A Half Forgotten Song by Katherine Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

her back with caution. The light outside was still gray, but bright enough to make her squint. There was much to do before night fell. All the animals to do, and something found to eat, and a new charm of some kind for the chimney flue. She couldn’t make a proper one yet, but something to tide her over—a mermaid’s purse would be a start. Down to the shore, then? Dimity hardly ever went anymore, didn’t trust her own feet. Didn’t like to be seen. But there might be one tucked away somewhere, around the house, and she resolved to look because it was unsettling, having Valentina back. Unsettling to think that her mother might notice her looking for a mermaid’s purse and guess at her purpose. The retribution would be awful.
    Dimity turned from the window but as she did, her eye was caught again. Not Valentina, not a vision. A person . A man. Her heart got caught in her throat. He was young, tall and lean. For a second, she hardly dared to believe it, but it could have been . . . But no. Not tall enough, too broad at the shoulder. The hair too light, too short. But of course not, of course not. She shook her head. A rambler, nothing more. Not many came past the cottage, because the track was not a footpath; he shouldn’t have been there. It was private land, her land, and beyond the cottage he would find no way through. Dimity watched him approaching. Looking at The Watch intently, slowing his pace. Curious. He would get to the bottom and then have to turn around and go back again. Would he be one of those that gazed in at her windows? Twenty years ago nobody ever walked past, but these days there were more. She didn’t like the intrusion. It made her feel as though a tide of people was gathering out of sight; growing, swelling, coming to nudge up against her. But this one wasn’t walking past. This one was coming to the door. He had nothing in his hands; he wore no badge, no uniform. She couldn’t tell what he might want. The hairs stood up all along her arms. This was him, then. This was the one she’d seen coming. Valentina capered in the slant of light on the side of the teapot, but whether it was in warning or simple glee, Dimity couldn’t tell.
    Zach listened hard at the door, trying to hear some sound of movement behind the hum of the sea and the fumbling breeze. The Watch was a long, low cottage, the upper story built well into the eaves of the thatch. The straw was dark and uneven, sagging into deep pockets in some places; great tufts of grass and forget-me-nots grew along the ridge and around the chimney stacks. Zach knew precious little about thatch, but it was obviously badly in need of replacing. The stone walls were whitewashed, and it sat facing west at the top of a long slope that ran down into the valley, where Zach could see scattered farm buildings half a mile or so below. The track to the cottage was dry and stony but looked as though heavy rain would turn it to mud. It approached from the north, towards one end of the house, so Zach had seen that the place was only one room deep. Behind it was a yard enclosed by a high wall, and behind that a small stand of beech and oak trees left over from an earlier century. The breeze whispered through those trees, twisting the dry leaves, speaking of the coming autumn.
    Zach knocked again, louder this time. If there was nobody at home, he was back to square one; and pointlessly paying for a room for the night. He turned and looked at the view, which was wide and lovely. The cliff, a short way beyond the cottage, was much higher here, dropping perhaps thirty or forty feet. Below, down the slope, he could see the lane that he had driven along earlier that day—following the crease of the valley down to where the land dipped into the sea. The footpath turned inland from the eastern side of the little car park, crossing pasture and then the track to The Watch farther up towards the village. He couldn’t understand why it did this, instead of simply