This time when he set off along the path there were no coloured ghosts, and his apprehension – together with the hazy miasma of the memory – gradually evaporated. He liked walking on the grass; its soft springiness seemed to propel him forward in long, fluid bounces. A gentle breeze cooled his face and the china-blue sky arched over him like a vast upturned cereal bowl. To his left the ground fell away steeply and in the distance he could see the two-way river snaking across the rolling hills. It was all so pretty and bright, like a Toy-Town film set. He could have reached out and cupped one of the far hills under the palm of his hand.
Something caught his eye to the right: a splash of colour. He turned quickly, in time to see two rabbits diving into the hedgerow, alarmed by his approach. They were lovely creatures, one a rich dark blue, the other emerald green – brighter even than the grass – and each showing its bob-tail, a flash of dazzling white against the coloured fur.
He was moving quickly now. Although he could feel the turf under his soles at each step, he seemed to be gliding over the surface of the field. He was a yacht sailing across the open sea; shimmering waves flowed across the grass, sweeping over the crest of the hill, crossing and recrossing each other, forming intricate whorled patterns as they swirled and eddied around his feet. Here and there exotic plants thrust up through the ripples: thistles with leaves like razor-wire and colour-burst flowers of brilliant pink; yellow ragwort crawling with black and vermilion caterpillars, too poisonous even to look at; and rose-bay willow-herb, spilling its feather-cloud seeds into the wind.
His velocity increased. The waves swept under him at giddying speed and the taller plants streaked by like telegraph poles from a train window. He ought not go so fast, he could easily trip, but he felt sucked forward by his own momentum and he couldn't slow his legs.
Faster and faster and faster. The world blurred into parallel lines of speeding colour, closing around him in a tunnel of slippery speed. Everything became speed – and the speed became fear, a high velocity terror that roared in his ears, his eyes, his brain. And still he got faster, a human rocket hurtling towards the crest of the hill.
Towards the crest of the hill?
He should have half way to Jupiter by now, not still heading up the hill. Steeling himself for a fatal fall, he glanced behind. The stile, with its obnoxious signpost, was right there, no more than fifteen yards away. He turned back to the path. The crest of the small hill lay ahead of him – and he was standing stock still, washed by the gentle ripples of the grass.
He breathed deeply and his panic melted away. When his galloping heartbeat had returned to normal, he tried again. Putting his left foot carefully forward, he made a single step. That felt fine, everything was normal and he had moved about a yard. Another single step: again all OK, another yard forward. Then another, and another. He grinned, and with a surge of confidence, strode out for the top of the hill. But no sooner had he begun to walk normally, than – with a flare of naked panic – he was sucked into the tunnel of uncontrolled velocity.
He caught himself, stopped walking and was instantly still, though again no further forward than when he first started. How on earth was he meant to get anywhere? he wondered, gritting his teeth. Again he started walking – and again he was sucked into the tunnel of speed, and again when he stopped he had made no progress. This time his frustration snapped. As the grass swirled innocently around his feet, he clenched his fists and glared at the hill in front of him.
'This – is – ridiculous!' he shouted, 'Will you please stop this – at once!'
The waves seemed to pause, quivering slightly – with contrition perhaps? He started forward again, stomping crossly on the chastened ripples. And nothing happened. No acceleration, no sliding into the tunnel of speed: he was walking normally, moving like a person not a cyclotroned sub-atomic particle. This time he could feel the drag of his own weight pulling him back at each step, this time he was making effort, climbing the hill rather than sliding up it. At last he seemed to be getting somewhere.
He climbed onwards, pulling himself up the slope. Soon he was panting, heaving himself up with straining muscles, enjoying the exertion of exercise. The slope rose steeply in front of him and the summit beckoned ahead. He couldn't move quickly now, but took each step one at a time, steadily winning altitude with sweat and effort.
He paused for breath, panting hard, looking up the near vertical bank ahead of him. Not far to the top now, surely. He was certainly enjoying the climb, though he didn't remember the mountain being so – .
Mountain? What mountain?
He turned and, instead of a distant view of the road and the bridge far below, there was the stile, exactly where he had left it, fifteen yards behind. He spun round angrily to confront the mountainside and in front of him was a harmless little slope, leading to the crest of a small hill a few paces away.
'That's it,' he hissed, glaring at the grass, 'I've had it up to here with you and your silly games. I'm going back to the bridge, signpost or no signpost.'
But as he turned to march back to the stile, something felt different; the ground was flat, there was no slope. He looked around – and saw he was on top of the hill.
'Thank you so much,' he said to the grass, 'So good of you to oblige.'
On the other side of the knoll, the field banked away to the bottom of wide valley. The opposite slope was coated in thick woodland, a dense emerald green, the foliage plastic and fluid, close and yet so far away. Beyond the wood were more hills, rolling into the distance: some wooded, some a patchwork of fields, some with tiny Trumpton villages clustered on their slopes.
He was gazing out over the view – sensing the great distance, yet knowing he could pluck like a flower one of the tiny trees from the furthest hill – when he noticed someone in the field ahead of him. A middle-aged man, slightly overweight and wearing a light fawn anorak and dark blue slacks, was scampering around on the grass, coming up the hill towards him in a meandering series of zigzags and circles. The man paused apprehensively for a moment when he saw him, but then ran forward excitedly, clearly delighted with his discovery.
'Good afternoon. Lovely day, isn't it?'
The man did not respond, but ran around him, sniffing at his coat.
'Bit of a chill in the breeze, though,' he said, with growing embarrassment. The man grinned and got onto his hands and knees to sniff at his shoes.
There was a distant bark. The man paused briefly, but quickly went back to his excited sniffing and scrabbling. A large yellow dog – a retriever – was walking sedately beside the hedgerow at the top of the field. It stopped, looked across at them and barked again, this time with an edge of irritation. The man stopped sniffing and, a little crestfallen, looked up. Another bark. With obvious reluctance, he got to his feet and began to amble slowly away, stopping once or twice to sniff at a tussock. When he eventually reached the dog, the pair walked on side by side, the man occasionally running forward a few paces to investigate the hedgerow, although quickly falling back into line.
Where to now? he thought, turning away from the incongruous duo. The path he was on swept down into the valley where another stile led into the woods. Of course he didn't have to stick to this particular path, or to any path at all for that matter. It was a big field and he could go anywhere he wanted. But as he looked out over the open grass, across the uncharted expanse of swirling waves and whirlpool eddies, he shuddered. Despite everything, it might be better to stick with the devil he was, by now, getting to know rather well. And so, with one last look around the little hilltop he had won with such difficulty, he started down the path towards the woods.
He hadn't gone more than six paces before he noticed the slope getting steeper, falling away in front of him. After a few more steps he was on a steep bank, gazing down into the valley bottom miles below, giddy with vertigo. His feet began to slip on the near vertical grass, he was about to fall – .
'Just you stop tha
t!' he snapped, 'Right this minute!'
The One Who Is Two (Book 1 of White Rabbit) Page 11
