Read Online To Dream of the Dead by Phil Rickman - Free Book Online

her, silent.
    ‘I live near there,’ Lensi said. ‘For nearly seven weeks now, on and off. We’re in a barn conversion.’
    ‘Cole Barn?’ Jane backed up into one of the oak pillars of the market hall. ‘You’ve bought Cole Barn? But it’s—’
    Blighted
was Gomer’s word. Been on the market for a while, very desirable property and everything, but who wanted to lay down big money and maybe wind up living next to an estate of luxury executive homes?
    ‘Just renting it, actually,’ the woman said. ‘We’re checking out the area generally, to see if we like it, before deciding whether we should buy ourselves in.’
    Buy ourselves in?
    ‘And I was reading about all this kerfuffle over prehistoric remains, so now I’m sort of keeping an eye on it for the
Indy
, in case it blows up into something . . .’ Lensi stood back and stared openly at Jane. ‘You’re not Jane Watkins, by any chance?’
    Damn
.
    ‘They sent me some cuttings, including a picture of the girl who started all the fuss. Objecting to the housing, if I’ve got this right, because it was on a ley line or something? That was before they found the stones.’
    Jane said nothing. Lensi peered at her, the camera swinging free, dense coppery hair falling over one eye.
    ‘You
are
!’ She began flapping her jacket. ‘Jane, what fun!’
    ‘
Fun?
’
    ‘Sorry!’ Lensi backing off, palms raised. ‘I know – serious matter. I realise that. Is it true you didn’t know
anything
about the buried stones when you started your campaign?’
    ‘Nobody did. And if you were at the meeting last night then you already know all this.’
    ‘Oh . . . none of
that
came out. It was quite disappointing. Jane, look, I’m sorry if I offended you. I just want to get this right. How you found out about the stones – just for information, I’m not writing it down or anything.’
    Jane sighed. Eirion, who was planning a career in journalism, was always saying that pissing off the media was counter-productive. How could you expect them to publish the truth if you didn’t tell them the truth?
    ‘Please?’
    ‘OK . . . I’m like standing on Cole Hill.’
    ‘That’s the—’
    ‘It’s the only hill around here worth calling a hill. It was one evening last summer, and I had this . . . I’m not calling it a vision or anything, it was just some things coming together.’
    How could you explain it to a stranger? How could you convey the sudden awareness, at sunset, of this dead straight ancient track, passing like quicksilver through the field gates at either end of the meadow in direct alignment with the church steeple?
    Perfect example of a
ley
, as first discovered by Alfred Watkins, of Hereford, nearly a century ago, in this same countryside. Alfred Watkins wasn’t
known
to be an actual ancestor of Merrily and Jane Watkins, but who could say? She’d certainly felt he was there with her, like Lucy. Well, maybe not
quite
like Lucy.
    ‘Leys are . . . nobody knows for certain what they are. Just straight tracks from one ancient site to another, or maybe lines following arteries of earth energy. Or spirit paths. Where the dead walk?’
    Lensi said nothing. The sky was shining dully, like a well-beaten drumskin.
    ‘The dead are very important,’ Jane said. ‘To a community. You need continuity.’
    ‘Really.’
    ‘Ancient people knew that, in a way we don’t today. It’s important, for stability, for the spirit of the place, to have the ancestors around, keep them on your side. Which is why we need to keep this ancient path open . . . passing through the church, through the graveyard and the medieval orchard . . . then through the standing stones, to the top of Cole Hill, the holy hill.’
    ‘Why is it holy?’
    ‘It’s like the guardian hill for the village.
Cole
is actually an old word for juggler or wizard. And Coleman’s Meadow, at its foot . . . The Coleman . . . the shaman? So, like, if you uncover the old stones after centuries and then take them