Free Boneland by Alan Garner Page B

shaped the head so that it would turn. Then he worked the other breast for milk to flow.
    He curved the belly full of life and cut the slot wide to bring the birth. He shaped one arm to hold to the breasts, another to hold the young moon, and legs to stand and to be cranes to fly to carry the spirit across the land.
    And when that was done he rested and lay deep in Ludcruck by the waters until he had the strength to climb, back from the cave, by the clamour of the beasts, along the seam of grit, past the nooks of the dead, into the day and the loud crag.
    The woman was free; and she would come to him.
    ‘Hi,’ said Meg. ‘Am I too early?’
    ‘No. No. Not at all,’ said Colin. ‘How did you get here?’
    ‘Bert dropped me off. I hoped we might go for a walk.’
    ‘Of course,’ said Colin.
    ‘I’d like you to show me the Edge.’
    ‘That could last for ever,’ said Colin. ‘But we can take a stroll, if you like.’
    ‘Strolling is what I do best.’
    ‘Splendid. I’ll just pop the lamb in the oven. Oh, thoughtless of me. I didn’t ask. Are you vegetarian?’
    ‘Carnivore,’ said Meg. ‘And I like my lamb pink.’
    ‘Good.’ He unhooked his plain gown from behind the door and put it on. ‘Allow me.’
    They left the quarry and walked through the woods.
    ‘Of course,’ said Colin, ‘you have to bear in mind that all this is eighteenth-century landscaping. Before, it was called a “dreary common”.’
    ‘Well, it isn’t now,’ said Meg. ‘Hush.’
    ‘Sor—’
    ‘Ah?’
    ‘—ry.’
    They walked without speaking. Colin led the way down into a deep hollow. The floor was uneven and they skirted mud. The sides were cut straight, herringbone patterned by picks. It was another old quarry, huge and grassy. At the end Meg stopped. Pines stood above on the rim, and their roots had teased down and split the rock with life. The stone was pure, without blemish or grain, but near the bottom of the wall was a bed of red marl. The clay had weathered out, leaving a shelf. Meg reached up and took some in her hand and worked it on her palm, spitting to make it soft. Then she lifted her finger and drew it across Colin’s forehead and on his cheekbones and along his nose. He could not see what she was doing, but the marks were careful and even, matching either side. Her brow was furrowed, her finger light, precise. She looked, smiled and put her arm through his as they went out of the quarry, by a cut gap along a path, with a cleft on each side, to a broad way, and ahead was treeless sky.
    ‘Wow. What’s this? Where are we?’ said Meg.
    ‘Stormy Point.’
    The ground was sand and quartz pebbles: loose pebbles lying and pebbles in the rock. Stone thrust out. Below, the scarp was tumbled with boulders to the land beneath. The brindled fields stretched to the hills. Meg sat on a rock to see, but Colin shook his head.
    ‘Not here. Not now. Keep moving.’
    ‘Why?’ said Meg.
    ‘There are things to show you, and I don’t want to overcook the lamb.’
    ‘That path’s interesting.’
    ‘No. This way. Another time, perhaps.’
    ‘But where does it go?’
    ‘Saddlebole. Too far.’
    ‘And what’s Saddlebole?’
    ‘A spur, that’s all.’
    They were back among trees. The scarp curved in a horseshoe. The path had been rerouted, but Colin took her down along an older one, with the wall on their left and the drop to their right.
    ‘What the flipping heck is this?’ said Meg.
    They were below a pointed wedge of the hill that jutted high above the path.
    ‘Castle Rock,’ said Colin. ‘It’s the most instructive part of the Edge. It shows the Permo-Triassic boundary clearly. Which is why it’s so remarkable. Here, where we are, the polychromatic sandstone has eroded because it’s a soft aeolian desert and the grains have lost their facets through being worked by the wind; hence all the graffiti. Then above, a slow estuarine feature has moved in, hard, with no inclusions. And above it is the