Buried Fire by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online

his door with a crash and ran wet-foot over the dew-sodden Rectory field to the church wall. This he vaulted, and thirty seconds later he was standing in the Norman side-arch, viewing the broken door.
    Elizabeth was beside Constable Vernon, who was crouching next to the splintered wooden door and squinting at it with a professional eye.
    "What's happened here, Joe? What's the damage?"
    "If you're talking about the door, they must've hit it good and hard." The constable grunted dismissively and stood up. "They've snapped the bar straight in two, with a blow from the outside. You didn't get round to furnishing a lock, I see."
    "Well, no I didn't, Joe." Tom fingered the long white splinters protruding from the bar. "It's done the job for centuries." Tom did not exaggerate. The beam had rested in metal clasps on the back of the door, sliding back and forth into the hollowed sockets of the stone arch, till it was smooth as marble and black as soot. And now it was split like matchwood.
    "I can't find any damage in the church," Elizabeth said from close beside him. "My first thought was that they were after the cross, but of course it's just too heavy."
    The cross. Tom went cold. The events at Sarah's had driven yesterday's elation clear from his mind. He had forgotten the cross. It could be no coincidence, no coincidence at all. She must have missed something. He ran down the nave and into the vestry, footfalls rebounding off the vaulted ceiling. There was the stone laid out on the trolley, but all around it the flagstones were laced with thin brown stains.
    "Oh God," thought Tom. "What have they done?"
    Then he saw the bucket, and the dirty water, and yesterday's sponge caked with clay, and he sighed at his foolishness.
    Elizabeth was right behind him. "It's all right, Tom," she said, putting a hand upon his shoulder. "The cross is fine."
    So it was. In the half-light of the church, the shape of the stone was muffled, its carvings a sworl of shadows, but it was definitely whole. Tom touched the shaft of the cross.
    "So what did they want?" he said. "What's the point?"
    Elizabeth considered him. "You looked wrecked," she said. "Didn't get much sleep?"
    "As a matter of fact, no." It came out too sharply, and he saw the warden flinch.
    "I'm sorry, Liz," he said quickly. "I had a terrible night. Sarah's little brother has been playing the fool up on the Wirrim. Came home high as a kite. Screaming, burbling nonsense, the usual stuff."
    "Heavens, Tom, will he be all right?"
    "Not if I had my way he won't be, the little idiot. Sarah's just not tough enough on them. Swears he's never done anything like it before. She's blind to their faults, I'm afraid."
    "But is he all right?" Elizabeth's tone of voice forced Tom out of his absorption and he met her gaze.
    "Sorry, yes. The doctor was a bit confused. Never seen symptoms quite like it, apparently. But it wasn't sunstroke, which is what the boy was claiming. Temperature was fine, pulse rate fine, all the usual things. Just very red and blistered around the eyes. No one's sure why, but he'd obviously been up to no good somehow. Still, he was safe in bed, and sleeping, by the time I left. Which was late."
    Elizabeth nodded. "Go outside. You need some air. I'm going to phone the bishop; it's about time he heard about this."
    A great weariness came over him as he stepped out, into the freshness of the day. A faint smell of smoke hung in the air, reminding him of the autumn to come. A host of birds were trilling with irreverent zest among the branches of the yew, and his eyes wandered to the giant hole cut in the graveyard soil, its edges wet with morning. Joe Vernon was sitting on another of Mr Purdew's trolleys, talking into a radio. Presently, he snapped it shut and walked over to Tom.
    "Well," he said, "it must have been done sometime before half past four, since that was when Tony Hooper noticed it, on his way in to work. We may get more information; someone may have seen lights on in the