The Land of Lost Things: the highly anticipated follow up to The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Author:John Connolly [Connolly, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529391800
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2023-09-06T18:30:00+00:00

A Song, or Incantation

The passing of the Huntress freed from her thrall the creatures she had birthed. With the help of Ceres and the Woodsman, they reverently removed the heads from the walls of the cottage, and by the light of burning torches buried them in a freshly dug grave beneath a willow tree. The body of the old stag was laid to rest with them, that he might watch over them, and they over him. In a second grave were interred the organs and limbs from the Huntress’s collection, because these, too, were parts of people and animals. The head of the Huntress, now reduced to a bare skull, was tossed in a hole in a patch of wasteground behind the cottage, the spot destined to lie unmarked, eventually to be covered by grass and briars. Her instruments of torment were inhumed alongside her, those blades, saws, and scalpels. Finally the Woodsman’s axe chopped to pieces her operating tables, and the wreckage, along with all the furniture from the cottage and everything else it contained, was burned in a pit. The roof was removed, and fast-growing ivy was transplanted, so that the forest might reclaim the ruin, hiding it from view forever.

All this required Ceres and the Woodsman to work well into the night, giving them little time to talk. When eventually they did speak, it was alone, and by the warmth of a fire far from the pit in which the Huntress’s possessions had been burned. That pyre had smelled foul, and Ceres thought she could descry ghosts in the flames.

‘How can the Crooked Man be alive?’ Ceres asked the Woodsman. ‘David saw him destroy himself.’

‘The Huntress might have been lying.’

‘But she had no reason for it.’

The Woodsman did not disagree, although it was clear he would have liked to. The possibility that the Crooked Man had survived was not one he was eager to entertain.

‘But what can he want from you?’ asked the Woodsman. ‘I can’t see you consenting to be made queen, if that’s his plan.’

‘Queen Ceres. It doesn’t sound so bad, now that you mention it.’

The Woodsman crooked an eyebrow at her.

‘I’m joking,’ said Ceres. ‘Being royalty always struck me as hard work, when it wasn’t just dull.’

She nibbled on a wild strawberry. The creatures of the forest had brought them nuts and fruit, and the bear-man had produced a fresh trout from the river that ran to the south. Around them, animals and hybrids slept in the firelight. Only the bear-man remained awake, the fire reflected in his dark eyes, although the Woodsman had assured Ceres that nocturnal creatures were alert, and moving among the trees, led by the badger-woman. They were being well guarded.

‘You still haven’t told me what killed the old stag,’ she said.

‘Because I am unsure.’

But he would not meet her gaze.

‘Didn’t the others see what happened?’

‘From what I can establish, they woke to the body.’

‘But they can’t have slept through the stag’s death. You said yourself that there are night creatures here.

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