Read Online Ambergate by Patricia Elliott - Free Book Online Page A

a curious thing. Sometimes on waking I had the sensation of wings beneath me. A sea of feathers held me up so
     that I floated on the night wind. It seemed that I skimmed the air, rose into the glittering, dark blue firmament, and sailed
     beneath the stars. I flew on, light as a bird, and all the time there was a force beneath me, supporting me, guiding my way.
     Whether it was dream or memory, I had no notion.
    All day long, the seagulls mewled over the rush dome above my head. I stared into space for hours, hearing their plaintive
     cries above the spitting of the fire, and my mind felt dull and empty. I wondered if I were going mad. When Gadd and Erland
     came back they often found me sitting on my pallet, huddled in the sheepskin coverlet and gazing fixedly at nothing.
    One afternoon, Gadd came over to light the rush lights onthe shelf above my pallet, and surprised me. I’d pulled my screen across to give them the impression I was asleep, but I was
     lying on my back staring blank-eyed at the patterns the plaited rushes made as they met over my head in the darkening shadows.
    He sat down on a stool close by me in the pool of green light and sucked on his pipe in silence for a while, not looking at
     me.
    I sat up and pushed back my matted hair. “It’s the dratted seagulls,” I said fretfully. “They are sending me mad.”
    He said nothing.
    “I’m sorry,” I muttered at last. “I don’t know what can be wrong with me.”
    “Your soul yearns for what it’s lost,” he said calmly, “and for what it’s not yet found.”
    It was the truth, I realized, and my eyes pricked.
    “I’m thinking that soon it will be time to set about your new life,” said Gadd.
    Panic gripped me at once; I clutched the sheepskin.
    “Please, I beg you—could I stay here? I could cook for you both, keep house?”
    He looked about him, smiling. “A housekeeper, here? But it would not be seemly, the three of us living together in one room.
     Besides, Erland be away most times. It would not do—the two of us together.”
    “Please, Mr. Gadd!”
    “During the winter it be bitter cold in here. In the summer I be out all day and sometimes nights, given good weather.”
    “I wouldn’t mind,” I said, but he shook his head.
    “It be no life for a young girl,” he said gently. “Be there nowhere else you can go?”
    I thought of the letter in the pocket of my cloak, and said with reluctance, “I have an address where I may find employment,
     a house in Poorgrass Kayes.”
    “Aye, it be where I sell my work. Erland will take you there in the dory.”
    My heart sank. “But not yet, Mr. Gadd?”
    He considered me a long moment. “Not yet.”
11
    After that day, things changed for me.
    The following morning, after the animals had been tended and we had eaten our breakfast of oatmeal and dried herring, Gadd
     set off with his fishing rod. I expected Erland to follow. By now I knew he hated being inside during daylight. Even in the
     evening he was never still. He moved restlessly around the cramped space by the fire and never settled to his weaving as his
     father did.
    Now he beckoned me to the opening in the rush wall. “Close your eyes,” he said.
    Puzzled, I obeyed. I felt him guiding me, then gentle fingers on my face. He turned my head to the light. “There! Don’t you
     feel it? The change in the sunlight?”
    Radiance lit the insides of my lids; I could feel warmth on my upturned face. It stole through me from the tip of my head
     to my feet. It bathed my cold skin, warmed my thinblood. When I breathed I could smell it in the air: a green warmth, as if everything in nature were breathing.
    In pleasure I opened my eyes and saw Erland’s smile. “Summer’s on her way.” He held out his hand, as if to pull me outside.
    At once I was frightened. “What are you doing?”
    “Going to check the boats. Come with me.”
    “But I…” I couldn’t think of what to say.
    Somehow I found myself outside the shelter,