Devil's Mountain by Bernadette Walsh Read Free Book Online Page A

Think, Caroline, think, I commanded myself. I pulled back the rough cotton curtains covering the shed’s only window and stared out onto the scrubby back garden. When I first woke up it had all seemed so fresh. The wine, Bobby’s transformation, the pain. In the bathroom as I tried to remember specifics my thoughts disappeared, like whorls of smoke.
    I twisted the stiff faucet and a trickle of water escaped the rusted tap. I splashed my now pretty face, which looked like me, yet not like me. I rubbed my forehead. “Think, Caroline,” I said aloud, tearing my eyes away from the stranger in the mirror. “Think!”
    My thoughts felt heavy, as if I was mentally walking through J-ello. He bit me , fought its way through the fog. He bit me .
    But where? I ran my hands along my bare arms. They were smooth, unmarked. And then I remembered. My breast. He hadn’t just bitten me, last night it had felt like he’d devoured my breasts.
    I unbuttoned the silk sheath and gasped. Not only were they unmarked, but my small, rather unremarkable breasts had been transformed. Full, round. Like the face, it was as if they belonged to someone else. Dear God, was this a dream? Was it a nightmare?
    I sat on the small toilet, my head in my hands. I tried to think, to remember, but it was useless. We had wine. There was a fire. And then...then what? Bobby’s eyes had changed, and he’d turned into...into what?
    I stood up and peered into the mirror. This was madness. I was the same as I ever was.
    Sure, I looked better, but that was because I was on vacation. I was relaxed. And my breasts, well, I’d been on so many hormones this past year, they’d probably been bigger for a while and this was the first time I’d noticed.
    “Sweetheart, are you all right?”
    “I’m fine,” I called out. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
    There’d been wine. A fire. And then? The final wisps of memory floated away from me.
    There’d been wine and a fire. And then Bobby woke me with a kiss and handed me a mug of tea.
    That was all. Yes. Yes, that was all.
    I buttoned the pearl buttons of the handmade sheath. I smiled at the pretty Caroline in the mirror and walked out of the small, damp shed to join my beautiful husband waiting for me in my great, great, great-grandparents’ cottage.
    Chapter 6
    Mary
    I waved to Bobby and Caroline as they backed their car down the drive, and forced myself to smile. To look normal, as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Caroline waved back, her lips ruby red. She had looked different these past few days. Pretty, and lush almost, nothing like the nervous sparrow I’d met in New York.
    Their small car disappeared down the road. Bobby had booked them into a hotel in Killarney for two nights. I’d be on my own tonight. Well, not exactly on my own.
    I walked into the kitchen, sliced a piece of ham from yesterday’s dinner and cut myself some bread. I brewed tea, my mother’s tea.
    Later, I dressed in one of my newer sheaths, one I’d made myself last year. Identical to my mother’s. The evening was warm, almost balmy, yet I slipped the heavy red cape over my shoulders as I walked out the door.
    Conor Griffin, Seamus’s son, drove five cows along the back field. He saluted me from the distance and I waved back, conscious of my scarlet cloak. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, with shame. What must he think of me? What must they all think of me?
    I remember when I was in school. I couldn’t have been more than six. One of the girls from town, a Phelan I think, not one of the five families, told me very matter-of-factly I couldn’t sit next to her. Said my mother was the Mountain’s whore, and that when I grew up I’d become the Mountain’s whore too.
    That evening I told my mother a girl called me a whore and I didn’t understand why, I wasn’t a cow.
    “A cow?” my mother asked.
    “Yes, that’s what Daddy always shouts at the cows when they won’t go through the gate.
    I’m not a cow.”
    “Ah, love, of