Water, Stone, Heart - By Will North Page 0,4
like iron filings by the magnetism of the cliff-ringed harbor, and Andrew and Lee had the leafy riverside footpath to themselves.
Trees arched overhead, their branches cloaked in gray-green lichen, their trunks often wrapped in glossy green ivy. Here, just above the port area, the valley's wooded slopes climbed steeply up from the banks of the stream, leaving just enough room for the riverbed and the narrow footpath. But a little farther on, the floor of the valley opened, and the path meandered through a grassy meadow. Here and there, massive boulders of creamy, apricot-veined quartz lay about in the riverbed like some giant's abandoned marble collection, washed down from who knew where by some terrible force.
“You've missed most of the flowers,” Lee said, as if Andrew hadn't been paying attention.
“What do you mean?”
“There are masses and masses of primroses, and daffodils, and bluebells, and things here in the spring. You should see Minster churchyard then; there's so many daffodils then you can barely see the gravestones. But they're all gone now. You came too late.”
Andrew felt as if he should apologize. “Still lots of flowers here, though,” he countered, somewhat defensively. “Like this, for instance.” He pointed to a bush flecked with pale pink blossoms maturing to ivory.
Lee snorted. “That's just dog rose. It's a weed, like these nasty, prickly blackberry brambles. They get everywhere. I hate them.”
“Your mother told me she makes blackberry wine.”
“Lotta good that does me.”
Andrew couldn't argue with this line of reasoning.
They passed through a wooden gate in a stone wall.
“Mind the stinging nettles,” Lee warned.
“Which are they?” He pushed aside the branches of a fringe-leafed plant that clustered around the gateposts and his hand suddenly felt on fire. “Damn! I think I just found out.”
Lee stopped and shook her golden head with disgust. “I told you! Now I'm going to have to find you some dock.” She stomped off up the path, then bent and snapped off a broad, bladelike, greenish-yellow leaf. Andrew followed.
“Here. Crush this and rub it where it stings.”
He did so, and in moments the pain vanished.
“How'd you know that would work?” he asked, amazed.
The girl looked at him as if he was brain-damaged. “Everybody knows dock cures nettle stings. Why do you think they grow near each other?”
Having no idea what either nettles or dock were, Andrew had never given this question much thought.
“Come on,” Lee said. “I don't have a lot of time to waste.”
“Yes, ma'am!”
A gentle bend revealed a pool created by a low stone dam that slowed the stream's flow. They stopped and sat on a rock, where Lee said you could see fish in the still water. Andrew stared at the surface intently.
“I don't see any,” he said finally.
“They're shy sometimes.”
“Are they big?”
“I should say so; really big.”
“How big?”
“That's a weir, that is,” Lee volunteered, changing the subject and pointing toward an outlet just upstream of the dam. “It used to shunt water to the leat.”
“Leat?”
“You know, leat … what carries the water to the mill. I thought you Americans spoke English.”
“I used to think so,” Andrew said, “but now I'm not so sure.”
“Okay, you know that big red wooden waterwheel by the leather shop, down near the car park? Used to be a mill there. Water that ran it came from here.”
“What kind of mill?”
“A mill that grinds stuff, silly.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“You sure have a lot of questions for a grown-up.”
“You sure know a lot for a kid.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“I never compliment before lunch.”
Lee smiled. “You remind me of my friend Nicki. She says things like that. You'd like her. She's funny.”
“Am I funny?”
“Not before lunch.”
Lee hopped off the rock and spun off up the path again, sometimes walking, sometimes skipping. From time to time, she'd stop and peer at something in the bushes—a bird or a butterfly—and name it.
Andrew was amazed at how much Lee already knew about the natural world. “Where did you learn all this?” he asked when he caught up with her.
“Mostly from Elizabeth. Mum says I'm to call her ‘Mrs. Davis,’ but she says I can call her Elizabeth. She runs the Visitor Centre and knows loads of stuff.”
“But wait, you're not a visitor.”
Lee looked at him a moment, as if trying to decide whether he was teasing or just stupid.
“That's silly,” she said, and off she skipped again.
Andrew followed happily, his eyes sweeping the hillsides. The trees climbing the slopes included ash, beech, and hazel, but mostly they were gnarled sessile oaks, which looked to him like something