or hallucinogen, looking back with cold eyes on the psychedelic phantoms he once pursued. She was damp and chilled; but she did not move. ‘We searched for it,’ he went on, ‘long after, when we learnt its importance, but it was too late. The feuding families of that time had hidden their treasures so efficiently that even their descendants could not find them. They left clues, and ciphers, but the clues were mislaid and the ciphers indecipherable. The trail had vanished. And then, about twenty years ago, a famous chalice was sold at auction—one that had gone missing during the relevant period. Apparently it had been retrieved in the last great war when a bomb demolished the wall concealing a secret vault. I could not trace the minor items which might have been found with it, but I imagine a traveller collecting flotsam could well have bought one of them for a few pounds from a market stall. It seems a likely theory.’
‘Great-Cousin Ned,’ Fern said. ‘And then? How did you find him?’
‘He was found: I don’t know how. A chance meeting; a spell—it doesn’t matter. The interest of others drew me. This thing could be here—may be here—if it is, you must get to it first.’
‘I must?’
He ignored the interruption. ‘In the wrong hands, it could be put to the wrong use. What would happen I’m not sure—and I don’t want to find out. I’ve been watching the investigations very carefully: they—whoever they are—know hardly more than we do. So far. You have to stay ahead of them. You have to find it.’
‘What is it?’
The answer came slowly, softly, as if the Watcher feared to be overheard, there on the empty hillside without even a bird in sight. ‘A key,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you guess? It’s a key.’
‘Of course,’ said Fern. ‘We’ve been looking for the keys to open the writing desk and the chest in the attic, when all the time…it was the keys themselves which mattered.’
‘Just one key. It’ll be smaller than the others, made of stone or something that looks like stone. You’ll know it when you see it. Hide it from everyone.’
‘And then…I give it to you.’ The doubt crept back, darkening her mind. ‘And then what? What will you do with it?’
For the first time he smiled, an unexpectedly impish smile which dug punctuation marks in his cheeks and buckled the lines round his eyes. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ve been at this search for decades—centuries—and when I find it, if I find it, I won’t even know what to do. It could prove the ultimate jest—if we get the chance to laugh.’
‘Who are you?’ she asked, suddenly aware that she was very wet, and cold, and Mrs Wicklow was calling her in to lunch, and she was standing on a barren slope talking to a rock.
‘Who am I?’ The mischief faded; what was left of his smile grew ghostly. ‘That is a short question with a long answer, and we haven’t the leisure now. Who do you think I am?’
Fern shrugged, striving to sound flippant. ‘A Watcher—a wizard—a trickster—a tramp.’
‘Mainly just a tramp. You can call me Ragginbone, if you need a name. They called me that a long while back, when all this—’ he indicated his dilapidated garb ‘—was merely a disguise. Now, it’s my only self. And how should I call you?’
‘Fernanda,’ she said. ‘Fern will do. I thought you would know that already.’ There was a shade of disappointment in her tone.
‘I read your mind, not your birth certificate,’ he retorted. ‘You’d better go now, Fernanda. Your lunch is waiting, and you should change into dry clothes. I’ll be here tomorrow. Or the next day. Remember: find the key. You must…find the key…’
The wind snatched at her hat and as she turned to recapture it the rain seemed to swirl around her, blurring the landscape, and when she looked back up the path there was only a rock—she could see it was a rock—shaped like a seated man with his hood pulled forward over his face. She ran on down the hill towards the house.
For the time being, Fern said nothing to Will about her encounter with Ragginbone. It was not that she expected disbelief: on the contrary, Will was only too prone to believe in the improbable or even the impossible, while dismissing probabilities as too dull to merit his faith. But Fern needed a while to assimilate her own reactions and come to terms with what she had learned. In any case Will, she told herself, was still very young, obviously imprudent, easily carried away by overenthusiasm; oblivious to real danger, he would see this shadowy world into which they had strayed as merely an adventurous game. And she was sure there was danger, lying in wait, a little way ahead of her: she could sense it even as the hunter senses the tiger in the thicket.
Will had struck up an unlikely friendship with the vicar and over the next few days, when not rummaging in the attic, he accompanied Gus on leisurely rambles up on the moors, identifying wildlife and listening to local folklore. Fern declined to go with them, beginning a methodical search for keys, turning out drawers and emptying cupboards to no avail. ‘He’ll have put them in a safe place,’ opined Mrs Wicklow. Fern, who had done that herself on occasion, was not encouraged. She wanted another talk with Ragginbone but the hillside was bare again, leaving her oddly bereft, and it was small consolation that no snuffling disturbed her slumber. The most disquieting incident was when the black-visored motorcyclist passed her and Will on the road one evening, cutting in so close that they had to leap for the verge. But this, surely, could only be an act of mindless bravado, a young tough out to terrify and impress; it could have no connection with the mystery of Dale House.
On Friday morning, Robin telephoned. There was a lot of background noise and although Fern could hear him he didn’t seem to be able to hear her very clearly. He said he was at the airport, about to emplane for New York: an urgent business trip, Alison Redmond had given him some contacts, an American historian working on witch-trials, all very exciting. He might be gone some time. ‘But, Daddy—!’ Anyway, she wasn’t to worry. He’d arranged everything. Alison would come and stay with them, take care of things, help fix up the house: she had a real flair for interior design. He knew Fern would get on with her. (Robin always knew Fern would get on with his various girlfriends.) Over the phone she heard the tuneless tinkle that precedes an announcement over the tannoy. ‘Must go, darling. I’m awfully late—’ and then the line went dead and Fern was left clutching a silent receiver, a pale anger tightening her face. Gradually, it drained away, to be replaced by bewilderment. Accustomed as she was to her father’s erratic behaviour, this level of impetuosity appeared extreme. ‘I detect Ms Redmond’s Machiavellian hand behind the whole business,’ she declared over lunch, putting Will and Mrs Wicklow in the picture. ‘What I don’t understand, is what she’s after.’
‘Happen she’s looking for a husband,’ said Mrs Wicklow sapiently. Her dourness had long been revealed as purely external and she had evidently ranged herself on the side of the young Capels.
‘Well, naturally,’ said Fern. ‘That was what I assumed from the start. I’ve never had any problems dealing with that kind of thing.’
‘Cunning little lass, isn’t she?’ Mrs Wicklow almost grinned.
‘But,’ Fern persisted, ‘if it’s Daddy she wants, why send him to America? It’s almost as if—’ She stopped, closing her mouth on the unspoken words. It’s almost as if she were interested in this house. It was not cold in the kitchen but Fern felt a sudden chill.
‘What’s she like?’ Will asked. ‘I haven’t met her, have I?’
Fern shook her head. ‘She’s clever,’ she said. ‘I think. I don’t really know. She has a lean and hungry look, like Cassius in Julius Caesar. But…there’s something there you can’t catch hold of, something fluid. She can look all bright and glittering and slippery, like water, and yet you always feel there’s a hardness underneath. I can’t explain it very well. See for yourself.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘Sometimes,’