The boy dropped lightly from the overhanging shelf of rock, along which Shore Street wound precariously, to the gravelly ground below, and kept running. There was a path, not far from here, that led clear around into the pine wood on the more sheltered side of Port St. Alison. If he could once find that, he was safe, he had found refuge.
Behind him the raucous laughter of his pursuers sounded far too near. Desperately he picked up his pace, sped along the shingle toward the cluster of jagged boulders that hid the beginning of the path.
Then he was amongst them, in a sudden quiet shade, sheltered from the sun and wind and laughter. He skidded to a stop, panting, and leaned against the face of a boulder to catch his breath. Distantly, he heard footsteps thunder along Shore Street and die away.
Silence, then, except the screeching of gulls and his own harsh breathing.
The boy waited till he got his second wind; then with a fluid movement straightened away from the rock, and set off down the path. Ten minutes' walk brought him to the fringes of the wood. It was not much more than a stand of scraggly pines clinging to a rocky slope.
He stopped short. Someone was there before him.
A woman crouched at the foot of a tree, seemingly absorbed in a pebble she held between two fingers. She was thin and delicate, small-featured like a child. Her fine fair hair fell loose about her shoulders, glimmering like moonlight. At the sound of footsteps she looked up sharply, dropping her pebble, hazel eyes wide and frightened.
"Damn it, Mother!" the boy said, aggrieved.
She blinked.
"Kerrigan?"
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
His mother looked at him plaintively. "You startled me. I thought you were--"
"--somebody else, I know," the boy said impatiently. "You thought I was a wood sprite, you thought I was old auntie Emma, you thought I was the guard coming to lock you away, I don't know why they don't--"
"I thought you were your father," Mad Enid said quite calmly, leaning down to search for her pebble.
Kerrigan stared at her.
"What did you say?"
"I said I thought you were--"
"I heard you!" He scowled down at her; such a tiny woman that at thirteen he was already taller. "I don't know how the hell you can tell."
"Don't swear, Kerrigan."
"Sorry," sullenly.
He watched her slender fingers sort through the gravel for a moment. Then, wordlessly, he bent and picked up the pebble, where it lay beside her foot, and held it out to her.
Her face lit up with childlike joy. She seized the pebble and threw her arms around his neck. Kerrigan winced, hugging her furtively in return.
"You're so thoughtful," she said happily.
"All right, all right," he muttered, trying to disentangle himself.
Enid loosed him, held him by the shoulders at arm's length, gazing up at him approvingly. "Look at you."
He stared at his feet.
"You take after me," she announced with satisfaction.
Lucky me, he thought sourly. Does that mean I'll end by dithering over beach rocks and talking to gulls? Damned if I will. He pulled away from her.
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