had had to snap the strings of frozen blood which bound the fingers to the marbly earth.
Could it ever have been so cold in Stargrave? Ben had never previously wondered who had told his grandfather the story – one or other of the searchers, or his mother, Catriona – and now it was too late to enquire. He was inclined to wonder if Edward Sterling's message had been merely a delirious reference to the grove in which he'd lain. Catriona had taken it as a plea, and by the time Ben's grandfather was born she had used much of her legacy to buy the Sterling house and to plant the forest which over the decades had hidden the grove from the world.
Ben gazed out of the window while feeble sunlight ventured down the crags and was seized by the forest. When he heard the children beginning to stir on the floor below he sneaked back to bed. Their sounds made him feel somehow less awake than he had been while musing at the desk, and he continued to feel that way as Ellen wakened drowsily and snuggled against him, as Margaret and Johnny made the house sound full of children, as the family took turns in the bathroom to get ready for a walk before Sunday lunch.
A small sun like a coin whose heat had seared away its features hung low in a sky suffused with blue. Autumn had extinguished the brightest colours of the moors beyond the railway, and not only the vegetation but also the houses of Star-grave appeared to be seeking to merge chameleon-like with the ancient limestone. As Ben opened the new gate in the garden wall a wind like the first stirring of winter set trees dancing and brought him the scent of pines. The whisper of the forest made him feel as if he and the trees were about to share a secret. Then a dog barked, and he sighed and turned to look.
It was Mrs Dainty's Doberman. Edna Dainty was the Star-grave postmistress, a dumpy muscular woman whose red hair was growing white. She came stumbling up the track, leaning backwards and heaving at Goliath's leash. 'Don't pull, don't pull.'
'Ideal day for a run, Mrs Dainty,' Ben said over the wall.
'Golly,' she cried, and the dog halted, panting. 'You've put your nail on the head there,' she agreed.
'Are you for the woods?'
'Too blowy up on top for me today. It's an ill wind,' she added in case that had some relevance, and almost fell on her face as the dog surged forwards. 'Excuse me for shaking my legs, but you know old dogs.'
'Can't be taught?'
She peered at him, obviously suspecting a verbal trap, and then lurched away, dragged by the dog. Her voice dwindled up the track, crying 'Golly, don't pull.'
Ben held the gate open for the family. 'If they're going to be in the woods I'm heading for the moors.'
Johnny looked disappointed, and said to Ellen 'When can we mark some more paths in the woods?'
'Better ask your father. He's the pathfinder.'
'No more this year, Johnny, I shouldn't think.'
'We've only made titchy paths,' Margaret protested.
'We've plenty of summers ahead of us, Peggy. And don't you want to keep some of the forest for just the family to walk in?'
'Besides,' Ellen told the children, 'you won't have time to make another path if you want to be in the Christmas play, and go to Young Dalesfolk with Stefan and Ramona every Thursday, and all the way to Richmond every Friday for the swimming club, and help me keep our garden tidy…'
'And play with all your other new friends,'' Ben added as he led the way to the main road. Their talk of the woods was aggravating his own frustration, but he'd had enough of Mrs Dainty and her apparently inexhaustible supply of misheard cliches for one day. 'They're just words,' he said under his breath as he ushered the children across the road to face any oncoming traffic.
They hadn't met any by the time they reached the newsagent's. All summer Stargrave had been packed with tourists, driving up from Leeds to tramp the moors or basing themselves in the hotel or the dozens of houses which offered bed and breakfast for the season. Now just three climbers, two in bright orange and one in blue which rivalled the sky, were visible above the town, moving so slowly they looked frozen to the crags.
Most of Stargrave was indoors. Passing a row of houses, Ben saw successive images of a space battle on their televisions, as if he were reading a comic strip. The clank of swings thrown over their metal frames drifted down from near the school. One of Johnny's schoolmates ran home from the newsagent's, a Sunday paper flapping in his hand. The tourist information centre in the converted railway station was still open; Sally Quick, whose name always sounded to him like advice and who had exhibited Ellen's paintings all summer in the information centre, waved at the Sterlings through the window. Beyond the deserted square and the estate agent's, old Mr Westminster was rooting weeds out of his front garden, chortling vindictively whenever a weed lost its grip on the soil. He was often to be seen driving his rusty Austin through Stargrave, shouting 'Baa, baa' at anyone who crossed the street in front of him. 'Rub my back, somebody,' he greeted the Sterlings, then emitted a hum which was half a groan as he stooped to fork the earth.
'Race you to the top,' Margaret told Johnny as soon as they were over the stile. They chased along the grassy path towards the crags, on which the blue and orange insects appeared scarcely to have moved. A wind set the moor trembling, the gorse and heather and countless tufts of grass interspersed with mounds of moss and lichen, and as Ben heard the wind enter the forest all the sombre colours of the moor seemed to leap up. Ellen clutched his hand as if she was sharing what he saw. 'I really think that getting married and having the children and coming here to live may be the best things we've ever done,' she said.
'Good. I'm glad,' Ben responded, feeling as if she'd interrupted a thought he was about to have.
'Don't you agree?'
'I can't imagine living anywhere else.' In case he hadn't matched her enthusiasm he added 'Or with anyone else.'
'I should hope not. That part of your imagination's all mine.' She cupped her hands to her mouth. 'Be careful where you climb,' she shouted to the children, but the wind flung her voice back at her. 'Don't climb until I'm there,' she shouted, and ran up the path.
As Ben watched her take their hands and lead them towards the sky, three figures growing smaller in the midst of the luminous moor, he experienced a rush of love and satisfaction on their behalf. The children had never been happier at school, and both Johnny's handwriting and Margaret's spelling had improved. Ellen's latest paintings showed a new toughness mixed with her old sensitivity, and she'd joined Sally Quick's moorland rescue team. As for himself, he was beginning to feel as though the whole of his life between running away from his aunt's and finally returning to Stargrave had been no more than a prolonged interlude, most of which he had to make an effort to remember. The only problem was that he couldn't write.
At first he'd assumed that the excitement of coming home was distracting him. As soon as the air had begun to smell of autumn he'd taken himself to the desk every morning and kept himself there until he'd written at least a paragraph, but he felt as if the story wouldn't come alive. He was nervous of telling it to the children in case the act drained it of whatever energy it had. He was beginning to wonder if having signed a contract in advance was making him afraid that he couldn't deliver, but he thought more than that was involved. As he sat at the desk each morning and gazed into the forest, he felt as though an inspiration or a vision larger than he could imagine was hovering just out of reach.
'Climb with us, Daddy,' Johnny was calling, and Ben relinquished his thoughts with a sigh. By the time he arrived at the children's favourite crag, which Margaret had immediately compared to a giant loaf nibbled by giant mice, the family was halfway to the top. The wind tugged at Margaret's clothes as she followed her mother up the zigzag path worn into the rock, and Ben clambered after her in case she needed help.
Johnny danced on the flat summit and chanted 'I'm the king of the castle' while the others hauled themselves over the edge to join him. Having wavered upright, Ben planted his feet well apart before he surveyed the view. All he could see were another few distant slopes and isolated farmhouses. Even if the view had anything extra to offer, his anxiety in case the children strayed too close to the edge was distracting him.
From the foot of the crag they walked across the moor to the common between the forest and the town. A faint path which Mrs Venable forbade her pupils to use on the way to and from school led through the grass above the schoolyard and churchyard and back gardens of Church Road. As the road curved downhill, half a mile of allotments took the place of gardens beside the path, and ended near the track which led past the Sterling house.
As the Sterlings reached the track, Mrs Dainty stumbled out of the woods onto the further stretch of path, mopping her forehead with her free hand. 'Thank the heavens it was you I kept hearing and you stayed there long
