Read Online Voices in the Dark by Catherine Banner - Free Book Online

wild flowers. At that time, the factories and metalworks had barely advanced into the eastern hill country, and you could lay out a picnic anywhere you chose. As soon as we arrived, my mother and Leo unveiled an iced fruit cake.
    ‘Very good, Maria,’ said my grandmother in almost an approving tone. ‘That looks just the proper thing.’
    ‘Oh, Leo was the one who made it,’ said my mother. ‘I just drew the pictures in the icing.’
    ‘Making your husband do the cooking!’ said my grandmother. ‘Whatever next, Maria?’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said my mother, cutting the cake carefully into pieces with our old kitchen knife. ‘Leo is not my husband.’
    She laughed and made my grandmother shake her head. But my mother’s face turned serious as we sat there. A darkness passed over her and made her shiver. I could not take my eyes away from her, after I noticed that. ‘Anselm,’ said my grandfather then, ruffling my hair. ‘Come and take a walk with me.’
    My grandfather could not walk far, on account of his leg, which was damaged in the war, but he led me around the valley and pointed out the flowers and butterflies to me with his walking stick. He was a man who knew everything, and yet he passed on his knowledge quite carelessly. ‘Look,’ he said as a tiny blue butterfly spiralled past us. ‘Princess Marianne Blue. There are hardly any in the city, but you see them sometimes out here. They live just one day, you know.’
    ‘Just one day?’ I said, startled by that. It made seven years seem an age of some importance.
    ‘And look at that flower,’ said my grandfather. ‘Bleeding heart, they call it. It looks so like the bloodflower that people still confuse them, and hearts have been broken that way.’
    ‘Why?’ I said.
    ‘Because people who find it are convinced that it is the cure for silent fever, and they bring it home for their relatives. And of course, this flower, this bleeding heart, can’t do anything at all.’
    Leo got up and wandered away, towards the crest of the nearest hill. I watched him go and lost the thread of my grandfather’s voice. ‘Stop lecturing the poor boy, Julian,’said my grandmother then. ‘He doesn’t want to hear your stories.’
    ‘Oh, he does not mind it,’ said my grandfather.
    ‘No, Anselm is a clever boy,’ said Aldebaran. ‘He will be a great man when he grows older.’
    ‘Perhaps he will be a priest,’ said my grandmother.
    ‘A great author,’ said my grandfather.
    ‘Writing is in the family,’ said my mother. ‘On Leo’s side, I mean.’
    ‘I don’t see why that should affect Anselm,’ said my grandmother.
    There was a sudden silence. No one answered, but everyone’s eyes were on her suddenly.
    ‘Well, I don’t,’ she continued, glancing around at us all but meeting none of our eyes. ‘You are confusing the child, Maria. I think he should be told the truth.’
    ‘Anselm,’ said my mother, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘Go and get Leo. It’s time for lunch.’
    I got up and started away across the grass. Behind me, I heard my mother’s voice rising and my grandmother’s quick reply. I tried to listen, but I could feel my mother’s eyes on my back, willing me to walk faster. Leo turned when I reached him. He had been gazing at the horizon, where I could just make out a grey shadow beyond the hills. ‘It’s time for lunch, Papa,’ I said.
    ‘Stay up here with me for a while,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Look – over there on the horizon.’
    ‘What is it?’ I said.
    ‘Ositha,’ said Leo. ‘I went there once, when I was training as a soldier. During the war. It is just a ghost town now.’
    ‘What does that mean, a ghost town?’
    ‘It means no one lives there. The army destroyed all the buildings, and no one went back.’
    We stood for a while looking at that abandoned town on the edge of the sky. Then he took my hand, and we wandered back down to the valley. The argument was over.