The Singing Stones

A full moon. Snow crunch deep. The whole tribe were gathered. Waiting. The burial mound lay ready to
receive the corpse of Hosta, their dead queen. The processional path to the tumulus was lit by tapers, as
Hosta’s children carried her to the mound, led by Hrafn, their new leader.

The tumulus was encircled by the seven women of The Husk; the dead queen’s most trusted followers,
each adept in the ancient magics. The world stilled as Hosta’s body was laid in the mound. From the
silence, the Husk began to keen, long and high. The air tumbled and shuddered. Snowflakes started to fall
thick and fat, until they obliterated the land and extinguished the lighted tapers.

The singing stopped. The snow ceased. Tapers were re-lit. A communal gasp. The women of the Husk had
solidified, petrified. In their place, stood a circle of seven stone pillars. It was a sign from the gods; the Old
Ways were dead and must be forgotten.

Hrafn, Hosta’s eldest daughter, ordered the stones to be scattered across the land to ensure there was no
temptation to return to the Old Ways. Only a single pillar was left to mark the grave.

As the stones weathered, they became grooved and ridged by ice and rain, until the wind fluted through
them as it blew, and the stones began to sing. Wherever they were in the land, they sang. For four
thousand years, they sang, drawing each other closer together until the June of 1939 when, with a little
help from old believers, five stones of The Husk stood again atop the tumulus at Duddo in Northumberland.

Rosy rubbed her eyes. I must be tired from reading, she thought. Words keep disappearing from the page.
They were there a moment ago, but now there are blank spaces everywhere.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her younger brother, Alec, erupting into the room.

‘It’s quite extraordinary,’ he exclaimed, ‘I’ve just cycled back from Duddo and a hare has followed me all
the way back.’

‘It can’t have been the same hare,’ reasoned Rosy.

‘It was. I watched it keeping pace with me. When I stopped, it stopped. When I cycled off again, it followed
me again.’

‘What’s that you have in your hand?’ asked Rosy, tiring of stalking hares.

Alec opened his hand. There lay an almond shaped stone of gleaming amber, brown and topaz.

‘Where on earth did you find that?’ asked Rosy.

‘There was an old man at the stone circle. He gave it to me. Strange old chap, he said I’d need it soon.’

Rosy pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows.

‘I can’t imagine what for,’ she remarked drily.

But, look at it,’ Alec persisted, ‘it looks just like the eye of a hare.’

‘And you’re just hare-brained!’ quipped Rosy, dodging a thrown cushion.

Rosy, Alec and Tim were spending their summer with Great-Aunt Garnet. She’d asked specially for them to
come and stay with her. She lived in the manicured village of Ford. Garnet had chosen the cottage
specially. It sat at the very top of the village where she could observe everybody’s business.

Just then, Tim, the youngest of the three siblings came into the room, whooping.

‘You’ll never guess what?’ he cried, ‘It’s snowing.’

‘You don’t honestly expect us to believe that?’ said Alec, ‘It’s summer. Just two days away from the longest
day of the year.’

‘Look outside if you don’t believe me,’ Tim retorted.

All three looked through the window. It wasn’t just snowing, there was a blizzard outside. In just a matter
of minutes, over three inches of snow lay on the ground.

‘How exciting. We’ll be able to sledge tomorrow,’ said Rosy.

‘And build a snowman,’ chipped in Tim.

‘It’s all jolly strange up here if you ask me,’ muttered Alec to himself.

It continued to snow for the remainder of that day and into the night. When the children woke the next
morning, the snow was several feet deep. It had swaddled trees and bushes, crept up walls, pressed itself
close against fences and snuggled into hollows and hedges. And still it snowed.

At breakfast, Tim and Rosy planned snow adventures. Alec was oddly quiet.

‘What’s wrong Alec?’ enquired Rosy.

‘Well, don’t you think this is all very wrong somehow?’ Alec’s face was in worried furrows.

Rosy paused, thoughtful. ‘I see what you mean. Snow in summer. The hare following you, the strange old
man at the stone circle, the odd crystal he gave you …’

‘Yes,’ said Alec, ‘and what’s even stranger is that when I turned away to get on my bike and then looked
up, he’d disappeared. No sign of him. Just a pile of raven feathers on the ground. Look I kept them,’ Alec
pulled a clump of long, shaggy, black feathers from his pocket.

‘I wouldn’t let Great-Aunt Garnet see those feathers,’ she warned, remembering the day they’d arrived.
Their first sight of their Great-Aunt had been seeing her rush from her cottage, waving her stick at the
ravens who lived in the woods behind her home.

‘Dirty, filthy creatures, the Devil’s bairns!’ she had cried, wrinkling her nose, the shudder continuing
through her whole body.

‘Can’t we just go out and play before it all melts?’ pleaded Tim. Rosy and Alec ignored him.

‘Something odd happened to me too yesterday’ admitted Rosy. ‘Words went missing from the book I was
reading.’

Alec looked puzzled.

‘Here I’ll show you,’ Rosy opened her book. To everyone’s astonishment, the missing words had
reappeared and arranged themselves into a verse.

Rosy read it out loud,

‘When six sing at solstice,

And innocence dies thrice,
Then, time will turn.
And once again,
The Old Ways will reign.’

‘Well, I’m blowed if I know what that means,’ exclaimed Alec.

‘Maybe Aunt Garnet knows the rhyme,’ suggested Tim.

‘Brilliant. Let’s go and ask her,’ said Rosy.

They galloped downstairs. As she listened, Great-Aunt Garnet’s eyes glittered amber, brown and topaz.

‘Oh, my sweet innocents, she soothed, ‘I shouldn’t worry about old rhymes like that. It’s just old folklore
about the stones. That’s all. Now, why don’t you go and build a snowman?’

She turned away. Her eyes glistened with wistfulness. ‘Soon,’ she whispered, ‘soon….’
The children spent a happy afternoon tobogganing down Ford Bank under the gaze of two watchful hares.
As it got dark, Alec and Tim headed home. Rosy decided to stay for one last sledge. Down she went, her
sledge swishing faster and faster. So fast, it was hard to control it. From nowhere, a sudden gust of wind
upturned both Rosy and her sledge. She felt herself tumbling. The air was filled with the sound of beating
wings. Rosy could feel feathers against her face; long, black feathers. She landed at the feet of Rev.
Corby, the local vicar. His clerical black suit hung in unruly bunches from his tall, gangling body. He peered
intently at Rosy from beneath heavy eyebrows. She was caught in his gaze. She felt as if he was raking
through her thoughts. Her heart thumped in her chest.

‘I do hope you aren’t too badly hurt,’ came the vicar’s rasping voice.

‘I’m ok, I think,’ Rosy got unsteadily to her feet.

As they trudged up the bank, Rosy told him about the hares watching them sledge and the one that had
followed Alec, and the crystal he’d been given.

The vicar stopped abruptly. He fixed her in an unblinking stare.

‘Have you told anyone else about this?’ he demanded.

‘No…no,’ faltered Rosy.

‘It would be better for you, if you didn’t mention the crystal to anyone else.’ The warning in his voice made
Rosy’s stomach churn.

‘And remember to tell Alec to guard his crystal well. He will need it soon.’

‘But, hares are such beautiful creatures,’ she mused.

‘Things aren’t always as they seem’, reminded Rev Corby, ‘Oh, what weather! Such darkness. Where will
this storm end, I wonder,’ he exclaimed, disappearing into the blizzard.

Rosy turned to walk home and caught sight of a watching hare as it wrinkled its nose and the wrinkle
carried on through its whole body. Rosy blinked, it reminded her of Great-Aunt Garnet.

The next day was Solstice Day. It was still snowing; relentless, choking flakes smothered the land. A
ferocious gale was battering the cottage. Great-Aunt Garnet woke the children early.

‘You must hurry and have breakfast. It isn’t safe here. You must make your way to the stone circle.’

Rosy and Alec exchanged worried glances.

‘Speak to no-one. Stop for nothing,’ ordered Aunt Garnet as she hurried them out the front door.

It didn’t ever get light that day as they battled through snow and gale, sharp flakes of ice stinging their
faces. The air was filled with strange sounds; a high-pitched whining mixed in with a low, deep croaking
that reverberated through their bodies and shook the ground beneath their feet.

Progress was slow, and it wasn’t long before they were cold, hungry and lost.

‘Let’s cut through these woods,’ suggested Alec, ‘At least it will be sheltered in there.’

But, it wasn’t. A vortex of wind made the trees creak and sway, dipping almost to the ground. Branches
slapped their faces. The rocking of the trees became more ferocious. Dark, black wings beat about them.

‘Let’s get out of here!’ Alec screamed. Terrified, they turned and fled.
After eating the sandwiches Aunt Garnet had prepared, they decided to follow the river to help them
navigate. The river banks were steep and tree studded. They picked their way along carefully. Rosy held
Tim’s hand tightly. As they made their way down a bank towards a wooden bridge, Tim tripped and
tumbled towards the ice-cold river, pulling Rosy with him. Frantically, Rosy tried to grab a branch, but it
snapped in her hand. Rosy knew they wouldn’t survive if they went into the water. The kronking of the
wind became deafening as they toppled ever nearer to the river’s edge. The children felt talons scratch and
tear their clothing until, enveloped in soft wings, they stopped falling. Relieved but shaken, they crossed
the bridge and continued their journey.

Hours later, they reached the stone circle, exhausted and hungry. The snow stopped. The moon and stars
sparkled brightly. Six hares sat in a circle on the tumulus As the children walked up to the mound, the air
around one of the hares wrinkled and there stood Great-Aunt Garnet.

‘You made it, my innocents. Come quickly, the ritual must be completed before daybreak,’ she said as she
herded them towards the centre of the circle.

‘Six sing at solstice,’ muttered Rosy, ‘That’s it. This is what the rhyme’s about.’

The keening and kronking of the air got louder and louder.

‘But that means…,’ chipped in Alec.

‘We’re the innocents that must die,’ finished Rosy.

But it was too late. The six hares has turned to stone pillars and they gathered close around the three
children to form an impenetrable wall. There was no escape. The stones moved closer still, ready to crush
the children.

‘Alec, your crystal,’ cried Tim above the wailing of the stones.

Alec fished about in his pocket and placed the crystal on the largest stone.

As he did, dawn broke illuminating the crystal in a piercing shaft of light that grew brighter and stronger,
until the children had to squeeze their eyes tight shut against the glare. A thundering crash shook the
ground. The six stones disintegrated, their particles swirling away on the wind. Silence.

‘Phew! That was a close shave,’ said Alec, ‘No-one will believe this when I get back to school. But, at least,
we’re safe and the Old Ways are defeated forever.

‘Perhaps,’ said Rosy, gazing at the dark clouds on the horizon.

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