Houses take on the character of their inhabitants. Kate’s initial impression was of tranquility and tidiness. Gauzy white curtains fluttered at the large glass windows, and soft, plump chairs and sofas gathered in the rooms. Tones of green, white, and blue predominated in the upholstery, and the walls were a soft gray-green. The cushioned chairs and quiet hues spoke of peace. The crystal-clear windows and perfect spotlessness spoke of industry.
Kate and Emily trailed through the house after their great-aunts and saw everything there was to see, from the kitchen by the back door to the upstairs bedrooms. Prim and Celia had the two bedrooms on the left side of the upstairs hall, and the girls were given ones on the right.
Kate’s room faced the front. “We did think this would be pretty for a young lady like you,” said Aunt Celia. “It has Grandmother’s furniture, and Prim and I could just imagine you combing your lovely hair before the glass at her dressing table.”
Emily had the back bedroom. “You’ll never believe how many storms we have here, dear,” cautioned Aunt Prim. “Such wild country! If you wake in the night, my room is right across the hall. No need to dodge around the stairs when you’re in a fright.”
The next several days saw the girls settle in and become a part of the rhythm of life at Hallow Hill. Some demands were placed on them, but they were free to roam their new surroundings for hours every day. It must be admitted that the two older women found their new charges quite exhausting. Whenever the girls burst out the door with a picnic hamper to go off on a long ramble, it is hard to say who of the four felt most relieved.
It took the girls a week to find the druids’ circle that their cousin had spoken of. They discovered it after supper one evening, quite close behind the Lodge. The forest path they were following began climbing a steep slope. As they looked upward, they saw an evenly planted row of ancient oaks set in thick green turf. In the gaps between they could see a further row of trees, but so massive were the specimens in this double ring that they could not see past the two rows together. The enormous trunks, wider than the girls could span with their arms, formed a perfect barrier, protecting whatever lay beyond from careless eyes.
Hand in hand, the girls approached this awesome barricade and slipped between the giant sentinels. The tops of these hoary trees, so close together for so many ages, had grown into one dense, continuous ring. No sunlight pierced it to fall on the intruders beneath, and yet the green turf continued underfoot, right up to the great trunks.
Inside the ring, the broad crown of the hill was almost flat. They could not see beyond the trees either to the distant hills or to the woods outside. They were in a huge room walled by living plants. Above them, past the tangled branches of the oaks, stretched a perfect circle of darkening twilight sky about seventy feet across. The lush turf formed a dense, soft carpet underneath, and small white field lilies sprang above it on long, thin stalks, like tiny stars scattered across a dark green sky.
Speechless, Kate and Emily stood and looked around. This was a silent place. No birds sang in the branches of the great trees, and Emily found no bugs crawling in the grass beneath. Slowly they wandered to the very middle of the twilit circle and dropped down onto the inviting turf.
“Do you think the druids built this place?” asked Emily.
“No.” Kate knew that this was no ruined monument to a dead religion. The circle was alive and aware. It exerted a magical force that welcomed and comforted her, as if good people had arranged a place for her security and care.
“But if the druids didn’t make it, who did?”
“I don’t know, Em,” Kate said thoughtfully. “Perhaps our ancestors did. I feel so much more at home here than I do up at the Hall. And just imagine how the stars must look from here! Let’s stay a little while longer and watch them come out.”
As night fell on the tree circle, the stars shone in the round ceiling of sky over their heads. Kate gazed, enchanted, at the brilliant lights hanging above her. She had always had a deep love of the stars. She sometimes felt that if it hadn’t been for them, she never could have stood the loss of her parents. As long as she had the stars, she would never be alone. Even when she wasn’t looking at them, she could feel their gentle radiance in her mind. They had never seemed as beautiful as they did tonight. One by one they emerged until the ebony sky was full, and the glittering net shimmered over their heads.
“We’d better go back,” warned Emily, thinking about what her worried aunts would say. They crossed to the enormous trees, now black in their own deep shadows, and slipped between them to find the forest path again. It took some time before they hit upon it in the meager, dappled starlight. As they walked slowly homeward in the darkness, Kate tried to remember the beauty of the stars, but a vague presence intruded on her thoughts. She began to peer into the shadows. She couldn’t hear or see anyone, but she was sure someone was there. Kate rambled in the late twilight as often as she was allowed, and she had never been afraid before, but now she held her sister’s hand tightly.
“What’s wrong with you?” demanded Emily. “You’re pinching me. We’re not lost, you know. I can find the way home.”
Kate stared desperately back into the forest. “Em, something’s watching us!” she whispered.
“Oh?” asked Emily, very interested. “What? Where?” She turned around and peered unsuccessfully into the deep gloom.
“I don’t know,” murmured her sister. “It followed us down the path. I can’t see it, but it can see us. Can’t you feel it?”
“No,” replied Emily with a shrug. “It’s probably just a fox. Come on, Kate, we’ll get in trouble.” And she towed her preoccupied sister across the Lodge lawn. At the door, Kate stopped and looked back. The heavy shadows under every tree seemed full of menace. Once she was in the house, the feeling left her, but it came back a little later as they talked in the parlor. The great-aunts never drew the heavy curtains. Kate stared suspiciously at one gauze-covered window after another. She even rose and looked out into the dark night, but there was nothing there that her eyes could see. After a few minutes of this restlessness, her great-aunts began to watch her in some surprise. Embarrassed, she excused herself and went up to bed.
Nighttime became an ordeal for Kate after this. Sometimes she would be free of the feeling until bedtime, when she would begin to pace and fret under the conviction that something was watching her. She, who had always loved the stars, began to avoid looking out the windows after dark. Even in her bedroom on the second floor, she would wake in the night, uneasy. She would lie as still as she could under the covers, peering around the room at the darkness, and she began to have exhausting nightmares. When Kate tried to explain her feeling to her great-aunts, they laughed at first and then looked puzzled. Hallow Hill was so remote that no one ever came or went across its grounds. The aunts never even locked the doors.
Prim watched Kate with concern and decided that both girls needed more to do. They had been through a great deal, and they had too much time to dwell on it. She had already talked to the girls about the sorts of lessons they had learned and had found Kate to be shockingly overeducated. Kate’s father, seeing in his daughter a real intellectual enthusiasm, had taught most of her lessons himself. Both father and daughter were fired with a love of literature, and they had spent hours reading and discussing books together. Aunt Prim was appalled.
“I think it’s sweet that she spent so much time with her father,” said Celia.