Part 40 (2/2)

Rain drenched their hair and ran down their faces. Kevin got to his feet and dragged Tess up.

'Run, Tess,' he yelled. 'The whole lot is about to come down on top of us!'

Even as he spoke there came a deafening crack from above, as though the cliff itself had split in two.

'Come on, Tess! Run!'

But Tess held her ground. She shook her head. 'No.'

'Are you mad?' Kevin was shouting now, his voice barely audible above the creaking and groaning of splintering rock and the splas.h.i.+ng of monsoon-like rain.

'No!' Tess shouted back. 'I'm not mad. But I know that Declan won't hurt us!'

'What do you think he's doing, then?' Kevin yelled.

There was terror in his voice. To their right they heard the crash of fracturing trees as the first huge boulder hurtled down on the woods from the crag above.

But still Tess held her ground. 'He won't hurt us,' she repeated. 'None of them will.'

Another ma.s.sive chunk of rock crashed into the trees. Lightning struck repeatedly nearby, making the world smell of sulphur.

'But they're trying to kill us!' said Kevin.

Tess shook her head, absurdly calm amid the raging chaos. 'They won't kill us,' she said. 'They won't hurt us at all. They're the Good People, Kevin. The Good People.'

And as though the forces of nature themselves had heard her words, the wind dropped and the storm died away and the rain continued for just long enough to extinguish the lightning-fires, then it stopped, too.

Tess and Kevin sat on the wet moss at the foot of the crag, absorbing their experiences and waiting for daylight. Gradually the birds regained their confidence and resumed their singing, and from a nook in the rock beside them, Cat Friend peeped out.

'Lightning finished, huh, huh?' she said.

'Yup, yup.'

Tess bent down to talk to her, and as she did so, something in her jeans' pocket dug into her stomach. She pulled it out. It was Orla's inhaler.

'White Cat at home in the rock, huh?' said Cat Friend.

'Yup,' said Tess. 'White Cat, raven, hare, all back inside the rock.'

Cat Friend slipped away and disappeared, and Tess felt a stab of regret, knowing that she was unlikely to see her again, or Declan either, at least in his handsomest form.

'What's that?' said Kevin, noticing the inhaler.

'It's Orla's,' said Tess. 'For her asthma. I'd better get it back to her, in case she's looking for it.'

She stood up and Kevin joined her. 'You should, I suppose,' he said. 'Although I've got a funny feeling that she won't be needing it any more.'

He slipped an arm around her shoulders and together they began to make their way through the trees. But after a few yards, Tess stopped.

'Did you hear footsteps?'

Kevin listened hard. 'I don't think so.'

Tess looked back. 'It's like a dream,' she said. 'As though it never happened at all. If you saw the rock now, would you believe that you could walk straight into it?'

Kevin shrugged. 'I think I'd have doubts, to be honest.'

He turned back to her, and as he did so he fixed his eyes on her throat and shook his head in astonishment.

'But it happened all right,' he said. 'There's your proof.'

Tess remembered the torque and reached up to take it off. In her hand was nothing but a few twists of rusty old wire, and around her finger, where the gold ring had been, was a plastic washer from a tap.

Kevin started to laugh. 'There's your gold, Tess,' he said. 'There's your glamour.'

Despite herself, Tess laughed too. At the same moment they both stopped, each of them certain that they heard another voice laughing along with them.

But no matter how hard they listened, all they could hear was silence.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 1999 by Kate Thompson.

Cover design by Michel Vrana.

978-1-4804-2422-7.

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media.

345 Hudson Street.

New York, NY 10014.

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