Read Online Hungry Moon by Ramsey Campbell - Free Book Online

be life after death.
    She'd reached that conclusion in the midst of her peace on the moor. The murmur of the world had faded into the sound of the wind in her ears; the mist had withdrawn over the deserted slopes until it seemed they would never end; and as Diana had drunk in the silence and loneliness, she'd grown calm, at peace with her loss. She'd felt on the edge of passing through loneliness to whatever lay beyond.
    Teaching in Moonwell had, apparently, and now Mann and his aversion to druids. On the way to the school through streets glistening with mist, pinpoint rainbows shining out of flowers, she thought how much the druids had left behind: kissing under the mistletoe, throwing spilled salt over your shoulder, gargoyles as a civilized alternative to displaying the severed heads of your enemies above your roof, even calling two weeks a fortnight, since the druids measured time by nights rather than days. Druids never wrote anything down, perhaps as an aid to memory. They often spoke in triads, since three was their sacred number. The great Celtic fear was that the sky would fall and the sea overflow. By the eighteenth century the druids had become a romantic myth, but the truth seemed to be that they had been more savage, sacrificing human beings before battle - it was hard to be sure, since no account survived of their religion. Presumably the cave had been one of their sacred places, and she wished more and more that Mann would leave it alone.
    Mrs Scragg was waiting for her in the schoolyard, which was unusually crowded. 'My husband wants to see you in his office.'
    He was sitting at his desk, which looked absurdly large for him, reading a pamphlet called Stand Up for God and rubbing his hands together. His broad smile made his face look cramped between his chin and bristling eye-
    brows. 'You've some extra pupils,' he said. 'Godwin Mann arranged for us to take them. My wife will have the nine-and ten-year-olds and I'll have the eldest. I assume you can cope.'
    'No problem,' Diana said, determined that there wouldn't be, even when her class lined up at the sound of Mrs Scragg's earsplitting whistle and Diana saw their number had virtually doubled. All the new children looked bright-eyed and fresh-faced and eager, though some of them were sniffling from the chill that must creep into their tents. In her classroom Diana said, 'I think you're all going to have to sit two to a desk.'
    Her class moved over, shuffling and grumbling. When they'd made room the new children remained standing. 'May we pray first?' a boy with especially blonde hair and a Southern accent said.
    'Sure, if that's what you do.'
    The new children knelt, then gazed at the others. They were expected to kneel too, apparently, but Diana wasn't having her schoolroom routine taken over so thoroughly. 'Just bow your heads,' she said, and bowed her own a little.
    Eventually the newcomers finished thanking God, and sat down. 'Let's start by getting to know one another,' Diana suggested. 'Why doesn't each of you tell us your name and a bit about yourself.'
    'I'm Emmanuel,' the blonde boy said. 'I come from Georgia. My daddy and my uncles worked a farm there until my uncles died fighting God's war against communism.'
    Two English children and two from California claimed to be fighting God's war too. Sally was bristling. Suddenly she said loudly, 'My dad's in a union and he goes to church.'
    'You can go to church and still keep God out of your heart,' Emmanuel said. 'We'll pray for him and for you to show him the true path.'
    Sally stuck her tongue out at him and wrinkled her nose to stop her glasses from slipping. 'My mum says if there's another war it'll be the last one,' Jane said, 'because the bombs will kill everyone.'
    'You shouldn't care so long as God is your best friend,' said a Welsh girl. 'But if He isn't you'll go straight to hell when you die.'
    'I won't. You don't know nowt about it. Anyway, Sally's my best friend.' She reached for Sally's hand