Midnight Sun by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online

the sun, and when it looked almost as long as a tree is tall he heard a voice behind him. It sounded like the ice cracking in the heat from the fire, which was a sound you always heard in that place, but he knew it was a voice because it was calling his name. So he ran to get more wood and throw it on the fires, and he didn't look at anything but them until his father came home from hunting. But he didn't tell his father what he'd heard, because he was afraid of being beaten for letting the spirits get so close.
    "That night he kept getting up to make sure none of the fires were going out because his mother and father were sleeping so soundly from waiting for the baby to come. And the next day he was up before dawn to tend the fires. He made them so hot he had to stand twenty paces away and couldn't look at them for more than a breath at a time. So he watched his shadow turning east and growing longer than yesterday's as the sun began to go down, and then he heard someone calling his name beyond the fires in a voice like a stream turning into ice. So he ran to the forest for wood and threw it on the fires until they were so hot he had to stand thirty paces away, where he couldn't hear the voice. But he could feel the eyes of ice watching him over the flames.
    "He might have told his father about that, because they frightened him more than the thought of being beaten, except that just as his father came home with a deer across his shoulders his mother started having the baby. She cried out all night, and in the morning it still hadn't come, so because they had enough meat for a week the father stayed with her and the boy had to tend the fires even though he'd had no sleep. So he made them so high he thought they must be able to melt the ice on the mountain, and then he watched his shadow turning and listened to his mother crying out, until his shadow looked like a giant that could swallow his father in one mouthful, because that was the shortest day of the year and the sun was lowest. And just when the sun touched the horizon he heard someone calling his name in a voice that sounded like a snowfall talking, and the fires were so hot and he was so tired that it hushed him to sleep.
    "He didn't wake until he started shivering, and as soon as he did he knew that one of the fires had gone out. He ran to the forest to get some wood, but there was just one branch left from all the wood they'd cut, because he'd been building the fires so high. And when he ran back with it he saw that the fire wasn't just out, it was covered with frost as thick as a finger.
    "So he ran to the hut to tell his mother and father, but he couldn't hear his mother crying out or his father singing to her, it was quiet as a snowdrift in there. And when he looked in he thought he saw two white bears that must have eaten his mother and father, but they were really his mother and father covered with frost that had caught them when they'd tried to run. The only living creature in the hut was a baby as white as a cloud. So the boy went to pick it up, but when it opened its eyes he saw they were made of ice. Then he was going to kill it with the branch, but it started to cry, and its breath was like a blizzard so fierce it cut his skin and froze his blood when he started to bleed, and the last thing he ever saw was the world turning white. So that's one story about what happens when the ice comes out of the dark ..."
    Ben's voice trailed off. He felt light-headed with talking, and awkward now that he'd finished. The fire was almost out, he saw. Then Mr Milligan came to himself with a start and shovelled coal from the scuttle onto the embers until the fire flared up. "That was a tour de force, Ben," he said. "If I were you I should write all that down and try sending it to a publisher."
    Ben's aunt slapped her knees and pushed herself to her feet. "Come along, Ben. I've let you stay longer than you should have. I'll put the light on if I may. I like to see where I