A nondescript figure was standing behind him. He had a hand on Quill’s shoulders. Quill ignored him for a moment, then realized, with a start, that he was looking into the back of Quill’s head. ‘No, don’t move,’ said the figure calmly, like a doctor. Quill stayed put, with his back to him, but suddenly he had a gun in his hand, because a part of him was yelling that he really needed to have a gun right now.

Quill knew what this was. He spun round and tried to grab the figure, but he couldn’t register any details of it. His hands went straight through it. Quill stumbled forwards into the figure, which was trying desperately to get out of his way, but now Quill had found that the figure was actually a hole, and in trying to grab it he was falling.

Quill lost his footing completely and fell into the void.

Chapter Seventeen

SEVENTEEN

FOUR THOUSAND YEARS AGO

Quill fell into the dreams of a mind much older and much bigger than his own. He screamed as he fell, but made himself stop when he saw how huge what he was falling into was. He wasn’t sure he wanted this mind to notice him. The woman who was dreaming dreamed the same things, over and over. Quill had no idea of time, but he was inside her dreams long enough to understand everything. The sadness of it fell over him like a shadow.

*   *   *

The word ‘kennet’ meant three things to the people of the hawthorn bushes: a long low mound of soil with rock slabs cut by the ancients in a grove at its door; the entrance of a woman, from which came children; and something that was evil. That was why it was a swear word, something shouted by soldiers over beer in the round house.

In the woman’s dreams, which were now his own, Quill found himself standing inside a kennet that she thought of as her home. He no longer had the gun he’d imagined into his hand to protect himself. He was here on the night when everything had changed, a terrible night. She kept dreaming about this night, over and over. Quill could feel that something dreadful was going to happen.