The House Guest by Eleanor Nilsson

Author:Eleanor Nilsson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ligature Pty Ltd
Published: 2019-06-03T01:29:46+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gunno stayed away from the big house as long as he could, which was ten days. Then he found himself having to go back. He’d watched it though, for several days. It was possible that Anne had lost her job, or was on holiday. He had to be sure that her early homecoming wasn’t likely to happen again. As he watched, afternoon after afternoon, he’d wished he’d had a dog. If you had a dog you could take it with you and it would sniff everywhere and no one would look at you twice. It was more difficult, looking casual, without one. He would like to have a dog—yet he knew that the only one he wished for was the dog inside the big house.

He walked past the well that sat so neatly inside the red brick path, and found his eyes attracted upward to a blaze of gold. The silky oak was flowering, its huge horizontal blossoms swaying in the light wind.

He let himself into the house, cautiously, fearfully, as if it were for the first time. The little dog was there to welcome him, jumping up on him, putting her paws over his hands so that he wouldn’t move away, her face adoring, eager. She pranced away to bring him her red ball.

He wandered through the house touching things, reminding himself of them, trying to recapture the peace that the house had always brought him. The little dog kept following him, jumping up whenever he paused.

He walked into Hugh’s room, feeling that slight catch of his breath as he opened the door. But the room lay empty before him as it always did, with its bright carpet, red quilt cover and its blinds, red too, but sobered with a clear blue. He went to the bookshelf and searched for something to read. He pulled out The Tombs of Atuan from where it still sat packaged with The Farthest Shore and curled up with it on Hugh’s bed.

At first he’d liked it, but in a dreary sort of way for the landscape had changed, had diminished so much since the Earthsea book. Earthsea had encompassed islands and seas, but this story was set in desolation, amid crumbling rock and earth, and was filled with images of waste and darkness and dust.

But as he read on, his mild interest changed to something akin to horror. As he turned page after page—feverishly, sometimes reading ahead, knowing increasingly what he would find—he felt himself break out into a sweat. The story disturbed him, frightened him more than anything he had ever read. He closed the book suddenly and put it back on the shelf. But the feeling of it seemed to hang in the air: the musty air of Hugh’s bedroom seemed full of the smell of earth.

He walked slowly to Anne’s study, trying to think sensibly about it. He would have to write to his mother—about the book, especially about that dream he’d had. He’d take some of Anne’s paper—just borrow it—and use her pen.

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