Wales. He had just pulled it off the shelf and was leafing through it when Gwladys Jenkins spoke up unexpectedly from behind him:
“Like that, do you? Some lovely walks in there.”
Timothy started guiltily, nearly dropping the book before remembering that he had nothing to hide. “Er…yes,” he said. “I just…we’re going to Cardigan tomorrow, and I thought…”
“Oh, of course, you’ll want to do some sightseeing.” She shifted her laundry basket to the other hip and leaned forward to peer at the book over his shoulder. “What sorts of things are you interested in? I was brought up near Cardigan myself, so I know all about those parts.”
His heart quickened. “Do you know a church named St. David’s?”
“St. David’s! My goodness, love, that’s not in Cardigan, that’s all the way down in Pembrokeshire.” She took the book from his hands, flipped quickly through the pages, and handed it back to him. “There it is on the map, see? A great old cathedral, it is, hundreds of years old. Right at the tip of Cardigan Bay.”
She was right, Timothy realized with dismay. There were so many references to Cardigan in the legends about the Children of Rhys, he’d just assumed St. David’s church must be in or near Cardigan as well…but he’d been wrong. If only he hadn’t been in such a rush back at the library! He’d made a terrible mistake, and now he and Linden were hours from where they needed to be.
Timothy closed the book and slid it back onto the shelf. “Thanks,” he said weakly.
“But you never mind,” said Gwladys Jenkins, “just ask those friends of yours about it, and see if they won’t drive you down there anyway.” She patted his arm. “Now come along, and I’ll show you to your room.”
Fourteen
“The coach to Cardigan leaves from the train station,” said Owen Jenkins as he drove them back into Aberystwyth the next morning. “So that’s where I’ll let you off, and you can get your ticket there.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Linden. She dared a challenging glance at Timothy as she spoke-they’d barely exchanged a word since last night’s argument. But he was looking out the window and didn’t seem to care.
As they came down the hill into the town, Linden caught her breath in surprise. In the darkness the place had seemed dreary and unwelcoming, with its narrow streets and tall, flat-faced houses that offered little shelter from the rain. But by daylight, the buildings of Aberystwyth were a paint box of vibrant colors: forget-me-not blue and the deep pink of foxgloves, daffodil and mint and primrose. And rolling toward those brightly plastered buildings was a white-capped mass of water that stretched away into the distance until Linden’s eyes ached from straining to see the end of it-Cardigan Bay, and beyond it the open sea.
When they reached the center of town, their host stopped the car, and they all got out. The streets were full of life now, people hurrying here and there, vehicles of all sizes stopping and starting and honking at one another. Linden watched the traffic with interest until she heard Professor Jenkins say to Timothy, “Here’s a few pounds to see you on your way. And if you look in your backpacks, I think you’ll find Gwlad’s packed you both a bit of a lunch.”
Linden beamed at him. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us,” she said. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Timothy, and shook Owen Jenkins’s hand. The older man nodded at them both with just a hint of a smile, then got back into his car and drove away.
“So?” said Linden, trying not to look at Timothy in case he snapped at her and they started quarreling again. “What now?”
“We find the coach to Cardigan,” said Timothy. “And when we get there, we take another one to Fishguard, and a third one from there to St. David’s. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out.”
He was right to expect her to hide in his pack, Linden knew. They needed to make their money last if they wanted to find the Children of Rhys-or even just stay ahead of the Blackwings. But it irritated her that he hadn’t even asked.
“Fine,” she said shortly, and they set off across the street toward the station.
As the coach rumbled along the coastal highway half an hour later, Timothy caught glimpses of Cardigan Bay in the distance: lead-colored waves, rocky cliff sides, and here and there a wavering line of wet sand. Over the ocean the clouds hung so low that they looked like islands, and it was hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began.
Doubt stabbed into him, sharper than the pain in his side. He hugged the backpack on his lap-there was nowhere else to put it, the bus was so full-and wondered if they really had any hope of finding the Children of Rhys. What if the legend he’d read about the faery islands and the herbs that made them visible was no more than some storyteller’s wild imagination? How did Rob or any of them know that the Children existed at all, let alone that they had this magical naming stone?
And what if he never got to make that phone call to his parents and tell them the truth about why he’d gotten himself suspended from Greenhill, because the Blackwings caught up with him first?
He took the key out of his pocket and clutched it, but the cold iron gave him no comfort. All at once he wanted very badly to talk to someone-no, not just anyone, he wanted to talk to Linden, and tell her he was sorry. But with a stout woman sitting in the seat right next to him, he could hardly start whispering to his backpack. All he could do was wait.
And wait some more, because the stop at Cardigan was on a busy street, and he only had a few minutes to catch the coach to their next destination. Which turned out to be almost as crowded as the last one, so again he was forced to remain silent, knowing Linden was only a few inches away and yet she might as well have been in Uganda for all the good it did either of them…
The inside of Timothy’s pack smelled unpleasantly of damp, not to mention the dirty socks he’d stuffed into it that morning, and it galled Linden that she couldn’t see a thing that was going on. This journey felt ten times longer to her than yesterday’s had been. Still, at least she was warm and dry, with a full stomach-and after last night, she would never take any of those things for granted again.
She had lost all sense of time or direction and was half asleep from sheer boredom when she felt a soft bump and the mouth of the pack opened, letting in a gust of cool, deliciously fresh air. Timothy was gazing down at her, his mouth crooked in a rueful smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “About everything.”
She’d been savoring her resentment all morning, but now it evaporated in the sheer relief of knowing they’d reached their destination at last. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Wait a minute,” Timothy cautioned in an undertone. “Just until these people walk past us…All right, they’re gone. You can come out.”
It was easy for Linden to change size now; the hard thing was remembering that it had ever been difficult in the first place. “Oh!” she said as her head rose to the height of Timothy’s shoulder. “I forgot to tell you! Last night I was so tired that I went to sleep at this size instead of remembering to make myself small, and I was still big when I woke up in the morning! Isn’t that-” But then she saw what lay ahead of them and broke off, her lips parted in wonder.
They stood at the top of a cobbled street, beside a wall of uneven dove-gray stones. The lane ended in a soaring gateway flanked by square towers, and looking through it, Linden could see the spires of St. David’s Cathedral.
It was old, older than the Oak by far, she could tell. To think that human hands had built this enormous church and preserved it over the long centuries amazed her, but even more exciting was the hope of what they might find within its grounds-the magical herbs that would lead them to the Children of Rhys.
As they passed beneath the gate and into the churchyard, Timothy let out a low, disheartened whistle. “This place is huge,” he said. “We could be here until the Blackwings catch up with us.”
“Then we had better start looking, hadn’t we?” Linden shielded her eyes with her hand as she surveyed the distant horizon. “But shouldn’t we be able to see the ocean from here? It all looks like sky to me.”
