Snake Ropes by Jess Richards Read Free Book Online Page A

nursing. I assume you need to trade
something
to survive.’
    ‘Folk’ll be so mad if them find out you’ve been with a woman from here!’
    Him glances after the other tall man, still further away, then back at me. ‘Then don’t tell anyone,’ him says. ‘You seem to be good at keeping secrets.’ Hims eyes look cruel for a moment, not like Barney’s at all. ‘Your mother wouldn’t have bothered about searching for him. She’d just have let him … drift off.’
    I dun know what him means. Telling me how to think. Him is messing with my thoughts of Mam.
    ‘You’re so like her. So much anger …’ Him reaches out a pale hand towards my face.
    I step away. ‘Shut your stinking mouth up!’
    Him glares at me. ‘So, where can I find my son?’
    ‘You can’t have him for a son.’
    ‘My blood …’ him says, flexing back hims wrist so the blue veins rise.
    ‘It’s
me
what loves him.
I’ll
find him. Blood’s just blood. Nothing more.’ I stamp away towards the cliff path, turn to the south, and dun look back.

Morgan

    I’m lost somewhere between this wooden spoon and the stew I’m stirring in the pot. I add pepper. And more. And more. My abdomen cramps. I’m the one on the rag, but Mum’s the one who’s sulking. I can feel her heavy sulk all the way through the ceiling, from the room above this kitchen.
    My parents aren’t even trying to fit in. The height of our house – two floors above ground – makes it too exposed. It creaks in the winds. Our house was built by my parents, with wood salvaged from a shipwreck. People must have died in that wreck. My parents didn’t care; they just wanted the planks. The people who live on this island must have wanted the planks too, but they will all get good solid coffins – and Dad will provide them with decent burials, given time.
    Dad dragged the wood here, plank by plank, up the hill from the shore. As always, he was wearing his suit. Mum waited for him with me, in the shack they’d made next to the foundations of this house. It was so cold in there, I didn’t even find any spiders. No one who lived on this island came to visit us in the shack. I thought I heard whispers, but each time I said so, my mother croaked. That scared all the whispers away.
    Croaked like a toad, hunched her back, but kept her eyes fixed on me.
    I slice up an onion and four cloves of garlic and throw them in the bubbling pot. I’m cooking in the wrong order today. I chop up the chicken meat. The smell of the flesh makes my stomach clench. Does marrow need to be salted? I can’t remember. I look out of the kitchen window. The tall fence blocks out any kind of view. All Mum said when she built the fence was, ‘I’ve always wanted a picket fence around my home,’ and got on with it. I remember her hammering the slats deep into the ground.
    That’s a bitter taste.
    More flavour … I slash parsley with a gleaming knife.
    I’ve heard people on the other side, laughing at it as they pass by. Why wouldn’t they? It’s ridiculous, but Mum thinks it’s the best thing that’s ever been made. This was my mother’s dream, the home she’d always wanted. A picket fence was the final touch, and it was the final touch that sealed us in.
    Mum built her picket fence thirteen feet high. And painted it bright pink.
    I draw bread from the oven and it fills the room with the smell of warm yeast. It collects Mum’s sulk from the air in this kitchen, pummels it down and flattens it on the floor. The tiles feel damp under my bare feet.
    I open the kitchen door, call out ‘Lunch!’ The cramps in my abdomen almost buckle me over.
    No reply, and Mum’s sulk is still thickening in the air out here in the hallway.
    I go back into the kitchen and set the table for five. Lunch isn’t really anywhere near ready yet, but no one ever comes when I call, and they’ll be longer than usual, when they’ve got to pass through the remainder of Mum’s sulk.
    I go out of the back door into the