The Black Room by Gillian Cross

Author:Gillian Cross
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Her hands remembered. Not giant slithering shapes, but small, small, small. From before. She knew exactly how they had felt between her fingers. How they’d slid away, refusing to keep the patterns. The memory was real. It was hers.

But her brain couldn’t decipher it. Where had she been? And why had she been so desperate to twist those slithering, ungovernable shapes into neat, tight braids?

It didn’t make sense. She struggled to grasp the images, but they slipped away from her explanations, refusing to be understood. Determination wasn’t enough. She needed something more, another memory....

It didn’t come. Instead, a sound from outside broke in, forcing itself on her attention. Someone was calling her name, not very close, but nearer than any voice should have been.

“Lorn!”

For a moment, the word had no meaning for her. She was away in another place, feeling long, wet shapes slide through her fingers, and Lorn had nothing to do with her. She was ... she was—

“Lorn! Where are you? LORN!”

It was Bando’s voice. And as she recognized it, she realized why it sounded so close. He was down in the storeroom, very near the wall, and his shouts were coming straight through the secret passage. Because she’d left the entrance open.

Turning around, she began to run back the way she had come. He mustn’t find that entrance. He mustn’t come through. And she had to stop him shouting, before anyone else came down to see what was going on.

When she reached the rough stones of the new wall, she flung herself down onto her knees, going feet first into the passage. As soon as she was in, she pulled the loose stone after her, to seal the entrance. Then she wriggled backward as fast as she could, desperate to get through.

Speed made her careless. Once she was in the passage, she stopped listening and thinking, and all her energy went into moving. She had no idea why Bando was blundering around the storeroom in the dark, but as long as he was on his own, she was sure she could stop him from suspecting anything.

She hadn’t counted on coming out right beside him.

He’d given up shouting. He was standing in the dark, leaning against the wall, and as she slid out of the passage, her legs brushed against his ankles. He yelped and bent down to push them away.

“Get off!” he said, sounding panicky and disgusted.

Then his fingers closed around her right ankle, and she felt him hesitate.

“It’s all right, Bando,” she hissed. “It’s only me.”

But it was too late. He’d found the entrance to the secret passage. She heard him catch his breath as he turned toward her, and his voice was shrill with panic.

“You’ve been through the wall, haven’t you? You’ve been in the tunnel!”

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