Michael wasn’t far behind me. My legs were burning and I thought my chest would burst, but somehow I kept running. For once in my life the ghastly, searing terror didn’t freeze me, it propelled me forwards – I knew that with one great stride, Michael would be on my heels, able to reach forward and grab a fistful of my hair. So many awful sounds filled the air – the thumping of Michael’s feet, the blasting of the rain-soaked wind, the deafening sound of engines ripping through the sky above, the sharp cracking of the anti-aircraft guns up on the south cliff; and then, as I drew closer to them, the song of the Daughters of Stone. They were calling to me more clearly – more urgently – than ever before. They loomed before me like tombstones. An aeroplane roared above us. Then there was a different sound altogether – shrill and insistent and dangerous and getting louder by the second. I knew exactly what it was. I threw myself to the ground just as the bomb pounded into the clifftop. The whole world went white, then black, and I was aware of the sensation of moving against my will – up at first, up through the air, and then the ground falling away beneath me and everything suddenly rushing down, down . . .

Chapter 38

38

Iam falling through the air in a thousand broken pieces. I am the wreckage of a person, I am rubble. I am exactly the same as the vast chunk of chalk that is falling with me – the universe does not know the difference between us, and it does not care. The chalk and I are falling at the same speed, and soon we will both smash and shatter into bone-white dust.

Everything is quiet now.

Perhaps it is a dream, I think, but I know that it is real. Everything that just happened was real. A moment ago, the world exploded, and the white cliffs fell.

The hostile engines in the sky above have roared away over the water, vanishing into the smoke.

I am still falling, and I think perhaps it would be best if I could keep falling for ever. But then comes the unbearable jolt as my body slams into the ground . . . There is no pain. I am surprised that there is no pain. There is nothing but darkness and the song of the stones. But something feels strange. Different. Because now the song is coming from deep within my own body.

And I know that I am part of the legend at last.