Dragon Shield by Charlie Fletcher

Author:Charlie Fletcher [Fletcher, Charlie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Children's Books, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy & Magic, Children's eBooks, Science Fiction; Fantasy & Scary Stories, Sword & Sorcery
Amazon: B00K5UFFPK
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Published: 2014-07-02T23:00:00+00:00

13

Above the Blue Light

The feline voice repeated the question.

Jo did not know the answer. She almost did, but her brain was not working properly. The voice was dangerously mesmerizing and insistent, as if it was also using tones and frequencies too deep for normal ears, but strong enough to make her heart begin to bump out of rhythm.

‘WHY COULD YOU MOVE?’

‘What?’

‘WHY COULD YOU MOVE WHEN OTHERS IN THE CITY COULDN’T?’

It all came back to her.

Not in bits and bobs, but all at once, like a great slump of wet snow falling of a steep roof high above her. The weight of memory hit her and buried her, smothering her and cutting her off from everything, and for a long time she just fought wildly against it, thrashing in panic, trying to flail her mind free of the images that were trapping her and making it harder and harder to breathe, let alone think.

It was remembering to breathe that calmed her down.

She remembered the pain, the earlier pain from the operations on her knee, and she remembered her mum telling her how to calm her breathing and that everything else would follow, that the pain wouldn’t go, not all at once, but if she thought that every time she exhaled a little bit of it would disappear then that would be how to control it and not let it be the boss.

Jo decided not to let the panic be the boss either, and breathed it out, breath by breath. It took concentration, but it worked.

She felt the voice waiting for her to surface.

‘AH.’

‘This isn’t a safe place.’

‘TELL ME YOUR NAME, AND I WILL TELL YOU MINE.’

Jo paused for a moment.

‘Joanna.’

Only people she didn’t know, or people she didn’t much like called her Joanna. She wasn’t going to give this voice her real name.

‘JOANNA. AND WHO IS THIS JOANNA? WHY ARE YOU SPECIAL?’

‘I’m just a girl,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

Two hands reached down through the surface and sat her up. Only when her head broke clear and emerged into the air did she realize with horror that she had been lying under water. It cascaded off her face and hair as she fishmouthed and stared about her. The four lion-women knelt on the edge of what she now realized was some kind of stone mummy’s coffin. Their faces were cold and intense and focused on hers. A small cat with earrings stood on the back of a frozen museum worker who was bent in front of the sarcophagus.

This was the moment when Jo could have let the panic take her and sweep her off in its dark undertow.

She concentrated on breathing. She saw the blue light rippling shadows across the roof, and she caught glimpses of other statues and unmoving people all round her. It was somewhere she’d been before.

‘NOW YOU KNOW US!’

The voice was an exulting growl.

Jo shook her head.

‘No. I mean you’re frightening, and you’re statues and you’re moving and everything. And I think this is the museum. But .

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