The Frost Child by Eoin McNamee Read Free Book Online Page B

But what or where was the pillar, and the silvery knife? The pair of sightless eyes, the elegant glass flask, the delicately shaped woman's ear, or any other of the dozens of symbols on the map?
    He sighed, wondering if he would ever master the map, or the secrets of the Mortmain, which moved precisely in its mounting, reacting to each movement of the tiller under his hand.
    He was tempted to steer the Wayfarer toward one of the unknown symbols--the red hand, or the fiery horse--
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    but in the end he decided to sail toward the place that he knew: Hadima. Apart from anything else, it was the last place he had come across the Harsh. He moved the tiller until the signs for the Workhouse and Hadima were aligned. The bow came around until the boat was on course. Owen wasn't sure if he should go all the way to Hadima, but it would be good to see Rosie again.
    Rosie awoke on the stone step in her cell. She had a headache and her head felt fuzzy. Her side ached where she had lain on the stone, and as she felt her body gingerly there were bruises and sore patches, as if she had been dragged back to the cell.
    She sat up, vague memories running through her mind. Johnston had taken her to the kitchen and fed her ... then she'd collapsed--a drug of some sort in the tea, perhaps. After that there was ... something ... just out of reach. ... As she searched for it a snatch of music drifted through her head, then a stab of pain drove it away.
    She shook her head impatiently. She was cold and hungry and a prisoner. It was about time she did something about all three. She took a little mirror from an inside pocket and looked at herself. She was also grubby, and her hair was a mess. Then an idea occurred to her. There was a large crack under the locked door, more than enough to slip the mirror through. Rosie crawled to the top of the stairs and pushed the mirror under. There was just enough light to see the big padlock that held the
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    door. Rosie barely dared to breathe. Her captor had made a mistake! He had put the lock through the two rings that held the door, but he hadn't bothered to close it. If she had something that could reach it, she could knock it off. She looked around. Perhaps underneath the foul water ...
    Despite the cold she took off her shoes and stockings and hitched up her skirt. She gingerly put her bare foot into the water and shuddered at its oily, unclean touch. Resisting the urge to jump back onto the step, she put the other foot in, then bent down and started to run her hand along the floor under the water. She groped around for a few minutes until her hand touched something slimy, which seemed to squirm momentarily in her grasp. With a shriek she jumped back. Her heart hammered in her chest. Come on, Rosie , she said to herself. Who knows what else old sideburns has in store for you?
    Gritting her teeth, she got back into the water and swept the floor with her hand. Her hand brushed against all sorts of strange things, hard and soft. Near the bottom of the steps she touched an object that rolled away from her. Instinctively she reached out for it and found her fingers gripping the eye sockets of a skull.
    She didn't know how she kept searching, her hands blindly sweeping from corner to corner, but in the end her hands touched something metallic, fumbled, lost it again, then brought it out of the water. She held it up. A long slender piece of wire, shining in the moonlight. She yanked her stockings and boots back on and ran up the
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    stairs to the door. She slipped the mirror under the door so that she could see what she was doing and worked the wire through the jamb, level with the padlock. Forcing her frozen fingers to move, she got the end of the wire under the hasp of the lock. Time and again, the wire slipped from her numb and aching fingers, but in the end, agonizingly, the rusty old lock relinquished its grip on the door and fell to the ground with a thud. She put her weight against the door and it swung