Path of Needles by Littlewood Alison

Author:Littlewood, Alison [Littlewood, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
Published: 2013-10-04T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Alice stood in the doorway, watching the policewoman walk down the lane, listening as her footsteps faded. She remained standing there, and after a while she realised she was listening to another sound, higher and sharper; somewhere, a distance away, a bird was singing.

She went through the house, made her way to the back door and opened it onto the garden. Daffodils gleamed in the soft light. Everywhere new flowers were opening, bright splashes of colour. Then another shade caught her eye, a flash of brilliant blue flitting from branch to branch of the apple tree: the blue bird had come back to her. Alice stared, feeling strangely satisfied, and something else: proprietorial.

She smiled at herself. She should do something practical for the creature, set out food for it, instead of just standing here watching; but it was singing now with great gusto, thrusting out its chest and chirruping. It didn’t need Alice, it was something healthy and free that had bestowed its presence willingly, like a gift.

Alice shook her head. She wasn’t Alice in Wonderland, wasn’t in some fairy tale; she was only Alice, and she belonged in the real world. She had chores to do, marking and reading and washing-up.

She went inside, closed the door and found that she hadn’t managed to shut out the blue bird’s song after all; it had followed her, shrill and insistent, into the house. Unconsciously, her hand went to her pocket. She found something that was at once smooth as glass and rough as a cat’s tongue, depending on the way she touched it: the blue feather the bird had given her. It had been with her, all through the woods and the things she had seen, placed in the pocket of whatever she chose to wear, something magical yet close. When she peered out of the window again, though, the bird itself was already flying away.

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