The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick Read Free Book Online

first of the mourners.
    Joan Tunstall’s funeral was about to begin.

 
    3 THE TRYSTING TREE
    Jack and Elizabeth Smith were first.
    Anna bid them in, and she even smiled, though she knew Jack was only come because her mother owed him some money. Scared to let death cheat him of twopence.
    At least they’d left their children to prattle outside, but nevertheless she could hear Harry bossing the twins around just beyond the garden wall.
    Elizabeth’s eyes had landed on Joan Tunstall. Anna had wrapped her in a winding sheet from her toes to her head, leaving only her face exposed to the hot room. Despite this tight wrapping, the heat had not been kind.
    â€œShe reeks,” said Jack to no one.
    He wanted badly to let his eyes run over the redheaded Tunstall girl, so he could later imagine his hands doing the same. She was plenty old enough now to be looked at, after all, but the body of her mother made him uneasy.
    â€œThe house is terrible hot, Anna,” said Elizabeth.
    Jack barked once.
    â€œHot! Spend all day in the smithy before you call this hot.”
    Elizabeth turned to Jack.
    â€œYes, husband. You’re right.”
    â€œAcourse I’m right.”
    Anna watched Elizabeth Smith cower before her husband, whose face, it was true, was permanently red as if scorched by his blacksmith’s fire. Anna wondered how long he would manage to wait before asking for his twopence.
    More people entered the cottage.
    John Fuller, who’d been master to her father when he’d still lived, and John’s wife Helen, thin and gray, who smiled at Anna.
    â€œHot in here, Anna,” said John, wrinkling his nose.
    â€œYes, but the windows must be shut,” said Anna.
    Helen agreed.
    â€œNo breezes above a body. Where’s little Tom?”
    Anna started as if remembering her brother for the first time in days. She knew Helen was kindly to children, even though Anna’s mother Joan, the village gracewife, had delivered four dead babies of Helen Fuller. No more had come, alive or dead, but still Helen Fuller smiled at the sight of a young child.
    â€œThere!” said Anna. “Tom, come.”
    Tom stayed where he was by the kitchen door, and Anna let him alone. More people entered the door, and the small room became full, so that people edged closer to Joan.
    With surprise, Anna saw that even Adam Dolen was there, though there was no sign of his wife, Maggie or their daughter, Grace.
    Three empty days of silence and now this noise. Neither the emptiness nor the noise seemed real to Anna, but she wasn’t aware of thinking that; it was only important to stop people passing anything over her mother’s body. Sweat ran from Anna’s neck and down her back, itching against the threadbare cloth of her long black dress.
    She tried to speak, but found her voice too frail to be heard.
    She tugged at John Fuller’s sleeve.
    He turned and his eyes softened.
    â€œAnna?”
    â€œMother ought to go now.”
    John nodded. His wife was trying to talk to the idiot boy. He wanted to touch Anna’s skin, but he could feel her mother watching him from two feet off, even though her eyes stayed dead shut.
    Instead, he turned to the room.
    He clapped his hands and everyone stopped talking. Though he didn’t own the mill, half of the room worked there, and therefore they worked for him. They did as he bid.
    â€œWe’ll take Joan to the tree now.”
    The villagers worked.
    Helen Fuller and Elizabeth Smith opened the window that looked over Welden valley, while the Byatt brothers fetched in a single wide oak floorboard. They stood by as Anna finished winding the sheet over her mother’s face, and then Tom was suddenly at her elbow.
    â€œI want to say goodbye to Mother,” he said to Anna, and Anna died, wishing the room was empty of people and that she could wind her mother’s face away alone.
    But everyone was waiting.
    She unwound the cloth a way, till Joan