Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson Read Free Book Online Page A

until I reach the moment where her father tells her what he intends to do with the Timekeeper.’
    ‘If he ever did tell her,’ said Mrs Rokabye. ‘I believe that child is as ignorant as a cockle.’
    ‘Even cockles have their uses,’ replied Darkwater. ‘Silver has already fallen into a deep sleep. All that remains is for Sniveller to bring me to the child and I shall do my work.’
    Mrs Rokabye had no worries about what might happen to Silver, but she was brooding about Bigamist.
    ‘I hope your horrible henchmen haven’t upset my rabbit,’ she said. ‘When I said you could search Tanglewreck, I told you to be especially careful of Bigamist.’
    Abel Darkwater’s eyes swelled with irritation. ‘My henchmen, as you call them, seem unable to answer their mobile phones. We must assume they have failed in their mission and that possibly they are dead.’
    ‘Dead!’ cried Mrs Rokabye. ‘What are you saying, Mr Darkwater? Is it not enough that I have to pass my days in a horrible house without carpets or central heating or even a fridge, and now you tell me that there are two dead bodies there as well?’
    ‘I cannot say, but I can say that Sniveller will go back with you if you prefer, and remove any offending objects.’
    Mrs Rokabye was about to say that she found Sniveller himself an offending object, but he had returned to the room to tell Darkwater that the child was ready for hypnosis.
    ‘Are you sure she is quite asleep?’ said Darkwater urgently.
    ‘Quite asleep, Master. I put opium in the tomato sauce.’
    ‘What a marvellous idea!’ said Mrs Rokabye, looking at Sniveller with new eyes. ‘I hope you will tell me where I can buy some. London has everything!’
    ‘I get mine from a Chinaman in Whitechapel,’ saidSniveller. ‘Three stops on the Underground and a hundred years back in Time.’
    Mrs Rokabye was looking confused and Darkwater was glaring. He took out his enormous gold pocket watch, and examined it closely, like a face in the mirror.
    ‘Excuse us, Mrs Rokabye. Help yourself to wine and chocolates, won’t you?’
    ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Mrs Rokabye, settling down as best she could in the hard high-backed wooden chair. Still, the wine and chocolates were very nice and she was suddenly feeling sleepy herself.
    ‘Don’t mind if I do …’ she said, as the glass slipped from her hand.
    Abel Darkwater and Sniveller made their way slowly up the stairs.
    ‘What did you put in her wine?’ asked Darkwater.
    ‘Chloroform drops,’ said Sniveller. ‘Undetectable in claret.’
    ‘Excellent,’ said Darkwater. ‘Help me with the child, then carry Mrs Rokabye here up to bed. Are we heads or tails tonight?’
    ‘Heads is North-facing. Wind quite bracing,’ said Sniveller.
    ‘Heads,’ repeated Darkwater, opening the door into the shadowy room. ‘Heads.’
    Silver heard the door open, as the boards creaked underthe weight of the two men. She pretended to be asleep.
    Sniveller stepped forward quickly and clipped a thick cloth, stretched like canvas, to the four upright rails of the little bed. It was like lying under a flat tent.
    Abel Darkwater drew what looked like two interlocking triangles, making a pointed star on the canvas, and in the middle of the star, he placed a ticking clock. Then he said something in a language Silver couldn’t understand, and a bright green flame lit up the room. She could see the outline of the men clearly now, at the foot of the bed.
    Abel Darkwater began to pass his hands across the top of the canvas and directly over her feet.
    ‘You are going back in Time,’ he said, ‘back in Time, not far, not far at all, but a few years, oh yes, just a few, and your father and mother are still alive.’
    Silver lay absolutely still and rigid with terror. Then a very strange thing started to happen.
    As Abel Darkwater spoke on and on in the language she couldn’t understand, she felt herself slipping and shifting, like she was disappearing from her own