The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards by N. D. Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

defense if you must.”
    Henry looked from his father’s face to the faerie’s.Frank gave a little nod, and his jaw crept out. His nostrils flared, widening his round nose.
    Mordecai rose, hugged his wife, kissed Henry on the head, and then ruffled his hair. “Soon,” he said. “The storm must break soon, and we will be done with the waiting.”
    Henry watched his father disappear into the black mouth of the stairs. His mother followed him. Shivering, he looked at one Frank and then the other. Behind him, the raggant snored.
    “Odd,” Uncle Frank said, “having a brother like that. Makes me feel like a hen hatched in a hawk’s nest.”
    Voices rose up from the street. Hooves clattered on cobblestones. Henry looked down at Fat Frank, rubbing his nose. The faerie wasn’t much of a replacement for Mordecai.
    “Good night,” Henry said. And he walked to the stairs.
    As the sky pinked with the dawn, Henry dreamed. Ten gray threads ran out of the scar in his face, and ten men in black held the ends, tracking Henry wherever he ran, wherever he hid.
    And then his grandmother snipped the threads with sewing scissors and wound them into a braid.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Henry jerked in his bed and opened his eyes. The room was blurry. He blinked hard, and the world slowly came into focus. His curtains had been pulled back, and gray daylight crawled sideways into his room. The sun wasn’t high.
    He yawned, stretching. It was too early to be awake.
    “Henry. Get up. Something’s going on.” Henrietta poked him.
    Henry blinked again and looked down over his blankets. His room was crowded. Richard stood by the doorway in some kind of nightshirt, bare-legged and wide-eyed. Isa and Penelope, the two oldest, stood next to each other, both dressed, both clearly worried. Penelope was pulling nervously at her hair. Una was leaning against her sister and chewing on her lip. Anastasia was bouncing, and her hair, undone, straggled in every direction. Henrietta jerked back Henry’s blankets, and he was grateful for the linen pants his mother had given him, even if they were too big. With Henrietta and Anastasia around, it never paid to sleep in your underwear. He only wished that he was wearing a shirt.
    Henry levered his elbows against the mattress and sat up. “What is it?”
    Isa’s hair was more red than auburn in the morning light. She stepped forward, and the other girls all turned toward her. “Father and Uncle Caleb left in the night.”
    “Yeah, I know.” Henry swung his legs off the bed. “They’re witch-hunting. I don’t know where.”
    “I do,” Una said. “Father told me they were going to Endor.”
    Henry coughed. He’d never thought they might do that. But where had he expected them to search? They weren’t vacationing. Had they gone through the little black door in the old farmhouse? Was there a way through the old wizard doors in the hills? A familiar sickness crept into his gut. He tried to push it away. “What happened to them?” he asked.
    “It’s not about them,” Henrietta said. “It’s just they’re not here to help. We’re the ones with the problem.”
    “We shouldn’t rush to conclusions,” Richard said.
    Anastasia stamped her foot. “Yes, we should. They took Dad and Aunt Hyacinth, and Monmouth called them names, so they took him, too. And Mom is on the roof crying.”
    Henry stood up, holding his pants with one hand. The girls’ eyes all went to his stomach, where the glyph of a tree stood out in pink scars against his skin. “Will someone just tell me what happened?” He looked back to Isa, but Henrietta was the one who answered.
    “Two more ships were in the harbor this morning.They were both galleys like the first one, but not as big. All three unloaded soldiers on the dock, and one of the captains marched them up here and banged on the front door—that’s when I woke up—and then they asked for your dad. When your mom said that he’d gone, they took her away, and our dad, too.