LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to the shape wrapped in the saturated blanket. “Is this one even breathing?” she gasped.

      The faceless figures made no answer. Nor would they carry the blanket and its hidden cargo across the threshold. Together, she and her son had to step into the rain and drag the heavy load from the paving stones themselves.

      Finally they released their burden and the woman relit her candle. Holding it close, she reached out tentatively to turn back the blanket. “A boy,” she said, adding, as she touched his forehead, “Oh, and he’s as cold as ice.”

      “He’s not dead, is he?” asked her son anxiously. He could cope with his fear of the silent visitors, but the body of a dead child…

      “No, and he’ll live a long life yet if I have anything to do with it. We’ll soon put some colour back into those cheeks. Quickly now, upstairs with him,” she said briskly.

      But her son didn’t move. Instead, he stared over her shoulder, which made her turn around. The kitchen door was still open to the rain and the four strangers huddled under the eaves.

      “Will you not come inside and warm yourselves while we tend to the boy?”

      Such kindness came naturally to her, but this was not the first time the strangers had come and she guessed her offer would not be accepted. When the hooded figures remained silent and still, she sighed and told them, “Your job is done, then. You may as well go.”

      She could only watch as they turned quickly and began the long journey back to wherever they had come from. When she bolted the door, she caught a last glimpse of the four silhouetted forms as they marched through her gate and disappeared into the darkness.

      

      The woman did not realise it, but above her in the tower another figure stood watching. With his eyes on the departing travellers, he passed a hand before his face in a single sweeping movement. Suddenly, the men stopped and stared about them, as sleepwalkers do when awakened from a dream. Their first tentative words escaped into the rain-swept night and one of them pushed back his hood to reveal a bewildered face. He pointed the way uncertainly and led them towards the village and the dark forest beyond. In the morning, they would forget they had ever come to Fallside or brought a sleeping boy to a house near the cliff’s edge.

      

      In an upstairs room, a little girl lay straining her ears for every sound. She had struggled to stay awake, hoping to hear an entirely different noise, but tonight it had not come. Instead, the ominous knocking had started up, frightening her, and she had buried herself deeper under the blankets. But it had stopped now, and only moments ago she had heard the bolt snap back into place on the kitchen door.

      Someone was coming up the stairs – two people, she guessed, when the footsteps passed her door. They continued down the hall to the small guest room at the end. Her curiosity had been roused and she felt she would never sleep until she knew why. She slipped out of bed, then, sure-footed and without a sound, she crept to the door at the end of the hall. It had been left ajar, just an inch, but enough to let the pale candlelight spill into the passageway.

      “He’s a fine-looking boy,” said a woman’s voice, one she easily recognised. “We’d better get him out of these wet things.”

      The girl heard muffled sounds, then at length the two sets of footsteps came towards the door, leaving her just enough time to step aside before it opened wide to reveal the woman’s familiar figure, with a bundle of damp clothing under her arm, and her son close at her shoulder. He held a candle for them to see by, but neither noticed the girl even though they passed close enough to touch her. She was not surprised; in fact, her face creased into a satisfied smile.

      When the light had disappeared altogether, she tiptoed inside and closed the door behind her. With the candle gone, she had to wait while her eyes adjusted. After a minute or two she could see that the room was simply furnished with a bed, a roughly made table and stool and a battered wardrobe. The room was so small that there was little space for anything more.

      The boy was sleeping deeply. She poked him gently on the shoulder. No response. She poked harder and still he didn’t stir. She shook him vigorously and even pulled his ear, but he slept on. Surely such slumber wasn’t natural. Distracted by these efforts to wake him, she didn’t hear the footsteps in the corridor until they were right outside the door. With only a moment to hide, she flicked the wardrobe latch and stepped silently into the shadows behind the door. There she waited, as still as a stone.

      Her heart beat frantically as she watched a man slowly walk across the room, carrying a candle. He held it away from his face to protect his eyes and so she could not see his features, but his movements were stiff and stern. He might once have been as tall as the doorway itself but now old age made him stoop at the waist. Robes of the darkest green and black fell loosely from his pinched shoulders, pooling untidily where they touched the floor.

      He carried something heavy in the crook of his arm, hugging it tightly to his chest like a young mother holds her new baby. A book, the girl realised, when he placed it carefully on the table. Free of his precious burden, he went to stand over the sleeping boy, lingering there for some time. Then, releasing a deep and weary sigh, he stretched his hand out over the boy’s face and began to mutter words she couldn’t hear.

      “No! No!” the boy cried immediately. With his eyes still closed, he thrashed wildly under the blanket until the man pressed one hand firmly on his shoulder. At the same time, he continued to sweep the other over the boy’s face, palm turned downwards. The boy lay still, but his resistance was not over. In a much calmer voice now, he recited a verse that seemed to come from a part of him that the old man could not reach.

       My fate is my own, my heart remains free

      But before he could utter any more words, long and aged fingers touched his lips. “Be still now, Marcel. Your magic is no match for mine.”

      The boy cried out, a loud and desolate sound of loss as though his very soul had been wrenched from his grasp. But that hand remained over his face and he settled again into a fitful sleep.

      Now the man dragged the table with the book lying on it to the bedside. He straightened his back painfully as he sat himself on the stool, and after a moment’s reflection he began to speak.

       Before she died, my mother told of her last wish. She had chosen a name for her newborn baby, the name of a favourite uncle she had known as a child.

      As he spoke, the book opened of its own accord and the pages began to fan first one way then the other. When this frantic shuffling ended and the open pages lay still, a second voice joined in, an identical voice, repeating his words at the very moment he uttered them.

      Where had this second voice come from? There was no one else in the room, the little girl was sure of it, though this didn’t stop her from glancing around fearfully. Her eyes turned back in time to see the dark figure pass his hand over the book. The second voice continued freely now, even though the old man himself had stopped speaking.

       And so it was that after my mother was laid to rest in the graveyard, my father announced that his new son was to be called Robert.

      On the bed, the sleeping boy stirred once more. His face grimaced into an agonised frown as he rolled his head back and forth. “It’s not me, it’s not my life!” he wailed. But then that wrinkled hand was extended again and he lay still.

      Not his life! What did he mean?

      The girl heard the desperation in his cry and sensed his pain. She had never seen the boy before, knew nothing of him except for his name, but if he was suffering, how could she not help him? If only she could get closer…

      Without thinking, she nudged the wardrobe door just enough for it to creak. The man stood up instantly and took a step in her direction. This man was a sorcerer. Just the thought of the enchantments he might work upon her chilled her bones to the marrow.

      What could she do? In the shadow of the wardrobe’s door she could stay undetected, but not if he pushed the door aside and let

Скачать книгу