The Hundred Names of Darkness by Nilanjana Roy

Author:Nilanjana Roy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2016-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

EVEN THE BATS HAD fallen silent. They stopped their chirruping when Beraal reached the part about the egrets and the four winds, so that they could listen to the story. When she finished, they rustled their leathery wings like velvet curtains, to indicate their thanks for the tale.

The kittens were both asleep, curled up against their mother’s stomach with their paws hooked into her fur for comfort.

Beraal had smelled Mara’s absorption, felt the Sender’s whiskers go taut in apprehension as the creature followed the cat up the black mountain. She could feel Mara’s breath ease as the story reached its ending, and smelled the young queen’s relief.

“Sleep well, little one,” she said in a soft mew to Mara. “See, the dark has lifted.” It was not yet light, but the hour of the dawn was almost upon them.

Mara folded her whiskers down, stretching her back before she curled herself into a heap. “It was a good story,” she said, her mew growing heavy. “Will the sun be up soon, Beraal?”

“Yes, it will,” said Beraal. “And then Hulo can take you back home, to your Bigfeet. He knows the house.”

“I would like that,” said Mara, in a sleepy mew, and then she yawned, her pink tongue curling outwards. And then there was no sound in Beraal’s snug makeshift home except for the occasional purring of the kittens, as they were washed by their mother. The Sender’s long day had come to an end. She dropped into sleep as a stone drops into a deep well, knowing in her fur and her bones that all would be set right in the morning.

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