Free Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper Page A

embracing Will and Barbara in a rueful smile. “Come on. Let’s go and have tea.”
    Will came last, trailing despondently. From the moment when he had heard the man in the car begin to shout, and seen the look in his eyes, he had been no Stanton at all but wholly an Old One, dreadfully and suddenly aware of danger. The mindless ferocity of this man, and all those like him, their real loathing born of nothing more solid than insecurity and fear … it was a channel. Will knew that he had been gazing into the channel down which the powers of the Dark, if they gained their freedom, could ride in an instant to complete control of the earth. He was filled with a terrible anxiety, a sense of urgency for the Light, and knew that it would remain with him, silently shouting at him, far more vividly than the fading memory of a single bigot like Mr. Moore.
    â€œCome on, Tarzan,” said Paul, thumping his bare shoulder as he came past out of the house. So Will came back, slowly, into the other part of his mind.
    They all gathered for tea as though the disturbing Mr. Moore had never been. By one of those unspoken censorships that come sometimes in close families, those who had seen him made no mention of him to those who had not. Tea was laid out on the orange wicker table, glass-topped, that stood outdoors with its matching chairs in high summer. Will’s spirits began to rise. For an Old One with the tastes and appetite of a small boy, it was hard to despair for long over the eternal fallibility of mankind when confronted with home-made bread, farm butter, sardine-and-tomato paste, raspberry jam, scones, and Mrs. Stanton’s delicious, delicate, unmatchable sponge-cake.
    He sat on the grass. His senses were crammed with summer: the persistent zooming of a wasp lured by the jam; the grass-smell of James’s partly cut lawn mingling with the scent of a nearby buddleia bush; the dappled light all around him as sunshine filtered through the apple tree overhead, lush in full green leaf now, with small green apples beginning to swell. Many of the apples were fallen already, victims of over-population, never to grow. Will picked up one of the little thick-stemmed oval objects and gazed at it pensively.
    â€œPut it down,” Barbara said. “This’ll taste better.” She was holding out a plate with two scones spread thickly with butter and jam.
    â€œHey,” said Will. “Thanks.” It was a small warm kindliness; in a family as big as the Stantons’, self-service was the general rule. Barbara smiled at him briefly, and Will could sense her formless maternal concern that her youngest brother had been upset by the violence of the man in the car. His spirits lifted. The Old One within him thought:
The other side. Don’t forget. There’s always the other side of people too.
    â€œThree and a half more weeks of school,” James said, in a tone that was half delight, half grumble. He looked up at the sky. “I hope the holiday’s all like this.”
    â€œThe long-range forecast says it will begin pouring withrain the day you break up,” said Paul seriously, folding a piece of bread-and-butter. He went on, through a mouthful, “It’s due to go on for three weeks without stopping. Except once, for August week-end.”
    â€œOh no!” said James, in unguarded horror.
    Paul looked at him owlishly over his horn-rimmed glasses. “There may very well be hail. And on the last day of July they’re expecting a blizzard.”
    James’s face relaxed into a grin, as relief twined with shame-faced rage. “Paul, you swine, I’ll—”
    â€œDon’t kill him,” Stephen said. “Too fatiguing. Bad for digestions. Tell me what you’re going to do for the holidays, instead.”
    â€œScout camp, some of the time,” James said happily. “Two weeks in Devon.”
    â€œVery nice too.”
    â€œI’m doing summer