The Return of the Witch Read Online Free PDF Page A

uncool way. Things got quickly weirder and weirder. This uninvited guest was an old man, I mean a seriously old man. Beyond grandad sort of age, more of your biblical whiskery type, a bit scrawny, shorter than me, with an impressive beard. So I was trying to make sense of anyone being there at all, let alone someone who looked like he’d need help getting up a flight of stairs never mind scaling the path that climbed from the shore to the cliff top, and trying to find something sensible to say and he just kept smiling at me, all unexpectedly good teeth and happy wrinkles. And that made me think he might be a little bit bonkers, which made it all the more strange that he had managed to get to Craig y Duw and, anyway, where was his boat? Or microlight? Or whatever the hell he had used to get there? And OK, it was a warm, sunny day, but he wasn’t wearing decent outdoor clothing or hiking shoes, just a grubby Rolling Stones T-shirt, cutoff shorts, and cheap-looking trainers. He looked like some thrift store Robinson bloody Crusoe. He must have got fed up waiting for me to speak, because he just turned around and began striding away along the cliff path, and then shouted back over his shoulder,
    â€œCome on. Hurry up. We don’t have much time.”
    I scrambled after him. “Wait! What d’you mean? And anyway, who are you? How did you get here?” For someone so ancient he moved pretty fast, so that I had to trot to keep up.
    â€œDo you always ask so many questions?” He spoke without breaking his stride.
    â€œWhat? No. I mean, I wasn’t expecting you. It‘s not like I’m on a bus route here.”
    â€œYou are easy enough to find.”
    â€œWere you looking for me, then? Not just … coming to the island?” I tripped over a stone and cursed, hobbling on with a painful ankle. “Could you slow down a minute, please? Could we just stop and talk…”
    â€œNo time! No time,” he called back in his singsongy voice, striding out and clearly expecting me to follow without even knowing his name.
    And the odd thing is, I did. I wanted to. I had to. Not just out of curiosity, or because I was surprised by him being there, or because I thought I deserved an explanation. I knew, just knew that I should follow him, go wherever he led me. We walked to the farthest point of the island from my camp, so that we were on the northeast point. From there it wasn’t possible to see the Welsh coast, so all you looked out over was the wide, flat, sea, with the low sun bouncing off its silky grey-blue surface. There were no bird’s nests this side, so the only sound came from the waves, hundreds of feet below, breaking softly over the iron-grey rocks.
    The old man chose a flat rock a couple of strides in from the cliff edge and sat cross-legged on it, looking out to sea. “Sit,” he said, patting the space beside him. I did as I was told, and we stayed like that for a while, him saying nothing, me not asking all the questions I was bursting with. Right then I had two theories. He was either a nutter, or he was someone really important. It could have gone either way. I waited. Still he said nothing, just took a tobacco pouch from one pocket and a battered pipe from the other. He filled the bowl of the thing with great care and concentration, tamping it down to perfection before lighting it. The smoke was whipped away by the warm spring breeze, but I caught a whiff of tarry liquorice and spice. I was determined I wouldn’t break, wouldn’t give in to my maddening curiosity. He’d come looking for me, he’d said. Well, now he had found me. Let him explain himself.
    â€œThere was once a Druid went by the name of Gwynfor,” he informed me.
    Not the conversation I’d been expecting, but at least he was talking.
    â€œHe lived a league or two up the coast from here.” He waved his arm vaguely northward. “He was a learned man,