Free I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows by Alan Bradley Page B

the others? They’ll be getting impatient.”
    I heard the sound of their footsteps going up the stairs. I’d give it a few more seconds, I thought, just to be certain they were gone.
    But before I could move, someone stepped out from the shadows into the middle of the corridor.
    Bun Keats!
    She had not seen me. Her back was turned, and she was peeking round the corner into the foyer. It was evident that she’d been eavesdropping on the conversation I’d just happened to overhear.
    If she turned round, she’d be almost face-to-face with me.
    I held my breath.
    After what seemed like an eternity, she walked slowly through into the foyer and vanished from sight.
    Again I waited until I heard her footsteps fade away.
    “It’s a pity, isn’t it,” a voice said almost at my shoulder, “when people don’t get along?”
    I nearly jumped out of my skin.
    I spun round and there was Marion Trodd, with a quizzical—or was it a rueful—half-smile on her face. In spite of her smart tailored suit, her dark horn-rimmed glasses gave her the look of a tribal princess who had rubbed ashes round her empty black eyes in preparation for a jungle sacrifice.
    She’d been there all along. And to think that I hadn’t heard or seen her!
    The two of us stood motionless, staring at each other in the dim corridor, not knowing quite what to say.
    “Excuse me,” I said. “I’ve just remembered something.”
    It was true. What I’d remembered was this: While I was not in the least afraid of the dead, there were those among the living who gave me the creeping hooly-goolies, and Marion Trodd was one of them.
    I turned and walked quickly away, before something horrid could rise up out of the carpet and suck me down into the weave.

    SEVEN
     
    FATHER WAS SITTING AT the kitchen table listening to Aunt Felicity. This, more than anything, brought home to me how much—and how rapidly—our little world had been shrunk.
    I slipped silently, or so I thought, into the pantry and helped myself to a piece of Christmas cake.
    “This has gone on long enough, Haviland. It’s been ten years now, and I’ve looked on in silence as your situation declined, hoping that you’d one day come to your senses …”
    This was laughably untrue. Aunt Felicity never missed an opportunity to dig in a critical oar.
    “… but all in vain. It’s unhealthy for the children to go on living under such barbaric conditions.”
    Children? Did she think of us as children?
    “The time has come, Haviland,” she went on, “to stop this incessant moping about and find yourself a wife—and preferably a rich one. It is positively indecent for a tribe of girls to be raised by a man. They become savages. It’s a well-known fact that they don’t develop properly.”
    “Lissy …”
    “Flavia, you may step out,” Aunt Felicity called, and I shuffled into the kitchen, a little shamefaced at having been caught snooping.
    “See what I mean?” she said, darkly, pointing at me with a finger whose nail was the red of exhausted blood.
    “I was getting Dogger a piece of Christmas cake,” I said, hoping to make her feel dreadful. “He’s been working so hard … and he often doesn’t take enough to eat.”
    I took one of Dogger’s black jackets from behind the door and threw it over my shoulders.
    “And now if you’ll excuse me …” I said, and went out the kitchen door.
    The cold air nipped at my cheeks and knees and knuckles as I trotted through the falling flakes. The narrow path that someone had shoveled was already beginning to fill in.
    Dogger, in overalls, was in the greenhouse, trimming sprigs of holly and mistletoe.
    “Brrrrr!” I said. “It’s cold.”
    Since he wasn’t in the habit of responding to chitchat, he said nothing.
    The Christmas tree Dogger had promised was nowhere in sight, but I fought down my disappointment. He probably hadn’t had time.
    “I’ve brought you some cake,” I said, breaking off half and handing it to him.
    “Thank