The Ragwitch. Garth Nix

       1. The Midden

      “COME ON, PAUL!” shrieked Julia as she ran down the dune, the sand sliding away under her bare feet. Below her lay the beach, a white expanse bordered by mounds of seaweed. Beyond the seaweed lay the sea, a great mass of slow, tumbling waves, each solemnly dumping another load of the green-brown kelp.

      Julia didn’t wait for an answer to her call – a brief backward glance showed Paul atop the dune, staring single-mindedly into the sea. She kept on running, breaking into an erratic skip to avoid the stinging bluebottles cast ashore to die in the morning sun.

      Entranced by the view, Paul slowly moved his gaze along the beach, like a swivelling human telescope. He looked mainly to the north, where grey rocks thrust out into the sea, forming a spit, full of intricate pools and dangerous channels.

      Above the spit, a strange hill rose out of the sand, a reddish hill, crowned with thousands of gleaming white fragments and shells. The hill dominated the shore, rising high above the lesser dunes that flanked it.

      “Come on!” shouted Julia again. Paul looked down and saw that she was already walking towards the spit. He quickly switched from looking to walking mode and took a diagonal path to meet her, half sliding down the face of the great dune.

      “Isn’t it fantastic?” burbled Julia, as Paul finally arrived at the spit, panting from his exertions. She spoke without looking at him, intent on the tiny fish that swirled about her toes in the rock pool.

      “Yeah, great!” answered Paul enthusiastically. “Do you want to go out on the spit? We might see a dolphin from the end.”

      “Not now. Wouldn’t you rather climb that?” asked Julia, pointing at the hill.

      “What sort of hill is that?” asked Paul. “I’ve never seen a hill like that on a beach!”

      “It’s a midden. Daddy told me about it last night. You can just see it from the house.”

      “What’s a midden?”

      “An Aboriginal midden,” explained Julia, “is sort of a really old rubbish tip. It took thousands of years to build up, just by people dropping shells in the same place. That’s what those white things are.”

      “But what about the red dirt?”

      “Oh, that,” whispered Julia, her eyes widening in mock fear. “The dirt is the remains of old, old bones.”

      “Maybe I don’t want to go up there after all,” said Paul, echoing Julia’s tone of mock fear.

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