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

boy, she had often seen how tough they were on one another, and how hard a man’s life could be.
    “Yes, Mia. They are.”
    “I think you’re special, Alina,” said Mia, “and sometimes I don’t understand why you don’t …”
    Mia paused helplessly, and Elak whined.
    “What, Mia?”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” answered the kindly little child. “What can girls do in the world anyway?”
    Alina looked up and the barn door rattled again.
    “You know, Mia,” she whispered ruefully, “I’ve sometimes thought of running away. Of going back into the mountains and the forests and finding out who I really am.”
    Alina’s hazel eyes suddenly glittered.
    “Of finding the goblins and the fairies and asking them if they stole me from a human home, long ago. Or, if I’m really one of them, why they abandoned me in the snow. Of seeking out Baba Yaga.”
    Mia’s face was suddenly filled with fear. There was no figure more terrifying to the little girl than Baba Yaga. Tales of her came like bad weather from the Eastern lands, a hag who lived in a wooden house, supported on chickens claws, that walked around the forest on its own. A witch who flew through the night, in a huge stone mortar, using the pestle as her rudder and sweeping away any trace of her passing with a broom of silver birch as she spread her evil. But now there was an even greater fear than the one of Baba Yaga in the little girl’s heart.
    “And leaving me here all alone?” Mia gulped, on the edge of tears again. “Shouldn’t you keep hiding from the fairies, Alina?”
    Alina looked back at Mia and shook her head with a smile.
    “I’m tired of hiding all the time, Mia. But don’t you worry. I’ll never leave you alone, I promise. I’ve a debt to your uncle and aunt too. They saved my life.”
    “Only to make you their servant and scold you.”
    The older girl winced inwardly. Alina Sculcuvant felt—no, she knew—that she was better than a servant, whether she was human or changeling, and this life of work and care seemed wrong. Yet her dim recollections of the past had made her feel that perhaps she had always been a servant. She patted Elak again and wanted to cry.
    “Does a changeling deserve any more?” she said gloomily. “But you’d better get back now, Mia.”
    Reluctantly little Mia got to her feet.
    “All right then, Alina. Good night.”
    Mia crossed the barn with a heavy heart and picked up the axe propped against the door.
    “And Mia,” called Alina softly after her. “Thank you again.”
    “That’s all right, dear Alina. Sleep safe.”
    Mia was about to slip away, when she suddenly stopped and slapped her hand to her forehead.
    “Silly Mia,” she cried. “I’m so forgetful.”
    “What is it?” sighed Alina, feeling really sleepy now.
    “I forgot to tell you again what I discovered this morning.”
    Alina lay there listening, wondering where Malduk and Ranna could have gone.
    “What, Mia?” she asked with another yawn.
    The little girl frowned nervously.
    “You must promise not to tell Uncle, Alina, or he’ll punish me.”
    “Me, more like. I promise, though.”
    The little girl reached into her pocket and pulled out the key.
    “I found it this morning, and opened the old chest. They went to market early and I waited until I was alone,” said Mia, and in the darkness Alina couldn’t see her blushes. “There was a paper inside it, Alina. I tried to tell you before. Something to do with you.”
    Elak’s ears had come forwards, as he sensed the sudden tension in the air, and Alina Sculcuvant was fully awake again. She sat up sharply.
    “With me?”
    “Yes, Alina. I’m sure of it. There was a picture at the top, just like that mark on your arm, and lots of words, I think. Could you read them?”
    Alina was having exactly the same thought that Mia had had that morning, that goblins don’t write letters, and she got to her feet.
    “Can you show me?” she said gravely, trying to throw off the effect of the