A Dark Dividing by Sarah Rayne Read Free Book Online Page B

building, with gaping holes where the windows had been and birds’ nests in the chimneys. Worst of all was that she could see that it was empty, and that nobody could possibly have lived in it for years and years, especially not any children.
    They reached their new house quite soon afterwards. The furniture van was there already, and things were being unloaded and carried inside. It was a pretty nice house, a bit like a large cottage. There was a pointy roof and flowery things growing up the walls, and a tangly garden that would be great for games. The rooms all had nice scents that made you think of orchards on warm afternoons.
    After the furniture van drove away there were about a million things to do, so Simone forgot about the black stone house for a while. There was unpacking and beds to be made up; Simone’s bedroom was right at the top of the house and it had a padded window-seat so you could curl up and look out over the fields if you wanted to. She could not see the old house from her window, which was one good thing. And after she had unpacked her books and cassettes and CDs the room felt really friendly, and then after supper a large ginger cat wandered in from somewhere to investigate them and had to be found a saucer of milk. And what with all this going on Mother did not seem to notice that Simone was being so quiet.
    She did not dare to tell Mother about the black old house in case it meant there was something wrong with her. If you heard voices that other people did not hear, and if you knew what places looked like before ever you saw them it might mean you were mad, and mad people were shut away and never let to go out into the world.

CHAPTER FIVE
    T HE BLACK STONE house was called Mortmain House, and people who lived there were hardly ever let to go out into the world. Sometimes they were shut away inside it for years and years—children as well as grown-ups.
    But one of the really bad things about it was not knowing who to trust. The children who lived there could not tell whether the men who came to visit were nice, ordinary men, interested in hearing about lessons and about the food that was served, or whether they were the other ones: the ones with the treacly voices, who were the baddest people in the world. If you had known how to tell the difference, the little girl said to Simone, then you might have been able to do something about it when they came. Hide somewhere or put a chair under the door-handle so they could not get in, that would be one way. But as it was, nobody could tell.
    Simone asked who the treacly voiced men were, and the little girl said the children called them the Pigs. They had nasty piggy eyes, greedy and sly, and thick fingers that prodded at you. After they had looked, they quite often smiled and nodded to one another, and said you were good enough to save up for a while.
    Save up for what?
    But the little girl only laughed when Simone asked this, and even though the laugh and the voice was still inside her head Simone heard that it was a horrid kind of laugh, pitying and smug, as if the little girl thought Simone was stupid. You know, she said. You know what I mean, and so Simone pretended that she did know, really.
    Mortmain meant dead-man’s hands. It was French, and the little girl had explained it to Simone. ‘It’s always been called that,’ she said. ‘Mort is French for dead, and main means hands. I don’t suppose you’d know that, though.’ There was a faint air of I’m-better-than-you, which was one of the things Simone hated. So she said she was just starting French at school, and she knew what Mortmain meant perfectly well.
    But it was a pretty spooky name for a house—even for that house. Spookiest of all was Mortmain’s crumbliness, because you had only to see it once to know that people had not lived there for years and years.
    ‘It’s a famous ruin,’ Mother said, when Simone asked about it one day. They had been at Weston Fferna for several