Read Online Speaking From Among The Bones by Alan Bradley - Free Book Online

year since I’d been locked in the pit shed on the river’s edge, and I knew that the rats were no figment of my sister’s imagination.
    Daffy’s eyes widened, her voice now no more than a whisper. “And do you know what?”
    “What?”
    I couldn’t help it: I was whispering, too.
    “The sole of the foot was tinted red, as if it had stepped in—”
    “Cassandra Cottlestone!” I almost shouted, the hair at the nape of my neck standing on end as if suddenly blown by a cold, invisible breeze. “She was walking—”
    “Exactly,” Daffy said.
    “I don’t believe it!”
    Daffy shrugged. “Why should I care what you believe? I give you a fact and you give me a headache. Now buzz off.”
    I had buzzed off.
    While I was lost in recollection, Feely’s sobs had subsided, and she was now staring sullenly out the window.
    “Who’s the victim?” I asked, trying to cheer her up.
    “Victim?”
    “You know, the poor sap you’re going to carry down the aisle.”
    “Oh,” she said, tossing her hair and coughing up theanswer with surprisingly little urging on my part. “Ned Cropper. I thought you’d have already heard that at the keyhole.”
    “Ned? You despise him.”
    “Wherever did you get that idea? Ned’s going to own the Thirteen Drakes one day. He’s going to take it over from Tully Stoker and rebuild the whole place: dance bands, darts on the terrace, lawn bowling … blow a breath of fresh air into that coal hole … bring it into the twentieth century. He’s going to be a millionaire. Just you wait and see.”
    “You’re warped,” I said.
    “Oh, all right, then. If you must know, it’s Carl. He’s begged Father to let me be Mrs. Pendracka and Father has agreed—mostly because he believes Carl to be of the bloodline of King Arthur. Having an heir with those credentials would be a real feather in Father’s cap.”
    “Sucks to you,” I said. “You’re pulling my leg.”
    “We’re going to live in America,” Feely went on. “In St. Louis, Missouri. Carl’s going to take me to watch Stan Musial knock ’em out of the park for the Cardinals. That’s a baseball team.”
    “Actually, I was hoping it was Sergeant Graves,” I said. “I don’t even know his first name.”
    “Giles,” Feely said, looking dreamily at her fingernails. “But why ever would I marry a policeman? I couldn’t bear the thought of living with someone who came home every night with murder on his boots.”
    Feely seemed to be getting over poor Mr. Collicutt’s death quite nicely. Perhaps there was a drop of de Luce blood in her after all.
    “It’s Dieter,” I said. “He’s the one who gave you the friendship ring at Christmas.”
    “Dieter? He has nothing to offer but love.”
    As she touched the ring, I noticed for the first time that she was wearing it on the third finger of her left hand. At the very mention of his name, she couldn’t keep from smiling.
    “It is!” I’m afraid I shrieked. “It
is
Dieter!”
    “We shall make a fresh start,” Feely said, her face more soft than I had ever seen it before. “Dieter is going to train as a schoolmaster. I shall teach piano and the two of us shall be as happy as dormice in cotton.”
    I couldn’t help hugging myself.
Yaroo!
I was thinking.
    “Where is Dieter, by the way?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him for a while.”
    “He’s gone up to London to sit a special examination. Father arranged it. If you breathe a word I’ll kill you.”
    Something in her voice told me that she meant it.
    “Your secret’s safe with me,” I told her, and for once I meant it.
    “We shall be engaged for a year, until I’m nineteen,” Feely went on, “simply to please Father. After that it’s all cottages and columbines and a place to turn handsprings whenever one feels the urge.”
    Feely had never turned a handspring in her life, but I knew what she meant.
    “I shall miss you, Feely,” I said slowly, realizing that my heart was in every word.
    “How too,