The Girl Who Lost Her Shadow by Emily Ilett

Author:Emily Ilett [Ilett, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782506218
Publisher: Floris Books
Published: 2019-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

It was still dark outside when Gail woke the next morning and slipped on her boots. Her rucksack was packed with apples and biscuits, and the mussel shell and pearl jangled in her pocket. Last night, she’d hunted for something to cut the rope round the shadow swallower and now a pair of sharp scissors were wedged tightly between her extra socks and a bottle of water. Kay and her mum were still asleep, and she stepped on the edges of the stairs so as not to waken them. “This time,” she promised the silent house, “I won’t come back without it.”

Ben Fiadhaich was capped in a blur of cloud and the road was empty of cars as Gail pedalled out of the village towards Mhirran’s. The wind had risen in the night and it pushed against her as she cycled, her knees aching from the strain. When she reached the house, dawn was pinking the sky and Gail could see that there was already a light on in an upper window. She held her breath and watched it, but couldn’t make out anyone moving. Was Mhirran awake? Her heart sank. Or Francis?

On the gravel driveway, every footstep she took crunched loudly and Gail winced as she leaned the bike against the wall and inched towards the shed. The bird painted on the door was just visible in the early light; Gail’s breath was thick in her throat as she pushed it open. But when she stepped inside, the wooden chest had gone.

Gail stared at the empty space, willing it to appear. She was ready. She could cut the rope. How could it have gone? Then she heard the brittle crack of twigs and the brush of leaves and spun towards the sound. Someone was moving down the path that led from the house into the woods. She could see their silhouette against the growing light. An odd hunched shape. It was Francis. And he was carrying the shadow swallower on his back.

Gail hurried after him without thinking. He was already moving fast away from her: there was no time to tell Mhirran. He was walking steadily downhill, into the trees, which clutched at each other with long finger-like branches. The night crouched in the woods as if hiding from the dawn, spinning its own eerie noises in Gail’s ears, and her palms prickled as she hastened after him. Out of breath and tense with fear, she soon gave up trying to be quiet.

When Francis reached a wide flat loch and finally stopped, the sun was almost risen. Gail hung back at the edge of a forest clearing, seeing the water glow an eerie blue like the underside of a sea swallow. The wind tiptoed ripples across it and the first gleam of the sun licked at its edge.

Gail watched as Francis straightened then strode on towards the loch, the chest creaking on his back. She could feel the pull of the shadow swallower, even from here. She inched

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.