The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams

Author:Jen Williams [Williams, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2024-03-05T17:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

33

‘AIDAN TELLS ME you have agreed to do a podcast. Not just a one-off either, but a series.’

It was the weekly family dinner. Aidan was not present, which was unusual for him – he usually took any opportunity to get a home-cooked dinner and his laundry done by someone else – but Ashley thought she knew why. There was the argument they’d had, and the fact that he’d clearly grassed her up to Logan. The sneaky little bastard.

‘It’s good for business,’ Ashley said firmly. She had already spoken on the phone to Freddie, agreeing to go and visit Magda Nowak’s house in the morning, and was prepared to stand her ground. But to her surprise, her father simply nodded in a thoughtful way.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve looked up the listening figures for this podcast, and I have to say I was amazed. These true crime documentaries are making quite an impact.’

Ashley’s mother shifted in her chair, glancing at the angels on the mantelpiece. ‘I don’t like it,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘Why are people so obsessed with blood and gore?’

Logan didn’t even glance at her; his cool grey eyes were focused on his daughter.

‘Yeah, well, that’s why I’m doing it, isn’t it? I do know what I’m talking about sometimes.’ Ashley chased some potato around her plate with her fork. ‘Freddie wants me there to add colour to the recording, and I get free advertising. It’ll bring more people to us.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Logan. ‘As long as it doesn’t interfere with your preparations for the Moon Market. You’ve a lot to do. We all have a lot to do.’

Ashley clamped down on her usual annoyance at being spoken to like a child. This was a fragile truce with her father, and she didn’t want to endanger it.

‘Sure.’ She thought briefly of her blowup at the hen do that day, and wondered if that would end up getting back to her father too. ‘Everything’s fine. I can handle it.’

* * *

That night, Ashley had a series of dark and chaotic dreams, images of places and people seeming to pass through her dreaming mind faster than she could register them. There was a constant sense of movement, as though something could reach up from underneath her feet through that uneasy landscape and wrap its cold fingers around her ankle if she didn’t keep moving. When she woke up, the room was still dark and everything felt too close, suffocating almost. She moved weakly under the duvet, somehow not quite able to push the covers off. She had taken three of the tablets Aidan had given her, and that had clearly been a mistake.

‘Uff. Get off.’

She managed to push the top of the duvet back – how was it so heavy? – and that was when she saw the dark shape of a Heedful One standing at the foot of her bed. Ashley went very still, a rabbit caught in headlights. The thing came forward. It was holding something in its stick arms.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.