Tugging his collar up against the wind, he sidestepped a group of adolescent skateboarders who found the smooth pavement round the Market Cross a perfect arena. A particularly fierce gust sent a sheet of paper spiraling past his cheek. He grabbed at it in instinctive self-defense, glancing absently at what he held in his fingers. Pink. A flyer, from the Avalon Society. Glastonbury Assembly Rooms, Saturday, 7:30 to 9:30. An introduction to crystal energy and its healing powers, showing how the chakras and crystals correspond. Make elixirs and learn how to energize your environment.
“Oh, bloody perfect,” he muttered, crumpling the paper and tossing it back to the wind. That was the worst sort of nonsense, just the type of thing that drew the most extreme New Age followers to Glastonbury. Ley lines … crop circles … Druid magic on Glastonbury Tor, the ancient, conical hill that rose above the town like a beacon …
Although Jack, like generations of his family, had grown up in the Tor’s shadow, he’d never given any credence to all the mystical rubbish associated with it—nor to the myths that described Glastonbury as some sort of cosmic mother lode.
So why on earth had he just scribbled what seemed to be a garbled message from some long-dead monk? Was he losing his mind? A delayed reaction to grief, perhaps? He had read about post-traumatic stress syndrome—could that explain what had happened to him? But somehow he sensed it was more than that. For an instant, he saw again the small, precise script, a thing of beauty in itself, and felt a tug of familiarity in the cadence of the language.
He resumed his walk to the pub, then a thought stopped him midstride. What if—what if it were even remotely possible that he had made contact with the dead? Did that mean … could it mean he was capable of instigating contact at will? Emily—
No. He couldn’t even allow the idea of such a thing. That way lay madness.
A skateboarder whooshed past him, wheels clacking. “You taking root, mister?” the boy called out. Jack lurched unsteadily on, across the bottom of the High Street towards the George & Pilgrims. As he reached the pub, the heavy door swung open and a knot of revelers pushed past him. An escaping hint of laughter and smoke offered safe haven before the wind snatched sound and scent away; and then, he could have sworn, he heard, faintly, the sound of bells.
The cats slept in the farmyard, taking advantage of the midday warmth of the pale spring sun. Each had its own spot—a flower pot, the sagging step at the kitchen door, the bonnet of the old white van that Garnet Todd used to deliver her tiles—and only the occasional twitch of a feline ear or tail betrayed their awareness of the rustle of mice in the straw.
Garnet stood in the doorway of her workshop, wiping her hands on the leather apron she wore as a protection against the heat of the kiln. She had almost completed her latest commission, the restoration of the tile flooring in a twelfth-century church near the edge of Salisbury Plain. The manufacture of the tiles was painstaking work. The pattern suggested by the few intact bits of floor must be matched, using only the materials and techniques available to the original artisans. Then came the installation, a delicate process requiring hours spent on hands and knees, breathing the dank and musty atmosphere of the ancient church.
But Garnet never minded that. She was most comfortable with old things. Even her work as a midwife—although it had honored the Goddess—had not given her enough visceral connection with the past.
Her farm, a ramshackle place she’d bought more than twenty-five years ago, was proof of how little use she had for the present. The house stood high on the western flank of the Tor, its pitted stone facade in the path of a wind that had scoured down from the hilltop for years beyond memory. The sheep that grazed the grassy slope were her nearest neighbors, and for the most part she preferred their company.
At first she’d meant to put in the electricity and running water, but the years had passed and she’d got used to doing without. Lantern light brought ochre warmth and comforting shadows, and why should she drink the chemically poisoned water the town pumped out of its tanks when the spring on her property bubbled right up from the heart of the sacred hill? Enough had been done in this town to dishonor the old and holy things without her adding to the damage.
A cloud shadow raced down the hillside and for a moment the yard darkened. Garnet shivered. Dion, the old calico cat who ruled the rest of the brood with regal disdain, uncurled herself from the flower pot and came to rub against Garnet’s ankles. “You sense it, too, don’t you, old girl?” Garnet said softly, bending to stroke her. “Something’s brewing.”
Once, long ago, she had caught that scent in the air, once before she had felt that prickle of foreboding, and the memory of the outcome filled her with dread.
Glastonbury had always been a place of power, a pivot point in the ancient battle between the light and the dark. If that delicate balance were disturbed, Garnet knew, not even the Goddess could foresee the consequences.
• • •
Glastonbury did strange things to people—as Nick Carlisle had reason to know. He’d come here for the Festival, part of his plan to take a few months off, see a bit of the world, after leaving Durham with a first in philosophy and theology. On a mild evening in late June he had rounded a bend in the Shepton Mallet Road and seen the great conical hump of the Tor rising above the plain, St. Michael’s Tower on its summit standing squarely against the bloodred western sky.
That had been more than a year ago, and he was still here, working in a New Age bookshop across from the Abbey for little more than minimum wage, living in a caravan in a farmer’s field in Compton Dundon—and trying to forget all that he had left behind.
He often came to the George & Pilgrims for a pint after work. A fine thing, when a pub did duty as his home away from home, but then his caravan didn’t count for much—a place to put the faded jeans, T-shirts, and sweatshirts that made up his meager wardrobe, along with the books he’d brought with him from Durham. The small fridge smelled of sour milk, and the two-ring gas cooker was as temperamental as his mother.
The thought of his mum made him grimace. Elizabeth Carlisle had raised her son alone from his infancy, and in the process had managed to make quite a successful career for herself penning North Country Aga sagas. She had managed her son’s life as efficiently as she did her characters’, and had then pronounced herself affronted by his resentment.
Furious at his mother’s usurping of his responsibilities, he had convinced himself that he would be able to sort out his life as soon as he escaped her orbit. But freedom had not turned out to be the panacea he’d expected: he had no more idea what he wanted to do with his life than he’d had a year ago. He only knew that something held him in Glastonbury, and yet he burned with a restless and unfulfilled energy.
From his corner table, he surveyed the pub’s clientele as he sipped his beer. There was an unusual yuppie element this evening, young men sporting designer suits, accompanied by polished girls in skimpy clothes. Nick could almost feel the rumble of displeasure among the regulars, clustered at the bar in instinctive solidarity.
One of the girls caught his eye and smiled. Nick looked away. Predators in makeup and spandex, girls meant nothing but trouble. First they liked his looks, then, once they found out who his mother was, they saw him as a ready-made meal ticket. But he’d learned his lesson well, and would not let himself fall into that trap again.
Turning his back on the group, he found his attention held by the man sitting alone at the bar’s end. The man was notable not only for his large size and fair hair, but also because his face was familiar. Nick had seen him often in Magdalene Street—he must work near the bookshop—and once or twice they had exchanged a friendly nod. Tonight he sat hunched over his drink, his usually amiable countenance set in a scowl.