Blackbriar by William Sleator

Author:William Sleator [Sleator, William]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780761459323
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

When the kitchen floor had been scrubbed and the dishes finished, Lark and Danny sat for a while in the large, dark living room. The firelight danced across the beamed ceiling and into their remorseful, downcast faces. Lark, they both knew, couldn’t have made a worse impression.

Then Danny remembered about their visitor the night before, and, eager for a chance to make conversation, told her what had happened, and who Mr. Creech had thought the strange man was.

“Well,” she said when he had finished, “he didn’t actually say he’d seen Mary Peachy.”

“But he said he thought it might be her. And her name was obviously carved there about three hundred years ago.”

“Well, I don’t actually know very much about Lord Harleigh, hardly anyone does, but he’s supposed to be quite batty. The one thing I do know is something that happened to my father once, and even that isn’t much.”

“What happened?”

“Well, a few years ago, Lord Harleigh must have heard that my father was living here, and sent word that he wanted to commission my father to do some kind of painting for him. My father was quite pleased about it, since Lord Harleigh lives in the local manor house and must have a lot of money. He left whistling”—she paused, and her voice dropped,—“and came back only about an hour later, looking pale and shaken. He had a drink at once, and told me the commission was off.”

“But why? Wouldn’t he tell you?”

“He said he’d changed his mind, he’d rather do his own work, and we really didn’t need the money. Which wasn’t true, we did need the money quite badly then.”

“But what made him change his mind? Don’t you know?”

“All I know is that he looked . . . frightened. I’d never seen him look that way before. And he wouldn’t talk about it.”

Danny thought again of Lord Harleigh’s voice, and felt his skin crawl. For a moment they sat and watched the fire without speaking. It was almost out now, and the room was so dark that he could hardly see Lark sitting close beside him. The wind rattled at the front door.

“Maybe we should go to bed,” he said, standing up.

“Yes,” Lark said, looking toward the dark part of the room, “I suppose that would be a good idea.”

Very soon they were huddled in their beds under piles of blankets. The moment Danny closed his eyes he was asleep.

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