REMNANTS OF DARKNESS, by Eldrice

Standard Disclaimers Apply: Will Stanton, Bran Davies, Jane Drew and the entire Dark is Rising universe belong solely to the lovely Susan Cooper.

Chapter Two: Reunion.

"No, I don't mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression. It grows in us, that fear. It grows in us year by year. We've followed that road too far."

- Ursula le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Jane Davies was just beginning to fret about her two overdue children when she saw a man in a suit and overcoat striding up the street cradling Annie in his arms. Peter trudged along behind them, hands stuffed in his coat pockets and head hanging. She let out a cry of delight and rushed outside, heedless of the cold.

"Will!" she cried as she skittered down the Davies' icy driveway, moving as fast as she could while maintaining her balance, laughing merrily. "Will, oh Will!"

Will plunked Annie down on the ground and opened his arms. Peter watched with curiosity as his brilliant mother threw herself impulsively into them with a laugh of girlish delight. Will spun her around, once, twice, before landing her back on her feet.

"Hello, Jane Drew," he said with a stupidly pleased smile, but calm, as if for three years there had been no ocean and almost half of a great continent separating Will Stanton from the Davies family.

"Jane Davies, Will. You were the best man at the wedding, you know."

"Grant me some sentimental reminiscing, Jane-girl."

"Ha! As if Will Stanton could ever be sentimental about anything! You can't fool me, Will. You're cold as stone." Peter's mother smiled to show she was teasing.

Will smiled. "I ran into two little people walking home from school who said they belonged to you. They were kind enough to let me accompany them. Peter looks just like you, by the way. Except for the eyes, of course."

"I know," Jane said, letting her eyes wander so she could gaze fondly on her son, who was standing respectfully behind Will Stanton. "Well, let's go inside. Bran's not due back for awhile, Will, but that gives you some time to think of an explanations for his sudden appearance after three years of being incommunicado."

The four of them entered the house. Ducking his head and mumbling a vague excuse, Peter sprinted up the stairs. He entered his bedroom, dropped his backpack on the floor, and flung himself on the bed. He was glad to see Will, of course, but he wished they had met again under different circumstances. Say what you mean, he thought bitterly. You wish you hadn't come across as such a bloody coward who needed rescuing. He lay there for some time, shyness preventing his return downstairs.

Meanwhile, Jane prepared a hasty dinner and Will surrendered himself to Annie, who pulled him by the hand and gave him a grand tour of the Davies household. She was quickly falling into adoration with this strange man whom she had heard so much about, yet could hardly remember. Will knew all the right questions to ask, and she cheerfully introduced him to her stuffed animals and stood on the ground outside calling instructions as Will hesitantly climbed up to the treehouse Bran Davies had built when they first moved there.

When Peter finally tumbled downstairs, the early winter twilight was falling outside and a car's headlights shone in the driveway. The front door slammed and Peter's father stood in the foyer, speechless and shocked as he stared at a silent Will Stanton smiling before him.

"Duw," he breathed finally, the Welsh expression coming heedlessly to his lips as it always did when he was surprised. "Will . . ."

"Hello, Bran."

No one else ever said his father's name the way Will did, drawing out the long, Welsh vowel in a way that Peter had learned at a young age most English were too uninterested to attempt. Even his mother sometimes didn't do it quite correctly if she was distracted or frustrated. But when Will said "Bran," Peter felt a shiver down his spine, as if the word floated in the room long after the sound of it had vanished, heavy with unspoken meaning.

Bran Davies took two quick steps forward and embraced Will Stanton as a brother. The two men stood silent for several seconds before they both stepped away from each other looking vaguely foolish, but rather pleased. Peter thought Will looked somewhat anxious, but it may have been his imagination. Jane rolled her eyes and muttered something sarcastic about "men" and "fear of affection" while she took Peter and Annie and hustled them into the eating room off the kitchen where a hastily prepared dinner of pasta and vegetables, thrown together in between pages of manuscript, awaited steaming.

"Good god, Will, what are you doing here?"

"It's nice to see you too, Bran."

"Oh, shut up, man, come on! You know I couldn't be more thrilled to see anyone. But we haven't seen you for three years and all of a sudden you show up on our doorstep? In Ohio?"

"If you must know, I was invited to lecture at Heidleberg College next semester on Celtic runes. Plus, you know my Uncle Bill lives nearby."

"Yes, I bought some excellent pottery from him for the shop last month. Sold faster than I could put it on display. Well, I guess that's excuse enough. We're just a side-trip. Thanks a lot. But it still doesn't explain why you're here three weeks before the start of next term. Or why you didn't call us first."

"The lecture invitation was somewhat last minute. I was only a second choice. The first apparently had a sudden attack of pneumonia. But this was the cheapest flight I could find during the holiday season. God bless the internet and direct flights Gatwick and Cleveland. Or you can call my sudden appearance mere eccentricity if you will."

"I shall, if that's what you wish. You've always been a strange one, Will Stanton."

The two men trooped into the kitchen with their arms around each other's shoulders. Peter, used to seeing his father stiffly formal around everyone but his mother, was surprised to see the relaxed joy that shone in Bran Davies' face. And Will was grinning from ear to ear like a schoolboy who had just won his first race.

Reunions between long-lost relatives, in one author's immortal words, take time. The same adage applies to long-lost friends. Once everyone had eaten their fill of Jane's questionable pasta, there still remained hours of conversation that required Bran to prepare a haphazard dessert and coffee. Will asked after the Drews, and Jane told him about how Peter's uncles Barney and Simon had traveled together to Africa for a year. Simon was working for a medical NGO working on supplying AIDS treatment; and Barney was photographing living conditions for various political and cultural magazines, as well as painting abstract landscapes for an upcoming New York art show. Will then asked how they were liking America, and Jane frowned.

"There are some bad things about the States," she said bluntly. "The violence, for one. Not real violence, of course, but just the way its everywhere: on television, in the news." She shook her head. "And then there's the fear. Everyone is afraid here, so that you too start becoming paranoid."

"Afraid of what?" Will asked, surprised.

Jane threw up her hands. "That's just it, I don't know what. Although, I guess 'fear' isn't exactly the right word; they do have a right to be fearful here. Many people have died recently. Rather, it's the . . . the aggresiveness in the face of that fear that's disturbing. The blind antagonism. The willingness to commit evil to prevent it." She tapped her writer's fingers impatiently against the tableclothe. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that these are dark times, Will. The whole country is threatened by an invisible enemy. It's as if there were a mouse in a china shop. You must kill the mouse, of course. But America is smashing all the china in the attempt."

There was a sad, uneasy pause, and then it was Bran's turn to talk about business and his latest fascination with swords and knives, several of which he had forged experimentally. They were selling well, he said, but he wanted to come up with some new aesthetic hilt designs. Will was fascinated and made several design suggestions, sketching them out on a napkin while Bran nodded his white head in approval. Will then talked about his academic research into the way 14th century pagans had disguised their writings as Christian tracts, and how the widespread Stanton clan was dealing with the recent death of his father. His mother was still living in the old house, and his sister Mary had moved in with her family to keep her company. Mary's husband was debating whether they should sell the jewelry shop or take over its management himself. Will looked directly at Bran as he said this; it was no secret that he didn't approve of his sister's prejudiced, harsh, and temperamental husband.

"Ah, hmm," was the only response Bran gave.

Annie was the first to fade as the night wore on. Jane caught her chin slipping dangerously from a propped-up fist, and ordered her to upstairs to bed. Yawning, Annie complied and staggered out of the room.

Will's eyes followed her as she left, and he murmured softly, almost to himself: "She looks just like what I imagine her grandmother to have been."

Jane had given him a strange look. "My mother never looked like that," she said bluntly.

Will snapped out of his reverie and grinned at her. "Oh. I merely meant that she looked what I imagined Bran's mother to look like. With the black hair, white skin and blue eyes, she's a classic Welsh beauty." He shot a sheepish glance at his friend. Bran shrugged casually in response. It never upset him if others speculated about his mother, but it never enthused him either. Will himself had never mentioned her before.

"Perhaps," Bran said nonchalantly. A lightning grin then suddenly crossed his face. "But she does have Jane's cute little ears." He reached over to tug playfully at one of his wife's lobes, eliciting a sharp "Ow!" and a loving punch on the shoulder. Peter saw Will watch the still flirtatious conjugal exchange with an odd look of thoughtful curiosity. The older man then noticed Peter's eyes on him, and the wistful look was immediately replaced by open, and therefore impenetrable, cheerfulness.

Soon Peter's eyelids were drooping, and massive yawns cracked his jaw. The words flying around the table began to blend into an incomprehensible river of sound. He glanced at the large, grandfather clock, and was surprised to see that the hour hand was well past the midnight mark. Standing up, he muttered a vague "goodnight." The adults interrupted their conversation to look in his direction and smile goodnight. Peter dropped a swift kiss on his mother's head, clapped his father on the shoulder, and reached an uncertain hand out towards Will. An amused Will shot a surprised glance at Jane and Bran as he took the solemn boy's palm in his own. Peter then tumbled upstairs and into bed, burying his head in his pillow to shut out the cheerful conversation that was still going strong among the reunited friends downstairs.