responded mildly. “Alison was the real McCoy.”
“Satanism?”
He shook his head. “Satan is simply a label of convenience. Mind you, if Jesus had come back a few hundred years later, and seen what had been done in his name—the Crusades, orthe Inquisition, or even just a routine schism with heretics burning at the stake over a point of doctrine—he’d probably have given up on all religion then and there. The atheist formerly known as Christ. He might even have decided it would be best—or at least much easier—to corrupt and destroy the human race instead of wasting time trying to save it. You get the gods you deserve.”
“You’re wandering from the point,” Gaynor said, determined the discussion was going to go somewhere, though she had no idea precisely where. It occurred to her that his outlook—she could not think of a better word—must have something to do with his paintings, or vice versa, but it didn’t seem to clarify anything. “What kind of a—what kind of a witch was Alison?”
“She had the Gift,” Will explained. (She could hear the capital letter.) “The ability to do things … beyond the range of ordinary human capacity.” He did not appear to notice the doubt in Gaynor’s questioning gaze. “When the universe was created, something—alien—got into the works, a lump of matter from outside. They called it the Lodestone. A friend of ours had the theory that it might have been a whole different cosmos, imploded into this ball of concentrated matter, but … Well, anyhow, it distorted everything around it. Including people. Especially people. It affected their genetic makeup, creating a freak gene that they passed on even when the Stone itself was destroyed. A sort of gene for witchcraft.” He gave her a sudden dazzling and eminently normal smile. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to believe me. I just think you ought to know. In case anything happens that shouldn’t.”
“Do you think something is going to happen?” asked Gaynor, mesmerized.
“Maybe. I’d whistle up a demon if I could, just to stop this idiotic wedding.”
“Idiotic?” She was bemused by his choice of adjective.
“Can you think of a better word? Fern’s marrying a man she doesn’t love, probably as a gesture of rejection. That seems fairly idiotic to me.”
“What is she supposed to be rejecting?”
“The Gift,” he said. “That’s the whole problem. Don’t you understand? Fern’s a witch, too.”
Gaynor stopped abruptly for the second time, staring at him in a sudden violent uncertainty. They had walked quite a way and she was aware of the empty countryside all around them, the wind ruffling the grasses, the piping voice of an isolated bird. The wild loneliness of it filled her with an upsurge of panic that nudged her into anger. “If this is your idea of a joke—”
And then normality intruded. The dog came out of nowhere, bounding up to them on noiseless paws, halting just in front of her. Its mouth was open in a grin full of teeth and its tongue lolled. Will bent down to pat its muzzle but the yellow-opal eyes were fixed on Gaynor. The man followed briskly on its heels. He, too, gave the uncanny impression of appearing from nowhere. But this was normality, or so Gaynor assured herself. A man and his dog, walking on the moors. The dog was friendly, the man, dressed like a tramp, at least unequivocally human. Will evidently knew them.
“This is Ragginbone,” he told Gaynor. The man, not the dog. And: “This is Gaynor Mobberley. She’s a close friend of Fern’s.” A firm handclasp, bright eyes scanning her face. He looked very old, she thought, or perhaps not so much old as aged, reminding her of an oak chest her mother had inherited recently from an antique relative. The wood was scored and blackened but tough, unyielding, halfway to carbonization. The man’s face seemed to have been carved in a similar wood, a long time ago, scratched with a thousand lines that melted into
“Satanism?”
He shook his head. “Satan is simply a label of convenience. Mind you, if Jesus had come back a few hundred years later, and seen what had been done in his name—the Crusades, orthe Inquisition, or even just a routine schism with heretics burning at the stake over a point of doctrine—he’d probably have given up on all religion then and there. The atheist formerly known as Christ. He might even have decided it would be best—or at least much easier—to corrupt and destroy the human race instead of wasting time trying to save it. You get the gods you deserve.”
“You’re wandering from the point,” Gaynor said, determined the discussion was going to go somewhere, though she had no idea precisely where. It occurred to her that his outlook—she could not think of a better word—must have something to do with his paintings, or vice versa, but it didn’t seem to clarify anything. “What kind of a—what kind of a witch was Alison?”
“She had the Gift,” Will explained. (She could hear the capital letter.) “The ability to do things … beyond the range of ordinary human capacity.” He did not appear to notice the doubt in Gaynor’s questioning gaze. “When the universe was created, something—alien—got into the works, a lump of matter from outside. They called it the Lodestone. A friend of ours had the theory that it might have been a whole different cosmos, imploded into this ball of concentrated matter, but … Well, anyhow, it distorted everything around it. Including people. Especially people. It affected their genetic makeup, creating a freak gene that they passed on even when the Stone itself was destroyed. A sort of gene for witchcraft.” He gave her a sudden dazzling and eminently normal smile. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to believe me. I just think you ought to know. In case anything happens that shouldn’t.”
“Do you think something is going to happen?” asked Gaynor, mesmerized.
“Maybe. I’d whistle up a demon if I could, just to stop this idiotic wedding.”
“Idiotic?” She was bemused by his choice of adjective.
“Can you think of a better word? Fern’s marrying a man she doesn’t love, probably as a gesture of rejection. That seems fairly idiotic to me.”
“What is she supposed to be rejecting?”
“The Gift,” he said. “That’s the whole problem. Don’t you understand? Fern’s a witch, too.”
Gaynor stopped abruptly for the second time, staring at him in a sudden violent uncertainty. They had walked quite a way and she was aware of the empty countryside all around them, the wind ruffling the grasses, the piping voice of an isolated bird. The wild loneliness of it filled her with an upsurge of panic that nudged her into anger. “If this is your idea of a joke—”
And then normality intruded. The dog came out of nowhere, bounding up to them on noiseless paws, halting just in front of her. Its mouth was open in a grin full of teeth and its tongue lolled. Will bent down to pat its muzzle but the yellow-opal eyes were fixed on Gaynor. The man followed briskly on its heels. He, too, gave the uncanny impression of appearing from nowhere. But this was normality, or so Gaynor assured herself. A man and his dog, walking on the moors. The dog was friendly, the man, dressed like a tramp, at least unequivocally human. Will evidently knew them.
“This is Ragginbone,” he told Gaynor. The man, not the dog. And: “This is Gaynor Mobberley. She’s a close friend of Fern’s.” A firm handclasp, bright eyes scanning her face. He looked very old, she thought, or perhaps not so much old as aged, reminding her of an oak chest her mother had inherited recently from an antique relative. The wood was scored and blackened but tough, unyielding, halfway to carbonization. The man’s face seemed to have been carved in a similar wood, a long time ago, scratched with a thousand lines that melted into
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