Doctor Who_ Cats Cradle_ Witch Mark - Andrew Hunt [3]
Her feet drummed a rhythm out upon the ground. Her left foot hit, then her right foot. She lifted her left foot, and then another left foot went down. Another left foot! Yes, for she now realized that she had four feet. Her right foot rose and then her two hind feet were on the ground together. Up came her left hind, then momentarily she was flying! Then the tattoo against the soil was repeated, and again, and again. She let out a whinny of joy at the strength that she felt and flicked her ears back and forth. A low ditch appeared in the distance, approached rapidly and she leapt. The moment lasted forever and then she was on the ground again.
Now shapes impinged on the edge of her sight and she realized that she wasn't galloping alone. To either side of her were grey shapes whose legs moved in perfect harmony with hers. And in front and to the left she saw a marvellous stallion and her heart filled with love. It was a large creature with sleek black lines. Sunlight glistened in an iridescent sheen on hair which rippled as it followed the contractions and relaxations of wonderfully strong muscles. His tail streaked out behind him, swirling in his slipstream. His appearance was heightened by a hazy aura of smell which excited her unaccountably.
She wanted to impress this one and so she tried to put on an extra turn of speed. Pushing her warm muscles to overcome their limits she inched closer to him and veered to her left so that she was closer behind him. His smell grew stronger, inciting her to greater efforts. But she couldn't overtake him and so she resumed her original position and merely let the feeling of her vitality course through her and then . . .
... she was back in the haybarn, trying to catch the thread of what Siân had been saying. A trickle of a tear twisted sinuously down her dusty cheek at the thought of the power she had just felt. Her body with its weak muscles was nothing compared to that.
'Luckily for us Goibhnie was able to trap all the demons he had made under his island and so all the evil that they had within them has stayed there.' Siân gave a stem look to the children and paused, an indication to the children that they were about to be told the moral for the day. Even if they hadn't paid any attention during those hours they should at least remember this message. 'But that doesn't mean that we can become complacent, for once in a while a demon may escape and come among us and cause all sorts of mischief. The way to recognize such a creature is by a mark on the back of the neck and the remedy is burning.'
Bathsheba hadn't heard half of this because she had been wondering what 'complacent' was, but she heard the last word and she rubbed the soft, downy hair on the back of her head and shivered.
'All right, children,' Siân said, 'that's enough lessons for today. You can go out and play in what's left of the afternoon.'
With one accord, the children were up and through the barn door, all except for Bathsheba who followed them slowly. She wandered out of the farm and climbed laboriously up the hill which overlooked it. The farmhouse itself was the tallest building, by virtue of the chimney which rose high so that its smoke was carried far away from the haybarn which squatted at its side. Opposite the house was the L-shaped cowshed, behind which was the large, low grain store. The buildings were surrounded by small fields, their boundaries marked by well-built rough stone walls. Leading away from the farmhouse was a narrow lane which vanished into nothing once it got beyond the central core of fields.
She settled down on a comfortable hummock of grass, lay on her back and gazed up into the sky, her eyes half shut. Above her head was the blinding glare of the sun, but just visible in the direction of her feet was the pale red globe of the other sun which was at its most obvious at night-time; Father had told her that the day-sun was drawn behind Dagda s war chariot and the night-sun which when it was in the night