Read Online Norton, Andre - Novel 23 by The White Jade Fox (v1.0) - Free Book Online Page B

left the hedge wall itself!
                   With that answer, Saranna began to study the
growth with care. She allowed her shawl to flap free, using her hands as well
as her eyes to explore. A portion of bough gave. Now Saranna faced a break in
what had earlier appeared an impenetrable wall. Low and narrow—meant much more
for the passage of a child. Could she, in her full skirt and
petticoats, her bigger body, squeeze. through ?
Saranna was determined to try.
                   Branches raked at her, her hair net caught,
and, when she tugged to free herself, it was scraped off so that long strands
fell free across her shoulders. But, somehow, she wriggled and pushed until she
did reach the clear space beyond.
                   Straightening once more to her full height,
Saranna swept her hair from her eyes to look around. At first glance, it would
seem that she had entered a tangled wilderness which bore no relation at all to
the well-tended, mown, and pruned section about the Manor House. Then she saw
that she stood, not on a gravel path such as she might have expected to find,
but a curving walk made up of small pieces of stone set in no pattern but
roughly together. This wound and turned so that, within only a few feet, it
rounded a stand of trees and disappeared.
                   Saranna was tempted to call Damaris, yet there
was such a quiet in this place that she shrank from breaking it. The longer she
gazed at what lay about her, the more strange this world beyond the hedge
seemed. As if she had passed through a door into a country unlike that she had
always known.
                   Hesitatingly, the girl moved along the path,
rounding the growth of small willows which veiled the further section from the
hedge. Again she paused with a deep drawn breath. Before her now was a perfect round
gate buttressed on either side by rough rocks and beyond that was—
                   Saranna might have been looking once more at
the Mountains of Peaceful Contemplation. For here, on a much larger scale, but
still in miniature, more rocks had been set up in such an uneven design as the
artist had carved in the jade. The water of a pool reflected them in part, and
the pool, in turn, fed a stream over which was a narrow, humpbacked bridge.
This gave on a small terrace of dull red stone on which stood a very small building.
In the wall of that, facing her, was a window fashioned in the form of a
four-petaled flower which was filled with a lattice tracery of oddly angled
branches and a bird all of stone, yet as delicately worked as might be a piece
of fine embroidery.
                   The roof of the building had sharply slanted
sides falling from a center ridge quite highly raised. And
the eaves up-curved at the four comers. As a breeze stirred the early
morning air, Saranna heard a faint chime of bells, as if they had been set
a-ringing by the wind itself.
                   Just as she was about to move forward to the
bridge, drawn by a need to see more of this fantastic place, Damaris appeared
around the side of the flower-windowed building. Catching sight of Saranna, she
stopped, and there was no mistaking an utter dismay, which speedily became
fear, on her face.
                   "No!" Again she flung up her hand in
much the same gesture she had used the night before when she believed that
Saranna threatened the brown jade carving. "No!"
                   She ran over the bridge, coming straight to
the older girl.
                   "You spy!" she cried out. "I'll
tell the Princess. She'll make you sorry—sorry—sorry!"
                   She flung herself at Saranna, her face
flushed, striking at the older girl with both fists.
                   Saranna was nearly thrust off balance and had
to struggle to catch those small fists while Damaris kicked at her in a frenzy .