A Castle of Bone by Penelope Farmer

Author:Penelope Farmer
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780140306927
Publisher: Puffin
Published: 1972-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

“It can’t be Penn. It can’t be.” Jean’s voice shook miserably. The baby waved his arms up and down, giggled, and crawled out of the cupboard.

Hugh dragged his mind back, tried to force the presence of this baby towards the earlier presence of Penn, to make himself understand properly that this could be Penn.

“Who else could it be.” He spoke as much to convince himself.

“We must put him back in the cupboard quickly. Quickly.”

“Don’t be stupid. What good would that do?” Hugh felt weary; a lethargy came over him at the thought of trying to resolve this. At the thought that he had to; Penn having left him to decide alone.

A wave of furious anger came over him as well; that Penn should have so abandoned him. He touched a chair, could have thrown it across the room, but the anger faded, left him void and cold.

“What are we going to do?” he said.

“Look after him, obviously.” The immediate and pressing practical problems began to have the effect of calming Jean. When the baby, crawling for a chair, almost pulled it down upon his head and began to wail, she moved quickly, picked him up, cuddled him, murmuring.

“Shut him up quick,” Hugh said. “Or Ma will hear.”

“What if she does come?”

“We’ll hear her. We’ll have to hide him fast.”

“Hide a baby. Are you joking?”

“She mustn’t know.”

“But someone’s bound to notice Penn’s missing, some time.”

The baby was quiet now, patting at Jean’s cheek. Jean shifted her face to one side of him to look at Anna. Hugh looked too, almost simultaneously. Anna was standing quite still, her arms by her sides, with hands curled up, shaking all over. Her eyes were shut, tears were spilling out and pouring down her cheeks.

“Anna,” Hugh said, questioningly. “Anna?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

“It’s done now. It’s happened. I think,” he said cautiously, “it would have happened some time anyway.” But the tears continued pouring down Anna’s face.

“You will have to pull yourself together, Anna,” said Jean officiously, forgetting her earlier panic. The baby was pulling at her hair now.

“Tonight’s all right,” she added. “Penn and Anna are meant to be staying with us tonight anyway or they could if they wanted to, Mum said. Their mother’s going out. But…” Hugh made a helpless, hopeless gesture. Anna merely began to weep out loud. Hugh wanted to go away now, do nothing, seek no solutions, but pulled himself out of that, through irritation mostly.

“Shut up, Jean. It’s all right, Anna.”

“It isn’t all right. How can we get him back?” Anna’s voice wailed somewhat, but at least she began to look more normal. For an unpleasant moment Hugh had wondered if she might be going to faint; she had looked so ashen white.

“I don’t know, not yet. We’ll think of something. But I don’t know, yet.”

The baby had started whimpering. Jean looked helpless again. “Do you suppose he’s hungry?” She jigged him up and down, but to little avail. Anna walked across the room and looked into the baby’s face as it peered over Jean’s shoulder.

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