Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,36

away. That was where she wanted to go!

“I’m going back to the car,” she said, choosing a direction at a rough right angle to the path, and clambering up the slope.

“But the car’s not that way!” said Gray, left on the path.

She carried on, weaving her way between smooth and knotted trunks, grabbing branches to pull herself up the raggedy ladder of the hillside.

“You’ll get lost!”

“No I won’t!”

Somehow she knew this was exactly the right direction.

Chapter Thirteen

Isis

She’d been scrabbling up the hillside for ages but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. It hadn’t taken long to run down into the valley, so why was she still clambering, hanging onto tree roots and clumps of grass to stop herself from slipping? Maybe she wasn’t going as straight as she thought she was? Except this felt like the right way, even with Angel protesting, and even with her legs aching more and more with each step.

“Where are you going now?” Gray called from below her.

She gripped onto a low branch, glancing back, and had a spinning moment of vertigo at the steepness of the wooded bank falling away from her. It forced out the strange sense of urgency, which had stranded her here, halfway up the hillside.

What am I doing?

“Are you heading for that path?” Gray called. He was pointing diagonally away from where she was headed, to a footpath following the contours of the slope, little more than a line between the trees.

Isis nodded, too out of breath to answer him and not wanting to admit she didn’t even know where she was going. She changed her angle of scramble, heading for the path, hearing the crunch and crack of Gray behind her. Her fear of falling kept her focused on handholds and where to put her feet, so she didn’t see the man standing on the footpath until she was nearly there. A tall young man, wearing a rainbow-striped jumper, grey camo trousers and army boots. He peered down at her from under thick ropes of brown dreadlocks, his expression half hidden by a short, wispy beard.

He seemed to have appeared from nowhere, and for a moment she thought he was a ghost. But he had a shadow and he looked a little too solid. She stopped climbing, and they stared at each other for a moment.

“What’s going on then?” he asked in a deep, almost sleepy voice.

Isis didn’t answer. Her foot was wedged against the base of a small tree, but she felt unsteady all the same. She wanted to get to the path, but now this man was on it.

The man’s gaze flicked to Gray as he caught up.

“You two lost?”

“No!” said Isis.

“Yes!” said Gray.

The young man leaned down, putting a hand out to Isis. “Well if you are or you aren’t, I know these woods so I can set you in the right direction.”

She didn’t take his hand so he offered it to Gray instead, who took it and was quickly hauled onto the path.

Isis struggled the last few metres on pride, but when she reached the path her leg muscles sparked little trembles, recovering from the climb.

“You out here on your own?” asked the man, frowning at them both.

“Our parents are just down there,” lied Gray quickly, pointing to the valley floor. If only they were, then they’d have been within earshot.

“Do they know you’re wandering by yourselves? There’s all sorts in these woods.”

“You mean, like you?” Gray said.

The young man smiled. “I’m no risk to anyone, man. It’s the security guards from the quarry you should worry about. Some of them are really rough.”

“Is the quarry near here then?” asked Gray, a note of fear in his voice.

“About fifteen minutes’ walk that way’ll get you to the fence,” said the man, pointing down the footpath they were now on. “But come back in a couple of years and you won’t have to walk anywhere to reach it. We’ll be standing in the quarry right here. They want the whole valley.”

Up close, Isis could see that his trousers were stained with mud, and the cuffs of his jumper more brown than rainbow. Above his beard his face was smooth and unlined, but deeply tanned and ingrained with dirt. His hands were equally grubby, each fingernail lined with black.

“Are you one of the protestors?” asked Gray. “Dad said there’s a camp.”

The young man shrugged. “I am and I aren’t. Same as you are and aren’t lost.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m Merlin.” They both stared at him.