Under the Mountain Quotes

“All night they slept as though in their beds at home. They dreamed happy dreams. The light lay still and warm over them, murmuring like a give of bees.”

“The Matheson twins. You haven’t heard? They wandered away from their father into the bush. Only three they are. Rachel and Theo Matheson. They’ll freeze to death, the poor little lambs.”

″‘Twins,’ he murmured, ‘twins’. He touched their red hair. ‘Yes, yes, our colour’. He looked into their minds. ‘And with the gift. They will be the ones.‘”

″‘Hi kids,’ Ricky yelled, coming at them and grabbing their hair. ‘Let me warm my hands.’ ‘Joke’, Rachel said. They had stopped being amused by remarks about their red hair. But they could not be offended by Ricky. He was too good-humoured.”

“The lake looked so still, so peaceful, with the last glow of sunset making pink reflections on its surface. But in a moment that was gone, the water suddenly looked very deep, very secret.”

“Well, evidently you can have flat volcanoes. And we’re sitting right on the edge of one. Doesn’t it make you feel funny?”

″‘Suppose the smell in the lake comes from them. And they can smell us...’ ‘How could it come from them?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘If you’re right I hope we smell a bit better.’ He grinned at her but she was too worried to laugh. She took the binoculars back. Yes, the man was sniffing, there was no mistake about that.”

“In the kitchen he crossed to the window, where two white objects lay on the sill. They were not what they seemed. Only he knew what they were. He laid his hands on them, felt their warmth. ‘I must get you ready,’ he whispered. ‘The ones who can use you have come.‘”

“She gave a little cry; then was quiet, for a voice had begun to say words. At first they were furry, coming through a sound like radio static, coming it seemed from a long way off. Then they grew stronger, and she made them out. It was someone saying deep inside her head, ‘Rachel, Theo, do not be afraid.‘”

“For eight years it had lain in their minds, and though they had given up speaking of it- people only laughed- they had always known the man, their friend, would come back. He has said one day they would know who he was.”