“Adam, Adam, are you asleep?” whispered Owen.
It was midnight and they’d been talking for ages, but Adam had fallen quiet in midsentence.
Owen tossed and turned. He was so eager for Ava to contact him that sleep was impossible. He couldn’t believe his luck. He was the one the Wise Ones were talking to, not his Canadian cousins and not his older sister. He sat up and pulled back the curtain.
“Come on, Ava,” he whispered. “Where are you?” He pictured her as he had last seen her in the Place Beyond Morning, an imposing half-woman, half-bird, whose beauty made his breath catch. He stared at the stars, willing her to come, until his eyes watered. Eventually sleep won. Owen sprawled back on his pillow, one foot thrust out of the sheets, snoring gently.
The image of a hawk circled through his dreams. She flew closer and closer.
Come, fly with me, Owen. Ava’s voice filled his mind.
In his dream, Owen spread his arms and soared into the air through the open window. “Brilliant!” he laughed. He flew a wobbly course down the road between the darkened houses and experimented, banking one way, then swiftly turning the other. It was wonderful! He had never experienced such freedom. He flapped his arms furiously, tucked in his head and turned a couple of shaky somersaults. Somehow he managed to level out before hitting the ground. “Fan-bloody-tastic!” he shouted. He looked around and saw the hawk hovering above him.
Don’t shout, she reproved him. It hurts my head. Mind–speak. I’ll hear you.
Where are we going? Owen asked as he flew clumsily up to join Ava.
Into the past, replied Ava. But first I have much to explain. Come. She glided to the church tower and perched on one arm of the weather vane.
Flapping frantically, legs making ungainly swimming motions, Owen followed and crash-landed on the roof.
Ouch! This takes a bit of practice. He rubbed a bruised knee and sat on the edge of the tower battlements, feet dangling.
The stones dominated. They stood, silvered sentinels, forever on guard.
Owen sat, drinking it all in.
What do you see? said Ava.
Owen waved his arm, almost lost for words. The stones, the village, the sky. It’s beautiful.
Look again . . . Do you see any veils of darkness?
Owen scanned the landscape. Like what?
Ava was silent.
Owen looked again. Only . . . He hesitated . . . . a bit of mist rising near one of the stones . . . and . . . He shrugged. 
a blank bit of sky . . . as though a small cloud is covering the stars. He pointed toward the vast sweep of the Milky Way.
Well done, child, Ava said. You know how to observe. Always watch for mist or cloud when all else is clear. What seems like a cloud in the sky is small but important. It is blackness obscuring the approach of the Dark Being. She has entered your universe and is searching each star for our tools. So far Gaia has escaped her attention, but the Wise Ones must regain their tools before she discovers your planet and takes them for herself.
Ava turned her head and gazed at the Circle.
The mist near my stones is an elemental, a night-prowling wraith. The stones have it under control. They confine it by day, and it prowls around the outside edge of the Circle at night. It is an unwitting servant of the Dark Being, though it knows nothing of her. As the Dark Being approaches, it gains strength. So will other elementals, both of darkness and light, lurking on this place you call Earth. As our Old Magic rises, so does the Dark Magic. Light and dark must balance for harmony. There cannot be one without the other, but one must not overpower the other or both magics will be destroyed.
Why does the Dark Being want your tools? asked Owen. It doesn’t make sense if upsetting the balance destroys things.
Ava sighed. Power sometimes corrupts the mind. She is so hungry for more power that she has stopped believing in the balance.
So we are going to be destroyed? Owen shuddered. Everyone on earth is going to be killed?
Ava flew down and perched on the battlement beside him. Child, listen. It is our power that will be destroyed. Then both the Dark Being and the Wise Ones will be nothing. She touched his arm with her wing. We wish to avoid trouble by finding the tools and removing them from Gaia. Then you will never be troubled by her.
Owen frowned. But . . . but what if she gets you? What about the balance? You said there must always be dark and light. What happens if you are nothing?
Ava was silent for a long time. I do not know, for we have always been, she admitted finally. But Gaia will change.
Owen stared at the landscape beneath him. This was heavy-duty stuff. It had seemed such fun when they had entered into the first adventure, but now that he had seen the cloud, evil hung in the air. Unthinkingly, he put out his hand and stroked the hawk beside him, drawing comfort from her warmth and softness.
He stilled his hand and turned to look at her. Ava was a hawk now, but the image of her beauty as a Wise One filled his mind.
He snatched back his hand. I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to be rude.
I didn’t feel rudeness, only affection and a need for reassurance, said Ava. She answered his unspoken question. Yes, I am a shape-changer. Humans are more comfortable with shapes they recognize, so when on Gaia with you, I am a hawk or a woman. Tonight we fly, so I am a hawk.
What must I do to help? asked Owen quietly.
You must watch the past, then gather the main elements of your earth’s Old Magic and use them to unlock the secret of the stones. This will release my circlet. Ava shook out her feathers, stretched and flexed her wings. It is time to fly, child. Follow me. She flew off the tower and headed toward the Stone Circle.
Owen gulped. The ground was a long way down. He had flown out of the window on impulse, but now he had to launch himself off a high tower. In the first flush of the magic he had forgotten how much he hated heights.
A feeling of strength and safety flooded over him. You are my chosen helper, Owen. Another Magic Child like Chantel. You will not fall.
Owen closed his eyes, gathered his courage and tried to jump into space. He couldn’t move.
Owen, do you trust me?
Er . . . yes. Owen’s voice shook. He tried to block out a vision of his body smashing into the ground.
Believe in the magic and believe in yourself. You can fly.
Ava swooped down and pushed Owen in the middle of his back.
He tumbled off the tower yelling, kicking and flapping frantically.
The air streamed past him, but there was no sense of the ground coming up to meet him. Owen opened one eye. He was high above the earth. “Thanks, Ava,” he yelled, forgetting to mindspeak in his astonishment. He followed her.
Below them, the stones surrounded the dreaming village. Ava began to trace their circle.
Owen tucked in behind her. He flapped when Ava flapped and glided when she glided. They flew faster. The Circle below seemed to turn, or was it them? The midnight sky whirled and the wind rushed past him, flattening his feathers . . . HIS FEATHERS? Owen was a boy no more. His feet were talons. His arms were wings. His nose was a beak. He was a hawk.
Their speed increased. Round and round they circled Night and day blurred as they hurtled through countless sunrises and sunsets, until Ava’s wingbeats slowed.
Owen gasped. A snowflake landed on his beak and a chilly winter wind buffeted him. They were wheeling high above the Avebury Circle, but gone were the village and the surrounding fields and downs. The land below was forested, an enormous oak forest that flowed over hills and valleys as far as he could see.
Small gaps showed in the forest. Occasionally the top of a hill was cleared and a simple village of huts, surrounded by a protective fence, huddled on the summit. Several hunting trails could be seen, and a dry streambed, but the biggest clearing held the Stone Circle.
The Great Circle was magnificent, covered in snow.
The ditch surrounding it was twice as deep as the modern one. The high embankment that Owen had walked gleamed white against the dark forest. It dipped in four places to create four imposing entrances, one for each direction. From two entrances, pairs of stones marched through the forest in wide cleared avenues. One ended suddenly, but the other avenue marched for over a mile, linking the Great Circle to a tiny stone circle on a far hill. That circle contained a small round hut.
Most striking of all were the features within the Great Circle. For it was not one circle, but three. Two smaller circles stood side by side within the gigantic outer circle. The outer circle was not quite complete. A dark hole yawned in a gap where one stone was missing.
Owen struggled to make sense of all he saw.
You are looking at the past, said Ava. Observe silently. We are seeing my Circle as it was four thousand years ago. You cannot be part of its history. You can only be part of its future. A past ritual magically hid my circlet forever. Observe the ritual carefully for clues. Your task is to create a future ritual that will release it.
I don’t get it. Owen was puzzled. If you can see into the past, you must know where your circlet is. Why don’t you fetch it?
Only the people of Gaia can open their sacred places without disrupting the balance. It must be done freely. Because of your offer to help, you four children have become the representatives of Gaia.
What if we mess up? Owen replied worriedly.
Ava did not reply.
They spiraled downward.
Owen’s hawk eyes spotted movements far below. Ant-like dots were converging on the Great Circle.
As they flew closer, the ants became humans wearing woolen tunics, wraps and skin capes.
A group of seven people, in a solemn procession, were walking from the hut in the distant circle along the main avenue of stones.
Making their way along the second avenue were over a hundred people hauling a massive stone over a frozen trail toward the Great Circle.
A small group of men were working around the gap in the Great Circle.
A large crowd was gathering along the massive embankment to watch.
Ava and Owen circled lower. Ava swooped and landed on a standing stone. She folded her wings, puffed up her feathers to keep warm and watched the past with bright hawk eyes.
Now you must concentrate, child. Ava’s voice filled Owen’s mind. See the past through the eyes of Hewll, the Pit Maker. Ava fixed her hawk gaze on a young man laboring at the edge of the large hole.
Owen did the same.