The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner Page A

night-blue sky.
    Then the track rose before him, and he was in the hills. The moon was clear above Shining Tor. And as he sprang up the wall of the high cliff peak the path faded like a veil of smoke. Weight took his body and pulledhim from the hill, but Colin cried one great cry and snatched for the cliff top: the bells were lost in the sobbing of his breath, the drumming of his blood.
    He opened his eyes: rough gritstone lay against his cheek, grey in the moon. From between his fingers, clutching the rock, curled leaves, five-pointed, and beneath the hollow of his hand was a faint gleam of moonlight.
    Over Wildboarclough the cone of Shuttlingslow stood apart from the long ridges, watchtower to the plain which lay like a sea from Rivington Pike to the surge of Moel Fammaw. But Colin saw none of it, for his eyes and his being were fixed on the delicate Mothan which he held cupped in his hands.
    He had taken the flower and two of the leaves. The petals flickered with a cold, glow-worm light, and the fine hairs on the leaves were silver. Minutes passed: then Colin folded the Mothan gently into a leather bag that Uthecar had given him for the purpose, and looked about him.
    The old, straight track had vanished, but below Shining Tor the road from Buxton began its winding drop into Macclesfield. Colin walked along the ridge to the end of the cliff, and picked his way over the roughmoorland down to the road.
    It was midnight. The road was strange, cold, smooth under his feet after the reed-clumps and boulders of Shining Tor. Once the flush of excitement had passed, and it had passed quickly with the climb from the hill, he felt tired – and increasingly ill at ease. The night was so still, and the road so lonely in the moonlight. But then Colin thought of Susan lying in bed at Highmost Redmanhey, and the Mothan in his pocket, and of the wonder of the evening, and his steps grew lighter.
    Light steps. That was what he could hear: behind him. He stopped and listened. Nothing. Looked. The road was empty. It must be an echo, thought Colin, and he set off again. But now he was listening consciously, and soon he began to sweat.
    He heard his footsteps hard on the road, and after them an echo from the drystone wall and the hill, and through footstep and echo a pad, pad of feet, and, by the sound, the feet were bare.
    He stopped. Nothing. Looked. The road was empty. But the moon threw shadows.
    Colin set his teeth, and walked faster. Footstep. Echo. Footstep. Echo. Footstep. Echo.
Footstep. Echo.
He breathed again. Nerves! Nothing but – pad, pad, pad. Colin spun round. Did any shadow move?
    â€œWho’s there?” he shouted.
    â€œAir! Air! Air!” said the hill.
    â€œI – I can see you, you know!”
    â€œHo! Ho! Ho!”
    It says much for Colin that he did not run. The panic was close, but he thrust it down and forced his brain to reason. How far to Macclesfield? Four miles? No point in running, then. He slowly turned, and began to walk. And although he could not go ten paces without looking back, he drew steadily away from Shining Tor. He saw nothing. But the footsteps that were never quite echoes stayed with him.
    After half an hour Colin was beginning to think that he would perhaps reach the town, for whatever was following him seemed content to follow: it never shortened the distance between them. Then, approaching a sharp corner, Colin heard something that stopped him dead. It was a new sound, and it came from in front: hoofs – the sound of a horse walking slowly.
    He looked behind him. Still nothing. But he could not go back. And away from the road there was too much unknown. Yet why should he be afraid of this new sound? Colin was at such a pitch that he was afraid of his own voice. He could make no decision: he was caught.
    His eyes were fixed on the road where it licked out ofsight like a black tongue. The gentle clop of the hoofs seemed to go on for ever. The road would always be