When Graham told Gwen and Colin about the candle and the horsemen he was greeted with the reaction he had rather expected he would receive: laughter. It was, after all, a difficult story to swallow. They were walking up the hill out of Woolton Village, passed St. Peter's Church. It was the middle of February but it was still quite chilly, and the sun was glinting palely on the frost-rimmed windows and roofs. Everything had a clear-cut edge to it. It was hardly a day to believe in Graham's misty fears.
Colin and Gwen were brother and sister, and Graham's best friends. Colin, who was nearly seventeen, was the elder of the two boys by two years. He automatically dismissed everything that Graham had described as nonsense, which is what he usually did.
"You're having us on, aren't you?" he said. "I mean, you can't be serious. Horses, all right – but little men at the bottom of the garden. Oh, come off it!"
"It's true," insisted Graham. "Why do you always make everything anybody else says sound so daft?"
There was a silence. Graham didn't lose his temper very often.
"Are you joking, Graham?" asked Gwen, after a pause to let him calm down. "Don't mess about."
"I'm not messing about. It's true. How many times have I got to tell you - it's true. I've got the candle to prove it."
"Anybody can buy a candle," said Colin.
"With gold on it?"
"What?"
"Ah, now you're beginning to believe me, aren't you?"
"Have you really got a candle with gold on it?"
"I don't see why I should show you. You don't believe me anyway."
"Oh don't be such a baby, Graham," snapped Colin.
"No. Why should I show you? All you ever do is make nasty remarks."
"Let's go and sit in the churchyard," suggested Gwen. "I'm fed up with walking."
There were benches in the churchyard so that people could sit and look over the houses to the woods. They sat down and there was another long silence. All three were thinking their different thoughts. Inside the church the organist started practicing the hymns for the following Sunday.
"Have you got the candle with you?" said Colin at last.
"Yes."
"Let's see it."
"No."
"Please."
Graham unzipped his anorak and took the candle from the inside pocket. He handed it to Colin. The older boy examined it carefully.
"That's real gold," he said after a moment.
"I know," said Graham with a grin.
"Are you sure, Colin?" asked Gwen.
"Of course I'm sure. It's real gold. And the wax, it isn't ordinary.
Look, it's got all sorts of shapes and swirls in it. There are colors inside. And it smells funny."
Gwen sniffed it.
"It's a kind of perfume. Like incense."
"Maybe it's been stolen. From a church," suggested Colin.
Now it was Graham's turn to laugh.
"What sort of church would have a candle with three eyes on?"
Colin shrugged.
"Let's light it," said Gwen.
"What for?" her brother asked.
"What do you mean - what for?"
"Well I mean what's the use in lighting it. It'll only burn down."
"Then I won't have a candle," said Graham.
"Yes, but there's no use in you having it unless you do something with it, is there?"
"I suppose -"
"– And candles are for lighting, aren't they?"
"But I don't want to light it," Graham replied, with a note of finality in his voice. "It's my candle, at least I picked it up, and I don't want to light it."
"What are you going to do with it then?" asked Colin.
"Keep it. Keep it until the man comes back for it."
"Suppose he doesn't come back?"
"He will," said Graham.
"Suppose your phantom horsemen got him," suggested Colin.
Graham fell silent.
"I mean, if he wanted it that badly–" Colin continued, "–and if the horsemen didn't get him – surely he would have come back for it by now?"
"Anyway," Gwen went on, "what's the use of having the stupid thing if you don't light it?"
Graham was unconvinced. "It isn't even dark," he said.
"Well, we'll wait until tonight then," Gwen replied.
"We can't light it in one of our homes, in case someone smells it. They'll find out."
"Find out what?" said Colin.
"That we lit it."
"Oh big deal," said Colin sarcastically. "Let's be children about it then, if you must. We can light it in the woods."
Graham sighed. He didn't want to spoil his candle. Perhaps it wasn't even his to spoil. But Colin was older than him, and he didn't want to be laughed at. Besides, they could blow it out very quickly, and maybe the wax wouldn't run at all, and his candle would stay as perfect as ever.
"All right," he said, after a long debate with himself. "We'll light it."
That evening, just as it was beginning to get dark, they reconvened on the edge of Woolton Woods. It was rather a depressing place. The trees all had initials carved on them, and the bark had been pried off with penknives. The men from the Corporation pruned them every year, just to make sure they did not get out of control, but the higher branches, out of reach of the electric saw, formed a thick and elaborate mesh which made the place gloomy and rather damp. The autumn leaves had long turned to soggy mush, smelling of decay, and the rusty remains of discarded bicycles stuck up out of the water-filled hollows, like drowned things.
There was very little wind that evening, and they soon found a place behind a rhododendron bush in which there was not even a breeze. Graham had a half-full box of matches. They stuck the candle in the earth, so that it would not fall over.
"Suppose it explodes or something?" said Gwen.
"Don't be ridiculous," her brother replied. "It's only a candle."
"No," said Graham. "It isn't. There's something special about this candle."
"Something's going to happen," said Gwen quietly.
"Get on with it Graham," said Colin.
Graham struck a match and touched it to the wick. They held their breaths. The wick blackened and caught. The flame guttered for a moment and flickered in the wind, which had, at that very instant, sprung up from somewhere. The rhododendron bushes sighed. The branches of the tree shook. The wind grew. The flame, feeding upon it, flared unnaturally, and the colors in the candle twisted the woods blue and green and red.
"Put it out," said Gwen in a hoarse and frightened whisper. "Please put it out, Graham."
"Yes," agreed Colin uneasily. "I think perhaps you'd better."
"No," answered Graham strangely. "We must not."
The trees roared. The steep forest sang a great chord, remembering its birth. The children felt sleepy. The sky boiled purple and red through the tall black trees. Something took hold of them, threw them into the air, and let them fall. The flame burned in their minds. Then they were asleep.