Over Sea, Under Stone, Epilogue

Well, they did it.  The kids have secured the grail, even if they lost the manuscript which connected it to King Arthur. [Ah, provenance, no!]

Having left them on a narrowing band of dry rock between sea and cliff, with their enemies scattered and neutralized, the story picks up again some time later, with the kids in a museum.  Simon has just made a speech, and a reporter is bothering him, Jane, and Barney about what they mean to do with the hundred pounds they've just been awarded for finding and donating the grail.  Merry steps in and sends the reported off to talk with the curator, dismissing his questions about "someone else having been after it."

Apparently "the Light" has no problems lying to people.  They aren't, however, using any form of mind control as far as I've been able to tell, so that's something.

Merry talks with the kids, and it's revealed that Hastings is not, in fact, named Hastings, and that he's a long-time enemy of Merry's, apt to change his name and appearance.  Bill and Mrs. Palk were supposedly duped by him.  Merry also tells them that Hasting isn't, in fact, the vicar.  He was renting the old vicarage (the real Trewissick vicar,  Mr. Smith, found it too large and lived in a little cottage instead) and let Jane draw the wrong conclusion.

Simon and Barney express disappointment in missing the manuscripts, but Merry insists that finding the grail was a victory on its own, and that even the loss of the manuscripts was better than the risk of Hastings, et al, getting their hands on the truth of it.  I'm not sure how that works--wasn't part of the value of the grail in the that it told the story of King Arthur and would inspire people to be good? How is that information dangerous in the wrong hands?

Merry also mentions that the second manuscript, the one they didn't have a chance to read, should still be quite safe and hidden underwater in its lead case. Jane one-ups him here: it's not lost after all, as she apparently marked the place where the lead case fell--relative to the deep pool they'd crossed-- and thinks she could find it again, at a suitably low tide.  Merry's whisked away by academics before they can get him to promise that they can go back and hunt for it, leaving the kids to ponder the revelation that his full first name is "Merriman".

Barney works out a "Merry Lyon"-->"Merlin" connection, but dismisses it as impossible (I think not). The kids go over to the exhibit to admire their "gold chalice of unknown Celtic workmanship, believed sixth century".  It has four panels depicted men with weapons and odd helmets, and a fifth section covered in close writing of an unknown language.

They overhear scholars arguing about the grail, and if it proves King Arthur was real (how did the scholars make the connection without being able to read it?), and whether the final panel is in runes, or if it's encrypted.  Jane and Simon fret that without the manuscript they'll never know the truth of "The Pendragon", but as for Barney:

"I think we shall know", he said slowly, "one day."

End.

As far as "find the ancient artifact" plot lines go, it's an interesting option to have it end at a museum, without every little detail proven once and for all.  History is messy; pat endings are rare.  I'm a little put off by the scholars seeming to have information from no-where (like the kids 'having a feeling' during the main action of the book), but I like that some of them agree with Merry's version, and others don't.  It adds some verisimilitude.  It also sets things up nicely for future adventures: the truth is still out there!

I'm probably going to take a short break here, to get some necessary real-life writing done, but hope to be back with book 2, the eponymous The Dark is Rising, early in the new year.