The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper Page A

before, no mark of any kind was left. And as Will looked back the way they had walked across Huntercombe Lane, and down the top curve of the smaller track, he could see only one line of footprints — his own.
    He thought he heard a faint silvery music, somewhere in the air, but even as he raised his head to listen, it too was gone.

PART TWO
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The Learning

•
Christmas Eve
•
    Christmas Eve. It was the day when the delight of Christmas really took fire in the Stanton family. Hints and glimmerings and promises of special things, which had flashed in and out of life for weeks before, now suddenly blossomed into a constant glad expectancy. The house was full of wonderful baking smells from the kitchen, in a corner of which Gwen could be found putting the final touches to the icing of the Christmas cake. Her mother had made the cake three weeks before; the Christmas pudding, three months before that. Ageless, familiar Christmas music permeated the house whenever anyone turned on the radio. The television set was never turned on at all; it had become, for this season, an irrelevance. For Will, the day brought itself into natural focus very early. Straight after breakfast — an even more haphazard affair than usual — there was the double ritual of the Yule log and the Christmas tree.
    Mr Stanton was finishing his last piece of toast. Will and James stood on either side of him at the breakfast table, fidgeting. Their father held a crust forgotten in one hand as he pored over the sports page of the newspaper. Will too was passionately interested in the fortunes of Chelsea Football Club, but not on Christmas Eve morning.
    â€œWould you like some more toast, Dad?” he said loudly.
    â€œMmm,” said Mr Stanton. “Aaah.”
    James said, “Have you had enough tea, Dad?”
    Mr Stanton looked up, turned his round, mild-eyed head from one to the other of them, and laughed. He put down the paper, drained his teacup, and crammed the piece of toast into his mouth. “C’mon,then,” he said indistinctly, taking each of them by an ear. They howled happily, and ran for boots and jackets and scarves.
    Down the road with the handcart they went, Will, James, Mr Stanton, and tall Max, bigger than his father, bigger than anyone, with his long dark hair jutting in a comical fringe out of a disreputable old cap. What would Maggie Barnes think of that, Will wondered cheerfully, when she peeped roguishly as usual round the kitchen curtain to catch Max’s eye; and then in the same instant he remembered about Maggie Barnes, and he thought in a rush of alarm:
Farmer Dawson is one of the Old Ones, he must be warned about her
— and he was distraught that he had not thought of it before.
    They stopped in Dawsons’ yard, old George Smith coming out to meet them with his gaping grin. The going had been easier along the road that morning, since a plough had been through; but everywhere the snow still lay unmoving in a constant, grey, windless cold.
    â€œGot you a tree to beat all!” Old George called joyfully. “Straight as a mast, like Farmer’s. Both Royal trees again, I reckon.”
    â€œRoyal as they come,” said Mr Dawson, pulling his coat tight round him as he came out. He meant it literally, Will knew; every year, a number of Christmas trees were sold from the Crown plantations round Windsor Castle, and several came back in the Dawson farm lorry to the village.
    â€œMorning, Frank,” said Mr Stanton.
    â€œMorning, Roger,” said Farmer Dawson, and beamed at the boys. “Hey lads. Round the back with that cart.” His eyes slid impersonally over Will, without so much as a flicker of notice, but Will had deliberately left his jacket swinging open in such a way that it was plain there were now two crossed-circle Signs on his belt, not one.
    â€œGood to see you looking so lively,” said Mr Dawson breezily to them all, as they heaved the handcart