Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

Author:Susan Cooper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fables, Stanton, Legends, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, General, Myths, Fantasy, Will (Fictitious Character), Wales, Cornwall (England : County), Arthurian, Good and evil
ISBN: 9781416949954
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 1973-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

While James was splashing in the bathroom, Will slipped off his belt, buckled it again round the three Signs, and put them under his pillow. It seemed prudent, even though he still knew without question that no one and nothing would trouble him or his home during this night. Tonight, perhaps for the last time, he was an ordinary boy again.

Strands of music and the soft rumble of voices drifted up from below. In solemn ritual, Will and James looped their Christmas stockings over their bedposts: precious, unbeautiful brown stockings of a thick, soft stuff, worn by their mother in some unimaginably distant time and misshapen now by years of service as Christmas holdalls. When filled, they would become top-heavy, and could no longer hang; they would be discovered instead lying magnificent across the foot of the beds.

'Bet I know what Mum and Dad are giving you,' James said softly. 'Bet it's a - '

'Don't you dare,' Will hissed, and his brother giggled and dived under the blankets.

'G'night, Will.'

'Night. Happy Christmas.'

'Happy Christmas.'

And it was the same as it always was, as he lay curled up happily in his snug wrappings, promising himself that he would stay awake, until, until...

... until he woke, in the dim morning room with a glimmer of light creeping round the dark square of the curtained window, and saw and heard nothing for an enchanted expectant space, because all his senses were concentrated on the weighty feel, over and around his blanketed feet, of strange bumps and corners and shapes that had not been there when he fell asleep. And it was Christmas Day.

\bPart Two: The Learning

Christmas Day\b

When he knelt beside the Christmas tree and pulled of the gay paper wrapping from the giant box labelled 'Will', the first thing he discovered was that it was not a box at all, but a wooden crate. A Christmas choir warbled distant and joyful from the radio in the kitchen; it was the after-Christmas-stocking, before-breakfast gathering of the family, when each member opened just one of his 'tree presents'. The rest of the bright pile would lie there until after dinner, happily tantalising.

Will, being the youngest, had the first turn. He had made a beeline for the box, partly because it was so impressively large and partly because he suspected it came from Stephen. He found that someone had taken the nails out of the wooden lid, so that he could open it easily.

'Robin pulled out the nails, and Bar and I put the paper on,' said Mary at his shoulder, all agog. 'But we didn't look inside. Come on, Will, come on.'

He took off the lid. 'It's full of dead leaves! Or reeds or something.'

'Palm leaves,' said his father, looking. 'For packing, I suppose. Mind your fingers, they can have sharp edges.'

Will tugged out handfuls of the rustling fronds, until the first hard shape of something began to show. It was a thin strange curving shape, brown, smooth, like a branch; it seemed to be made of a hard kind of papier-mach\a232.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.