What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust: A Flavia De Luce Novel by Alan Bradley

Author:Alan Bradley [Bradley, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780593724514
Amazon: 0593724518
Barnesnoble: 0593724518
Goodreads: 203164414
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2024-09-03T05:00:00+00:00

· Eight ·

I wanted to cry. For the first time in ages, I wanted to cry. I wanted to have a good old-fashioned wail: a healthy old heartbreaking howl.

But why bother when there was no one here to hear it?

Cries were evolved by humans to summon help. But with no nearby ears to hear, they were useless, and a waste of strength.

“Crumbs!” I said to the darkness, which struck me as funny, and I began to laugh. Perhaps the reptilian part of my brain was automatically suggesting the classic solution to mazes: a trail of crumbs. I stopped my hand from reaching for my pocket.

It really was too amusing when you thought about it. Fearless Flavia led willingly into an underground bunker by a silent American he-man. Feely and Daffy would have laughed themselves silly.

But Feely and Daffy weren’t here. I was on my own.

It wasn’t as if this was the first time I’d been in such a predicament. There had been that nasty business with being bound and tied in the Pit Shed at the library in Bishop’s Lacey, but that was positively civilized compared with this.

My laughter faded to a chuckle—then stopped. How can you be resourceful in the dark? The sergeant had said that no one ever died from darkness, and he was probably right. But had anyone ever done anything truly useful in a complete blackout?

Had they?

You might not believe this, but the first thing that came to mind was the poet John Milton. He had written much of Paradise Lost and all of Paradise Regained after going blind. Daffy had told me how remarkable it was that Milton was able to recall so much: that loss of sight had resulted in a truly magnificent feat of memory. The story of the struggle between God and Satan had been recorded for once and for all by a man who couldn’t see his own fingertips. This was the truth of the struggle between light and darkness.

And now I was seeing exactly what Milton saw. What sense of it could my brain make?

I focused intently and ordered my thoughts. This had been Uncle Tar’s advice to himself for sleepless nights. His notebooks were dotted with helpful but random suggestions, which I found occasionally useful, and this was the one that sprang to mind.

Darkness.

Well, in the first place, you can hear the darkness. In it, sounds are distinctly different, as if they are being amplified and focused. Could it be that when sight ceases, your brain turns up the volume on your ears? I made a mental note to formulate a set of experiments to prove this theory, and perhaps win a Nobel Prize.

But there was no time now.

My second observation was that things smell different in darkness. Perhaps on the same principle as vision, that sharper acid odor of the air had also increased and was now almost suffocating me.

I thought of oxygen deprivation.

But even now another idea was taking shape, and I acted upon it at once. I stuck out my tongue and licked the wall.

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