'When the sun goes down, I'm never the same,' he began cautiously. His eyes looked hollow from too little sleep and his face muscles had sagged under the weight of an array of dismal emotions. 'One of those things out there, it comes here.' He motioned to the house. 'Not every night, but enough so I can't rest.'
'What sort of thing?' Veitch eyed the farmer askance.
'A devil. A little devil, 'bout as high as this here table.' His head fell until his face was hidden and he was racked by a juddering sob. 'I don't know how I'm going to go on. I thought about taking that'-he waved towards the shotgun-'and blowing my bloody head off, but I don't know, I don't know …'
'What does it do?' Church asked anxiously.
'It talks to me, pinches me. Hurts me. I know that doesn't sound much, but the things it says!' He covered his face for a moment, then seemed to catch himself. 'You can stay here tonight if you like,' he said, unable to hide his desperation.
'Sure. You've sold it to us so well,' Veitch said.
Marsh acted as if a weight had been taken off his shoulders. He promised them good food for dinner, then left them alone while he headed out to do some work in the fields.
'Do you think it's happening like this all over?' Veitch asked as they sat around the table gorging themselves on the farmer's bread and cheese.
'What do you mean?' Church was looking at deep score marks in the kitchen walls, as if they had been swiped by razor-sharp nails.
'People all around the country dealing with this weird shit, but too scared or too worried their neighbours will think them crazy to talk about it. So they just keep it all to themselves and nobody knows what's going down.'
Church shrugged. 'It can't stay bottled up for much longer. Sooner or later it's going to blow up and the Government is going to have to do something about it. It'll be on the front page of the Sun-'
'Unless things reach a head before then.' Tom pushed his chair away from the table and rested his hands on his belly. 'By the time anyone really realises what's happening, there might not be any Government, or newspapers. Just people running for their lives with nowhere to go.'
There was a long moment of silence and then Veitch said, 'You're a bundle of laughs, aren't you. I'm surprised the army or M15 or some of those bastards aren't on to it already.'
Church considered the lack of media coverage about what events they had witnessed, and then thought about the stone-faced men clustered around the charred skeletons at the Salisbury depot and the helicopters they had seen scouring the landscape. 'Maybe they already are. Maybe they don't know what to do either.'
The evening was so balmy it could have been summer, and it was filled with the kind of perfumes that shouldn't have been expected for several weeks: rose, jasmine, clematis and the sweet bloom of night-scented stock. Overhead the clear sky sparkled with an array of stars that had Ruth, Laura and Shavi gazing up in awe.
'You never see that in the city.' Laura was unable to hide the wonder in her voice.
'I can't believe this place. It's almost magical.' Ruth felt a shiver run through her. 'If this is part of the New Age too then it can't all be bad.'
'A time of terrors and wonders,' Shavi agreed. 'Perhaps all the other focal points for the power in the earth are like this-a sanctuary, a place to rest and recharge your own energy where the Evil outside cannot touch you.'
'I feel like staying here forever,' Ruth said regretfully.
'Somewhere safe.' Laura glanced from Ruth to Shavi.
His faint smile suggested he knew what they were feeling, but that it could never be. 'Let us make the most of this time,' he added, leading the way along the street to the pub. But his unspoken words lay heavy on all of them.
In the King William pub next to the Market Cross they ordered three pints of potent scrumpy. The cloudy drink had a rough quality and a powerful aroma of apples that was completely dissimilar to the mass-produced cider they had all tried before, but whether it was the invigorating, dreamlike atmosphere that pervaded the town or the sudden infusion of alcohol, within moments it felt like the best drink they had ever had.
Shavi nodded. 'This is what our ancestors used to feel. The body, mind and soul need to be in perfect balance. The trinity leading to enlightenment represented by the eye opening in the pyramid. Knowledge is fine, but the Age of Reason's focus upon it above all else threw us out of balance. Our souls became weakened. Instinctively, we all recognised it-that feeling of discontent with our lives and our jobs that has pervaded us all for the last few decades. You must have noticed it?' They nodded, entranced by his voice. 'We need to learn to feel again.'
'Well, aren't you the guru.' Laura grinned at him, but there was none of the spite that usually infused her comments; Ruth wondered if the magic was working on her character too.
'Perhaps that is part of this quest we are all on,' Shavi mused. 'Not merely to find physical objects of power to defend ourselves, but in some way to discover and unlock the truly alchemical part of our souls that will make us whole and more able to cope with the trials ahead. A quest for the spiritual rather than the physical, a search that goes inward-'
'Why don't you shut up and do a quest to the bar,' Laura Jibed.
His smile warmed them both. 'I talk too much,' he apologised, 'or perhaps I think too much. Either way, now is the time for enjoyment.'
At the end of the evening they made their way back to the camp in a drunken haze of laughter and joking. But the first thing they saw when they reached the tents was clothes scattered across their sleeping bags and their possessions ransacked. Nothing seemed to have been taken.
'This is weird,' Ruth said. 'Just like the car at the service station. It feels like someone's following us.'
Even that didn't dampen their spirits, nor remove their feeling that Glastonbury was an oasis of safety for them that night. Ruth and Laura tidied up while Shavi lit a fire, and once it was roaring, they lazed around it. The atmosphere felt so relaxing and secure, Ruth only managed ten minutes before her eyes started to close. She crawled into her tent, leaving Laura and Shavi to talk dreamily into the night.
After a while he dipped into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag filled with mushrooms. 'The sacrament,' he said with a smile. 'Care for some?'
Laura pulled out a handful and examined them in the firelight. 'Magic shrooms? Where'd you get these?'
'I brought them with me. Since the change, they have become even more powerful, almost shamanistic in effect. Taken in quantity, I find my spirit-' A smile sprang to his lips as he caught himself. 'I am talking too much again.'
'Before I hooked up with this weird crew I used to be blasted on Es and trips all the time in the clubs. Dust, even. God knows what I was doing to my body.' There was a note in her voice that suggested her experiences hadn't all been pleasurable.
'I have a feeling the lab drugs will lose their potency,' he mused. 'All part of the blight on our technological world. Natural things seem to be coming into their own.'
Laura peered into the bag. 'Been a while since I've been on mushrooms,' she said thoughtfully. She popped a few into her mouth. 'How many do we take?'
'Not many,' he said. 'This can be a ritual of awareness and bonding, not a trip.'
'Nothing's simple with you, is it?'
'You can look at things in different ways without harming the experience. There are some who think drug- taking is inherently immoral without considering that psychedelics have been a part of some cultures' religious experience for centuries. Other people's wine and wafer, if you will, transubstantiating into the body and blood of nature.'
Laura snorted, but didn't comment further. She chewed the rubbery mushrooms, trying to ignore the metallic taste, then swallowed with a wince. Shavi followed suit and they lay next to the fire watching the flames, waiting for the drug to kick in.
It didn't take Laura long to notice the familiar fuzziness on the edge of her vision. It was followed by the faint auditory hallucinations in the crisp crackle of the fire or the rustle of the breeze in the branches, and then the growing sense of well-being that made her laugh for no reason apart from the joy of being alive. They chatted amiably for a while as Laura felt the layers of her defences slowly being stripped away. Don't make a fool of yourself, she thought, but after so long honesty was pressing hard against her throat.
'This may sound weird,' she began, 'but despite all the shit flying around I really feel like I've found some
