Fell (The Sight 2) by David Clement-Davies Read Free Book Online

head on his paws. Mia looked a little nervously at the large collie, for his sister Teela had snapped at her the week before. Elak was wagging his tail though, for he knew he was amongst friends.
    “Thank you, Mia,” said Alina gratefully, “but what if your uncle finds out that you’ve …”
    Mia could still hear the old couple’s arguing voices in her head, which had begun to rise as she had left the house and Ranna and Malduk had started to discuss Alina’s fate. She hated arguments so much, and the little girl felt sick, wondering fearfully if they had discovered what she had done that morning.
    “Uncle won’t notice, Alina,” she answered. “I hid it at the back of the house the other day.”
    Mia grinned as Alina wrapped the coat warmly about her. But her eyes darkened as she thought of what she had discovered in the chest. The little girl had realised it was a letter of some sort, and even at nine, Mia doubted that fairies and goblins wrote letters. Mia was desperately guilty, and almost frightened to speak of it.
    “That mark on your arm, Alina,” she said, “are you sure you can’t remember what …”
    “No, Mia. I’ve told you before. Please don’t ask again.”
    Mia was going to say something about her discovery, when the barn door creaked loudly, and they both swung their heads. But the door just rattled on its own in the wind, then fell silent again.
    “Nothing.” Alina sighed, looking at the bundle in Mia’s hands. “What’s that, Mia?”
    Mia held up the parcel and unwrapped it carefully. Inside was some freshly baked bread, two large pieces of cheese, and a whole onion.
    “Mia!”
    “Don’t worry, Alina. I’ve been saving it up from my own meals.”
    Alina took it gratefully, but she wasn’t hungry anymore; she was far too sleepy now. Instead she placed it carefully by her pillow, like some wonderful treasure.
    “You’d better get back,” she whispered, with a heavy yawn. “They’ll be wondering.”
    “No,” said Mia, sitting down beside Alina, “they’ve gone off somewhere.”
    Alina looked back at Mia in surprise.
    “Gone off? Where?”
    “Don’t know.” Mia shrugged. “Maybe to buy some more tsuika. I saw them going down the track together.”
    Alina wondered where they could be going at night, but almost wished that she had some fiery tsuika to drink herself—the local plum brandy that in winter was the surest way to warm the belly and fire the heart. The surest way to make your head ache too.
    “I’ll sleep here too tonight, if you like,” whispered Mia. “It’ll be warmer, and perhaps we can try to share our dreams.”
    It was a game Mia loved playing, getting Alina to close her eyes next to her, and seeing if they might have the same dream as they slept, because above all Mia wanted to dream of fairy kingdoms. Alina Sculcuvant, on the other hand, wanted to wake up to another world entirely.
    “No, Mia,” she said. “It will only make them cross when they get back. You’d better not.”
    Mia looked sadly at her friend.
    “I don’t understand why they’re so hard on you,” she whispered glumly.
    Alina had often asked herself the same question, and she had come to believe that it must be because they feared her link to the goblins, especially old Ranna. Alina was already old enough to know that nothing produces unkindness and cruelty so much as fear.
    “It’s all right,” said the older girl, “at least a changeling has a roof over her head, thanks to them. Far warmer than many, and food and water too. We must all count our blessings. That’s what Ivan always says.”
    Mia grinned at the thought old Ivan, a good friend to “Alin” over the years, and his only champion amongst the shepherds, probably because he so loved listening to Alin’s stories. Ivan had been there in the village last month, when Alin made up that wonderful tale of a girl, cruelly treated by her two elder sisters and made to work her fingers to the bone. Until she had found