House of the Lost by Sarah Rayne

Author:Sarah Rayne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 1847373321
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2010-03-31T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Romania, early 1970s

When Zoia caught her outside the room with the caged children, Mara was very frightened indeed. She was afraid Zoia meant to shut her in the room itself – perhaps in one of the cages like Hansel and Gretel. She had always thought Hansel and Gretel was just a story, but now she was not so sure. Supposing it was true? Suppose all the stories her grandmother had told were true and there really were wolves and witches and giants?

But Zoia did not put her in the room with the crying babies. She took Mara back to the long room with the empty beds and the mushroom growths on the ceiling and this time the door was locked. For a while Mara sat on the windowsill and stared outside, trying to see Matthew’s house across the tops of the trees, wondering what to do if he did not tell the secrets and she had to stay here for ever. Eventually she fell into a frightened sleep on one of the beds, waking at intervals to sit up and peer through the darkness in case the black stove was lurching towards her or the mushroomy things had fallen onto the bed. Somewhere before dawn it occurred to her that she might be inside a nightmare and none of this was really happening. This was such a comforting idea she promised herself she would soon wake up in her own bed at home, with grandmother downstairs and her little brother asleep in the next room. For a moment she could see Mikhail’s small curled-up outline under the sheets in his small bed, and she seized on the image and went to sleep with it in her mind.

She woke to find she was still in the dreadful room but it was morning now because daylight showed at the windows which made Mara feel a bit better. Perhaps locking-up for the night had been the punishment. Probably Matthew would already have told them all the secrets, and she would soon be allowed to go home.

Presently a woman she had not seen before came in with a mug of milk and a bowl of some porridge stuff. The milk was a bit watery and the porridge was lumpy and tasted faintly of cabbage, but Mara was hungry so she ate and drank it all. Afterwards the woman took her to the lavatory which was a terrible place with rusty pipes and a huge wooden box encasing the lavatory itself and damp floorboards all round it. When Mara ran water from the tap it came out rusty, but she managed to wash her face and hands.

The woman was waiting for her when she went out; she took Mara’s hand and led her down the stairs. Waiting in the big dim hall, was Zoia. She gave the woman a nod of dismissal and took Mara outside. Bright sunshine flooded the courtyard and the hillside; it was dazzling after the dim rooms and Mara put up her free hand to shield her eyes.

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