She was silent again but continued to follow as I walked down the hill. At last she said, “I get frightened, when I think about them. I know there aren’t any here, but that’s not to say they might not come one day. There’s no telling how far they can fly.”
I swung round to face her. “So you did hear me yelling, in the night!” She made a movement of her head that could have been a shake or a nod. “It was a nightmare, that’s all. Anyone can have a nightmare.”
It was definitely a nod this time. “I know.”
“When I’m awake I’m not scared of them.”
“Well, I am. I’m glad we live where there aren’t any.”
I knew she was trying to make things right, and while I still nourished resentment, I was happier. However much we fought, I could be sure of Paddy being basically on my side. And there was some relief in having it in the open.
I said, “I wonder why they don’t come here. Perhaps they can’t fly over water.”
“Mother said they had them in Ireland, and that’s across water from the rest of the mainland. Maybe they don’t think there’s anything in the Isles that needs punishing.” She thought about that. “Or perhaps we’re too far off, too unimportant.”
“Or they’re scared of the Master.”
Paddy laughed, but it wasn’t entirely a joke. It was hard to imagine even Demons taking on the Master. We had come to the ruins, and a couple of early butterflies—clouded yellows—waltzed overhead, spiraling up past a pillar of crumbling gray stone.
“Do you want to talk about it,” Paddy asked, “the nightmare?”
“No.”
I was certain of that. Discussing Demons in an abstract way was one thing. I couldn’t begin to talk about the howling and my impotent panic. Awkwardness started to come back.
Paddy said, “I was thinking . . .”
“What?”
“Liza’s kittens—she had her last litter in the old pigsty. I wonder if she’s gone back there?”
I said more cheerfully, “She might have. We could go and look.”
• • •
Later that day Andy brought me disturbing news: I was to accompany the Master on his customary afternoon ride around the island.
On my previous birthday, the Master had surprised me by giving me a present, in the shape of a pony. He had not previously marked such occasions for any of us. There always was a present which was supposed to be from the Master, but we knew Mother Ryan had made it or got it from Sheriff’s and wrapped it up before putting the Master’s seal on it.
And a pony was something special. Joe had brought it across secretly the night before, but the Master himself summoned me to the paddock and handed me the reins. He didn’t say much, only, “So you’re fourteen, boy. On the mainland, they would call you a man.” Then, without waiting for thanks to emerge from stammering confusion, he turned and walked away.
Antonia had just been scornful; for two or three days afterwards she greeted me by dropping her voice and saying, “On the mainland, they would call you a man.” I don’t think she minded my being given the horse; she was not fond of animals and shooed the cats away if they ventured into the parlor.
Paddy, though, had been resentful at first, pointing out that all she’d had for becoming fourteen was a new hat. But she got over it quickly, principally by treating the pony as if it were a present for the pair of us. It was she who provided him with a name, Black Prince, and when Andy taught us to ride him she learned faster. She was older, of course.
The Master’s own horse was a big gray gelding named Sea King. Andy called him willful, but he seemed docile with the Master’s hands on the reins. I had only looked on from a respectful distance and found it hard to take in Andy’s instruction that I was to join him.
“Join him, how? Walk alongside?”
“On Black Prince, fool.” Andy pushed up the forelock which disguised a bald patch on the top of his head. “And mind you don’t discredit me by riding like a sack of seaweed.” He grinned unpleasantly. “Else I might send the Demons after you again.”
The direction was for meeting at North Point. As I came up to him, I said, “Good day, Master,” and put a hand to my forelock. He nodded silently and clicked his tongue for Sea King to walk on.
For several hundred yards the path lay inland, before emerging to where the sea lay directly beneath us. He halted there. The western cloud had thickened, but the day was mild still.
The Master spoke abruptly. “That was a fine caterwauling you treated us to last night.”
I was thrown once more into confusion. The Master’s quarters were at the far end of the house, and it had not occurred to me he too might have been wakened.
“I’m sorry, sir . . .”
He stared down at me. He was more than six feet tall, his horse better than seventeen hands to Black Prince’s thirteen and a half. Letting go the reins, he rubbed his hands together slowly.
“You have put on some height in the past year. How much?”
I had no trouble answering that. At the foot of the back stairs, pencil lines on the plaster marked where Paddy and I measured one another, regularly on birthdays and quite often in between.
“Three inches, sir. Well, above two.”
He nodded. “Are you happy here?”
His voice was deep, and his manner of speaking strange. As Mother Ryan’s was, but in her case we knew the reason—she was proud of being born and raised in Ireland. The Master’s accent did not resemble either hers or the local one, which was also my own. It took me a moment to grasp the question, and “here” perplexed me. Where else should I be?
I said quickly, “Yes indeed, sir.”
“It’s a small place for a growing boy. You have wanted education.”
Again I was puzzled. This was the spring holiday, but normally Paddy and I were taken daily to school on Sheriff’s in Joe’s fishing dinghy.
I said, “I was second to top in my reading class. And Roger Burton who came top is six months older.”
He smiled, but it was bleak. “And what do you read, in that class you speak of?”
“All sorts of things. Duties and Obediences, The Torments of Hell, The Infidels of the North . . .”
“Would you say you learn matters of value from these books?”
An honest answer would have been very little if anything, but I knew better than to be strictly honest to a questioning adult, particularly to the Master.
“Yes, sir.”
“I am told you dreamed of Demons last night. Do the books tell you of them?”
I nodded. “Yes, they do.”
“What do they say?”
He sounded as though he really wanted to know, which in itself surprised me. I had taken it for granted that, with a large room lined ceiling to floor with books, he must be the wisest person I knew—far wiser than our teachers, or Mr. Hawkins the Summoner, or Sheriff Wilson. But he had put the question, and I had better answer it.
“They tell us Demons are the minions of the Dark One. They come to warn men against transgression of the laws, and to punish those who persist in wickedness.”
He looked at me until I felt uncomfortable. At last, he said, “I have served you ill.”
That puzzled me even more. How could the Master serve me, or want to? I kept silent, and he went on, “It may not be too late. We will talk again, perhaps of Demons. Now it is time for your tea.”
I followed him back on Black Prince, disturbed but intrigued. Would the talk be in his library? I had ventured there once while he was away on Sheriff’s, and the close-packed volumes had fascinated me. There was even a set of wooden steps, spiraling around a pole, to get at those too high to reach. Mother Ryan had caught me peering and pulled me away by the ear. It was, she scolded with a sharp tweak, a spot forbidden to any but the Master.
• • •
/> All this took place on Tuesday. The new term started on Friday, which meant just one day before the weekend break. I had fingers crossed for our camping trip: The weather had broken, and Mother Ryan fastened our oilskins on a rain-smeared morning. Joe greeted us at the jetty.
“You’re late. That’s a bad beginning to the term.”
“No more than five minutes,” Paddy said. “Liza had her kittens in the night. Joe, she’s got five, and we saw the last one born! Two black-and-white, two tortoiseshell, and one a funny gray color. We’re calling it Smoky.”
That had been my suggestion. It was usually Paddy who thought of names, always Paddy who decided what the name was going to be.
Joe said, “Never mind cats and kittens. Cast off, Ben. I’ve done a day’s work before you were stirring, and another’s waiting.”
The dinghy smelled of the catch he had landed earlier, a tang of fish mixed with salt and sweat and tobacco. Joe was almost as tall as the Master, and broader, with a battered face and a big nose and thick black beard. He set sail to catch the stiff northwesterly, and we heaved our way across the bay with gusts of rain stinging our faces. I glanced surreptitiously at Paddy. I had got over being seasick, but she still suffered occasionally. She seemed all right this morning.
I looked back toward the house, where smoke rose from two small chimneys at the north end and a larger one at the south. The Master would be sitting by his study fire, drinking the coffee Mother Ryan took him about this time. I’d never tasted coffee—it was not for the likes of us, Mother Ryan said—but loved the smell. Perhaps he would be reading one of his thousands of books. I wondered when the summons for the talk might come.
This being the first day of school, Sheriff Wilson addressed us. He reminded us of our duty: to obey our parents and those in authority, all adults, in word and deed and thought. We were to work hard and to learn—learn especially those things through which we might escape the wrath of the Dark One, in this life and the life to come. Work hard, and learn well!
He too was big, but fleshy. He had a high forehead, fat cheeks, and spectacles whose lenses had no rims. He picked me out as I headed toward the classroom.
“Young Ben of Old Isle! How are you, boy?”
“Well, sir. Thank you, sir.”
He was smiling, but he smiled easily. People said he was the best Sheriff in living memory, more easygoing than his predecessors. The stocks which stood across the green from his house were empty more often than not. I thought I ought to like him, but could not.
“The Master is well, I hope?”
The tone was solicitous, but I didn’t believe the hope was honest. I had once observed him in conversation with the Master, and though I could not distinguish their words, there had been contempt in the Master’s voice, wheedling unease in the Sheriff’s.
I said, “He is well, sir.”
“Respect him, boy. He is a great man.”
“Indeed he is!”
I spoke warmly and thought his eyes narrowed behind the rimless lenses, but he smiled still more widely and patted my head to send me on my way.
• • •
Although I would not have preferred to live there, I found Sheriff’s an exciting place. Apart from ruinous mounds from the days of the Madness, fascinating forbidden territory, there was the bustle of people, and there were shops. The Hesperus, which took produce to the mainland and brought back other goods, had recently returned. Paddy and I found mainland sweets tastier than the Widow Barnes’s fudge, and with hoarded pennies we bought sticks of toffee studded with hazelnuts. We munched our way happily to the quay, where Joe was waiting for us.
I began to rattle off an account of the day, but Paddy interrupted.
“What is it, Joe? What’s wrong?”
When I looked, his expression was troubled. He turned his head away.
“Nothing that won’t wait. We’ve a tide to catch.”
She grasped his arm. “Tell us now.”
I envied her manner of commanding him. He stared unhappily. “Well, you’ll have to know. It’s the Master.”
“What about him?” I asked.
But Paddy had read Joe’s face. “Not dead?”
“No,” I said. “That can’t be!”
Yet now I could read his grimness too, and knew it was.
JOHN CHRISTOPHER is a pseudonym of Samuel Youd, who was born in Lancashire, England, in 1922. He is the author of more than fifty novels and novellas, as well as numerous short stories. His most famous books include The Death of Grass, the Tripods trilogy, The Lotus Caves, and The Guardians.
ALADDIN
SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK
Meet the author watch videos, and get extra at
KIDS.simonandschuster.com
authors.simonandschuster.com/John-Christopher
Also by John Christopher
From Aladdin
THE TRIPODS SERIES
The White Mountains
The City of Gold and Lead
The Pool of Fire
When the Tripods Came
The Guardians
A Dusk of Demons
WE HOPE YOU LOVED READING THIS EBOOK!
We have SO many more books for kids in the in-beTWEEN age that we’d love to share with you! Sign up for our IN THE MIDDLE books newsletter and you’ll receive news about other great books, exclusive excerpts, games, author interviews, and more!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com/middle
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This Aladdin hardcover edition November 2014
Text copyright © 1969 by John Christopher
Jacket illustration copyright © 2014 by Anton Petrov
Also available in an Aladdin paperback edition.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki
Interior designed by Hilary Zarycky
The text of this book was set in Venetian 301
Library of Congress Control Number 2014946003
ISBN 978-1-4814-1838-6 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-1837-9 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4814-1839-3 (eBook)
John Christopher, The Lotus Caves
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends