Three Bags Full Read Online Free PDF Page B

shining surface of the sea. In spring the air smelled of damp earth; in summer flocks of sparrows fluttered like leaves through the cornfields; in autumn when the wind shook the trees, acorns pattered down on the sheep; in winter the hoarfrost drew strange patterns on the asphalt. It was always a wonderful way to go, until they came to the place where the green men lay in wait. The green men had caps and guns and meant no good. When they came to the green men, even George felt nervous. All the same, he gave them a friendly greeting and made sure their dogs didn’t get too close to the sheep. Without George they’d never have made it past the men. Heather wondered if they would ever see the other pasture again.
    Cordelia was thinking how human beings can invent words, how they can line up their invented words side by side on paper. It was magic. And even that Cordelia knew only because George had explained what magic is. When George read aloud and came to a word that he thought the sheep couldn’t understand, he explained it. Sometimes he explained words sheep knew anyway, words like ‘prophylactics’ and ‘antibiotics.’ You took prophylactics before you got ill; you took antibiotics while you were ill. They both tasted bitter. George didn’t seem to know his way around this subject too well. He got involved in a complicated explanation. Finally he swore and gave it up.
    But he was very pleased with other explanations, even if the sheep didn’t understand a word he said. In such cases they were careful not to let George guess how little they had taken in. Sometimes, however, he really did teach them something new. Cordelia loved his explanations. She loved knowing words that belonged to things she’d never seen, even to things you couldn’t see at all. She remembered those words carefully.
    “Magic,” George had said, “is something unnatural, something that doesn’t really exist. If I snap my fingers and Othello suddenly turns white, that’s magic. If I fetch a bucket of paint and paint him white, it isn’t.” He laughed, and for a moment it looked as if he felt like snapping his fingers or fetching that bucket. Then he went on, “Everything that looks like magic is really a trick. There’s no such thing as magic.” Cordelia grazed with relish. “Magic” was her favorite word—for something that didn’t exist at all. Then she thought about George’s death. That was like magic too. Someone had stuck a spade through the shepherd’s body in the middle of their meadow. George must have screamed horribly, but none of his sheep in the hay barn, quite close, had heard anything, and then a lamb had seen a ghost. A ghost silently dancing. Cordelia shook her head. “It’s really a trick,” she whispered.
    Othello was thinking of the cruel clown.
    Lane was thinking of the strange humans who used to visit George from time to time. They always came by night. Lane slept lightly, and heard the crunch of the car tires when they turned off the paved road and onto the path through the fields. She sometimes hid in the shadow of the dolmen to watch. It was a show performed just for her. The headlights of the cars cut lines of light through the darkness or were caught in the mist and formed a glowing white cloud. The cars that came along the path through the fields were big, with purring engines, and they didn’t stink nearly as badly as George’s car, which he himself called the Antichrist. Then their lights were switched off, and one or two shadowy figures in long dark coats would approach the shepherd’s caravan. They moved cautiously, taking care not to tread on any fresh sheep droppings in the dark. A hand knocked on the wooden door. Once, twice, three times. The door of the caravan was opened, cutting a rectangular space filled with a reddish glow in the darkness. For a moment the strangers stood in the doorway like huge, sharply outlined ravens. Lane had never seen their faces, yet by now they seemed to her