The Sleeping Stones by Beatrice Wallbank

Author:Beatrice Wallbank
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Firefly Press Limited
Published: 2023-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Gruff read the note three times. It gave him the same strange feeling he sometimes got from listening to Nain and Taid and Iolo’s island stories – the feeling that he was simply a pinprick of life, a moment in time, on this tiny rock in the immeasurable ocean. Such a feeling might have made him feel lonely and insignificant, but it did not. It was more like a warm, strong embrace of time and memory, aligning his heartbeat with that of the island.

Gareth ap Ifan had seen the ghostly blacksmith, over four hundred and fifty years ago. She had given him the same warning, the same instruction, that she had given Gruff. Finish the sword. Gareth had carved the hammer, perhaps to help him remember. To help him look.

He can’t have finished the sword though. Because over four hundred and fifty years on, the blacksmith had appeared to Gruff.

Why now?

Finish it, or he’ll kill us all.

Had the danger got worse?

The jetty was swept away the next day and many lives were lost.

Would the next storm destroy the whole island?

Gruff shivered and picked the hammer up again, turning it over in his hands and marvelling at its age. What had Uncle Aled meant by someone adding an inscription in the 1760s? Did he mean the animals? But surely they were part of the original carving.

Then Gruff found it. An inscription in careful, neat block capitals on the underside of the hammer’s head, the letters small but clear.

HIRAETH.

Hiraeth. The feeling of belonging and yearning and love for a place. He’d seen that somewhere, really recently…

The Weeping Stone! Gruff shot to his feet and the wind grabbed the abandoned paper and raced with it across the yard. Gruff ran after it, excitement hammering in time with his heart. Everything led back to the Weeping Stone – to the seventh Sleeper. He checked his pocket for the rock from the geology cabinet as he ran. When he caught the paper, he grabbed it with salt-wet fingers.

He folded the paper and replaced it in the bag with the replica hammer. He hung them behind the anvil and closed the shed door. He returned the torches to the house.

He pulled the small rock out of his pocket and the sea swelled in his fist.

‘Gruff!’ Mat came running into the yard. ‘I can get it back! I tested, loads of times. It doesn’t matter where I put it down, it’s always back in the sea!’

‘That’s great,’ Gruff said, distracted.

Mat looked down at his hand and frowned. ‘You’re dripping.’

Gruff opened his fist and showed her the stone on his palm. ‘I think I know where the hammer is.’

‘Matylda! Babcia Marysia’s on the phone – come now or you’ll miss her!’ Zosia called, appearing round the corner from Blacksmith’s Cottage.

Mat shot an anguished look from her mother to Gruff and back again. She itched at her neck. Gruff saw that there was a red, raw mark there. ‘Tell me about it after,’ she said, and he could hear what the words cost her.

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