Free The Owl Service by Alan Garner Page A

forward towards the blue fire, and another step.
    â€œCH 4 ,” he said. “CH 4 ? One atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen. That’s – methane –. Methane!”
    Gwyn jumped at the flame. He landed on his hands and knees in water and rotten leaves, and the flame had gone.
    Gwyn slashed through the mud and stamped at the nearest tongue. It disappeared.
    â€œMethane!” Stamp. “Methane!” Splash. “Marsh gas!” Gwyn trampled the delicate veils, laughing wide-mouthed. “CH-piddling-Four!”
    He fell against a dead sapling which snapped. The sharp noise brought him up. “Oh Crimond,” he said. “Alison.”
    That’s done it, that has. Thought yourself clever, didn’t you waiting so patient and all? And you have to go and chuck it away when it’s handed you on a plate. Ha! Plate! Two penn’orth of methane and you scream the house down. You’ll be lucky if you get within a mile of them plates now – and by, won’t it make a nice little story for dear little step-brother!
    Gwyn headed out of the swamp. He was so angry with himself that he took no notice of the marsh gas, nor of the wood, nor of the moonlight, nor of the noise he made.
    Oaf.
    Peasant.
    Welsh git.
    â€œAchoo!”
    He stopped on a stride.
    â€œA-choo!”
    The sneeze was near him. He listened, but he heard nothing to give him a direction.
    Gwyn scanned the wood. To his right the ground was steep and very black. In front of him a raised causeway stretched across a pool to a gate in the boundary fence on his left. He waited for a movement to give her away. He turned his head from side to side, examining everything that lay in his arc of vision.
    Got you.
    She was standing under a tree at the end of the causeway, near the gate. He looked: and looked. She became clearer, standing half hidden by the dapple of leaves in the moonlight. He could see the line of her through the branches.
    But has she seen me? She’ll not have the plates there, and if I let on she’ll act dim, and we’ll be no nearer.
    I’ll sit you out this time, girlie. What’s up? Think you heard something? Steady: if you move, I’ll see you. Wait till we’re nice and quiet again and you’re sure nobody’s after you, then it’ll be safe to carry on – and I’ll be behind you, Miss Alison.
    â€œA-choo!”
    Gwyn’s teeth clenched. Alison had sneezed next to him, above, and a little to the right, where the wood was darkest. Gwyn made himself look.
    â€œStone me!” said Gwyn.
    An old hen hut on iron wheels sat rotting in the marsh, and from inside the hut came a faint noise of moving crockery.
    So who’s by the fence?
    The figure was still there at the end of the causeway, waiting under the tree, head and shoulders, and arms and the slim body, and then he saw, no less clearly, leaves and branches, thicket and moonlight, and no one waiting.
    â€œStone me!”
    Gwyn kneaded his face with his hands and shook his head. His eyes were heavy with strain.
    There was a window on the opposite side of the hut: chicken wire was nailed over it. Gwyn found the door, which had no lock, only an outside latch.
    Alison was huddled over her torch, which she had propped against a stack of plates, and was cutting owls out of a roll of tracing paper. She worked quickly, discarding each owl as soon as it was finished to begin the next. The ribbed stacks surrounded her and reflected the torchlight. She rocked on her heels with concentration.
    Gwyn drew back from the window.
    â€œAlison,” he said quietly. “It’s Gwyn.”
    The light went out.
    â€œAlison.”
    He ran to the door.
    â€œAlison. It’s me. Gwyn. Don’t be scared.”
    There was no reply.
    â€œAlison.”
    He opened the door. The hut was a black hole, and he could see nothing.
    â€œAlison. Don’t act daft. I want to help you. Alison, I’m coming in. Shine