Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper Page B

high-summer sun. It stood slim and straight. Its hair was like a silver flame. She had a sudden extraordinary sense of great rank, of high natural degree, almost as if she were in the presence of a king. For a moment she resisted a strong irrational impulse to curtsey.
    â€œWill?” she said softly, without turning her head. “Then there were five, Will?”
    Will’s voice came strong and casual and eminently normal, snapping the tension. “Hey Bran! Over here! Bran!” He pronounced the name with a long vowel, Jane noticed, like the sound inside farm, or barn. She had never heard a name like it before. She had never seen anyone like this before.
    The boy on the skyline came slowly down towards them. Jane stared at him, hardly breathing. She could see him clearly now. He wore a white sweater and black jeans, with dark glasses over his eyes, and there was no colour in him anywhere. His skin had a strange pale translucence. His hair was quite white; so were his eyebrows. He was not merely blonde, as her brother Barney was blonde, with his mop of yellowish hair falling over a sun-browned face. This boyseemed almost crippled by his lack of colour; its absence hit the eye as hard as if an arm or a leg had been missing. And then he pulled off his glasses as he drew level with them, and she saw that after all the lack was not total; she saw his eyes, and they too were like nothing she had seen before. They were yellow, tawny, flecked with gold, like the eyes of an owl; they blazed at her, bright as new coins. She felt a sense of challenge—and then she was conscious of her staring, and though she would never normally have shaken hands with anyone her own age, in a kind of apology she thrust out her hand towards him.
    â€œHallo,” she said.
    Will said at once, beside her, matter-of-fact, “That’s Bran Davies. Bran, this is Jane Drew. And Simon, he’s the big one, and Barney.”
    The white-haired boy took Jane’s hand briefly, awkwardly, and nodded at Barney and Simon. “Pleased to meet you.” He sounded very Welsh.
    â€œBran lives in one of the houses on my uncle’s farm,” Will said.
    â€œYou have an uncle down here?” Barney’s voice was high with astonishment.
    â€œWell, actually he isn’t my real uncle,” Will said cheerfully. “Adopted. He married my mum’s best friend. Comes to the same thing. Like you and Merriman. Or is he your real great-uncle?”
    â€œI’ve never really known,” Simon said.
    â€œHe probably isn’t,” Jane said. “Considering.”
    Barney said pertly, “Considering what?”
    â€œYou know perfectly well.” She was uneasily conscious of Bran silently listening.
    â€œYes,” Barney said. He handed the small gleaming horn back to Will. Instantly Bran’s cold golden eyes were on it; then up glaring at Barney, fierce, accusing.
    â€œWas that you blowing the horn?”
    Will said quickly, “No, of course not, it was me. Calling, like I said. Calling you, and them.”
    Something in Jane’s mind flickered at the note in his voice: a small strange difference, so slight that she could not be sure she was not imagining it. It seemed a kind of respect, that Will did not show even when he spoke to Merriman. Or not respect, but an … awareness of … of
something….
She glanced quickly, nervously at the white-haired boy and then away again.
    Simon said, “Have you known Will for long?” His tone was carefully neutral.
    Bran said calmly.
“Calan Gaeaf
last year, I got to know Will. Last
Samain.
If you can work that out, you’ll know how long. You staying at the Trefeddian then, you three?” He pronounced it
Trevethian,
natural and Welsh; not as they had themselves when they first arrived, Jane painfully remembered.
    â€œYes,” she said. “Daddy’s playing golf. Mother paints.”
    â€œIs she good?” Bran