Read Online The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner - Free Book Online Page B

the darkness and listened to the voices above him. It was his special place. No one else came here, to the lead-floored room in the pinnacle. No one else heard the sound.
    He sat and waited for the sweeping in the air to clear. It softened, was quiet, then still. It was not all dark in the steeple. There were holes, crockets of decoration on the spire, and through them came enough light for him to see.
    The room rose to a point far above, to the very cap stone, and an iron bar came down through the capstone to a short beam that spanned the walls, and the bar was bolted through the beam.
    A ladder went up to the beam. And on the ladder, the beam and every rough stone and brick end there were pigeons. They had flown when the hatch moved, but now the last of them was settling back, or hovering under the crockets. That had been the sound.
    Beam, ladder and floor were white with droppings. It was Robert’s secret cave in the air, which only pigeons knew. But the soft floor was covered with footprints, shoes and clogs and boots of every size, covered and filled with droppings, as though all the children from the village and the Moss and the Hough played here. But Robert was every one. It had been his room and place for years, and nobody knew.
    Robert stood up. ‘Cush-cush,’ he said. ‘Cush-a-cush.’ The pigeons watched him, but didn’t fly. He took a step on the floor, and paused, another, to the ladder. He put his hand out for a rung. A pigeon dabbed at him with its beak, but he didn’t flinch. ‘Cush-cush.’ He took hold of another rung and set his weight on the ladder. ‘Cush-cush. Cush-a-cush.’ A pigeon fluttered, and above him he heard others go. He held still until they were still. Then he began again.
    In the high cave of the pinnacle Robert climbed the ladder of birds. Sometimes their voices and wings would swirl, brushing him, making shadows in shadows, and he would stop until the ladder was quiet again. Then he would climb, careful with feet and hands to ease between the birds. And the birds made space for him.
    The wall closed. He could see every facet of the spire tapering around. Through the crockets there were small pictures of land. He climbed.
    Robert came to the beam. From the ladder he grasped the capstone iron and stepped onto the beam. It was slippery with droppings. Below him the white ladder rustled.
    ‘Cush-cush. Cush-a-cush,’ said Robert.
    He looked up into the black point. Some of the stone showed. He stretched, and reached on tip-toe to see if he had grown. He hadn’t. The iron bar was long.
    In all his secret, the capstone was the only part that Robert couldn’t reach.
    He felt the bar. It was rusty, but not sharp. And it was thick. Robert spat on his hands and took hold. He hitched himself off the beam, drew his knees up and gripped the bar with his feet. The rust held him. He stretched hand over hand, brought up his feet, gripped, hand over hand, feet; gripped. He was there. His head fitted under the capstone and his shoulders filled the spire.
    Robert looked down at the birds.
    The inside of the spire was rough. He put out one hand and found a hold to push against. He found another. He pressed his head to the capstone. He was firm.
    Arms out, head up, Robert uncrossed his feet and let them hang. He was wearing the steeple. It fitted like a hat. He was wearing the steeple all the way to the earth, a stone dunce’s cap.
‘Dunce, dunce, double-D,
Can’t learn his ABC!’
    Robert sang, and waved his legs.
    The ladder fluttered. He stopped. He took hold of the bar, and found nooks for his feet. There was nothing else.
    There was nothing else. His own and private place was only this, and he felt it leave him. In all the years, there had been the last part waiting. Now he was there, and he was alone all at once, high above beam, birds, clock and no more secrets.
    Robert scratched the stone with his finger. He picked at mortar and it fell. Some birds went out through the crockets. He put