The Lantern Moon by Maeve Friel

Author:Maeve Friel
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Little Island
Published: 2012-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The chimney was a terrifying place. Wedged uncomfortably on the narrow ledge between the flues of the music room and the back parlour, Annie waited and listened to the sounds of the house. It was pitch black, a darkness that she had never known, for not a chink of daylight penetrated the chimney linings. It was not like that darkness of a room in the middle of the night when shapes and shadows gradually begin to make sense. She could see nothing. This was the darkness of the grave, Annie thought, and just as cold. The soot caught the back of her throat but she dared not so much as cough or clear her throat for fear someone in one of the rooms below should hear her. Every sound was magnified. She heard the bells of the parish church ring out every hour as Arthur had told her but she also heard footsteps running up and down the staircases, doors being flung open and closed, the raised voices of the servants and soldiers as they searched the house for her. She could hear little Paul-Marie crying, and wished someone would go and comfort him. All day carriages came and went.

Once, she heard someone entering the music room and thought her heart would stop with fright. She prayed it was not one of the maids come to light a fire, but whoever it was drew up a seat in front of the spinet and lazily picked out a few notes of a dance tune. She could hardly believe they could not hear her breathing and the thumping of her heart, and had almost made up her mind to come tumbling down into the hearth and give herself up except that the very thought of moving terrified her even more than fear of the gallows. The climb up to the ledge, pushing her back against the chimney wall and levering herself upwards with her feet, had worn her out. Her ankles, knees, shoulders, felt skinned and bloody. To go down again was certain to be hell. She truly wished she were dead. The hours seemed interminable.

But when the parish church bells at last rang out four o’clock in the afternoon, she knew she must do what Arthur had told her. She braced her feet and back against the chimney wall and began the slow, careful descent down the black hole into the music room, inch by painful inch, fearful that every scraping of her shoes, every laboured breath would bring someone scurrying into the room. At last, when she thought her strength would give out, her feet jammed against the iron hand holds just above the widening mouth of the inglenook fireplace. She looked down and saw the light coming up from the room. She gratefully let herself slide down the last few remaining feet.

Blinking away the soot that covered her eyes and face, she ran to the window as Arthur had told her to. It was a sash window, a modern style, not like the casement windows of the older houses that opened outwards.

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