Read Online The Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney - Free Book Online
Authors: Paul Kearney
Tags: Fantasy
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Wytham ahead, and beyond, the black loom of Wytham Great Wood on its hills. This is where I knew I would come. I cannot even say why, but I know that I must go into the woods tonight.
I climb a fence, snagging father’s scarf as it hangs from my neck. I unpick it in the dark, breathing hard, the snow as thick as a wedding veil in front of my face, the flakes smaller now, and a sting in them as the wind picks up. The grass is rougher, in clumps and tussocks that try to trip me up, and the trees rise before me like the walls of a castle.
I stop on the edge of the wood, listening. Nothing but the sigh of the wind, and the rush of it through the tall trees. I wish Pie was here, and grasp the knife in my pocket.
I am in England. There is nothing in the woods that can harm me, just as there was nothing in the attic back home. Pa has walked these woods, looking for wild garlic, and the soldiers were here training in the War. This is not the wilderness. There is no witch in the wood, nor goblins nor bears either.
‘Un, deux, trois,’ I murmur, and step into the Great Wood.
T HE WIND DROPS at once, down below, though it keeps coursing through the trees overhead like the sound of the sea. I look up, and can see the branches moving across the grey sky. It is darker here, but I can still see my way. I have become used to the night, and my eyes are wide open, taking it all in.
T HE FOREST FLOOR is covered in dead bracken and brambles, lean as wire. I pick my way through it, always uphill, and I am warmer now, puffing, even hot under Pa’s big shapeless cap. I knock snow from the brambles as I advance, and tear myself free of the thorns. The undergrowth is worn down by winter, but it still rears up like a cloud all around me, blocking my way. I am about to give up and turn back, when all of a sudden a path opens out in front of me, paler in the gloom, a white lane through the trees. I stumble onto it, scratched and breathing hard. I bend down and look close at the ground, like Hawkeye, and I see tracks in the snow, cloven marks left by deer that have punched through the snow and left frozen slots in the earth below.
Happier now, I follow the track as it curves and meanders like a stream round the foot of the trees.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep…
I read that once, somewhere. It seems to fit here, as though there were power in the words.
‘Dark and deep,’ I whisper aloud as I stride along, faster now. I feel almost as though I am here for a reason other than my own, as though the trees themselves have something in store for me. I wanted to get clear of Oxford, the Meadow, the sounds of the city and the walls of the house. And my father, too. I wanted to leave them all behind and just be myself for a while. Anna Francis, intrepid explorer.
It seemed all so very simple when I left Walton Street, but now it as if I have stumbled into quite another world, in which I am not even a spectator. I am barely here at all. The woods ignore me, and I feel oddly at home in them. There is no fear in this dark. After that last day on the burning quayside of the city, there is not much more to fear in life at all. The very worst thing has already happened.
That is what I tell myself as I make my way deeper into the woods.
F OR A WHILE, I think it is my own heartbeat I hear thumping in my throat, a soft rhythm. But after a while I realise that the sound is beyond me, in the trees up ahead where the land rises. The path is narrower here, the brambles and dead bracken starting to choke it, and when I look up I can see the sky darkening beyond the treetops, and here and there the glimpse of a star.
The cloud is clearing, and it seems with that the cold deepens, and the snow begins to crunch under my feet like barley sugar between the teeth. A light grows in the forest, soft and silver. The moon must have risen, and though it is nothing like full it seems incredibly bright. The snow seems to take on a glow of
I climb a fence, snagging father’s scarf as it hangs from my neck. I unpick it in the dark, breathing hard, the snow as thick as a wedding veil in front of my face, the flakes smaller now, and a sting in them as the wind picks up. The grass is rougher, in clumps and tussocks that try to trip me up, and the trees rise before me like the walls of a castle.
I stop on the edge of the wood, listening. Nothing but the sigh of the wind, and the rush of it through the tall trees. I wish Pie was here, and grasp the knife in my pocket.
I am in England. There is nothing in the woods that can harm me, just as there was nothing in the attic back home. Pa has walked these woods, looking for wild garlic, and the soldiers were here training in the War. This is not the wilderness. There is no witch in the wood, nor goblins nor bears either.
‘Un, deux, trois,’ I murmur, and step into the Great Wood.
T HE WIND DROPS at once, down below, though it keeps coursing through the trees overhead like the sound of the sea. I look up, and can see the branches moving across the grey sky. It is darker here, but I can still see my way. I have become used to the night, and my eyes are wide open, taking it all in.
T HE FOREST FLOOR is covered in dead bracken and brambles, lean as wire. I pick my way through it, always uphill, and I am warmer now, puffing, even hot under Pa’s big shapeless cap. I knock snow from the brambles as I advance, and tear myself free of the thorns. The undergrowth is worn down by winter, but it still rears up like a cloud all around me, blocking my way. I am about to give up and turn back, when all of a sudden a path opens out in front of me, paler in the gloom, a white lane through the trees. I stumble onto it, scratched and breathing hard. I bend down and look close at the ground, like Hawkeye, and I see tracks in the snow, cloven marks left by deer that have punched through the snow and left frozen slots in the earth below.
Happier now, I follow the track as it curves and meanders like a stream round the foot of the trees.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep…
I read that once, somewhere. It seems to fit here, as though there were power in the words.
‘Dark and deep,’ I whisper aloud as I stride along, faster now. I feel almost as though I am here for a reason other than my own, as though the trees themselves have something in store for me. I wanted to get clear of Oxford, the Meadow, the sounds of the city and the walls of the house. And my father, too. I wanted to leave them all behind and just be myself for a while. Anna Francis, intrepid explorer.
It seemed all so very simple when I left Walton Street, but now it as if I have stumbled into quite another world, in which I am not even a spectator. I am barely here at all. The woods ignore me, and I feel oddly at home in them. There is no fear in this dark. After that last day on the burning quayside of the city, there is not much more to fear in life at all. The very worst thing has already happened.
That is what I tell myself as I make my way deeper into the woods.
F OR A WHILE, I think it is my own heartbeat I hear thumping in my throat, a soft rhythm. But after a while I realise that the sound is beyond me, in the trees up ahead where the land rises. The path is narrower here, the brambles and dead bracken starting to choke it, and when I look up I can see the sky darkening beyond the treetops, and here and there the glimpse of a star.
The cloud is clearing, and it seems with that the cold deepens, and the snow begins to crunch under my feet like barley sugar between the teeth. A light grows in the forest, soft and silver. The moon must have risen, and though it is nothing like full it seems incredibly bright. The snow seems to take on a glow of
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