl Service. Alan Garner

      “Thanks, Gwyn,” said Alison. Gwyn looked at her. “I couldn’t help it,” she said.

      “Couldn’t you?”

      “Will somebody tell me what’s going on round here?” said Roger.

      “Forget it,” said Gwyn. “I’d better go and butter up the old darling. Don’t worry, I can handle her all right. I’m going down the shop this morning, so I’ll buy her a packet of fags to keep her happy.”

      “She looked wild,” said Alison.

      “Do you blame her?” said Gwyn. “And what’s a clip on the earhole among friends? You go and square your family, put them wise, get in first: just in case. I’ll calm Mam down, and then we’ll see to the loft. She’s touchy this morning because I’m not supposed to speak to Huw, and I must over this job.”

      “But what happened then?” said Roger. “That plate was the one she took from Ali’s room yesterday, wasn’t it?”

      “I know,” said Gwyn. “Where are the others?”

      “I put them on the billiard table,” said Alison.

      “I’ll pick them up on my way back,” said Gwyn. “We’ll have a good look at them later.”

      “Who’s going to deal with which?” Alison said to Roger as they walked across the lawn.

      “We’ll each tackle our own, I think, in this case,” said Roger.

      “Mummy’s sunbathing on the terrace,” said Alison.

      “Right. Dad’s in the river somewhere, I expect, trying out his puncture repairs. Peculiar business, isn’t it? You know just before Nancy yelled – when you were letting off steam about her – a crack went right through that pebble-dash in the billiard-room. I saw it. It was behind you. Peculiar that. It’s the second since yesterday. Dad spotted one last night.”

      Gwyn walked slowly. The plate had been on the dresser in the kitchen: his mother had been in the larder: a difficult shot. Who could have done it? Huw was shovelling coke by the stables. Who would have done it?

      The smash in the billiard-room was like an explosion. Gwyn ran. The fragments of the plates lay on the floor. They had hit the wall where it was pebble-dashed, and the whole width of the mortar near the top was laced with cracks. Gwyn looked under the table and in the cupboards, but no one was hiding, and the animals were motionless in their glass.

      Very gently, and softly, trying to make no noise, Gwyn gathered up the pieces. The morning sun came through the skylights and warmed the oak beams of the roof. They gave off a sweet smell, the essence of their years, wood and corn and milk and all the uses of the room. A motorcycle went by along the road above the house, making the glass rattle.

      Gwyn heard something drop behind him, and he turned. A lump of pebble-dash had come off the wall, and another fell, and in their place on the wall two eyes were watching him.

       CHAPTER 5

      “Gwyn said he’d done it. I don’t think she believed him, but she had to shut up.”

      “Good,” said Clive. “His head’s screwed on.”

      “Yes, Gwyn’s all right,” said Roger. “But I thought you’d better know, in case Nancy wants to make a row over it.”

      “Too true,” said Clive.

      “None of us chucked the plate,” said Roger.

      “It probably fell, and the old girl thought someone had buzzed her,” said Clive. “That seems to have fixed my puncture.” He lumbered out of the river. “Dry as a bone.”

      “Have you seen this, Dad?” said Roger. He was sitting on top of the upright slab. “This hole?”

      “Oh? No.”

      “Any ideas how it was made?” said Roger. “It goes right through.”

      “So it does. Machine tooled, I’d say. Lovely job. Seems a rum thing to do out here in the wilds.”

      “Have a squint from the other side, up towards the house.”

      Roger’s father put his hands on his knees and bent to look through the hole.

      “Well I never,” he said. “Fancy that.”

      “It frames the top of the ridge, and the trees, doesn’t it?”

      “Like a snapshot.”

      “That’s a point,” said Roger. “I wonder if it’s possible. You’d need a heck of a focal depth, and the camera I’ve brought here only stops down to f.16. It’d be interesting, technically – You’re off shopping today, aren’t you?”

      “Yes: back after tea, I expect. That’s the drag of this place. It’s a day’s job every week.”

      “I’ll need a different film and paper,” said Roger. “Can you buy it for me?”

      “Surely. But write it down, old lad.”

      Gwyn locked the billiard-room door, and instead of putting the key back on its hook in the kitchen he kept it in his pocket and went down the narrow path between the back of the house and the high retaining wall of the steep garden. He moved in a green light of ferns and damp moss, and the air smelt cool.

      When he reached the open lawn he sat on the edge of the fish tank and rinsed his hands. Grey lime dust drifted from his fingers like a cobweb over the water. He bit a torn nail smooth, and cleaned out the sand with a twig. Then he went to the stables.

      At first he thought that Huw must have finished with the coke, but when he came to the yard he saw Huw leaning on his shovel, and something about him made Gwyn stop.

      Huw stood with two fingers lodged in his waistcoat pocket, his head cocked sideways, and although his body seemed to strain he did not move. He was talking to himself, but Gwyn could not hear what he said, and he was dazzled by the glare of the sun when he tried to find what Huw was looking at. Then he saw. It was the whole sky.

      There were no clouds, and the sky was drained white towards the sun. The air throbbed, flashed like blue lightning, sometimes dark, sometimes pale, and the pulse of the throbbing grew, and now the shades followed one another so quickly that Gwyn could see no more than a trembling which became a play of light on the sheen of a wing, but when he looked about him he felt that the trees and the rocks had never held such depth, and the line of the mountain made his heart shake.

      “There’s daft,” said Gwyn.

      He went up to Huw Halfbacon. Huw had not moved, and now Gwyn could hear what he was saying. It was almost a chant.

      “Come, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”

      “Huw.”

      “Come, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”

      “Huw?”

      “Come, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”

      Huw looked at Gwyn, and looked through him. “She’s coming,” he said. “She won’t be long now.”

      “Mam says you’re to make a board to nail over the loft in the house,” said Gwyn. “If I measure up, can you let the job last till tomorrow?”

      Huw sighed, and began to shovel coke. “You want a board to nail up the loft, is that what you said?”

      “Yes, but we need time to bring the plates down without Mam finding out.”

      “Be careful.”

      “Don’t you worry.”

      “I’ll