Read Online Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher - Free Book Online

off. We’ve wasted too much time already.”
    It was Saturday, but they worked hard. When there was nothing left to plan, Rob got down in the henge and dug with them carefully around the dark timbers with a fine-pointed trowel. For hours he worked, absorbed in the delicate scraping of granules of soil, their infinite shades of browns and golds and ochers, all the earth colors folded and laid so finely on top of one another, each tiny layer that his trowel cut away a hundred years of time, of people living and dying, of wars and empires. Vetch had said time was a circle in the mind, but it was here too, lying dormant, packed hard in the stinking, drying, fly-buzzed remnants of the peat hollow. As he crouched and lay, sat and knelt, Rob felt the textures of the past grime his skin. There were clotted masses of fiber that he picked out and prized apart, finding minute leaves of long-dead plants and insects still perfect in the deoxygenated watery mass. He became absorbed in the work, just as he did with painting something with a very tiny paintbrush, his face close to the surface, cleaning the fissured edges of the timber posts, the ancient ridges smooth and hard as rock.
    Around him the others worked, Jimmy with headphones on, Clare and Marcus talking occasionally in undertones, Max the Alsatian lying out in the field and lifting his head whenever a car purred up the lane.
    By lunchtime, when Rob straightened wearily to aching knees, it was clear that the timbers were not isolated from one another. As the soil between them was removed it could be seen that one side of each was shaven; that they joined one another; made a wall, a black fence. Only in one place was there a gap, obviously the entrance, where Marcus was scraping. There had been no finds. No more bits of antler bone, no gold, no charcoal, nothing.
    â€œThere must be an object in the center.”
    Rob looked around. Clare Kavanagh was standing at his elbow. Today her blond hair was dragged back in a ragged plait, her ill-fitting blue overalls worn through at the knees. As she stared out thoughtfully, he thought she looked older than he’d realized. Tiny crow’s-feet were starting to wrinkle her skin. She turned; Rob jerked his gaze away. But all she said was, “You look at things very closely, don’t you?”
    He shrugged.
    â€œSo do I.” She turned back. “The central deposit is the key. The ditch and the timber fence were built around it, built tight, so no one could see in, or get in. Only the elite. The priests, warrior-kings, whoever.”
    â€œThe sorcerers,” Rob muttered.
    She shrugged, absorbed. “Maybe.” Then as if the word triggered something, she said suddenly, “Who were those people I saw you with in Avebury yesterday?”
    He froze. “Yesterday?”
    â€œYes. I thought you said you were going to some hospital.”
    â€œI did. I was.” He sounded panic-stricken, he thought, so he pulled himself upright. “They were friends. They gave me a lift back.” And what business is it of yours? he wanted to add, but she was gazing at him now, a thoughtful scrutiny.
    â€œI thought… There was a man in the front seat. Dark-haired. I thought I recognized him.”
    â€œVetch,” he said boldly.
    She frowned. “Wrong name. Does he live around here?”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œIf it’s him…,” she said, almost to herself. Then she rounded. “Look, Rob, I can’t tell you who to see but I’m warning you, if people find out about this dig, then you’re the one I’m going to be blaming.”
    â€œThat’s not fair,” he snapped.
    â€œMaybe, but Marcus and I go way back and he vouches for Jimmy.”
    â€œOthers know! That girl in the pub!”
    â€œMy students. They won’t cross me.” She stepped up to him. “Don’t you, either. This is big for me. Most archaeologists never ever in all their