Triskellion Read Online Free PDF Page B

lasted five or ten seconds, as this time she saw the shape clearly. It was the same shape she and Adam had seen everywhere that day: a symbol of three intersecting crescents forming a continuous, pointed clover leaf, bounded by a large circle. But this time it was huge and cut out from the chalk on the land itself; white against the scrubby grey of the moor.
    The air was filled with the hiss of static, and the raindrumming on the thatch, and the low drone of bees rumbling on beneath them.
    Another flash, and another, like bulbs exploding.
    Rachel called to her brother again but did not look away from the window.
    It was as though she was looking down on the chalk carving through a tunnel of light. The circle must have been a half a mile away, perhaps more, but she could clearly make out the figure that marched around inside. She narrowed her eyes, desperate to see more, and stared, unblinking, until she was sure about exactly what she was seeing.
    There was a boy inside the chalk circle.
    From the size of the moving figure, Rachel was able to estimate that the circle was maybe sixty feet across. She watched the boy trudge round and round, head down through the rain, tracing out the intersecting lines, pacing faster and faster, almost automatically.
    As though he were moving in spite of himself.
    “Adam, you need to come and see this.”
    There was no reply from the bed and Rachel continued to watch, almost as if she knew what was coming next, as the boy turned, walked deliberately to the centre of the circle and looked up.
    She knew that he was looking at her. That somehow he could see her in her tiny window. She could hear the thump of her own heart taking its place in the complex rhythm of the rain and the bees, and she watched through the blackness asthe boy raised an arm and pointed up at her.
    Suddenly, the window cracked, loud as a gunshot, and a jagged line crept down the glass from top to bottom.
    Rachel stepped back. Wanting to scream, wanting to run. Unable to tear her eyes away from the boy.
    Staring out at him through the thickening curtain of rain.
    Breathless…

T
hrough the mist, the outlines of two figures appear like ghosts. One shape is male, one female. They walk towards each other, their paths crossing, then diverging, walking away as if pacing out a slow, elaborate folk dance. Then, as one, they turn again and stand face to face. They move automatically and, as the mist disperses and the figures become solid beings, it becomes clear that they are tracing out a pattern, cut out of the soil at their feet
.
    The woman is wearing a flowing, embroidered gown. Her hair is long and braided, concealing her face as she swings her head from side to side, as if in a trance. The man wears something highly polished, armour perhaps, that catches the pale yellow sunlight and glows through the mist. His face is hidden by the nose section of the pointed helmet he wears, and, embossed on the breastplate of his armour is the same, three-bladed symbol that they pace out below their feet
.
    The man moves towards the woman, slowly, deliberately
.
    Their hands reach out for each other and they touch…
    *  *  *
    Rachel blinked away the vision and found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, a yellow shaft of sunlight streaming between the curtains and on to the misaligned, pink roses of the wallpaper opposite.
    Her brother was still fast asleep, a twist of dark hair only just visible on the pillow, sticking out from under thick blankets. Rachel stood up and went to the window, where a stray bee from the garden below walked lazily up and down the length of the window frame, looking for an exit that didn’t exist. Rachel lifted up the latch and pushed open the window. The bee let out an angry-sounding buzz, before finding the cool air and tumbling out into the wet garden below.
    Rachel knelt down, stuck her head out of the window and breathed in the clear, morning air. Beyond, she could see the chalk circle, exactly as