The oaks shimmer, the stream runs cold.

Happy is he who sees the one that he loves.

The Book of Taliesin

THE TREE BRANCHED like a brain.

It was the same as the diagram in his biology text-book, a tangle of neurons and dendrites and synapses. It was what was in him now, working his eyes and fingers. So ingenious. So fragile.

He bent over the page, noticing how his shadow was ultramarine-blue on the white cartridge paper; with the side of the pencil he shaded in the edge of the bough, feeling the soft fibres of carbon darken the grain. He marked a few quick cracks, then cross-hatched the hole in the trunk, rubbed splotches of lichen, enjoying the skill in his hands, the way drawing it made him and the tree one creature.

A drop of rain spatted on the page.

Rob looked up. His concentration snapped like a thread.

Clouds were looming in from the north. They were black and heavy; already he could see the leading edge as a grey smudge drifted over the downs, masking the low hump of Windmill Hill and its barrows. ‘It’s raining,’ he said.

From the high grass a tinselly whisper of music rose and fell.

‘Dan! We’re going to get soaked.’

A hand played air guitar to inaudible riffs.

Rob glanced round. There were a few thorn bushes to shelter under, but not much else. The white chalk track of the Ridgeway ran away on each side along the exposed crest of the downs. Below in the fields, acres of barley waved.

He kicked the sprawling figure; Daniel sat up, annoyed. ‘What?’

He said it too loud, the earphones deafening him. Rob reached over and tweaked them off. ‘Come on. I’m hungry. We’re going.’

‘Right in the middle of the best bit.’ Dan turned the CD off and rubbed his numbed ears. ‘So where’s the masterpiece?’

‘Show you later. Come on.’

‘Home?’

‘No. Avebury.’

These days he never wanted to go home. It was Tuesday and Maria would be there, and she irritated him, filling the gloomy rooms with her cheery Italian chatter. They couldn’t do without her, but he didn’t have to be there to put up with it. He slid the sketchbook into the rucksack and snapped the pencil tin shut.

The bikes were tangled together in the long grass. Dan tugged his front wheel out. ‘Three more lessons, max. No more bikes then, Robbie boy.’

Rob grinned. ‘Sure.’ Danny had already taken the driving test twice. If he failed again his mother had said she wouldn’t pay for any more lessons, and if he did pass she wouldn’t let him near her car. So either way he was an optimist.

Rain was spitting. ‘Green Street?’ Rob asked.

‘Too far. The track under the barrows. Down to the lane.’

Then he was gone, riding fast, the earphones jammed back in, speeding off to heavy metal. Rob stared after him, stricken. Dan had forgotten. In the three months since the accident, they had never gone down that track.

Or maybe he hadn’t forgotten, maybe it was deliberate. Rob had to face the place sometime, and it was best to do it now, without thinking too much. He climbed on the bike and cycled, head down.

There were poppies in the fields, like something from Monet, splashes of red. Those on the grass near the track were chalk-whitened, powdered from passing trail bikes and the heavy clump of hikers’ boots. Now big raindrops spatted beside them into the dust. All across the fields the golden crop bowed and shivered, as the approaching storm shredded its peace.

The Ridgeway was rutted, its dry hollows and tyre tracks hardened into solid ledges; the bikes bumped and slewed through and over them. No one else was up here today; raising his head Rob could see the car park on Overton Hill was empty, and beyond it the lorries on the A4 roared down towards Silbury, their windshields glinting in the ominous light. All the wide downland seemed to cower under the gathering wind, and as the bikes turned into the barley and rattled down to the barrows, he breathed in the rapidly cooling air, its sweet mingled summer smells, the sourness of crusted horse dung, the spatter of insects.

Dan was well ahead. The track dropped beneath a trio of barrows, each darkly crowned with crowded copses of beech trees. As he rode under them, he saw the swell of the burial mounds, one side scraped raw where some kids had rigged a rope and dragged their feet in the white chalk. He was riding full into the wind now and the rain stung his face; he kept his head down, marvelling how the weather on the downs could change so fast. Already the rain was pelting, each drop a hardness. The front of his T-shirt was soaked.

Dan was cycling recklessly. He hated getting wet, and was careless about the rutted track, taking the bends with insolent speed. Rob was more careful. The rucksack, jammed full of tins of pastels and a bulky sketchpad, bounced on his shoulders; he raced across the downs at a crazy angle, and there was no shelter from the horizontal storm until the overgrown hedgerow along the track down to Falkner’s Circle.

The turn was too sharp. He skidded, chalk stinging out under his back wheel. The bike heeled over, hit a stone. Suddenly he was off balance, knew that nightmarish moment of going too far ever to be upright again, got his foot down, but the bike’s weight shot from under him, and he went sprawling.

‘Bloody hell!’

He picked himself up, kicked the bike, and looked at his hands. Chalk lumps rolled from indentations in his skin. One palm was grazed; its black smear filled with tiny beads of blood.

Rob blew out his cheeks and looked down the track. Dan was probably already at the road by now. He crouched quickly, picking up the scatter of pastels that had burst from their box. They were the fat soft ones, expensive and crumbly, and hidden in the wet long grass. He snatched them and jammed them back: yellow ochre, burnt sienna, madder green, all the landscape colours he spent his allowance on most Saturdays in Marlborough. Many were in small pieces, their paper tubes half hollow. The Van Dyke brown was missing; he hunted for it, and swore to find it crushed under his heel.

A horse brushed past him.

He turned in alarm. It had come up the track incredibly silently, a white horse, and as it strode away, its rider ducked low under the overhanging straggle of birch and hawthorn. From the back the horse seemed huge, its tail swishing against flies. The rider wore red, a girl, her hair cropped and fair and straight. Like Chloe’s.

He looked away instantly, flinching from the memory; scrabbled for the dusty fragments of Van Dyke brown, thrust them in the box, tossed it in the rucksack and swung the whole thing on his back. Grabbing his bike, he hauled it up.

The horse was shimmering. Whether it was the hot afternoon or the glitter of the rain that was hammering down now, something was filling the air with light, a glinting, slashing brightness, and the horse was walking into it.

Rob stood still a moment. Then, wheeling the bike, he hurried after it.

It was too far ahead. The bike wheels jolted, but always the horse was just out of sight, behind bushes, round a slight bend. Anxious, nagged by an inexplicable fear, he shoved through the leaves after it, the black rubber handles of the bike sticky in his fingers. The afternoon hushed; noise ebbed away. His senses were suddenly acute, the smell of the grass pungent, a faint coconut aroma of gorse sickly-sweet. Every fragment of chalk his wheels crushed seemed crackingly loud.

In the shimmering heat he came to Falkner’s Circle.

It hardly existed. One great stone, taller than him, lay toppled, pierced and used as a gatepost, and another sprawled half-buried in the undergrowth. But the space was palpable, the emptiness tingled on his skin; he could see it though there was nothing there to see, the space the stones had once surrounded. And the horse was walking into it.

Rob stopped, breathless. ‘Chloe?’ he whispered.

The girl looked back. Her face was shadowed by great trees, their branches so low she had to duck under them. The sun shafted through forest.

He wasn’t sure. Green flickers, motes of dust in golden light. Hooker’s green, sage green, a million greens. A narrow face, a smile like hers, not seen for three months, except in photographs. An impudent, spiteful smile. And a voice. It said, ‘Hi, Robbie.’

He was shivering.

He was icy with sweat, drenched with rain.

It couldn’t be her.

There was no circle. He knew it, and as he knew it the birdsong came back, and the spatter and crash of rain; there was no forest here or anywhere for miles, and the horse had gone too far down the track for him even to see.

He pulled the bike upright, pushed off and pedalled. In the shelter of the hedge he pelted down, ducking leaves, skirting ruts, skidding out into the emptiness of the tarmacked road, just missing a car that blared its horn angrily and swerved.

Dan was propped against the wooden fence opposite; nervously he straightened. ‘Be careful!’ As if he’d just remembered this was the place the accident had been.

‘Where is she?’ Rob gasped.

‘Who?’

‘The girl on the horse.’

Dan looked at him in disbelief. Then he said, ‘What horse?’

There was no horse. It was quite obvious, and it terrified him. On each side the downs were wide-open and empty, the rain raking the crop. The road ran visible for at least a mile. Even the tourists had scattered from the downpour.

He could see the whole world.

There was no horse.

Dan was looking at him unhappily. ‘You OK?’ His voice was subdued. ‘We shouldn’t have come this way. I should have thought. Sorry.’

Rob didn’t know what to answer. So he got on his bike and pedalled towards Avebury, wobbling a little, then going fast so Dan wouldn’t catch up.

There was no real way to think about it. The shock of the horse not being there was like an electric jolt inside him; it seemed to fracture the world, was a black crack down the screen of his mind. It had been real, had brushed his side with its flank, had crushed the grass, had clinked, been heavy.

And the girl had said his name.

But it wasn’t Chloe. That would be an extra terror, because Chloe was in the nursing home, lying in the bed in the expensive room, with the tubes in her arm and the electronic monitors throbbing all around her. And his mother wiping the dribbles from her mouth.

Dan sped past him. ‘I’m an idiot, Rob,’ he muttered.

For once, Avebury was fairly quiet. Usually on summer afternoons the grass between the ancient stones was a patchwork of picnicking tourists or Reiki practitioners or groups beating drums around the obelisk marker. But the rain had driven them in, to the tea rooms or the museum, or maybe into Avebury Manor for the guided tours. Splashing up the main street through the constant stream of traffic that ran through the village, Rob watched Dan ride into the pub car park, dodge some travellers and their dogs, and disappear round the back.

He rode after him, more slowly.

Propping the bike in the shed full of chopped logs, he went in.

Mid-afternoon, the Red Lion was busy. Dan’s mother worked here. She came over, took one look at Rob and said, ‘Have you two had any dinner?’

‘What, with Leonardo da Vinci drawing anything that moves?’ Dan grabbed a packet of crisps from a box. Efficiently, she took it from him.

‘Then I’ll get you something decent. Go into the dining room and find a table.’

Dan’s mother was short and patchily blonde, an unnatural yellow that jarred on Rob every time he saw her. Now he focused his distaste on her blowsiness, the way she said dinner instead of lunch, her red fingernails. It helped. It made him feel better, even though he liked her. It blotted out the girl and the horse.

They had lasagne and chips and it was hot and tasty. Dan dolloped tomato ketchup on his.

‘Peasant,’ Rob muttered.

‘Afraid so. Not been to Italy, me. Not cultured.’

‘You can say that again.’

Dracula-like, Dan leered through two chip-fangs. Rob made the effort and laughed, though they both knew he didn’t want to. Neither of them said anything about Falkner’s Circle.

The room was full, with a comforting, steamy heat. In the window seat Americans from a tour bus, their accents loud and strange, ate and argued over maps. At the next table were some archaeology students; Rob knew them by sight because they were staying at the B & B down the road from Dan’s house. One of the girls was very pretty; Dan leaned across. ‘Get an eyeful of her.’

‘She’d make a great model.’

Dan grinned. Then he said, ‘Ask her.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘I will then.’ Before Rob could move he’d turned. ‘Hello. Excuse me. My friend is an artist. He wonders if you’d model for him.’

They all stared at Rob. ‘Shut up, Dan,’ he muttered, furiously red.

The girl said, ‘How much do you pay?’ She was straight-faced, but the others were grinning.

One man picked up their bill and went off with it; another snorted and said, ‘She’s too old for you, kid.’

‘Forget it,’ Rob muttered. ‘Honestly, it’s just him. He’s an idiot. He’s always like this.’

She smiled. ‘Well, I’m flattered. But sorry, I’m going on holiday tomorrow. Are you any good?’

She was just being nice. Dan seemed to think it was for him. ‘He’s the best. Doing art at uni next year.’

‘Which one?’

‘I’m not sure…I’m getting a portfolio together…’ Rob was mumbling stupidly. He didn’t want to be talking to her about this, he didn’t even know her, but they were going now, all her smirking friends, and she was standing up. Then she turned, and her smile had gone.

‘Look. Seriously. They need someone out on the new dig to do drawings, recording finds. With the holidays everyone’s away.’

‘What dig?’ Dan asked.

She frowned. ‘It’s a big secret. Something unusual. In a field over towards East Kennet. Ask for Dr Kavanagh; you might be just what they need.’

She picked up her jacket and then turned back. ‘Don’t say I sent you, mind. No one’s supposed to talk. Though they won’t be able to keep it quiet for long.’

‘Keep what quiet?’ Dan was overacting; his eyes were wide.

She smiled and shrugged. As if she was already regretting saying anything about it.

I speak what no one else can speak.

The Book of Taliesin

THEY SPRAWLED IN the grass by the Outer Circle, near the Barber’s Stone, which had once fallen and crushed a man in the fourteenth century. Lying on his back, Dan squirmed beneath its perilous overhang so that the shadow fell across his face.

‘Don’t,’ Rob muttered, uneasy.

‘This thing must weigh tons. He’d never have felt a thing. Splat!’

Rob didn’t answer. He sat away from the vast sarsen, cross-legged and uncomfortable. To him it never felt right even to lean against one of them; they were treacherous and dangerous things, always cold. The eternal puzzle of why they were there kept his mind from accepting them; the faces he imagined in their profiles were sinister, and their lichen-splotched leanings, their seamed and root-holed salmon and cream colours were too strange.

He tossed the pencil down and lay back. The sky was spattered with cloud, its gaps blue.

‘You could find this dig,’ Dan said, after a while.

‘Why don’t you?’

‘I’ve already got a job.’ He looked over. ‘They might pay you.’

‘Don’t need the money.’ It was boasting, but true.

Dan snorted, because during the holidays he spent most afternoons in the back room of the Lion washing glasses and wiping tables for a pittance.

‘It’ll keep you from thinking about things.’

They were silent, Rob stricken again by the glimpse of the girl on the horse, and Dan worried too, probably, because he wriggled out from the vast stone and rolled over. Rob had a sudden premonition that Dan was working himself up to ask about Chloe, whether there was any change in her condition; they both knew it was a forbidden topic so he said quickly, ‘God. Just look at this lot.’

A colourful group was trooping through the wooden gate, probably from the tents and benders that were always pitched in the tree clumps at the foot of Green Street. There were about a dozen of them, men and women with a few young kids, dressed in the usual dippy mix of camouflage gear and washed-out tie-dye. They came and stood in a circle round the next stone but one, choosing the spot carefully, circling it, tossing out handfuls of herbs. Then they joined hands and sang. Dan snorted in scorn. But then, this was Avebury. It happened all the time.

Their ritual finished, the group sat down. A girl began to talk; the others listened.

‘Place is crawling with weirdos.’ Dan sounded restless.

‘You should know.’

The girl speaker wore a purple skirt and a rainbow vest and her hair was short and red. She spoke clearly, and Rob listened, rolling after the pencil and making quick sketches of her on the corner of a page as she said, ‘Matty’s drawn up the charts and the stars are right. This is the day, and all the lines of power intersect on this very spot. I’m so glad you could all get here.’

‘They’re cracked,’ Dan said darkly. ‘They think aliens make crop circles, when it’s my uncle Pete’s friend’s brother from Winterbourne Bassett.’ He looked at his watch and pulled a face. ‘I’ve got to go. I’m on the evening shift.’

Rob nodded, drawing the backs of the people. He pulled the rucksack over, searching for the pastels. ‘See you tomorrow?’

‘Probably. Come over anyway.’ Dan dragged himself up and loped off towards the pub, then turned and walked backwards, pointing a threatening finger. ‘Get that job. Why should I be the only one to suffer?’

Rob grinned. He smoothed a few strokes of turquoise down for the back of a shirt. As he worked, the girl’s words held his attention.

‘We’ve known for months something was happening, that someone is coming here. Long prophesied, long expected. A great soul, one of the Cauldron-born. A walker between the worlds, a sorcerer and a druid. We’ve done a lot of work, and we’re sure he or she will be manifested here today, in the sacred circle. Matty thinks at seven o’clock exactly, when the moon rises over Silbury. So the plan is to meet them with joy.’

‘What if they’re not in human shape?’ someone asked.

The girl looked unconcerned. ‘They will be. We all know how powerful this place is. Our desire will draw them here and they’ll be what we need at this time.’

Rob grinned. Dan would have loved this.

They waited. They lit incense sticks and lay on the grass and talked; a few seemed asleep or meditating. As the evening dimmed the tourists in the great circle of stones began to seep away; coaches pulled out of the car park, cars full of tired kids turned towards home. The clouds that had gathered earlier began to thicken again; no one would see the moon rise through those, Rob thought acidly. Suddenly tired of sketching, he dumped the pastels in the tin and lay back, gazing up at the darkening sky through a haze of small dancing gnats. He should go home too. Maria would be gone by now. No one would be there at all. His mother would be at the nursing home with Chloe and Dad still at the theatre. It would be safe.

But he didn’t move. The grass was lumpy; its discomfort nagged at him, but the effort of getting up was too great. The August day had been hot and humid; it seemed to have robbed him of all energy, and the twilight gathered as he lay there, the shadows of the stones lengthening vaguely in the purple light. Birds sang in a rowan bush. On the road the cars hummed, quieter than before.

He rolled his head. The rainbow people were still waiting.

For an instant then a flicker of the memory of the girl on the horse troubled him and he sat up, breathing the sandalwood mustiness of incense. He had no idea of the time, but it must be nearly seven because the group was getting ready, standing, calling the children together. A man started beating a small drum; the pulse of sound throbbed over the rough grass.

Rob looked round. Everyone else had gone. Apart from him, Avebury was empty.

Spots of rain began to darken the red cover of his sketchbook; he thrust it into the bag. He realized he was waiting around in curiosity to see no druid appear, to see the rainbow group’s disappointment. The red-haired girl glanced over at him; then she and the others joined hands, crooning a low chant of three notes, over and over.

They were like people who predict the end of the world, he thought. Always sure, always waiting. Part of him smirked. But part didn’t. The part that was desperate for a miracle since the accident.

Rain pattered. He pulled out his waterproof and dragged it on, but the Barber’s Stone kept the wind off, so he crouched there. There was no sign of the moon, just an ominous grey expanse of cloud, a wind flinging rain. The downs were blotted out. The night would be stormy.

The Cauldron people looked cold. They kept up the chant, but the wind whipped out their hair. Two of the kids gave up and ran off towards the tents. The red-haired girl looked again at Rob.

He met her eyes; she glanced away, spoke to another woman, who turned and stared at him too.

The church clock began to strike seven.

The group stood, expectant. He saw they had planted pennants and flags with symbols in the grass: a crescent moon, three cranes on a bull’s back, a leaping salmon. A lot of the tribe were looking over at him now; Rob grabbed his bag and scrambled to his feet. Suddenly he was alarmed. Surely they couldn’t think … Did they think it was him?

He turned, but the red-haired girl said, ‘Wait! Please!’

Rob froze. He spun round, embarrassed, wanting Dan. They were coming towards him, the tousled children, the man beating the drum, the frowsy women, even the dogs.

The red-haired girl was anxious, her voice taut. ‘We’re waiting for someone. A being of great power, from far away, born again from the Cauldron. We know he’s coming here, at this time, when all the stars are in alignment. There is a word we’ll recognize him by, a secret word.’

‘It’s not me!’ Rob stumbled back. He raised his hands, shook his head. ‘Sorry. I don’t know anything about stars. Still at school, me.’ He sounded stupid. He wanted to sound stupid.

Four strokes of the clock.

The people studied him. For a heartbeat he knew they despised him, doubted him, weren’t sure. If Dan was here it would have been all right. Dan would have made it all into a huge joke. But the girl’s look was desperate with hope. ‘Please look into your heart,’ she whispered, coming up to him. ‘Look into your heart and choose a word. Any word. It might be the one we know. No one else is here but you. It could be you, without your knowing.’

It was crazy. He licked his lips, rain running down his hair. There was nothing to say, no word, no sound he could make that would satisfy them, but he had to say something, get away, break this circle of rain and faces and the insistent, terrifying clock crashing out the chimes, so he made himself whisper a word and the word that came out was ‘Chloe’.

The girl looked startled.

The name fell into huge silence. The bell stopped, and the drum. The only sound was the storm, stinging them all with its horizontal rain, whipping the girl’s skirts, a gale that roared over the downs and hurled itself at the high grass banks, streaming in through the ancient gateways, around the leaning, silent stones.

And as if blown here by its fury, a bird fell from the sky.

It plummeted, a tiny swallow, exhausted, crashing into the grass beyond the top of the bank, and straight after it, talons down, a hawk shrieked, but the rain blurred and the bird was gone and the claws grabbed only mud.

The girl gasped. ‘It’s him,’ she breathed. ‘He’s coming!’

Wind roared. Out of the flattened grass something shot like a bolt. Rob saw a hare hurtle along the top of the bank, its great back legs thudding, and out of the place where the hawk had come down, the rain re-formed into the swift outline of a slim dog that solidified as it streaked in arrow-straight pursuit.

The hare’s eyes were wide with terror. Remorselessly the greyhound sped after it, teeth snapping.

The girl turned. ‘He’s in trouble! Make the horseshoe!’

The hare leapt. It flung itself down the crippling slope into the ditch, falling and tumbling. Behind it the dog-shape skidded, sending chunks of chalk flying.

The girl pushed Rob. ‘Help him!’

He had no idea who she was talking about. The group formed a hasty semicircle round the stone, open ends facing the deep ditch. They clutched hands; the drum began a rapid patter, and two men dragged the coloured pennants up and rearranged them frantically, thrusting the pliant sticks into the ground, the thin silk flapping and slashing into streamers, red and gold as flames.

The hare crashed into the bottom of the ditch. Rob threw himself on his stomach, wriggled to the edge and looked down.

The ditch was flooded. Through its rain-spattered surface he could see grass, weeds, an object that became a fish. The fish dived deep with a flick of its tail; in the same instant the dog entered the water with an almighty splash.

Its shape streamlined with bubbles, lengthened, shivered. An otter sleeked by, its round head glistening.

‘Now!’ the girl screamed.

Rob scrambled down the slope; flung his hand into the water.

He caught something. Cold and slithery, scaled and slippery.

A fish.

It flexed, tightened, slid into a cold, soaked grip.

Fingers.

To his astonishment he realized a man was looking up at him, struggling out of the water. Rob held tight, clutching the grass.

Soaked, breathless, the man heaved himself up, his eyes dark with exhaustion. He coughed, grabbed tighter. ‘Is that you, Prince?’ he whispered.

The sleek rain-slashed pelt of the otter leapt. Its snarl was ferocious.

‘Into the circle!’ the girl yelled at Rob.

Rob pulled. The man made a desperate scramble and flung himself up the sheer wall of grass. He almost slid back; then Rob was stretching, hanging on with both hands. The stranger grabbed, a firm wet grip; Rob hauled and the man dug his feet in, clawing at the tussocks of grass. Above them the streamers crackled and burned; now they really were flames, their smoke whipped away by the wind, and the otter shape curled and slithered back down into the ditch, the sparks of the burning falling on it, making it yelp and howl.

‘I’ve got you!’ Rob gasped.

The man looked up at him. ‘I know,’ he breathed. ‘I know you have,’ and Rob saw his shape was strengthening as he coughed and climbed, the mud making him slip, the ditch wall a treacherous rampart, smooth and running with rain. And then he was at the top; he grabbed Rob’s shoulder and dragged himself upright and stood breathless in the opening of the horseshoe, the banners on each side of him subsiding to streamers of silk and orange. He didn’t look back.

But, scuffed and sore, his hands hot, Rob did.

The otter was watching. It looked up at him, its eyes blue. Then the rain blurred over it, and for a second Rob saw it shiver into a human outline, a woman’s slim shape, her face spiteful and strange.

‘Tell him I’ll be waiting,’ she whispered. ‘At the foot of the tree.’

Rain blurred the grass. When he’d blinked, the ditch was empty.

The stranger rubbed mud from his face. He looked worn, and all at once a little wary. ‘Thank you for bringing me in,’ he said, his voice oddly husky.

Bewildered, Rob shook his head. ‘Those animals—’

‘There were no animals. Forget what you saw.’ He turned to the group.

The red-haired girl was in the centre of the horseshoe. Without unlinking her hands she gave a nod, and the people of the Cauldron stepped forward slowly, the children nudged by their parents. The ring closed around Rob. He and the stranger were trapped inside it.

It worried him, but the tall man seemed not to care. He folded his arms, as if preparing himself. His clothes were dark and unremarkable, but his face was narrow, his hair long on the nape of his neck, and touched with silvery-grey, as if he should be old, though he seemed no more than thirty. A peculiar star-shaped scar slid over the end of one eyebrow, and his eyes were dark and quick, taking everything in. Around his neck, half hidden inside his coat on a green cord, hung a small bag made of what looked like leather.

The girl stepped forward. ‘You’re the one, aren’t you?’ She sounded awestruck.

The man smiled. Then he said quietly, ‘I have been in many forms. A blue salmon, a stag, a roebuck on the mountain. The foam of the ninth wave. A moth in a lantern, a harpnote on the wind. Before I was born I lived. After I die I will be born.’ He glanced around at them, their intent faces. ‘I’m a poet. Is that what you’re waiting for?’

They eyed each other. Uneasily, Rob thought. He edged a step away from the stranger.

‘Tell us your name,’ the girl said.

The man shivered, glanced down at the grass, the tiny plants growing at the foot of the stone. ‘I have many names,’ he said. ‘Why not call me Vetch?’

‘That isn’t the word we’re waiting for.’

‘Word?’ The stranger’s calm eyes considered her.

The girl was impatient now. ‘Don’t you know? Nine of us dreamed of a letter. Or it came in some way, in the ashes of the fire, in the whorls of wood. We put them together, rearranged them. They made a word. If you are the one we’re waiting for, you should know it.’

Vetch sighed. He was soaked and shivering uncontrollably, his arms wrapped round himself, the wind flapping his hair and coat. ‘I do know it. The word is the reason I’ve come, and that you’re all here. The word is the time and the place and the danger.’ He looked around at them all, at Rob, at the darkness closing beyond the stones. Then he said wearily, ‘Couldn’t we go somewhere a little drier than this?’

‘First we need to know,’ the girl insisted. No one moved, or unlinked their fingers. Rain dripped relentlessly down Rob’s neck.

The stranger coughed. ‘Poets know that words can be deceptive.’ He lifted his chin and, with an effort, drew himself upright. ‘But the word you want,’ he said quietly, ‘is Darkhenge.’