by Susan Cooper
“Nothing,” the Walker said sullenly. “Don’t remember.” His eyes narrowed craftily, and he gestured at his forehead and said in a plaintive whine, “Hit my head.”
“D’you remember where we found you?”
“No.”
“Do you remember who I am?”
Very promptly he shook his head. “No.”
Will said softly again, this time in the Old Speech, “Do you remember who I am?”
The Walker’s shaggy face was expressionless. Will began to think that perhaps he really had lost his memory. He leaned over the bed to pick up the tray with its empty plate and glass, and suddenly the Walker let out a shrill scream and flinched away from him, cowering down at the far side of the bed. “No!” he screeched. “No! Get away! Take them away!”
Eyes wide and terrified, he was staring at Will in loathing. For a moment Will was baffled; then he realised that his sweater had lifted as he reached out his arm, and the Walker had seen the four Signs on his belt.
“Take them away!” the old man howled. “They burn! Get them out!”
So much for lost memory, Will thought. He heard concerned feet running up the stairs, and went out of the room. Why should the Walker be terrified by the Great Signs, when he had carried one of them himself for so long?
* * *
His parents were grave. The news on the radio grew worse and worse as the cold gripped the country and one restriction followed another. In all records of temperature Britain had never been so cold; rivers that had never frozen before stood as solid ice, and every port on the entire coast was iced in. People could do little more than wait for the snow to stop; but still the snow fell.
They led a restless, enclosed life — “like cavemen in winter,” said Mr Stanton — and went to bed early to save fires and fuel. New Year’s Day came and went and was scarcely noticed. The Walker lay in bed fidgeting and muttering and refused to eat anything but bread and milk, which by now was tinned milk, watered down. Mrs Stanton said kindly that he was regaining his strength, poor old man. Will kept away. He was growing increasingly desperate as the cold tightened and the snow floated down and down; he felt that if he did not get out of the house soon he would find the Dark had boxed him up forever. His mother gave him an escape, in the end. She ran out of flour, sugar, and tinned milk.
“I know nobody’s supposed to leave the house except in dire emergency,” she said anxiously, “but really this counts as one. We do need things to eat.”
It took the boys two hours to shovel a way through the snow in their own garden to the road, where a kind of roofless tunnel, the width of one snowplough, had been kept clear. Mr Stanton had announced that only he and Robin would go to the village, but throughout the two hours Will, panting and digging, begged to be allowed to go too, and by the end his father’s resistance was so much lowered that he agreed.
They wore scarves over their ears, heavy gloves, and three sweaters each under their coats. They took a torch. It was mid-morning, but the snow was coming down as relentlessly as ever, and nobody knew when they might get home. From the steep-sided cutting in the one road of the village, tiny uneven paths had been trodden and shovelled to the few shops and most of the central houses; they could see from the footprints that someone had brought horses out from Dawsons’ Farm to help carve a way to the cottages of people like Miss Bell and Mrs Horniman, who could never have managed it for themselves. In the village store, Mrs Pettigrew’s tiny dog was curled up in a twitching grey heap in one corner, looking limper and unhappier than ever; Mrs Pettigrew’s fat son Fred, who helped run the store, had sprained his wrist by falling in the snow and had one arm in a sling, and Mrs Pettigrew was in a state. She twittered and dithered with nervousness, she dropped things, she hunted in quite the wrong places for sugar and flour and found neither of them, and in the end she sat down suddenly in a chair, like a puppet dropped from its strings, and burst into tears.
“Oh,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry, Mr Stanton, it’s this terrible snow. I’m so frightened, I don’t know . . . I have these dreams that we’re cut off, and nobody knows where we are. . . .”
“We already are cut off,” said her son lugubriously. “Not a car’s been through the village for a week. And no supplies, and everyone running out — there’s no butter, and not even any tinned milk. And the flour won’t last long; there’s only five bags after this one.”
“And nobody with any fuel,” Mrs Pettigrew sniffed. “And the little Randall baby sick with a fever and poor Mrs Randall without a piece of coal, and goodness knows how many more —”
The shop-bell twanged as the door opened, and in the automatic village habit, everyone turned to see who had come in. A very tall man in a voluminous black overcoat, almost a cloak, was taking off his broad-brimmed hat to show a mop of white hair; deep-shadowed eyes looked down at them over a fierce hooked nose.
“Good afternoon,” Merriman said.
“Hallo,” said Will, beaming, his world suddenly bright.
“Afternoon,” said Mrs Pettigrew, and blew her nose hard. She said, muffled by the handkerchief: “Mr Stanton, do you know Mr Lyon? He’s at the Manor.”
“How d’you do?” said Will’s father.
“Butler to Miss Greythorne,” Merriman said, inclining his head respectfully. “Until Mr Bates comes back from holiday. That is to say, when the snow stops. At present, of course, I can’t get out, and Bates can’t get in.”
“It’ll never stop,” Mrs Pettigrew wailed, and she burst into tears again.
“Oh, Mum,” said fat Fred in disgust.
“I have some news for you, Mrs Pettigrew,” said Merriman in loud soothing tones. “We have heard an announcement over the local radio — our telephone being dead, of course, like yours. There’s to be a fuel and food drop in the Manor grounds, as the place most easily visible from the air in this snow. And Miss Greythorne is asking if everyone in the village would not like to move into the Manor, for the emergency. It will be crowded, of course, but warm. And comforting, perhaps. And Dr Armstrong will be there — he is already on his way, I believe.”
“That’s ambitious,” Mr Stanton said reflectively. “Almost feudal, you might say.”
Merriman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “But with no such intention.”
“Oh, no, I do see that.”
Mrs Pettigrew’s tears ceased. “What a lovely idea, Mr Lyon! Oh dear, it would be such a relief to be with other people, especially at night.”
“I’m other people,” said Fred.
“Yes, dear, but —”
Fred said stolidly, “I’ll go and get some blankets. And pack some stuff from the shop.”
“That would be wise,” Merriman said. “The radio says the storm will grow very much worse this evening. So the sooner everyone can gather, the better.”
“Would you like some help with telling people?” Robin began pulling up his collar again.
“Excellent. That would be excellent.”
“We’ll all help,” said Mr Stanton.
Will had turned to look out of the window at the mention of the storm, but the snow floating down out of the solid grey sky seemed much as before. The windows were so misted that it was difficult to see out of them at all, but he caught a glimpse now of something moving outside. There was someone out there on the snow-road carved through Huntercombe Lane. He saw clearly only for a second, as the figure passed the end of the Pettigrews’ path, but a second was all he needed to recognise the man sitting erect on the great black horse.
“The Rider has passed!” he said quickly and clearly in the Old Speech.
Merriman’s head jerked round; then he collected himself and ostentatiously swept his hat on to his head. “I shall be very grateful to have assistance.”
“What did you say, Will?” Robin, distracted, was staring at his brother.
“Oh, nothing.” Will went to the door, making a great fuss over buttoning his coat. “Just thought I saw someone.”
“But you said s
omething in some funny language.”
“Of course I didn’t. I just said ’Who’s that out there?’ Only it wasn’t anyone anyway.”
Robin was still staring at him. “You sounded just like that old tramp, when he was babbling when we first put him to bed. . . .” But he was not given to wasting time on surmise; he shook his practical head and dropped the subject. “Oh well.”
Merriman managed to walk closely behind Will, as they were leaving the Pettigrews’ to scatter and warn the rest of the villagers. He said softly in the Old Speech, “Get the Walker to the Manor if you can. Quickly. Or he will stop you from getting out yourself. But you may have a little trouble with your father’s pride.”
By the time the Stantons reached home, after their struggling tour of the village, Will had almost forgotten what Merriman had said about his father. He was too busy working out how they could get the Walker to the Manor without actually having to carry him. He remembered only when he heard Mr Stanton talking in the kitchen, as they pulled off their coats and delivered their supplies.
“. . . good of the old girl, having everyone in there. Of course they’ve got the space, and the fires, and those old walls are so thick they keep the cold out better than anyone’s. Much the best thing for the people from the cottages — poor Miss Bell wouldn’t have lasted long. . . . Still, of course, we’re all right here. Self-contained. No point in adding to the manorial load.”
“Oh, Dad,” Will said impulsively, “don’t you think we ought to go too?”
“I don’t think so,” said his father, with the lazy assurance that Will should have known was harder to break than any fervour.
“But Mr Lyon said it would be much more dangerous later on, because of the storm getting worse.”
“I think I can make my own judgement of the weather, Will, without help from Miss Greythorne’s butler,” said Mr Stanton amiably.
“Oh, wow,” said Max with cheerful rudeness. “You rotten old snob, hark at you.”
“Come on, that’s not what I meant.” His father threw a wet muffler at him. “Inverted snobbery, more like. I simply don’t see any good reason for our trooping off to partake of the bounty of the Lady of the Manor. We’re perfectly all right here.”
“Quite right,” Mrs Stanton said briskly. “Now out of the kitchen, all of you. I want to make some bread.”
The only hope, Will decided, was the Walker himself.
He slipped away and went upstairs to the tiny spare room where the Walker lay in bed. “I want to talk to you.”
The old man turned his head on the pillow. “All right,” he said. He seemed muted and unhappy. Suddenly Will felt sorry for him.
“Are you better?” he said. “I mean, are you actually ill now, or do you just feel weak?”
“I am not ill,” the Walker said listlessly. “No more than usual.”
“Can you walk?”
“You want to throw me out in the snow, is that it?”
“Of course not,” Will said. “Mum would never let you go off in this weather, and nor would I, not that I’ve got much say in it. I’m the very youngest in this family, you know that.”
“You are an Old One,” the Walker said, looking at him with dislike.
“Well, that’s different.”
“It’s not different at all. Just means there’s no point talking about yourself to me as if you were just a little kid in a family. I know better.”
Will said, “You were guardian of one of the Great Signs — I don’t see why you should seem to hate us.”
“I did what I was made to do,” the old man said. “You took me . . . you picked me out . . .” His brows creased, as though he were trying to remember something from a long time ago; then he grew vague again. “I was made to.”
“Well, look, I don’t want to make you do anything, but there’s one thing we all have to do. The snow’s getting so bad that everyone in the village is going to live at the Manor, like a kind of hostel, because it’ll be safer and warmer.” He felt as he talked that the Walker might know what he was going to say already, but it was impossible to get inside the old man’s mind; whenever he tried, he found himself floundering, as if he had broken into the stuffing of a cushion.
“The doctor will be there too,” he said. “So if you were to let everyone feel you needed to be somewhere with a doctor, we could all go to the Manor.”
“You mean you aren’t going otherwise?” The Walker squinted suspiciously at him.
“My father won’t let us. But we have to, it’s safer —”
“I won’t go either,” the Walker said. He turned his head away. “Go away. Leave me be.”
Will said softly, warningly, in the Old Speech, “The Dark will come for you.”
There was a pause. Then very slowly the Walker turned his shaggy grey head back again, and Will flinched in horror as he saw the face. For just a moment, its history was naked upon it. There were bottomless depths of pain and terror in the eyes, the lines of black experience were carved clear and terrible; this man had known somewhere such a fearful dread and anguish that nothing could really ever touch him again. His eyes were wide for the first time, stretched open, with his knowledge of horror looking out.
The Walker said emptily, “The Dark has already come for me.”
Will took a deep breath. “But now the circle of the Light comes,” he said. He pulled off the belt with the Signs and held it before the Walker. The old man flinched away, screwing up his face, whimpering like a frightened animal; Will felt sickened, but there was no help for it. He brought the Signs closer and closer to the twisted old face, until, like a piece of breaking wire, the Walker’s self-control snapped. He shrieked and began to babble and thrash about, screaming for help. Will ran outside and called for his father, and half the family came running.
“I think he’s having some sort of fit. Awful. Shouldn’t we get him to Dr Armstrong at the Manor, Dad?”
Mr Stanton said doubtfully, “We could get the doctor to come here, perhaps.”
“But he might very well be better off there,” said Mrs Stanton, staring at the Walker in concern. “The old man, I mean. With the doctor able to watch him — and more comfort and food. Really, this is alarming, Roger. I don’t know what to do for him here.”
Will’s father gave in. They left the Walker still tossing and raving, with Max near by in case of accidents, and went to turn the big family toboggan into a mobile stretcher. Only one thing nagged in Will’s mind. It had to be his imagining, but in the moment when the Walker had cracked at the sight of the Great Signs, and become a mad old man once more, he had thought he saw a flash of triumph in the flickering eyes.
* * *
The sky hung grey and heavy, waiting to snow, as they left for the Manor with the Walker. Mr Stanton took the twins with him, and Will. His wife watched them go with unfamiliar nervousness. “I hope it really is over. D’you really think Will should go?”
“Comes in handy to have someone light sometimes, in this snow,” said his father, over Will’s splutter. “He’ll be all right.”
“You aren’t going to stay there, are you?”
“Of course not. The only point of the exercise is to deliver the old man to the doctor. Come on, Alice, this isn’t like you. There’s no danger, you know.”
“I suppose not,” Mrs Stanton said.
They set off, heaving the toboggan, with the Walker strapped to it so trussed in blankets that he was invisible, a thick human sausage. Will left last; Gwen handed him the torches and a flask. “I must say I’m not sorry to see your discovery go,” she said. “He frightens me. More like an animal than an old man.”
It seemed a long while before they reached the Manor gates. The drive had been cleared, and trodden down by many feet, and two bright pressure-lamps hung by the great door, lighting the front of the house. Snow was falling again, and the wind beginning to blow chill round their faces. Before Robin’s outstretched hand reached the doorbell, Merriman was opening the door. H
e looked first for Will, though no one else noticed the urgent flicker of his eyes. “Welcome,” he said.
“Evening,” Roger Stanton said. “Shan’t stay. We’re fine at the house. But there’s an old chap here who’s ill, and he needs a doctor. All things considered, it seemed better to bring him here, rather than have Dr Armstrong going to and fro. So we hopped out before the storm broke.”
“It is rising already,” Merriman said, gazing out. Then he stooped and helped the twins carry the Walker’s motionless swaddled form into the house. At the threshold the bundle of blankets jerked convulsively, and the Walker could be heard muffled through his covers shouting, “No! No! No!”
“The doctor, please,” said Merriman to a woman standing near by, and she scurried away. The great empty hall where they had sung their carols was filled with people now, warm and bustling, unrecognisable.
Dr Armstrong appeared, nodding briskly all round; he was a small bustling man with a monkish fringe of grey hair circling his bald head. The Stantons, like all Huntercombe, knew him well; he had cured every ailment in the family for more years than Will had been alive. He peered at the Walker, now twisting and moaning in protest. “What’s this, eh?”
“Shock, perhaps?” said Merriman.
“He really behaves very oddly,” Mr Stanton said. “He was found unconscious in the snow some days ago, and we thought he was recovering, but now —”
The big front door slammed itself shut in the rising wind, and the Walker screamed. “Hum,” said the doctor, and beckoned two large young helpers to carry him off to some inner room. “Leave him to me,” he said cheerfully. “So far, we’ve got one broken leg and two sprained ankles. He’ll provide variety.”
He trotted off after his patient. Will’s father turned to peer out of a darkening window. “My wife will start worrying,” he said. “We must go.”
Merriman said gently, “If you go now, I think you will leave but not arrive. Probably in a little while —”
“The Dark is rising, you see,” Will said.
His father looked at him with a half-smile. “You’re very poetic all of a sudden. All right, we’ll wait just a bit. I could do with a breather, to tell the truth. Better say hallo to Miss Greythorne in the meantime. Where is she, Lyon?”
