come straight to the front door. The sound had come from the side of the house.
Her nerves went on edge. With the breakdown in law and order, there were plenty of threats that wouldn't think twice about attacking a woman on her own. The village had its own Neighbourhood Watch patrolling during the night, but it had been devastated by the plague, might even have gone completely.
From next to the door, she grabbed the brush handle with the carving knife strapped to the end. One she could probably see off; any more and she would have to run. Cautiously, she approached the side window.
The night was too dark, the storm bending the trees and hedges towards the cottage, the fields beyond impenetrable. She waited patiently for any hint of movement. Nothing came.
Just as she had convinced herself that she had been mistaken, a lightning flash exploded everything into white. A large figure was standing beneath the old hawthorn tree just outside. It had been watching her looking out.
She swore in shock, backed away, almost fell over the armchair. The darkness concealed the figure once again.
Mary moved to the centre of the room, turning back and forth in case the watcher came through the front or the back. A heavy knock sounded at the door.
Who's there?' she shouted defiantly.
'I was sent to see you.' The voice was loud, confident, educated with a hint of arrogance.
'Why are you skulking around outside?'
'I wanted to be sure I had the right place.' Exasperation, a hint of annoyance; Mary eased a little. He didn't sound like a threat, but then who did? 'Will you open this door?' he snapped. 'I've been walking for hours and I'm cold and I'm wet.'
Holding the home-made spear ahead of her, she leaned forward and turned the key. Standing on the step was a tall, big-boned man in a sodden overcoat and a wide- brimmed felt hat that had almost lost its shape in the rain; he was carrying a knapsack and a staff. He was in his late fifties, with long, wiry, once-black hair and beard, now turning grey and white. The skin of his cheeks had the leathery, broken-veined appearance of someone who enjoyed a drink, but his eyes were beady, black and unfriendly.
Mary prodded the spear towards his chest. He looked down at it contemptuously.
'Are you the witch?' he said curtly.
'What-?' Mary was taken aback.
He pushed the spear to one side and forced his way past her. 'A tree told me,' he added gruffly.
Mary readied herself to herd the visitor out, but he was already stripping off his overcoat and shaking the rain across her living room. He gave up, threw it to one side and marched to the fire to warm his hands. Mary advanced with the spear.
'You can put that pigsticker down for a start,' he said, watching her from the corner of his eye.
'If I put it anywhere, it'll be right up your arse.' She considered giving him a prod just to hear him squeal. 'Who are you?'
He drew himself upright, shaking his head wearily as he flung his hat on top of his coat. 'The name's Crowther. Frank, if you want to be chummy.' His eyes narrowed. 'Though you probably don't.'
'And-' she prompted, shaking the spear.
'And I am here to see you,' he interjected with exasperation. 'I presume.'
Mary chewed her lip for a second, then used the spear to motion him towards the chair. 'Just don't go making everything wet while you tell me about it.'
He flopped into the chair, weariness etching deep lines into his face as his head lolled on to the chair-back. With his eyes closed, he began, 'I would hope I don't have to begin from first principles. We can accept that there is an element of what used to be called the supernatural in the world, can we not?'
'Go on.'
'I have been known, from time to time, to communicate with those other powers. Recently, they've been getting in a bit of a state. Something's up, apparently. A rather big and extremely troubling something, though as usual, trying to get any useful detail from them is like trying to carry water in a sieve. It seems, however, that it's linked to this damned plague.' He flapped a hand. 'Anyway, that's by the by, for now. The important thing is that something can be done about it. Apparently. And it seems I have a part to play, and you, because I was guided here. Frankly, I can think of better things to do, but I presume the survival of the human race is a pressing matter.'
'Who told you this?'
'The Wood-born.' He watched her quizzically.
She nodded. 'The tree spirits.'
He tutted. 'Don't make them sound like fairy-tale stuff. You get on the wrong side of them and you won't live to regret it. I saw a man once with a hawthorn bush bursting out of his belly. He'd somehow swallowed a fragment of the wood and they'd made it sprout inside him.'
'He probably deserved it.'
'How very humane of you.'
Despite his appearance, Mary didn't feel a sense of threat from Crowther: she was usually good at judging people, but that didn't mean she liked him either. He carried his arrogance like a badge, reminding her of intellectuals she'd met who couldn't help but look down on the common herd.
'Why should I trust you?' Mary asked.
Crowther pondered this for a second or two and then a deep sigh shook his large frame. 'The simple answer is that you probably shouldn't.. God knows, if I were in your position, I wouldn't trust me.' The weariness permeating his features appeared to be born from days on the road.
'You've come a long way,' Mary stated.
He nodded. 'From the West Country. There's a college there, newly founded after the Fall. It aims to pass on long traditions of studying nature and the heavens and how it all interacts, the wisdom of an age-old group called the Culture, though everyone knows it by a different name. A mystical college. You've heard of it?'
Mary shook her head.
'I'd spent all my days in academia — avoiding having a life, I suppose — so it was only natural I ended up there. Couldn't do anything else productive. I'm a professor, which used to mean something, I suppose. Various disciplines came under my aegis — a little psychology here, some archaeology and anthropology there. I was at Oxford for a while-'
'Married?'
'Wife dead, I'm afraid.' His features remained impassive; Mary had no idea how much she could believe of what he was saying. 'Children, I don't know where. They're old enough to have minds of their own. No ties, you see. The college sounded enticing… and it was. Except it's run by one of the most miserable, bad- tempered old bastards you could ever imagine.' His eyes narrowed. 'And one of the Five.'
Mary's breath caught in her throat. 'They exist, then?'
He nodded. 'Not a myth, though they're rapidly turning into one. Five people who saved the world when things were going pear-shaped. A shaman, the one in Glastonbury. A warrior — who turned out to be a traitor, killed in the Battle of London. A human-nature-spirit hybrid… or something, I'm not quite sure. A leader, missing, presumed dead. And one of your own.'
Mary sat on the arm of the chair, staring into space. 'I'd heard the stories, like everyone, but I hardly dared believe. Are they going to come back?'
'To save us?' He laughed bitterly. 'They've done their bit. It's down to us now.'
'Then this college is somewhere quite special.'
His eyes took on a distant cast. 'The things I learned there… amazing things… worlds beyond our own… the existence of beings we'd always considered gods… magic… a new, deep philosophy about the way everything is tied together…' He brought himself down to earth sharply. 'But that's not important. This is.'
'You came all this way because the Wood-born told you to.' Mary felt secretly pleased when she saw Crowther flinch slightly beneath her unwavering gaze. 'Out of the goodness of your heart, to help humanity. You don't seem like a good Samaritan.'
'I never said I was. I'm a part of humanity too, whatever others might think, and I have a vested interest in its survival.'
