Crybbe (AKA Curfew) Read Online Free Page B

now,' Mr. Kettle said patting
him - his coat felt lank and plastered down, as if he was the first dog ever to
sweat. This was it with a dowser's dog - he'd pick up on the things his master
was after and, being a dog and closer to these matters anyway, his response
would be stronger.
        Slipping his hand under Arnold's
collar, Mr. Kettle led him back to the car and saw Goff standing there quite still
in his white suit and his Panama hat, like an out-of-season snowman.
        'Mr. Kettle,' Goff took a steep
breath. 'Perhaps I ought, explain. This place ... I mean, look around . . .
it's remote, half-forgotten, run-down. For centuries its people lived from the
land, right? But now agriculture's in decline, it doesn't provide extra jobs
any more, and there's nothing here to replace it. This town's in deep shit, Mr.
Kettle.'
        Mr. Kettle couldn't argue with
that; he didn't say anything. Watched Max Goff spread his hands, Messiah-style.
        'And yet, in prehistory, this
was obviously a sacred place,' Goff said. 'We have this network of megalithic
sites - a dozen or so standing stones, suggestions of a circle or a henge. And the
Tump, of course. Strong indications that this was a major focus of the Earth Force.
A centre of terrestrial energy, yeah? Do you see any signs of that energy now?'
        'People pulled the stones out,'
Mr. Kettle said.
        'Precisely. And what happened?
They lost touch with it.'
        'Lost touch with what?'
        'With the life force, Mr. Kettle!
Listen, give me your opinion on this. Whaddaya think would happen if. . . ?'
        Max Goff walked right up to Mr.
Kettle in the ill-lit square and looked down at him, lowering his voice as if
he were about to offer him a tip for the stock market. Mr. Kettle felt most uneasy.
He was getting the dead-sheep smell.
        'Whadda you think would happen,' Goff whispered, 'if we were to put the
stones back ?'
        Well, Mr. Kettle thought, that
depends. Depends on the true nature of leys, about which we know nothing, only speculate endlessly. Depends whether they're
forgotten arteries of what you New Age fellers like to call the Life Force. Or
whether they're something else, like paths of the dead.
        But all he said was, 'I don't
know, Mr. Goff. I wouldn't like to say.'
     

 
    CHAPTER IV
     
    How old was the box, then?
    Warren Preece reckoned it was at least
as old as the panelling in the farmhouse hall, which was estimated to be just
about the oldest part of the house. So that made it sixteenth century or so.
        He was into something here all
right. And the great thing, the really fucking great thing about this was that
no other bastard knew about it. Lived in this house all his life, but he'd never
had cause to poke about in the chimney before - well, you wouldn't, would you?
- until that morning, when his old man had shouted, 'Put that bloody guitar
down, Warren, and get off your arse and hold this torch, boy!'
        Piss off, Warren had spat under
his breath, but he'd done it, knowing what a bastard the old man could be when
a job wasn't going right.
        Then, standing in the fireplace,
shining the torch up the chimney - the old man on a step-ladder struggling to
pull the crumbling brick out - a bloody great lump of old cement had fallen
away and broken up and some of the dust had gone in Warren's eye.
        'You clumsy bastard. Dad!'
Warren fell back, dropping the torch, ramming a knuckle into his weeping eye,
hearing masonry crumbling where he'd staggered and kicked out. If he made it to
college without being registered disabled through living in this broken-down
pile of historic crap, it'd be a real achievement.
        'Come on. Warren, don't mess
about! I need that light.'
        'I'm f . . . Hang on, Dad, I
can't flaming see.' Hunched in the fireplace, scraping at his gritty, watery
eye.
        And it was then, while picking
up the torch - flashing it on and off to make sure the bulb hadn't broken