The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

up where he was looking. And sure enough, moving among the moving mist, were the shadowy wings of a huge bird. It was quite near, flapping overhead, and I could see its beak and its naked pink head. I still meant to stay. I know I did. But I was so horrified to see the bird so near that I went crouching away sideways with one hand over my head, and fell over the anchor, with the other hand on the chains.
    It was nothing like the twitch that takes you through a Boundary in the normal way. It was ten times more violent. Those chains were so cold they burned. But instead of sticking to me, the way freezing things usually seem to do, these flung me off themselves. I felt a sort of sizzling. Then I was crashing away backwards and finishing the fall I’d started, only much harder, onto a hard floor strewn with dead grass.
    I lay there, winded, for a bit. I may have cried, I felt so sad. I could see I was in a big barn, a nice warm place smelling comfortably of hay. There was a great gray pile of hay to one side of me, almost up to the wooden rafters. I was a bit annoyed that I’d missed it and landed on the floor. I went on lying there, staring up at the sun flooding in through chinks in the roof and listening to mice or rats scuttling, but I was beginning to feel uneasy. Something was wrong. I knew it was. This barn ought to have been a peaceful place, but somehow it wasn’t.
    I got to my knees and turned to the door. And stuck there. The door was a big square of sunlight. Outlined in it, but standing in the shadows, much nearer to me than was pleasant, was someone in a long gray cloak. This one had the hood up, but it made no difference. I knew one of Them when I saw Them . My heart knocked.
    â€œGet up,” said the outline. “Come here.”
    Now, this was a funny thing—I needn’t have done what he said. I knew I needn’t. But I was too scared not to. I got up and went over. At first the cloaked outline seemed to shimmer against the sun, but, as I got closer, it was more wavery still, as if I’d had my knuckles pressed to my eyes before I looked at it.
    â€œYou have been to a forbidden place,” said the wavery shape.
    â€œSo what?” I said. “I’m a free agent. I was told that rule.”
    â€œYou will not go there again,” was the answer, “unless you want to share the same fate.”
    â€œI don’t have to do what you say,” I remember starting to say—and then it all goes vague. I really do not remember the next minute at all. I know my mind was nearly a complete blank in the first part I do remember. I had forgotten who I was, why I was there and—the thing They wanted—where I’d just been. By that time, I had wandered in a dazed way out into the farmyard. The moment I remember is the moment the farmer came out of his cowshed and saw me.
    â€œWhat do you think you’re up to in there?” he roared at me. He was huge. He picked up a thick stick as huge as himself and came after me with it.
    I ran. I was not too dazed for that. I ran, with my mind as numb as a foot that’s gone to sleep, wondering what was happening and why. I swear I hadn’t a thought or a memory in my head beyond that. Around me, chickens flapped and squawked and ran. Behind me, the farmer roared. And, beside me, just as I got to the farm gate, a huge dog plunged out of a kennel to the end of its rattling chain and almost got me.
    That rattling chain. Even They don’t think of everything. If They had thought to change it to a rope, I wouldn’t be telling this tale now. I’d have forgotten. I could never hear a chain rattle after that without thinking of him, chained to his rock.
    I cannoned into the gatepost and the dog just missed me. I made off down a muddy lane, remembering him on his rock at least. I thought, as I floundered along, that it had probably been a vision. Everything else in my head was vague, though it was coming back to