The Black Country by Alex Grecian

Author:Alex Grecian [Grecian, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Historical, Thriller
ISBN: 9780399159336
Amazon: B00CQDMX5Y
Goodreads: 15814167
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2013-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

32

Hammersmith felt like a stranger in his own body. Like someone small and tired inside someone larger, looking out through the larger person’s eyes at a place he’d never been and didn’t understand. Across the room, a framed drawing, pen and ink, fell off the wall and the glass smashed. A cabinet walked itself sideways and toppled forward, narrowly missing Jessica Perkins. The chandelier above Hammersmith swayed back and forth, slowly, then faster until it began to twirl in ever-widening circles. The rug under his feet bunched and crept about the floor, only anchored by his own feet.

But he didn’t fall.

In fact, Hammersmith couldn’t feel that anything unusual was happening to the house. He could see the evidence of some seismic shift all around him, but he couldn’t feel it. He stood rock-steady, or so he thought, as everything around him went utterly mad.

The Price children all sank immediately backward against the walls and slid to the ground, covering their heads with their forearms. The housekeeper disappeared somewhere back in the shadows of the hallway behind her. Jessica pushed Hammersmith away from the center of the room, and he fell backward against the sofa. Jessica rolled across the ground and fetched up against the tips of his shoes as the chandelier came loose from the ceiling and crashed to the floor where Hammersmith had been standing only seconds before. Teardrop-shaped crystals smashed against the rug, came loose from their wire fasteners, and propelled themselves outward in every direction. One of them hit Hammersmith in the knee. He thought it was beautiful the way it caught the light and reflected it back in a spiral.

And then everything stopped moving.

The Price children stood back up, all at once, as if this were part of the normal course of daily events. The housekeeper reemerged from the back hall with a broom and began sweeping up glass. Jessica picked herself up and brushed off her skirt. She tested her leg, put weight on it and winced. She smiled at Hammersmith as if embarrassed, then quickly looked away.

“Are you quite all right?” Hammersmith said. He still felt like a prisoner in someone else’s body, and his voice came to his ears like a distant echo.

“Yes, thank you,” Jessica said. “This sort of thing does happen.”

“What sort of thing was it?”

“The house sank.”

“It sank?”

“Yes, I’d judge that was at least an inch or two.”

“It sank into the ground?”

“Into the tunnels beneath us.”

“You should really stop building houses atop tunnels.”

“Some houses weren’t built atop tunnels,” Jessica said. “I’d guess the tunnels were dug under this house after it was put up. The buildings here and the mines have grown together. They’re intertwined. There’s a relationship in a village that depends on the people, but goes beyond us.”

“Couldn’t the tunnels have been dug around the houses?”

“The tunnels follow the seam. Coal is king here.”

“Good lord.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, thank you. I think you saved my life just then.”

“They shouldn’t have a chandelier in here anyway.”

“You know, I didn’t feel the tremor at all.

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