Raven's Gate

swung round as it turned in the yard and then set off up the drive. Only when he was sure they weren’t coming back did he sit up on the bed. Everything had happened just as he had anticipated. He was alone at Hive Hall.
    Half an hour later the lights came back on at Omega One. Matt had been expecting that too.
    Dressed in black jeans and a dark shirt, he grabbed the bike and pedalled away from the farm.
    It was time to go back into the wood.
    It didn’t take Matt long to find the entrance. The little flag he had made from his T-shirt was still there, tied round a branch. Grateful for the pine needles underfoot, he made his way along the corridor of trees, making sure he didn’t stray off the tarmac strip that Tom Burgess had shown him the last time he was here. The moon was behind the clouds but he used the glow from the power station to guide him. When he looked back, the wood was pitch-black. An owl cried out. There was a scurry of leaves as some night creature batted its way up towards the sky.
    Matt heard the villagers before he saw them. There was the sound of crackling and a murmur of voices. They were very close. He pulled aside a pair of low branches and realized that he was back at the fence that surrounded the power station. He knelt down and looked through the wire. An incredible sight met his eyes.
    The flat circle of land surrounding the power station was bustling with activity. A huge fire blazed outside the sphere, throwing out vivid snakes’ tongues of flames. Thick black smoke curled into the air. Four or five people were throwing armfuls of twigs and shrubbery on to the fire, the damp wood hissing and snapping as it was consumed. Overhead, a line of arc lamps cast a brilliant glare over the field. It was a strange mixture: the building, with its electric lights, was modern, industrial; the bonfire, with the shadowy figures of people grouped around, reminded him of a scene from primitive times.
    There was a car parked between the fire and the fence – Matt thought it might be a Saab or a Jaguar. A man got out but he was silhouetted against the light and Matt couldn’t make out who he was. The man raised a hand and the gold signet ring he was wearing momentarily flashed red, reflecting the light of the fire.
    He had given a signal. A lorry that was parked on the other side of the clearing immediately began to reverse right up to the corridor that joined the giant sphere of Omega One to the rest of the building. As Matt watched, the doors of the lorry were thrown open and several men emerged, dressed in strange, cumbersome clothes. They congregated together, then lifted something: a large silver box about five metres long. It was obviously heavy. They took a lot of time lowering it to the ground.
    Matt couldn’t quite see what was going on. He had to get closer. He followed the fence back to the gap he’d discovered the last time he was here and waited, making sure nobody was looking in his direction. But all the villagers were concentrating on the lorry. Matt chose his moment, then dived forward, head first. He felt the jagged edge of the wire tear his shirt and scrape his back, but he was lucky. He hadn’t drawn blood. He landed face down on the grass and lay still.
    A large, bearded man walked across the clearing, heading towards the lorry. It was the butcher from Lesser Malling. The ginger-haired chemist was there too. And Matt also recognized Joanna Creevy, the woman who had been at Glendale Farm when he returned with the police. She was talking to Jayne Deverill. Matt looked back at the bonfire. The village children were standing round, poking sticks into the flames, making the sparks leap up. There were forty or fifty people at Omega One and suddenly Matt knew that he was spying on the entire village. Young or old, every one of them had made the journey into the forest. They were all in on it.
    All his instincts screamed at him to slip away before he was spotted. But at the same time he knew that what he was seeing was important. He just had to work out what these people were doing, why they were here. And what was inside the silver box? The men had disappeared inside. The villagers were queuing up, about to follow them. The man with the signet ring began talking to Mrs Deverill. Matt was desperate to hear what they were saying.
    He crawled over the ground, keeping low, hardly daring to raise his head. The closer he got, the greater the chance of his being seen. He hoped the long grass