The Dark Rider Book One: Snow, Time, Bones

Part 1

June the twenty-fourth, Midsummer Eve. Clouds of tiny gnats, or possibly moths, danced under the trees in the garden, the lawn silver under an early moon. Warren stood in the yellow light cast from the kitchen windows, watching it. The moon's scarified face was tinged an embarrassed pink, as if it were apologising for its largeness.

    George opened the back door, annoyed and amused.

    "Warren? You coming in to do the dishes or what? It's your turn!"

    "Mm."

    "Gran's up to her old stuff again. Want to come in and watch?"

    "Mmm."

    "Hello? I know you're the birthday boy but you still belong to the same planet, right? Dishes, now. Move."

    George flicked Warren's head with a corner of the tea-towel and disappeared indoors. For a moment, one bizarre moment, time had slowed, things growing still within Warren and without, but the towel's sting dissipated the strangeness.

    His father and grandmother sat adjacent to one another at the heavy oak table, involved in one of their meandering conversations.

    "It's going to snow," Gran was saying. "I can feel it, brrr, the snow is falling in my bones."

    "Mother, it's the last week of June!"

    "June, schmoon. The Moon's not right, on this evening of all nights. Ruddy great red thing. In my girlhood, we called it the Devil's Eye. Grave misfortune is coming. Terrible."

    Warren and George's father, Mr. Iain Dyfed, glanced at his youngest son with a mixture of irritation and pleading.

    "It's a Super-Moon, right, War?" he said. "The closest the moon's going to get to Earth in years. The atmosphere up there's just tinged it red. Hope you got a good eyeful of it, bach. You'll be in your forties or fifties, you will, when it happens again. If it happens."

    "It's all right, Gran," Warren said. "Really it is."

    The woman muttered to herself in secret mutiny as Warren clattered tea-plates and cups into the bowl. His father rose from the table and joined him, just out of her earshot.

    "Mind you don't crack those! Honestly, your Gran. I do worry about her."

    "She's all right."

    "You're only saying that because you know your brother enjoys playing jokes on her. The poor woman. I think it's time we put her in a Home..."

    Warren ignored this. It wasn't the first time his Da said such a thing. He'd been talking about sending his own mother away for at least two years. Nothing ever came of it.

    "At least you still have your mother." George's voice issued from the doorway behind them and they both jumped. There was no emotion in his voice and his face lay in shadow. "Not like me and Warren."

    "Now, don't you start," Iain Dyfed sighed. "It wasn't my fault - wasn't any of our faults - for what happened. She was extremely ill."

    Nobody said anything for five minutes. George stepped into the pool of lamplight and started to dry the dishes. Even Gran was silent.

    George cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."

    "That's all right," Mr. Dyfed said, awkward, stilted. "I'll go and see if the dog needs letting in."

    "Wish we could have all the lights on," George grumbled once their father had gone to the front door. "I feel marooned. Like this is the only room that exists!"