The Old Ones - a Pattern? #TheDarkIsReading

Will Stanton is the youngest of the Old Ones, and - at age eleven - starts to know or sense things intuitively without consciously learning them.  It's part of his inheritance and burden as an Old One.

Moreover, he has, in some mysterious way, actually participated in events that took place long before his own birth, even though he was not even aware of them until now (II, "The Book of Gramarye" 117-18).  In essence, he knows far more than he knows.

This same pattern also manifests itself on a smaller, human scale when he finds Farmer Dawson's small flat box of Christmas-tree ornaments:

"I've never seen them before," said Will. 

"Well, you have really," his mother said.  "But so long ago that you wouldn't remember.  They disappeared years and years ago."

(II, "Christmas Eve" 95).

Edition Used:  Cooper, Susan. The Dark Is Rising.  Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1999.  (That's based on the ISBN 978-0-689-82983-3, but the book is obviously printed in 2013 or later, since it includes an introduction by Susan Cooper that was copyright in 2013.)