affectionately as he gazed up at the stars.
'It would help if you were a little less smug,' she said to Tom diplomati- tally. 'He's a good man. He wants to do something. You shouldn't be so hard on him.'
He shrugged. 'We all have our flaws.'
'There's so much more we need to know-'
'We can discuss it tomorrow, when we're all a little more receptive. I've given you plenty to chew over-a whole new way of looking at life, a new belief system, things that at first glance seem impossible. Isn't that enough to be going on with?'
'How much more is there?'
'There's always more.' He yawned and stretched. 'It's late. We need to sleep. We've got a great deal ahead of us, and we may not always have such a fortuitous place to rest our heads.'
'You expect me to sleep after all this?'
'You will sleep.' Tom brushed her forehead with his fingertips and she went out as if he had flicked a switch. He caught her and laid her down next to the fire, removing her coat and pulling it over her like a blanket.
'It is a magnificent place, isn't it?'
Church hadn't heard Tom approach behind him. 'I wish I'd seen it under other circumstances.'
'You should see it on June 21, at the solstice at sunrise. If you stand at the centre of the circle, there comes a moment when the sun appears to be suspended on the heel stone and the whole place is painted gold. Beautiful.'
'I wish I hadn't got dragged into all this. Life was complicated enough as it was.'
'It's too late for that.'
'Yes. I know.'
Tom lit another joint, took the smoke down deep, then exhaled into the wind. 'There are journeys without and within to make,' he said softly, 'and many mysteries to be uncovered before the end of the road. We are surrounded by them, all the time, every day, and when we think we are trying to expose one, it often turns out we are delving into another. Take this place. They think Neolithic man dug the outer circle more than four and a half thousand years ago. They think the Beaker People erected the bluestones eight hundred years later and the Wessex People put in the sarsen blocks in 1,500 BC. But who did it is not as important as why. Why did different peoples value this place so highly they returned to it over all those years? Simply because it aligned with the sun, moon and stars? Would they have put so much effort into it if it was simply a tool? Or a metaphor for some religious experience?'
Church drew his fingers across the surface of the stone, feeling the years heavy under his touch. 'They were searching for some meaning,' he said.
'That's right. They were trying to find the magic at the heart of reality. And they found it, the most valuable thing mankind could ever possess. But somehow we lost it again, and during the twentieth century it got as far away from us as it could possibly get. But if one good thing can come out of all the terrible things that lie ahead, it will be that we, as a race, will get back in touch with it again.'
Church scanned the dark horizon. 'That's tomorrow taken care of. What do we do on the day after?'
'You're no longer the person you used to be.' Church couldn't tell if it were an admonition or a pep talk. 'The path away from that person began with your alchemical experience under the bridge, and there are plenty of changes on the road ahead, for you and Ruth.' Tom rested one hand on Church's shoulder and pointed towards the heel stone. 'You see that star there? Wait five minutes until it touches the stone.'
They stood in silence watching the gradual descent until, at the exact moment of alignment, Church felt a tingling at the base of his spine. A second later it felt like heaven had exploded around him. The blue energy Tom had summoned earlier erupted upwards from the top of the stones, forming a structure that soared at least a hundred feet above their heads. The lines of force met at the pinnacle and sheets of paler blue, shifting between opaque and clear, crackled among them. Church had the sudden sensation of standing in a cathedral, magnified by a feeling of overwhelming transcendental awe and mystery that left him trembling. Ahead, lines of azure fire raced out across the land, criss-crossing into a network as they reached other ancient sites, where they exploded upwards in glory. To Church, it seemed like the whole of Britain was coming alive with magnificence and wonder. Tears of emotion stung his eyes and there was a yearning in his heart that he hadn't experienced since childhood.
After five minutes the flames shimmered then dwindled until all was as it had been, but Church knew he would keep the moment with him for the rest of his days.
Still lost in the spell, he started suddenly when Tom touched his hand. 'Before you passed under the bridge that night, you would never have seen that. It's a mark of how much you have already changed, and a hint of the potential ahead.'
As they wandered back to the fire, Church felt calm and energised by the experience. 'Make the most of this night,' Tom said as they lay down and looked up at the stars. 'This is a safe place, but from here on, things are going to get wild and dangerous.'
'We'll cope,' Church said, surprising himself at his confidence.
The last words of Tom's he heard were almost lost on the edge of sleep: 'One more thing-do not leave the circle before sunrise.'
Church awoke some time in the early hours. Tom and Ruth were still sleeping, cast in the faintest reddish glow from the embers of the fire. His soft back muscles ached from the hard ground, but as he rolled around trying to get comfortable, he became aware of an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach and the sensation that he was being watched. Over the next five minutes it grew gradually stronger until he had to stand up to look warily around. Beyond the small circle lit by the dim mantle of the fire, the night seemed uncommonly dark.
He waited for a minute or two, but when the sensation didn't diminish he cautiously edged towards the shadows. Beyond the reach of the fire's luminescence, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he began to make out the shapes of hedges and trees on the plains that rolled away from the henge. There was no sign of movement and his ears, tuned for the tramp of a foot, could only pick up the bleak moan of the wind as it swept across the lowlands.
When he reached the outer stones, Church paused, his heart thumping madly from the discomfort of invisible eyes. 'Who's there?' he hissed.
There was a lull, as if the night were waiting for him to progress further, then he heard what appeared to be the faintest reply on the edge of his hearing, barely more than a rustle of grass.
After a few seconds he caught a glimpse of movement, like a dark shape separating itself from the lighter dark of the night. His skin seemed to grow taut across his body. A figure, slim and tall, moved towards him, gradually developing an inner light as if tiny fireflies were buzzing around within it. Long before it had coalesced into any recognisable form, Church was overcome. And when it finally halted twenty feet away from him, his eyes burned with tears and his trembling knees threatened to buckle.
'Marianne,' he whispered.
She was pale and fragile, her eyes dark and hollow, as if she had gone days without sleep; Church couldn't bear to look into their depths. Her skin had an opaque quality that seemed to shimmer and for the briefest instant become transparent. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her shoulders slouched from an unseen burden. Church felt an overwhelming wave of despair and longing washing off her, sluicing away the frisson of fear he felt at her terrible appearance.
And all he could remember was that moment when the last dregs of life drained away and the intelligence died in her eyes, leaving him with just an armful of hope and chattering images of promised futures now lost and, worse, the certain knowledge he would never know why everything he ever needed or believed in had been taken away from him.
He thought he might die if he heard the truth, but he asked anyway, in a hoarse voice that didn't sound like his own: 'Just tell me why.'
If she heard, she gave no sign; her blank features still radiated that sense of terrible loss. Church couldn't bear to look at her; he closed his burning eyes and stifled the sobs that threatened to rack him.
When he did finally look again, she had raised her arms, beckoning.
His breath froze in his throat. Tom's warning flickered for an instant, then was driven away. He took a step
