Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper Page A

reddish-ginger, like the coat of a red fox; they had cat-like tails, held just above the ground. Their heads were turned, bright-eyed. They stared at the children. Then first one and then the other, deliberately, without haste, turned back and made off in a slinking, undulatingmotion across the road, apparently disappearing into the bank.
    â€œStoats!” Simon said.
    Barney looked doubtful. “Weren’t they too big?”
    â€œMuch too big,” said Bran. “And these had white only on the muzzle. A stoat has a white belly and chest.”
    â€œWhat were they, then?”
    â€œYr ffwlbartau.
Polecats. But I’ve never seen one bright red before.” Bran went forward and peered cautiously at the bank, raising a warning hand as Simon joined him. “Careful. They are not nice creatures…. There’s a rabbit hole. They must have taken it over.”
    â€œFunny the cars don’t seem to bother them,” Barney said. “Or people, for that matter.”
    â€œThey are not nice,” Bran said again, looking thoughtfully at the hole. “Vicious. Not afraid. They even kill for fun.”
    â€œLike the mink,” Will said. His voice was husky. Impatiently, he cleared his throat. Jane noticed with surprise that he seemed to have turned very pale; sweat glistened on his forehead, and one of his hands was tight-clenched.
    â€œMink?” Bran said. “Don’t have those in Wales.”
    â€œThey look like those. Only black. Or brown, I think. They … enjoy killing, too.” Will’s voice still seemed strained. Jane watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying not to appear curious.
    â€œThere’s a farm just round the corner, that might be why they’re about the place in daytime.” Bran seemed to have lost interest in the polecats; he strode off up the lane. “Come on—it’s a long way yet.”
    Jane paused to pull up a sock and let the boys pass her; then followed, alone and thoughtful. Above the farm the lane widened a little; the grass banks dropped to a mere foot or so, topped sometimes by wire fencing. The way led more gently upward now, through rock-studded grassland where Welsh Black cattle grazed here and there, or stood contemplatively in the middle of the road. Jane warily skirted alarge bullock, and tried to collect the elusive feelings that were running like quicksilver in and out of her mind. What was happening? Why was Will anxious, and why did Bran on the contrary seem to feel nothing, and anyway who was this Bran? She felt a vague formless resentment of the way his presence somehow complicated their relationship with Will:
it’s not just us any more, she thought, the way it was last time.
… And over everything she was beginning to feel a great unease about whatever lay ahead, as if some sense at the back of her mind were trying to tell her something she did not consciously know.
    Then walking blindly on she bumped into Barney, and found all the others standing still in sudden silence, and looked up and saw why.
    They were on the rim of a magnificent valley. At their feet the hillside dropped away in a sweep of waving green bracken, where a few sheep precariously grazed on scattered patches of grass. Far, far below, among the green and golden fields of the valley floor, a road ran like a wavering thread, past a toy church and a tiny farm. And across the valley, beyond its further side patched blue with cloud-shadows and dark with close-planted fir, there rolled in line after line the massing ancient hills of Wales.
    â€œOh!” Jane said softly.
    â€œCwm Maethlon,” Bran said.
    â€œHappy Valley,” said Will.
    â€œNow you see why they call this path Panorama Walk,” Bran said. “This is what brings the cars. And walkers too, fair play.”
    â€œWake up, Jane,” Will said lightly.
    Jane was standing quite still, staring out over the valley, her eyes wide. She turned her head