Diana Jones - The Homeward Bounders

He was looking off into the fog, rather intently, and shook his head slightly. “Not now, thank you. I think it’s time for the vulture to come.”

I don’t know why, but I got the point at once. I suppose I had been wondering, deep down, what made that new-looking wound of his. I found I was standing up, looking from the wound to his face and feeling ill. “Can’t I beat it off for you?”

“No,” he said, quite severely. “You can’t do things like that against Them, and you mustn’t try. Why don’t you go?”

I wanted to say that I’d stay – stay and hold his hand as it were – but I felt weak with horror. I couldn’t say a thing.

“It’s all right,” he said. “It has nothing to do with you. But do go. It’s nearly here.”

I looked 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 burnt. 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, on to 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 grey 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 grey cloak. This one had the hood up, but it made no difference. I knew one of Them when I saw Them. My heart knocked.

“Get 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.

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