flash of fluorescent yellow. “There’s security guards swarming all over. I saw them from way off. Saw you too, and put it together. They’re headed this way.”
“We ran from the roadblock,” said Gray.
“Every time I meet you two, you’re escaping from someone.” Merlin tilted his head. “I like that, shows you got sense.”
“We’re not escaping,” said Gray. “We need to get into the quarry.”
Isis looked at Merlin. “Will you help us?”
He folded his arms. “Sorry, man, no can do. I’ll take you out of harm’s way. I’ll ring for your parents or whoever.”
“We don’t need to go home!” said Isis.
“The quarry’s dangerous,” said Merlin, shaking his head.
“Please…”
“It’s not a playground in there! I’d be crazy taking you in.”
Beneath them, colours shifted, and through the patterns Isis could read the creature’s pain and fear. She wanted to lie flat on the ground and spread her arms, to whisper words of comfort into the grass.
How could she tell Merlin what lay beneath them, that his ‘ley lines’ were actually the thoughts of a creature as large as the landscape? A living ship, a life made of stone, a star-beast? None of which really described something she could barely imagine.
Someone in a yellow jacket emerged from the woods behind them, and let out a shout.
“You said the earth was calling us,” Isis said desperately to Merlin. “You said we were here for a reason! Well we know what it is – we have to—” She stopped; how could she ever explain?
“I’m glad you’ve got connected, man, but even though it’s shut down, cos of the protest, the quarry’s still dangerous.”
“If it’s shut down, we’ll be perfectly safe!” said Gray.
Someone else joined the figure at the edge of the trees. Two yellow-jacketed men were heading out into the field.
“Please?”
Merlin sighed. “Okay. Cos there’s something about you two, I can tell. So I’ll take you for a look, but that’s all. There’s a place where foxes dug under the wire, takes you up above the quarry.”
A wave of gratitude coloured the field in ripples of hundreds of different shades.
“You! Stop there!” shouted one of the yellow-jacketed men.
“Better hurry,” said Merlin.
They set off running, following Merlin, their footsteps landing in pools of rainbows.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Gray
It was muddy getting under the fence, and I got a rip in my school blazer from the wire. I hardly even noticed doing it though, because all these versions of me were calling, Graaaaaayyyyy, Graaaaaayyyyyyy.
Now I knew they weren’t zombies or ghosts, but only an alien trying to talk, they were almost funny. Especially the babies, toddling about.
We lost the security guards easily enough because Merlin knew his way round the valley way better than they did, and soon we were back in the woods. We scraped our way underneath the fence and Merlin led us between the trees and tangles of bramble.
Almost between one step and the next we passed from autumn woods into open space. The woodland had been cleared, all the trees cut down in a wide area around the quarry. Most of that side of the valley was nothing but circles of pale, newly cut tree stumps. From where we were standing, among the sawn-off remains, I had a whole new view of the quarry. I could see that where the diggers had been working was only a tiny part of what was planned, judging by how far back they’d cleared the woods.
The alien me-ghosts shuffled their way out of the trees, filling every space around me on that hillside. They looked into the quarry, and all began whispering. Hurtinghurtinghurting.
Isis winced, like she’d heard them.
“Will the protestors be able to stop the mining?” she asked Merlin.
“For a bit. Hours, days maybe. After that…” He shrugged.
“Why aren’t you there then?” I said to him, feeling angry. If he cared, like he said he did, he should’ve been with the protestors, trying to make a difference.
He tucked his dreadlocks behind his ear.
“I never said I was a protestor. Those guys down there won’t stop what’s coming, not with big money and the government behind it. But someone’s gotta see it happen, man. Someone’s gotta walk every footstep of these woods, and remember all the trees and plants, the birds and the insects that live here.” He bent down and gently stroked a patch of moss on what was left of a tree trunk. “Even the moss. Someone’s gotta remember, so it can be mourned.”
“You can’t just let things happen and then feel sad!” I said.
“Sometimes that’s all there is.”
I tried