Voices in the Dark by Catherine Banner

Author:Catherine Banner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Royalty (kings queens princes princesses knights etc.), Social Issues, Magic, Family, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction, Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9), Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, General, Fantasy, Royalty, Parents, Social Issues - Adolescence, Siblings, Youths' writings, Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction, Adolescence
ISBN: 9780375838774
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2009-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

MORNING,

THE FOURTH OF JANUARY

Mr Hardy shook his head after I finished telling him that story. It was ten o’clock, and the coach was about to leave. He went on shaking his head. A muscle twitched under his eye with a flickering movement, making him look very old and frail suddenly. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I am all right.’ He coughed. ‘Go on. Tell me what happened next.’

But we were leaving now. The others were already climbing up into the coach. He could not get to his feet, so I helped him, and we crossed the yard like that. ‘Go on with the story,’ he said again. ‘As soon as we reach the next inn, you must tell me.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘But, sir, I don’t understand. Why are you so interested?’

He just shook his head.

I gave him those papers to read instead. I could tell from the way his eyes moved restlessly that something troubled him, and I knew them almost by heart anyway. I knew how the story went on. I stared out at the dark moorland, towards the black line that must be the sea beyond the snow-covered cliffs.

‘Here,’ said the woman then, touching my shoulder. She was handing round biscuits and cold tea.

We had hardly spoken a word to her since we set out. Mr Hardy smiled and took a biscuit, and I took one, and she gave us a nervous smile and hid herself behind her little boy again, making much of stroking his hair and checking if his hands were cold. But the boy was looking up at us both now with interest.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked me.

‘Anselm,’ I said.

‘I’m Matthew,’ he said.

‘Esther,’ whispered his mother.

The little boy looked up at Mr Hardy. ‘Harlan,’ said the old man after a minute.

‘Harlan?’ I said. He gave me a quick glance. He must have got it from our talk of Harlan Smith and that book, but I did not know why he had given a false name.

The woman and her son were watching us curiously. Mr Hardy met my eyes, then turned away and drank his tea carefully. The tin cup rattled in his hand, which was shaking badly. He seemed to be growing weaker on this journey. I watched the line of the sea draw close to us, then run alongside the coach road, its waves breaking close and very black against the edge of the snow. After a while, Mr Hardy went on reading. I knew the words he read, and I repeated them in my mind. It was something to drive out the cold.

Juliette woke because she was troubled by strange dreams. Outside, the orange London darkness showed no sign of lifting. She rested her head against the window frame, and her heart felt cold in her chest, as though she was still in the dark beside a strange river and did not know what was ahead.

Richard was out. She did not know where the offices of his solicitors’ firm were, but she supposed that was where he was now.

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