Read Online Wormwood Gate by Katherine Farmar - Free Book Online Page B

there is to it, but yeah, that’s part of it.’
    There was a silence, and Aisling was grateful for the buckles and Velcro on her boots that gave her something to do with her hands, an excuse for not talking.
    â€˜I’m not sure about these leggings,’ said Julie, the words coming out in a rush. ‘I mean, like you said, they were Tina’s idea. I’m not really … they’re not really … I’m not sure about them.’
    â€˜Nah, they look good on you,’ said Aisling. You look good in them , she thought, but you look good in everything .
    There was a high, eerie cry from overhead. They both looked up to see a flock of seagulls swooping and turning in the sky.
    â€˜I don’t want to stay in one place for too long,’ said Julie. ‘You might be right about the queen’s guards. Maybe they can fly. Anyway, these slates aren’t very comfortable.’
    Aisling sighed, but pulled herself all the way upright. ‘All go around here, isn’t it? Come on, let’s go this way.’ She scrambled up the slope of the roof and down to the valley between the roof’s two peaks, Julie following. ‘This way,’ she said, ‘we won’t be visible from the street. At least, I don’t think we will.’
    The valley was too narrow to walk in, and the only way to make progress at all was to have one foot on the right-hand slope and one on the left-hand slope, which was tricky in thick-soled boots.
    Even Julie, in her ballet flats, was having trouble with it. ‘This is awkward,’ she muttered.
    â€˜Yeah, a bit,’ said Aisling, ‘but I’d rather go this way than try walking along the peaks, wouldn’t you? Or the outside slopes. You could fall all the way down to the street.’
    Julie shuddered. ‘Oh, don’t!’ She stopped walking.
    â€˜What is it?’ said Aisling.
    â€˜They called us “mortals”. What do you think that means?’
    Aisling shrugged. ‘By a process of elimination, if we’re mortals and they’re not, they must be immortals of some kind, I suppose. Probably not like in Highlander , but –’
    â€˜But not dying. Or coming back after they die. They said that the queen … when one queen dies, another one takes her place, and then – did you follow that?’
    â€˜They go round in a circle. The Queen-that-was, the Queen-that-is, the Queen-that-will-be. Taking turns to be alive, by the sound of it.’
    â€˜And they said about your woman, Molly Red, that she’d died before. So it sounds like the people here do die, and when they do, they come back.’
    Aisling considered this. ‘Instant reincarnation. Interesting. That would explain what they said about Molly Red having different forms. Maybe each time you die here, you come back in a different form.’
    â€˜Well, maybe, but does that apply to us?’
    Aisling looked at her, startled. ‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘probably not. Though, really, who knows? But … no, I wouldn’t think so.’
    â€˜No, me neither.’ Julie gave her a nudge, and they started walking again. ‘So we should be careful,’ she said after a while, ‘because … because this isn’t a dream.’
    â€˜No,’ said Aisling. ‘No, it’s not.’
    It was a weighty thought, and she was so busy digesting it that she had to stop one step before the end of the roof, so abruptly that Julie bumped into her and clutched at her arms to keep from falling.
    â€˜Watch it! What’re you stopping for?’
    â€˜I ran out of roof,’ said Aisling. ‘You did say we should be careful.’
    â€˜Oh. That’s, um …’
    Aisling sighed. ‘Yeah.’ She squatted down, squashed uncomfortably between the two slopes of the roof. ‘I have to admit that, um … that I didn’t completely think this through,’ she said in a rush. ‘I