Read Online The Dragon Charmer by Jan Siegel - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jan Siegel
Ads: Link
would be offended. Etiquette hasn’t caught up with technology yet.”
“Shall I go and get the stamps for you?” Gaynor offered. “I can find the post office. I saw it yesterday.”
“That would be wonderful,” Fern said warmly, “but you’ve only just got in. Have some coffee first. The pot’s on the stove. I made the real thing: I thought we might need it. Instant doesn’t have the same kick.”
Gaynor helped herself and replaced the contents of Fern’s mug, which had begun to congeal.
“How are you getting on with my brother?” Fern enquired, scribbling her way automatically through another note.
“I like him,” Gaynor responded tentatively, thinking of the row the previous night.
“So do I,” said Fern. “Even if he is a pain in the bum.”
“He lives in a world of his own, doesn’t he?” Gaynor said rather too casually, seating herself on the opposite side of the table.
“Not exactly.” Fern’s head was still bent over her work.
“He lives in someone else’s world a world where he doesn’t belong. That’s just the trouble.”
Now we search the smoke for her, skimming other visions, bending our dual will to a single task. But the fire-magic is wayward and unpredictable: it may sometimes be guided but it cannot be forced. The images unravel before us in a jumble, distorted by our pressure, quick-changing, wavering, breaking up. Irrelevancies intrude, a cavalcade of monsters from the long-lost past, mermaid, unicorn, Sea Serpent, interspersed with glimpses that might, or might not, be more significant: the hatchling perching on a dark, long-fingered hand, a solitary flower opening suddenly in a withered garden like the unlidding of a watching eye. Time here has no meaning, but in the world beyond Time passes, years maybe, ere we see her again. And the vision, when it comes, takes us off guard, a broad vista unwinding slowly in an interlude of distraction, a road that meanders with the contours of the land, white puffball clouds trailing in the wake of a spring breeze. A horseless car is traveling along the road: the sunlight winks off its steel-green coachwork. The roof is folded back to leave the top open; music emanates from a mechanical device within, not the raucous drumbeat of the rabble but a music of deep notes and mellow harmonies, flowing like the hills. The girl is driving the car. She looks different, older, her small-boned face hollowed into shape, tapering, purity giving way to definition, a slight pixie look tempered by the familiar gravitas. More than ever, it is a face of secrets. Her hair is cut in a straight line across her brow and level with her jaw. As the car accelerates the wind fans the hair out from her temples and sweeps back her fringe, revealing that irregularity of growth at the parting that we call the Witch’s Crook. Her mouth does not smile. Her companion—another girl—is of no importance. I resist the urge to look too closely, chary of alarming her, plucking Sysselore away from the smoke and letting the picture haze over.
When we need her, we will find her. I know that now.
We must be ready.
V
Long before, when she was five or six years old, Gaynor had stayed in a haunted house. She still retained a vivid memory of the woman who had bent over her bed, staring at her with eyes that saw someone else. A woman in a long dress, shadowy in the semidark. She had brought a chill into the room that made Gaynor shiver, even under the bedclothes, but she could remember no sense of evil. Only a presence, and the cold. “She’s a sensitive,” a friend had told her mother, and for some time she had worried about that, afraid of what she might sense, but no further incidents had occurred and the matter had faded from her mind, though her recollection of the phenomenon remained very clear. Now she found herself reviving that image, reaching out with her so-called sensitivity, half in hope, half in fear, though the house did not respond. It felt not so
“Shall I go and get the stamps for you?” Gaynor offered. “I can find the post office. I saw it yesterday.”
“That would be wonderful,” Fern said warmly, “but you’ve only just got in. Have some coffee first. The pot’s on the stove. I made the real thing: I thought we might need it. Instant doesn’t have the same kick.”
Gaynor helped herself and replaced the contents of Fern’s mug, which had begun to congeal.
“How are you getting on with my brother?” Fern enquired, scribbling her way automatically through another note.
“I like him,” Gaynor responded tentatively, thinking of the row the previous night.
“So do I,” said Fern. “Even if he is a pain in the bum.”
“He lives in a world of his own, doesn’t he?” Gaynor said rather too casually, seating herself on the opposite side of the table.
“Not exactly.” Fern’s head was still bent over her work.
“He lives in someone else’s world a world where he doesn’t belong. That’s just the trouble.”
Now we search the smoke for her, skimming other visions, bending our dual will to a single task. But the fire-magic is wayward and unpredictable: it may sometimes be guided but it cannot be forced. The images unravel before us in a jumble, distorted by our pressure, quick-changing, wavering, breaking up. Irrelevancies intrude, a cavalcade of monsters from the long-lost past, mermaid, unicorn, Sea Serpent, interspersed with glimpses that might, or might not, be more significant: the hatchling perching on a dark, long-fingered hand, a solitary flower opening suddenly in a withered garden like the unlidding of a watching eye. Time here has no meaning, but in the world beyond Time passes, years maybe, ere we see her again. And the vision, when it comes, takes us off guard, a broad vista unwinding slowly in an interlude of distraction, a road that meanders with the contours of the land, white puffball clouds trailing in the wake of a spring breeze. A horseless car is traveling along the road: the sunlight winks off its steel-green coachwork. The roof is folded back to leave the top open; music emanates from a mechanical device within, not the raucous drumbeat of the rabble but a music of deep notes and mellow harmonies, flowing like the hills. The girl is driving the car. She looks different, older, her small-boned face hollowed into shape, tapering, purity giving way to definition, a slight pixie look tempered by the familiar gravitas. More than ever, it is a face of secrets. Her hair is cut in a straight line across her brow and level with her jaw. As the car accelerates the wind fans the hair out from her temples and sweeps back her fringe, revealing that irregularity of growth at the parting that we call the Witch’s Crook. Her mouth does not smile. Her companion—another girl—is of no importance. I resist the urge to look too closely, chary of alarming her, plucking Sysselore away from the smoke and letting the picture haze over.
When we need her, we will find her. I know that now.
We must be ready.
V
Long before, when she was five or six years old, Gaynor had stayed in a haunted house. She still retained a vivid memory of the woman who had bent over her bed, staring at her with eyes that saw someone else. A woman in a long dress, shadowy in the semidark. She had brought a chill into the room that made Gaynor shiver, even under the bedclothes, but she could remember no sense of evil. Only a presence, and the cold. “She’s a sensitive,” a friend had told her mother, and for some time she had worried about that, afraid of what she might sense, but no further incidents had occurred and the matter had faded from her mind, though her recollection of the phenomenon remained very clear. Now she found herself reviving that image, reaching out with her so-called sensitivity, half in hope, half in fear, though the house did not respond. It felt not so
Similar Books
