We meet again
It's been a while since you let me in
Feels like forever
-Creed
The car, a dark-blue sedan, was waiting as expected in the train station. Together they piled into it, along with a half-dozen sandwiches and that many bottles of ginger ale to serve as an on-the-road tea. Merriman drove, despite newly-licensed Simon's pleas.
Here, in the quiet beauty of the countryside, with music on the radio and food and drink lying pleasantly in the stomach, they could feel much happier then they had in the train – almost, though not quite, forgetting what Merriman had told them. They talked, and joked, sang along with the radio – though only Jane had anything near a passable singing voice. It was possible that Merriman had, but if so, he certainly wasn't telling.
The car rolled through the streets of Huntercombe, London-bred Drews and Welsh Bran half-staring at this piece of traditional English countryside. Merriman drove with certainty of his position and his destination, without pausing to orient himself or to ask directions; within twelve minutes they were out of the village.
Simon twisted around in his shotgun seat, staring over the heads of the three younger teenagers as the buildings of Huntercombe receded with distance in the back windshield. "Gumerry, where are we going? I thought you said Will lived here?"
"Yes, he does. Perhaps I forgot to mention that the Stanton house is rather on the outskirts of Huntercombe. Practically in the countryside already."
"I did hear Will telling John Rowlands that he wasn't exactly a city-boy…" mused Bran.
"Will's home does not exactly qualify for a farm either, but yes, there are chickens and livestock there as well."
"I thought his father was a jeweller," Jane put in. Her brothers and Bran looked a little surprised. They hadn't known that. They shot questioning looks at each other, and then at Jane.
"He…made something for me, once," Jane explained. Barney and Bran nodded, satisfied. The beginnings of a frown began to etch into Simon's face.
"Or maybe, I should say, for the Greenwitch," elaborated Jane. The frown disappeared from Simon's face.
"His father is one, actually a rather good one, but it's his mother who runs the Stanton 'Farm'," Merriman told them.
Bran was seated at the right edge of the rear seat, next to Barney. His arm was braced on the window-ledge, his face cupped in his hand. He stared at the scenery rolling past with half-closed eyes, not really registering the land they passed. He was thinking about something else…thinking about the slight edge of…something not so wild as panic, not so quiet as apprehension, but something like the two…that had been in him since meeting up with Merriman.
Which is why he only barely knew it when it happened. He saw a figure standing by the roadside, and…instantly, without question, that deep in him singing/screaming out…
"Stop the car!"
Startled, Merriman braked. Almost before he had, Bran had hurled himself out of the car and was running towards the figure. Barney and Simon stared in mute surprise for a second before hearing Jane's surprised gasp.
"That's Will!"
"What?!"
But Jane was out of the car too.
Bran reached Will in a matter of seconds. It was strange how he had known it was Will – the boy's face was hidden by the hood of his sweatshirt – but he knew.
"Will!" he called as he ran. The boy had been facing away from the car, underneath the spreading branches of a large shade tree. He stood loose and unconcerned, dressed in blue jeans and overlarge gray sweatshirt, hands stuck in pockets. He turned at Bran's call, one hand coming out of his pockets.
Bran grinned as he ran. 'Of course he'll have known we were coming…he's Will, isn't he, he's dewin…'
"W…" his voice trailed off as Will used his free hand to push back his hood.
Jane was a few steps behind Bran, running so fast she skidded when she stopped to stand right next to the Welsh boy, staring as he was at the other seventeen-year-old standing barely seven feet away from them.
Her first thought upon seeing Will was, oddly, 'He's standing in shadow.'
And then he came forward, moving beyond the shade of the tree until the pale autumn's sun was directly on him, and still the sense of shadows did not dissipate. It took several moments for Jane's mind to appreciate the fact that Will had, it seemed, darkened in every aspect.
His hair, formerly a hue usually associated with the bark of birch trees, had deepened to a shade of brown like dark bittersweet chocolate. It fell in half-shaggy bangs over a face that had lost much of its boyish curvature, shadowing eyes that were a blue so dark they were practically black. His skin was burned brown-gold, much darker than anyone who was born and bred in England's climate had a right to be.
And the expression on his face...
Bran and Jane stood in startled, uneasy silence, as did Simon and Barney, who had just caught up to the sister they had chased. They stared at Will, whose darkening seemed to be more than just his coloration, at the sardonic, half-cruel expression on his face.
"So you've actually come." The voice was light and carefree, in exactly the tone someone would use to gently chaff a friend late for an appointment. His voice had broken in the time since they had last met, into a clear tenor that seemed like his younger voice, proving Merriman wrong in his long-ago prophecy – for it held in it the same melodic pitch of his choir-boy days. It was a friendly voice, the type you want to listen to.
And it made their hearts fall. The anger behind it, constrained so tight it was like a wire so fine that it disappeared when you looked at it edge-on – and they couldn't see the edge, but in this case, they could feel it.
"You're here. Huh. Rather a shock. I mean, here I was, thinking that you had, you know, forgotten all about me."
…the anger's edge growing brighter now…
"After all, it's been, what – four years? Lots of things have happened since then." He looked at Simon, just one glance. "Hey, Simon, congratulations on getting into Oxford." Then at Barney. "Well, Barney, following your mother into the art institute? Very cool. You know, my brother Max was an artist too."
The Drew brothers shivered, a little unnerved by Will's subtle showing of power. His gaze settled on Jane and Bran. He didn't say anything but his now dark-blue eyes hardened.
"Things have happened to me too. I suppose they've been a little different from your years, however." His mouth curved ever so slightly into a small half-smile that was somehow more hard than any glare.
Still in the car, Merriman could feel a despair as heartwrenching as when he had first met Will, in that hall where the Lady had been taken beyond Time. 'Oh Will…Watchman, what has happened to you?'