curls constantly falling into them. Her neck was a slim white column accentuated by the scarlet ribbon and she looked like something from a fairytale.
‘Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!’ Maizie had laughed, overwhelmed by her daughter’s almost exotic beauty.
‘It’s the ugly step-sisters I’m worried about,’ Leveret had muttered in reply.
Now they both stood outside the Barn, Maizie with her arm around her trembling daughter.
‘See – the coach hasn’t arrived yet,’ said Maizie. ‘’Twill be better to go in now while it’s still quite empty, then you won’t feel so self-conscious. You can come and help me check on all the food.’
So they went in, feeling the alienness of the Barn. There was a disco set up with mixing decks, machines and electric lights and two strange men stood behind it busy with large head-phones over their ears. The music was very loud and full of bass compared to the fiddles, drums, guitars and flutes normally heard in here. But Maizie was right – there weren’t too many people around yet. Leveret hung up her cloak and stood in her dark green dress feeling very strange, as if she were another person.
And it seemed as if everyone else thought she were another person too. Bryony, Linnet, Skipper and Tansy, who were in her class at school, stood and stared at her in disbelief. They all looked nice but none of them were in Leveret’s league. The group of older girls who’d been so kind to her the other day actually came over to compliment her.
‘Leveret, you look absolutely stunning!’
‘Wow – I barely recognised you.’
‘Talk about the ugly duckling! Look, you’re a swan!’
Leveret giggled at this and began to relax just slightly. Maybe she did look quite nice and maybe people wouldn’t think she was hideous. Maybe – just maybe – Kestrel might notice her tonight?
17
Understanding that her daughter was terrified, Maizie kept her close while she talked to other adults behind the laden trestle-tables of food. The last thing she wanted was Leveret to bolt back home in panic. Maizie was immensely proud of her, beaming at the Village women who shook their heads in amazement at the little tomboy’s transformation. Leveret stood quietly and gradually the Barn grew busier as groups of boys who’d been messing about outside on the Village Green started to drift in. Then there was a call from the Gatehouse to say the coach had arrived and was on its way down. Many more youngsters still outside piled into the Barn and the disco lights were switched on, strangely colourful and flickering to people only used to lantern and candlelight in the place. The volume of the music was turned up and everyone waited expectantly. Leveret, her heart pounding with nervousness, looked around to locate Sweyn, Gefrin and Jay – and Kestrel too, if possible – but she couldn’t see any of them.
The coach pulled up outside the Village as the cobbled tracks weren’t wide enough for such a vehicle, and almost fifty teenagers from the Outside World tumbled out in an excited, noisy throng. They were all from the local college and were intrigued to be here. The kids from Stonewylde were renowned for being an odd bunch, strangely quaint and different from them in many ways, and nobody in the coach party knew what to expect now they were in the Stonewylders’ stronghold. In fact the guests had no idea just how honoured they were. Inviting such a large group of Outsiders into Stonewylde had never been done before in living or recorded memory – not since the days of tribes and settlements when visitors would come to trade, and that was a very long time ago.
The young people in their party clothes huddled round the familiar coach and looked about in bewilderment, trying to make everything out and wondering why, even for rural Dorset, it was so very dark here. There were no street lights although lanterns hung from the buildings and shed just enough light to intrigue them further. They recognised a pub and a village green – that much was familiar to them. But then Kestrel arrived in their midst, a handsome recognisable face in an alien world, and ushered them all towards the open double doors of the Great Barn.
The crowd of Outsiders heard the familiar boom-boom-boom of music and saw the flashing coloured lights and lasers, and felt more at home. They poured into the vast building, taking in the tiny twinkling silver lanterns and evergreen decorations