'Seventeen, eighteen,' Douglas finished, touching the stone on which the radio was balanced. Beneath the moon the radio's light had dimmed.
'Same as me,' Maureen told Ken triumphantly. 'What did you have, Barbara?'
But Barbara was listening for some sound which should have underlaid the radio's. She stared down the hill toward the road. The gate was gone. 'The car!' she cried, and ran.
She climbed out of the driving seat as they pelted down. 'It's dead,' she said: she seemed on the edge of weeping. She gripped Douglas' hand; he thrust his fingers through hers, happy.
'I trust you're suitably frightened,' Ken said to Maureen. 'One hysterical female will do, I should think.'
'I'm not given to melodramatics.' Barbara gripped Douglas' fingers between her own. 'There's nothing more frustrating than a dead car, that's all. Can you fix engines, Ken?'
'Haven't the faintest, I'm sorry to say. We don't feel the need for a car. We only met you tonight because we took the first bus we saw.'
'I hope it won't be too cold in the car.' Barbara pulled at Douglas' hand.
'You're joking! We must spend the night on the hill.'
'Well, my God,' Ken muttered.
'Poor Ken,' said Maureen. 'I know we could be safe in bed. Never mind, we must take advantage of the atmosphere, at least for a while.'
As they climbed Barbara looked for a ring on Maureen's finger; there was none. She realized Maureen didn't care about appearances, even flaunted them; it seemed cheap, somehow. She'd changed her own ring over for the weekend. If she saw a car approaching she'd run to it for help. With the engine, she meant. It couldn't be long before they'd be back in Exham. Her thoughts returned there; she'd thought her embroidery was sewn upon her mind, but the threads had pulled free; she couldn't blot out the approaching silent figures, nor Maureen's voice: 'What's happened to my radio?'
Although they were close now, the music was no louder. They reached the crest of the hill, and the music vanished with the light from within. For a moment the radio stood mute, an absurd crown. Then something moved; it must have been the wind. The radio toppled to the turf.
'Well, that is annoying. It really is. I'm sure I haven't used up all that battery,' Maureen said.
The car and radio were dead; the gate was swallowed. The moon poured vitality into the Sentinels; they seemed closer now, threateningly still against the surrounding restless woods. Barbara urged Douglas away from the figures. 'I'm cold,' she told him. 'Please, Doug. Let's stay in the car.'
But Douglas was otherwise alert, to something like the soughing of the trees, yet not. Voices whispering. A chorused hiss: consonants which spat hostility, forming words which he could almost understand. He whirled. It was the radio. Before the others could turn, he had smashed the radio with his heel.
'Doug!' Barbara cried. He saw her hand flash. His cheek blazed, hot as crimson. His fist clenched, then slackened. While she'd thought she was preserving sanity she had lashed out at her own fears. She met his eyes. 'I'm sorry,' she said. She clutched his hand; he didn't respond.
'It's all right.' But it wasn't: once his mother had slapped his face when he'd shrieked at an autumn leaf which had leapt on his coverlet like a spider. In those days she'd made him sell his magazines as soon as he'd filled a shelf—just as Barbara might, he thought. He didn't want a mother or a nurse.
'It's damn well not all right,' Ken said. 'Eleven quid that cost. There wasn't eleven quid's worth of bloody static in that radio.'
'I'll pay, don't worry.'
'Never mind, Ken, it was a lovely present,' Maureen interrupted. 'We can always get another. Don't let's quarrel.' She crossed to Douglas. 'Where was that stone you didn't know whether to count?'
'Over here.' Barbara stood near the edge of the circle, biting her lip, staring at the turf. Ken followed them.
'Oh, yes. There's another one opposite, I think.' Maureen turned back to Ken. 'Talk to Barb,' she called. 'Doug and I are telling ghost stories.'
'Well, if that's the way it goes, I'll look after Barb,' Ken said, kicking the radio, which had drawn electricity from the moon.
'I don't need looking after!' But Barbara didn't move away. Behind her a shape held up its hands.
'I didn't really want to show.you anything,' Maureen whispered. The head at her elbow seemed intent. 'I didn't want your friend to overhear. I know why you smashed the radio. I felt it too.'
'We'll be all right,' Douglas whispered back. 'There's four of us. Listen, if you feel this way, maybe we really should stay in the car.'
'You were waiting for me?' A smile fluttered across Maureen's mouth. She moved to place him against the wind, which had begun to flap more strongly about them. 'Don't you realize I'm terrified to death? I couldn't show it either. Doug—I keep seeing something running round the edge of the circle.'
'What?' He'd raised his voice; he stared at each figure.
'Not now,' she hissed. 'It's never there when I look at it directly.'
'Listen,' he said intensely, 'I've read about this sort of thing. It might be safer to stay within the circle.'
'Oh, God, I don't know. I don't know.' Her eyes roamed. 'Look!' she cried.
Something pale had moved; he had thought it was a tree.
The branches had now almost grasped the sinking moon. He peered about the circle. It was still; only the trees between swayed as if possessed. 'There is something,' he whispered, wanting not to tell Maureen, to protect her. 'I'm sure one of the figures has gone. It's the one I had trouble with counting.'
Before he could stop her, she was shouting against the hectic wind: 'You two, quick! Is the circle complete?' She twisted on her axis. The countryside tossed as if in the throes of a nightmare. Ken was yelling: 'One, damn it, two, damn it—' Then Barbara shrieked: 'No!'
Maureen hid her face on Douglas' chest. 'I know what she's seen,' she mumbled. T don't know which it was. One of the figures isn't stone.' She was trembling. Douglas put his arm about her shoulders.
Ken saw them; his face darkened. He pulled Barbara to him. She thrust him away and backed to the edge of the circle, her fists high. Behind her she was mimicked. Then she saw Maureen and Douglas. She cried out wordlessly and turned. Before they realized, she was stumbling down the hill toward the car.
'She's made it,' Douglas said in Maureen's ear, stroking her hair, trying to caress courage into her. 'If we can follow—' But she was still shaking. He knew what was wrong; they had to pass between the Sentinels, and he didn't dare to search for what she had seen. The trees were leaping for the moon; the wind was thrusting him toward the Sentinels. He glanced about wildly for Ken. Ken was stooping by the radio, standing up with what he'd found: a razor-sharp fragment of metal.
Then the car started.
Maureen's head turned. Together they ran to the edge of the circle. 'We must make, it,' he told her. 'Close your eyes and cling to me.' But she hadn't closed them when she screamed.
In the road below, the car had conjured forth the gate like an image of escape. They could see Barbara, tiny in the window from which light streamed forth like mist, intent on the dashboard, too intent to notice through the other window the figure squatting like a watchdog.
'The face,' Maureen sobbed, clutching Douglas.
Douglas hurled her away, to Ken, who'd dropped the shard of metal. 'What face?' Ken muttered. 'I can't see.'
'Oh God,' Douglas shouted. 'Barbara!' The car whipped about, losing the gate, and skidded into the road. A tunnel of trees sprang forth, into which it plunged. The figure ran alongside, skipping high.
Douglas slithered down the grass, ran panting up the road, falling on stones, running onward. Ahead the tunnel of light dwindled; Barbara had gone. Only the last light of the car and, as it turned a corner, the shape which leapt easily onto the roof.