'Did it ... happen here?' he asked, looking back at Jacob.

The man's tear-stained face was slack, his eyes glazed. It took a few moments for him to focus his attention upon the question. 'No,' he said, finally. 'Simeon lived in Oxfordshire that year-'

'Who's Simeon?'

'Thomas Simeon, the man you just met.'

Will tried the name for himself, 'Thomas Simeon...'

'It was the July of 1730. He was twenty-three years old. He poisoned himself with his pigments, which he mixed himself. Arsenic and sky-blue.'

'If it happened in some other place,' Will said, 'why did you remember it?'

'Because of you,' Jacob replied, softly. 'You brought him to mind, in more ways than one.' He looked away from Will, out through the trees towards the valley. 'I'd known him since he was about your age. He was like my own to me. Too gentle for this world of illusions. It made him mad, trying to find his way through this profligate Creation.' He glanced back at Will, his eyes as sharp as his blade. 'God's a coward and show-off, Will. You will come to understand this, as the years go by. He hides behind a gaudy show of forms, boasting how fine His workings are. But Thomas had it right. Even in his wretched state, he was wiser than God.' Jacob raised his hand palm up in front of his face, his little finger extended. The significance of the gesture was perfectly clear. All that was missing was the petal. 'If the world were a simpler place, we would not be lost in it,' he said. 'We wouldn't be greedy for novelty. We wouldn't always want something new, always something new! We'd live the way Thomas wanted to live, in awe of the mysteries of a petal.' Even as he spoke, Steep seemed to hear the yearning in his own voice, and turned it to ice. 'Yon made a mistake, boy,' he said, his hand closing into a fist. 'You drank where it wasn't wise to drink. My memories are in your head now. So's Thomas. And the fox. And the madness.'

Will didn't like the sound of this at all. 'What madness?' he said.

'You can't see all that you've seen, you can't know what we now both know, without something souring.' He put his thumb to the middle of his skull. 'You've supped from here, wunderkind, and neither of us can ever be the same. Don't look so frightened. You were brave enough to come with me this far-'

'But only because you were with me-'

'What makes you think we can ever be apart after this?'

'You mean we can still go away together?'

'No, that won't be possible. I'll have to keep you at a distance - a great distance - for both our sakes.''But you just said-'

'That we'd never be apart. Nor will we. But that doesn't mean you'll be at my side. There would be too much pain for both of us, and I don't wish that for you any more than you wish it for me.'

He was talking the way he would to an adult, Will knew, and it soothed a little of the disappointment. This talk of pain between them, of places where Jacob didn't want to look: this was the vocabulary one man would use talking to another. He would diminish himself in Jacob's eyes if he answered like a petulant child. And what was the use? Plainly, Jacob wasn't going to change his mind.

'So ... where will you go now?' Will said, attempting to be casual.'I'll go about my work.'

'And what's that?' Will said. Jacob had spoken of his work several times, but he'd never been specific about it.'You already know more than's best for either of us,' Jacob replied.'I can keep a secret.'

'Then keep what you know,' Jacob said. 'There-' he put his fist to his chest '-where only you can touch it.'Will made a fist of his numb fingers and echoed Jacob's gesture. It earned him a wan smile.'Good,' he said. 'Good. Now ... go home.'

Those were the words Will had hoped so hard not to hear. Hearing them now, he felt tears pricking his eyes. But he told himself he wasn't to cry - not here, not now - and they receded. Perhaps Jacob saw the effort he'd made, because his face, which had been stern, softened.

'Maybe we'll find each other again, somewhere down the road.'

'You think so?'

'It's possible,' he said. 'Now, go off home. Leave me to meditate on what I've lost.' He sighed. 'First the book. Then Rosa. Now you.' He raised his voice a little. 'I said go!'

'You lost a book?' Will said. 'Sherwood's got it.' Will waited, daring to hope the information might give him a reprieve. Another hour in Jacob's company, at least.

'Are you sure?'

'I'm sure!' Will said. 'Don't worry, I'll go get it from him. I know where he lives. It'll be easy.'

'Now don't be lying to me,' Jacob warned.

'I wouldn't do that,' Will said, offended at the accusation, 'I swear.'

Jacob nodded. 'I believe you,' he said. 'You would be of great service to me if you put the book back in my hand.'

Will grinned. 'That's all I want to do. I want to be of service.'

i

There was no magic in the descent: no sense of anticipation, no strengthening hand laid on Will's nape to help him negotiate the snow-slickened rocks. Jacob had done all the touching he intended to do. Will was left to fend for himself, which meant that he fell repeatedly. Twice he slithered several yards on his rump, bruising and scraping himself on buried boulders as he tried to bring his careening to a halt. It was a cold, painful and humiliating journey. He longed for it to be over quickly.

Halfway down the hill, however, his misery was made complete by the reappearance of Rosa McGee. She appeared out of the murk calling for Jacob, sufficient alarm in her voice that he told Will to wait while he spoke to her. Rosa was plainly agitated. Though Will could hear nothing of the exchange, he saw Jacob lay a reassuring hand on her, nodding and listening, then replying with his head close to hers. After perhaps a minute, he returned to Will and told him: 'Row's had a little trouble. We're going to have to be careful.'

'Why?'

'Don't ask questions,' Jacob replied, 'just take my word for it. Now-' he pointed down the hill '-we have to hurry.'

Will did as he was told, and headed on down the slope. He cast one backward glance at Rosa, and saw that she'd squatted down on a flattopped rock, from which she seemed to be staring back towards the Courthouse. Had she been ousted, he wondered? Was that what all her distress was about? He would probably never know. More weary and dispirited by the stride, he continued his descent.

There was, he saw, a good deal of activity in the streets of the village: several cars with their headlamps blazing; people gathered in groups here and there. The doors of many of the houses stood open, and people were standing on the steps in their nightclothes, watching events.

'What's going on?' Will wondered aloud.

'Nothing we need concern ourselves with,' Jacob replied.

'They're not looking for me, are they?'

'No, they're not,' Jacob said.

'It's her, isn't it?' Will said, the mystery of Rosa's distress suddenly solved. 'They're after Rosa.'

'Yes, I'm afraid they are,' Jacob replied. 'She's got herself in some trouble. But she's perfectly capable of looking after herself. Why don't we just stop for a moment and examine our options?' Will duly stopped, and Jacob descended the slope a stride or two, until they stood just a couple of yards apart. It was the closest he'd been to Will since the wood. 'Can you see where your friends live from here?'

'Yes.'

'Point it out to me, will you?'

'You see past where the police car's parked, there's a bend in the road?'

'I see.'

'There's a street just round the bend, going left?'

'I see that, too.'

'That's Samson Road,' Will said. 'They live in the house with the junkyard beside it.'