Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson Read Free Book Online Page B

body and going somewhere else. She felt very light. She was moving very fast. She was crossing time like it was a street. She was moving from Time Now into Time Then.
    Then she saw it. She saw it exactly as though someone was projecting it on to a wall. Behind Abel Darkwater was the face of her father. Her beloved father!
    Darkwater turned, and because Silver was lying the wrong way round, she risked raising her head on the pillow, hopinghe wouldn’t see her under the canvas. They were back at Tanglewreck …
    It was a cold day and the bear in the garden was covered in snow. It was a hedge bear, made out of box plants and shaped and trimmed by their father. There were foxes too, and a deer standing with its face towards the forest
.
    ‘Once,’ said her father, ‘these creatures lived here when the forest came as close as the edge of the garden. There were still bears in England when this house was new.’
    Her father was wearing a knitted tie and a thick wool shirt, and a big loose heavy jacket. He took something out of his pocket and the children looked at it in wonder
.
    ‘This is the most beautiful object in the world,’ he said, ‘but I think it is alive too.’
    ‘Is it a watch or a clock?’ said Silver
.
    ‘It’s called the Timekeeper,’ said her father. ‘Its mysteries are hard to understand. I don’t really understand it myself. I’m taking it to London tomorrow to show it to a man who will tell me everything about it. He wants me to sell it to him, but I won’t do that.’
    ‘Can I come with you?’
    ‘Not this time. Next time. This time we’ll take Buddleia because she needs to see a doctor about her leg.’
    Their father was gazing at the clock. ‘Our ancestors were given it to keep safe by someone who was very unsafe himself. It was a long time ago, and they looked after him, and he asked them to keep this for him. It’s been in the family for hundreds of years – nearly as long as the house – and now it’s my turn to look after it,and one day, it will be your turn.’
    ‘You never showed it to me before.’
    ‘No. I keep it hidden.’
    ‘Why do you hide it?’
    ‘Oh, just because I have a feeling that someone else might want it.’
    ‘Where do you hide it?’
    As she said that, the image of her father holding the clock became bigger and bigger, then it began to waver and fade. Abel Darkwater started shouting at the top of his voice, and the light in the room was so bright that Silver fell back and closed her eyes.
    Abel Darkwater was leaning over her feet. ‘He hid it somewhere, didn’t he? Where did he hide it? He hid it in the house or the garden, didn’t he? Take me there, follow the day that I have given you – follow your father. Where is it? Where is it?’
    Suddenly the room went dark. Abel Darkwater was breathing heavily. Silver felt in her body that whatever had happened to her was over.
    Sniveller and Abel Darkwater left the bedroom and went into the adjoining room where Silver had eaten her supper. She could hear them talking in low voices, but they had shut the door and she couldn’t hear what they were saying.
    Without really planning it, Silver slid quickly out of bed and pulled on her jeans, fleece and socks over her pyjamas.
    She slipped out on to the landing and padded silentlydown the stairs. How dark it was! The stairs wound down and down like the spring of a clock, and as her fingers felt the walls to steady herself, her body made giant shadows thrown by the candlelight.
    She reached the wide hall. There was the telephone on the table. It was a funny-looking thing; upright, like a black candlestick, with a microphone at the top to speak into, and a listening tube hanging at the side, and a dial at the base that you had to spin round to get the numbers. She had seen Abel Darkwater using it that afternoon, so she knew what to do.
    Looking round nervously, she lifted the tube and dialled 999.
    A voice answered. ‘What number are you, caller?’
    ‘I don’t