"Aye, of course; do you think the Well masters time?"

"Christ!" The images had been of Surcombe in the late dusk of a summer evening. "I never realised. My Dad'll kill me.

Chris, look at the time!"

The blonde girl s.n.a.t.c.hed a glance at her watch. "We can't possibly get home before eleven. I'll get shot." She looked up at Elathan. "We got to go. And I mean now!"6 Helen Gabriel The next morning was overcast, grey light flooding in from the east. Holly walked up to Birchdale Junction a long time before the school bus was due-she was glad to be out of the house, away from her mother and father.

All that fuss , she thought wearily, over being an hour late. One lousy hour. What if I was Gabriel and didn't get in till three in the morning; or that s.l.u.t Cath that stays out all night-what would they do then, if I was like them?

She remembered the shouting and the tears remotely, as if it were not she who had faced her father's stern righteous-ness and her mother's more-sorrow-than-anger reproach. They had wanted to know where she had been, and why she had not phoned; and there was no way she could tell them. She had been out with Chris-it was her own business -she wasn't a kid any more-they had no right to pry... and so it had gone on, till past midnight. In the morning she went through the motions of apology but it meant nothing; it had all happened too often, and she no longer cared.

The queue had grown to three dozen by the time the bus arrived, and everyone stampeded on board; a flock of tropical birds in their pastel summer dresses. Holly picked a downstairs seat and flung her satchel on the one by it, waiting until Chris should get on at the next stop.

Worth it, though, she thought, staring out of the window. Already the clouds were splitting apart, riding the wind over the eastern horizon. Despite all the arguments, she had woken with a feeling of unidentified pleasure, as if she had been given a present, or as if it were a special day, like Christmas morning. Then she recalled the hidden caverns and she was content.

She was startled out of her thoughts by Chris thumping down beside her.

"h.e.l.l an' blazes, what a morning! You done Smitty's English homework?"

"Who, me?" Holly fished in the split-seamed satchel and fetched out a battered blue exercise book. "Yeah, up to number four. And don't copy exact."

"I know better than that!"

"You ought to-you've had enough practice."

"So who does your maths for you?"

"So who does your geography?"

Chris gave a wry grin and stored the book away. When she looked up she was serious, but with a deep undercurrent of excitement.

"About last night... we'll have to go again, you know. We've got to follow this up."

Holly nodded slow agreement. "He said he'd take us to that other place. Bran-something. Brancaer, that was it. I wish he'd said where it was. I wish we could tell somebody about all this."

"Not on your life. They'd lock us up."

"Yeah; could be." But Holly was not thinking of that, she was remembering what Elathan had said just before they left Orione: "I need not tell you to be silent about us. If you speak, you will not be believed; if you seek, we shall not be here.

Nor would things go well for you. I do not threaten. I only warn." The whole hill had seemed to press down on her, and the grey pa.s.sage contract to swallow her, like a mouth, at a gulp, forever. Then Elathan had opened the gates again to cool air and a thumbnail-paring new moon.

"Up to last Sunday," Chris reflected, "I'd've called this impossible. Now I don't know."

"Magic, they said."

"Ah, no. We didn't see anything last night that, given a lot of time and money and maybe a little alien science, anybody else couldn't duplicate. They may have things we don't, but magic ain't one of 'em."

"Maybe," Holly conceded. "But there's the coin. What happened to that? And how did it get where it was, answer me that."

"You know as much as me, and I haven't a clue. Nor's Elathan." She leaned on the rail of the seat in front, not looking at Holly. "You realise-he's scared? Badly?"

"So's Eilunieth." But it seemed wrong to speak of her and fear in the same breath. "They're odd, aren't they? Different, like. I mean, not just in looks..."

She was thinking then of Fletcher, who had said "my father Elathan", and Eilunieth saying "he may pa.s.s as human". She thought: he is human. If he wasn't, I'd know-somehow. He doesn't have the look that they have, as if they really had lived long enough to see constellations change.

"They talk different, too."

Holly shrugged. "Ancient and modern-you heard him say they'd stayed away from us for centuries. I guess they speak it how they last heard it."

"Avoiding us?"

"Avoiding the sea-people, more like." Holly couldn't think of the sea now without shuddering. "Though Fletcher did tell me him and the harper knocked around a bit outside. Y'know, curious, like. But I like the way they talk. And then, there's their own language..." Holly thought on that and the elukoi's gold-eyed stillness. "If the elukoi are true-and they are-then so must the others be; the ones they're fighting."

"The seaborn, yeah. G.o.ddamit, we should've said we'd go back tonight; find out more."

"He said he'd send Fletcher with a message. Said not to go to the caverns in case we're watched." Holly had a sudden picture of gulls in the park, on the beach, over-head in the skies of Surcombe. A perfect way to watch-or attack.The bus shuddered to a halt. Chris pulled herself up. "Oh well, we're here. Let's go. We can carry this on later."

"Sure." Holly saw her fingering the plaster on her cheek and searching the crowds ahead. "Go easy today. Gabriel's in a s.h.i.t of a mood."

"So what else is new?"

Mrs Smith's English lessons were held in a second-storey room in the main building, looking out over the town. Holly made for the back corner seat; Chris next to her.

"Hey you-move your a.r.s.e!" Holly knew without even looking up: Gabriel. Chris said, "Get knotted!"

"I said move, you. That's my place."

Chris leaned back, staring aggressively at her. "Is it now? Might one inquire, since when?"

"Since now. Move, you little bleeder, or we'll make you."

h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation. Holly eyed the clock. No chance of old Smithy arriving to bust this up.

Gabriel had planted her fists on Chris's desk and was leaning over to spit words at her. The other four of her clique cl.u.s.tered round. Two sisters, within an inch of each other's height, round-faced, one with straggly dark hair, the other with a neat pigtail: Cath and Julie; a slim dark West Indian with black eyes and hair drawn smoothly back: Pramila.

The last girl leaned against the window sill, uncomfortably close to Holly. This was Diane; small and narrow-featured with a sarcastic grin. Up to a year ago she had been one of Holly's best friends.

"C'mon, shift!" With a casual sweep of her arm Helen knocked Chris's satchel flying.

"Why don't you just leave us alone?" Holly tried to sound reasonable instead of scared, but they weren't listening to her.

"That's fine, Gabriel-since you knocked it down you can b.l.o.o.d.y well pick it up again."

"Leave it," Holly whispered, hunched protectively over her own books. "It won't do any good. It never does."

"What's this, then?" Helen reached out, flipped the plaster on Chris's cheek. "Ain't no good-you gotta hide a lot more of it! What'd you do-let's see-"

Chris slapped her hands away, almost snarling. Cath chuckled, said: "That boy o' hers. Reckon she tried to rape him an' he give her a good one!"

Filth, Holly thought. Filthy dirty b.i.t.c.hes.

The gawky black-haired girl s.n.a.t.c.hed up Chris's English exercise book; Chris made a vain grab at it.

"You give that back, Gabriel, or I'll smash you one."

"Listen to her!"

"Big talk, big talk."

"You try it, c'mon, you try it!" Gabriel held the book just out of reach. By this time the whole cla.s.s was watching. "Well if you don't want it-"

Calmly she opened the book and ripped it down the spine, letting the pieces fall contemptuously to the floor.

"You effin' b.i.t.c.h!" Chris sprang up and hit Helen across the side of her face. The taller girl reached out and grabbed a fistful of blonde hair; they closed and fell struggling between the desks.

"Go it Helen."

"C'mon, Chris! Give it to the b.i.t.c.h!"

Cath kicked at Chris, Holly pulled her off and was punched from behind; the noise rose to a deafening level- "What do you think you are doing?"

Though not a loud voice, it was heard at once and silence fell. The heap of fighters fell apart and regained their feet. Holly half-heartedly dusted herself off.

"Well?"

"She started it!" Helen and Chris said together.

"Go to your seats. At once."

Mrs Smith was a small middle-aged woman with a bony figure, iron-grey hair and horn-rimmed spectacles-and an uncanny knack of terrorising her pupils.

"This is not the first time I have had to stop you fighting in cla.s.s, Christine Ivy. You can explain why to Mrs Mortimer.

You too, Helen. Go at once." Holly held her breath as Mrs Smith looked searchingly in her direction. "The rest of you, sit down. I will not have brawling in my cla.s.sroom. With the exams beginning next week I expect you to have more sense. Is that clear?"

There was not a sound, not even breathing.

"We will now go over last Friday's homework. Gillian, collect the books, please."

Holly watched as Helen and Chris left the cla.s.s for the headmistress's study. Chris was smouldering with anger and resentment, but Helen went with an easy step and a sardonic look in her eyes as if she were not afraid.

d.a.m.n that b.l.o.o.d.y Gabriel. Holly sat bent over her desk, paying no attention to the lesson. d.a.m.n her, may she rot in h.e.l.l. Christ how I hate this place, hate hate hate it. Poor Chris. . . it's happened before and it'll happen again, because when we beat h.e.l.l out of them they don't stop fighting, an' if they beat us, they don't stop then, either. Christ I hate that girl...

Her palms were cold, sweaty; the churning in her stomach settled into a hard knot. She asked to be excused and all but ran to the toilets. She hadn't eaten much that day but she vomited it all up; scalding tears running down her face, and a year's hopeless frustration and hate boiling up inside her until she thought she would choke.

"What happened?"

"Nowt much. Old Mortimer give both of us a tellin' off. Stupid cow. Says it's too close to the exams to put us in detention."

"Ah, she's right. Music an' English come next Monday, History Tuesday. Suppose we'll be revising like crazy all week-end."

"Yeah... some day I'm going to kill Gabriel."

Holly shrugged. Her stomach had settled. In place of the hate and anger had come hopeless resignation. "So? Look, maybe you beat her up bad enough for hospital, 'what does that do? Only gets her friends on to us. And she don't give up.

It's-what-a year this has been going on?"

"More. Since about March before last, I think." "Yeah. She ain't gonna give up. Why should she? n.o.body doesanything."

It was the dinner hour and they'd wandered into the playground, waiting for the second sitting to be called into the dining-hall. As they reached the top of the drive, Chris stopped.

"Let's take a slow saunter down to the gate, shall we?"

"What the h.e.l.l for?"

Chris shook her head. "Come on-and hurry!"7 In the Hollow Hills No one saw them go. Holly ran after Chris, down the drive to the gate and lower road. She had not let herself expect to see Fletcher, because of a superst.i.tious feeling that, if she did, he wouldn't be there. But he was leaning idly against the wall, and nodded recognition.

"What's going on?" Chris demanded.

Holly added, "And when?"

"Should we talk here?" he indicated the school. Only the highest windows were visible over the rhododendron hedge; but still, they could be seen.

"How about the Park?" she suggested.

Chris made a disapproving face. "What about dinner? I'm starved. Hey, what say we go down Toni's? Go up the back way, no one'll notice. I got some cash left from the weekend."

"Did we ought? I mean, you know what they're like about leaving school in the dinner-hour. It only wants one of Gabriel's mob to shop us-"

"Hollybush, you worry too much. Come on."

The town was crowded. They threaded between the people like needles through tapestry, the traffic's noise in their ears, its dust in their throats. They reached Toni's, bought sandwiches and c.o.ke (which Fletcher refused) and took possession of a corner table.

The boy scratched his tangled hair with a dark hand, sunlight striping his naked shoulders. Holly thought he looked about him as if it were the first time he'd been in a cafe- and realised, shocked, that it might be just that.

Chris ripped her sandwich apart, eating with an animal devotion. She took a quick drink, wiped her mouth, then jabbed a thumb at the boy. "OK. Give. How goes it? Know any more about the coin?"

"As to that, my father knows what happened to it-but not why."

There he goes again, Holly thought. Father. No way. No way! "All right, what did happen to it?"

"It's common with old things out of Ys-coins, brooches, daggers and the like-to put a binding spell on them; so that time does not decay them. In a like way, it touches not Brancaer. Thus do they keep the same ageless, deathless, and unaltered state that was kept in Faerie."

Holly, hearing the change from correct to archaic English, suddenly thought, When he does that, he's thinking in elukoi, and translating it. I bet that's it.

"Now, as to the coin, its binding spell was broken or ended somehow and so it lay bare to time and fell into dust, so old it was."

"And you don't know why?"