Read Online The Chalice by Phil Rickman - Free Book Online Page A

St Edmunds, they all seemed to have gone, along with their parents. And
the dogs. None of the remaining travellers seemed to have dogs with them. She
was sure there'd been a few before, when they were on their way down from
Yorkshire.
           And musicians. Two guitarists and a flute player. Now there
was only Bran, the dour shamanic drummer.
           And there used to be lots of ghetto blasters. Endless rock
music. Old Rolling Stones albums and Oasis and The Lemonheads. Deep into the
night, and the children were used to it and slept through it all.
           The hiss came again. Diane got up and went out to the
platform. 'What's going on?'
           It didn't stop. She stepped off the platform and found herself
looking into the shadowed face of the girl called Hecate.
           'What's your problem?' Hecate said.
       'What are you doing?'
           There were four small shadows moving about. Children who were
surely old enough to be at school. They were hovering around the bus, making
hissing sounds.
           'Hey!' Diane realised what was happening. They all had big
aerosol sprays. It was almost dark, but she could see that several of the
yellow stripes on the bus's bee-panelled panels had already vanished. 'Stop
that, you little horrors. Headlice'll go mad!'
           The children carried on spraying the bus black, didn't even
look round. In the near-dark there was something unearthly about them. They
were like silent gnomes.
           Diane turned back to the older girl. 'Can't you stop them?'
           'Why don't you mind your own bleeding business?' Hecate said.
'You nosy fat slag.'
           'How dare ... ?' Diane calmed down, remembered to put on the
Somerset. ' That's jolly nice, I must
say.'
           'Look,' Hecate said. 'Headlice told us to do it, right? Good
enough?'
           'I don't believe you.'
           'I don't give a fart what you believe.' Hecate put her face very
close to Diane's. Her teeth were thick and yellow and her breath smelled
putrid. 'Now get back on the bus, crawl into a corner and mind your own. Else
when they've finished I'm gonna hold you down while they spray your fanny black. That good enough?'
     
    No getting round it; Jim
was shaken.
           'I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I didn't see her, although
...'
           Juanita said, 'Jim, is there something wrong with this line?'
           Jim coughed, realising he'd been almost whispering down the
phone. Whispering . In his own buggering
house! And with the lights out, so no one could see him standing by the window.
           'Thing is .. .' He drank some whisky and then put the glass on
the windowsill, pushing it behind the curtain as though she could see how full
it was. '... it was very nearly dark when the last ones went past, but I'd gone
down to the end of the garden by then to get as close as possible to the path.'
           Standing behind a sycamore tree with plenty of leaves still on
it. Holding his breath as they went past. Hiding in his own buggering garden!
           'I mean, they tend to be pretty skeletal, don't they, these travelling
types? So unless she's lost a few stone ...'
           Bloody angry with himself for feeling threatened. But it was
the first time in seventeen years of living here that his sacred space had been
penetrated so blatantly by so many people. And such bloody purposeful people.
           'You could have asked one of them where she was,' Juanita
said.
           'I suppose I could .
But I ... it's strange, but I didn't like to speak to them. You know what these
characters are normally like, either drugged up to the eyeballs or laughing and
swigging cider and what have you, like day trippers.'
       'Yes, I know.'
           'Not these buggers. Could've been the SAS on night manoeuvres or
something. Quite ... well, unearthly I suppose. In fact if it hadn't been for
the way they were