Before him, the dark brown fields rolled away into the tide of mist on the slopes of the Tor and the cottage snuggled into the huge ash tree which overhung it, as if its only protection against the night was to become part of this great organism.
The way that Jim himself wanted to go into the final night. To be absorbed, become part of the greater organism, even if it was only as fertiliser.
He grunted, startled.
Two extra shadows were creeping along the hedgerow.
Headlice saw the little tubby guy in his garden, with his red face and his tweed hat. What a waste, eh? People like that could go and live in nice suburban cul-de-sacs and leave the power places for them that could still feel the electricity.
He dragged Rozzie into the shadow of the hedge. 'Ow!' she screeched. 'Friggin' thorns.'
'Thorns round here are sacred,' Headlice told her. 'That Joseph of whatsit, when he landed and planted his stick, it turned into a thorn tree, right?'
'That's Christian. '
'It's still earth magic' Headlice gazed up towards the Tor, very big now, almost scary in the flatlands. One side of the tower sucking the very last red bit out of the sky, the other side, the one closest to them, sooty-black.
He was glad they'd been sent first, to find their own way through the tangled undergrowth to the Tor. This was how a pilgrimage ought to end. Except he wished it wasn't Rozzie.
A fragile half moon had risen in a thin mist above the holy hill's eastern flank.
'Fuckin' magic, in't it?
'You ain't seen nuffin yet.' Rozzie smiled secretively. 'Stop a minute, willya? I've done me friggin' ankle.'
Headlice gritted his teeth. 'Been better off bringing Molly. Least she knows the country.'
'Yeah,' Rozzie said. 'And you could shag her afterwards right?'
Headlice said nothing.
'What you had in mind, ain't it?' Rozzie said. 'You're a transparent little sod.'
OK, so maybe he did wish it was Mol he was with. Sure; she was fat. Fatish. But she was nice-looking. Open, when Rozzie was closed-up. Despite – and he'd always known this – her not being what she made out. Plus she smelled nice.
When they crossed the lane, only a hedge between them and where the ground started to rise, Headlice wanted to climb over and scramble up, but Rozzie said they'd better find the gate Mort had told them to use. When they reached it they could see a glowing path of concrete: chippings and stuff had been put in, with steps. All the way to the top, it looked like. For the tourists. Sacrilege.
There was a collecting box inviting visitors to contribute towards Tor maintenance. Oh yeah, like patching up the concrete path? Balls to that.
And then there was a National Trust notice board for the thicko tourists. Headlice started to read it anyway, striking a match and holding it close to the print.
Tor is a West Country word of Celtic origin meaning a hill. Glastonbury Tor is a natural formation composed of layers of clay and blue limestone, capped by a mass of hard, erosion-resistant sandstone.
'How do they know that, anyway?' It was almost too dark to make out the print. 'How do they know it's a natural formation?'
'What's it matter?' Rozzie said.
Because it could've been built here, you daft bat. By the ancient shamans. Like the pyramids. According to the lines of force and the position of the heavens.'
The Tor is and has been to many people a place of magic, the focus of legend and superstition. One local story is that there is a hollow space inside; another, perhaps very ancient, that the hill has a secret entrance to the Underworld.
Headlice felt sick to his gut to see it spelled out like this, baby talk, for every ice-lolly sucking day-tripper. He wanted to rip down the board, smash the collecting box, hack up the concrete path. Then the Tor would be a secret place again. A place for pilgrims. He turned away, needing to put this tourist shit behind him.
'Come on.' Pulling at Rozzie.
'Get your mits off. Wanna read this last bit.'
The Tor was the scene of the hanging, drawing and quartering of Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, when Henry VIII dissolved the Abbey in 1539.
'Heavy,' Rozzie said.
'Yeah. Shit.' Headlice dropped the match as it burned down to his fingers. 'I didn't know about that.'
He looked up to where night had fused the hill and the tower into a single dark lump.
'Still.' He walked off along the shining path. 'Maybe the old git had it coming.'
Alone for the first time since she'd joined the convoy, Diane sat in Headlice's bus, a woollen shawl around her shoulders, and unwrapped a peppermint flavoured carob bar.
She was sitting on one of the original vinyl-covered bus seats still bolted to the floor. The bus windows were purpled by a November night as soft and luminous as June.
So this was it. Breathing space over. She was back.
What happens now?
Part of her wanted to take her van and leave quietly. Drive to Juanita's. She'd really missed Juanita, the older sister she'd never had. She really ought to explain. But what on earth could she say? Juanita might run a New Age bookshop, but she could be rather disparaging about people's visions..
I was dreaming every night about the Tor. Vivid colours.
Common homesickness. You'll get over it.
Kept seeing things sort of metamorphose into the Tor. Salt and vinegar shakers in cafes. Plastic bottles of toilet cleaner. And flashing images of it when I closed my eyes.
Hyper-active imagination. Next.
Stopping at traffic lights behind lorries owned by Glastonbury firms. Or houses called Avalon.
Oh, really…
And sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night sensing her near me, in the room.
Oh God, not…
The third Nanny.
You're nuts, Diane.
She began to rock backwards and forwards, holding herself tight in the shawl. Oh God, Oh God, what am I doing here?
Two weeks ago, Patrick had shown her pictures of his family's villa in Chianti country. Wonderful place for a honeymoon. Lovely place, decent man. Oh God.
A shadow passed the window. Then another. She sat very still for a moment. They'd all gone, she'd watched them. Mort and Viper the last to go. She heard a giggle and a hiss.
Kids. There were three or four children in a converted ambulance at the other end of the field, in the care of a sullen teenager called Hecate, a large girl who claimed to be sixteen but was probably younger.
There'd been quite a few babies in the convoy when it first set off, but by the time they reached the beginning of the St Michael Line at Bury St Edmunds, they all seemed to have gone, along with their parents. And the dogs. None of the remaining travellers seemed to have dogs with them. She was sure there'd been a few before, when they were on their way down from Yorkshire.
And musicians. Two guitarists and a flute player. Now there was only Bran, the dour shamanic drummer.
And there used to be lots of ghetto blasters. Endless rock music. Old Rolling Stones albums and Oasis and The Lemonheads. Deep into the night, and the children were used to it and slept through it all.
The hiss came again. Diane got up and went out to the platform. 'What's going on?'
It didn't stop. She stepped off the platform and found herself looking into the shadowed face of the girl called Hecate.
'What's your problem?' Hecate said.
'What are you doing?'
There were four small shadows moving about. Children who were surely old enough to be at school. They were hovering around the bus, making hissing sounds.
'Hey!' Diane realised what was happening. They all had big aerosol sprays. It was almost dark, but she could see that several of the yellow stripes on the bus's bee-panelled panels had already vanished. 'Stop that, you little horrors. Headlice'll go mad!'