Free The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner

the flat of his hand on the top course, banged it: and stopped. He couldn’t see, but his hand could feel. There was a mark on the stone, cut deep. His fingers fitted. It was a mark like an arrow. He tried to see, but there wasn’t enough light.
    Robert nudged his head to be more comfortable against the capstone, and felt again. It was an arrow cut into stone dressed smooth as Faddock Allman’s jackacre rocks. Robert’s hand was against his face, and he walked his fingers along the course.
    Right at the top of the spire, where no one could tell, the stone had been worked. Something had mattered. There was no rough rag, patched with brick. The stone was true though it would never be seen.
    Robert’s fingers touched a mark. It was cut as deep as the arrow, but was straight and round lines together. It was writing. Real writing. And Robert shouted so that all the birds winged and filled the steeple and beat around him. His hands were reading over and over the carved letters, over and over they read his own name.
    Robert slid down the bar to beam and ladder, clattered down among buffeting wings and fear. He took no care. The droppings were slime.
    He jumped his own height from the ladder to the floor and shoved the hatch open, fell through to the cross-beam of the clock, rolled, hung, let go and landed on the edge of the platform.
    ‘By heck!’ Father had been oiling the clock, but he banged the case shut against the dust and feathers that came down with Robert. ‘What are you at?’
    Robert ran round to the other side of the clock.
    ‘And what have you been rolling in?’ said Father. ‘Your mother’ll play the dickens. By heck! Don’t come no nearer. We could take a nest of wasps with you!’
    ‘There’s been someone up there,’ said Robert.
    ‘Never,’ said Father. ‘Only you’s daft enough.’
    ‘And they’ve carved me name,’ said Robert. ‘My name! Me own full name. Why?’
    ‘Where’s this?’ said Father.
    ‘Up top,’ said Robert. ‘Right under the capstone.’
    ‘What do you mean, “your” name?’ said Father.
    ‘Me name. My name. Spelt proper,’ said Robert.
    ‘Oh,’ said Father. ‘And I’ll lay you a wager it was beautifully done, too.’
    ‘I felt it,’ said Robert. ‘My name.’
    ‘And every inch of stone smooth as butter,’ said Father. ‘By God, ay.’
    ‘Was it you?’ said Robert.
    ‘Me?’ said Father. ‘No, youth. That must’ve been cut fifty-three years or more.’
    ‘But me name!’ said Robert.
    ‘It’s not your name,’ said Father. ‘It’s my grandfathers Ay. Old Robert. He was a proud, bazzil-arsed devil. But he was a good un.’
    Robert came from behind the clock. Father sat down on his heel and opened the baggin.
    ‘I knew he’d capped the steeple, same as he did at Saint Philip’s. But I didn’t ever know him to put his name to anything. His mark, yes: never his name. Happen it mattered.’
    ‘There was a mark,’ said Robert. ‘An arrow.’
    ‘That’s him,’ said Father. ‘Now you’ll see his mark all over. But you have to look. He was a beggar, and he did like to tease. Well, well.’
    ‘And am I called after him?’ said Robert.
    ‘Ay, but not to much purpose yet, seemingly,’ said Father. He ate an onion.
    ‘He was everywhere, all over,’ said Father. ‘But I got aback of him. A smith’s aback of everyone, you see. You can’t make nothing without you’ve a smith for your tools. But I don’t know what there is for you to get aback of, youth.’
    ‘I’m going up top again,’ said Robert.
    ‘Well, see as you close that hatch,’ said Father. ‘I want no feathers in me baggin, nor in the clock, neither.’
    Robert climbed back into the pinnacle, and closed the hatch. The birds had nearly all left the steeple in fright. A few fluttered, no longer knowing him.
    His secret room for years. And, at the top, a secret. Robert took hold of the ladder.
    He reached the beam, the bar, and up. When his head touched the capstone he found