The Lightning Bolt by Kate Forsyth Read Free Book Online Page B

make herself sick,’ Luka said.
    Zizi jumped up and down, showing all her teeth, then her paw darted down into the jar and she grabbed another plum.
    â€˜Zizi, stop it!’ Luka said, not at all liking to see his monkey perched on another boy’s shoulder.
    â€˜She’s all right,’ Van said. ‘She’s better than all right! Is she yours? Where did you get her?’
    â€˜I got her when she was just a baby,’ Luka said shortly. ‘My father saw her in a basket at one of the markets, all sick and covered in sores. He bought her for me. I’ve had her ever since.’ He held out his hand and gave a little chirrup, and at once Zizi leapt over to his shoulder, and pressed her wizened little monkey face into his shoulder, clinging on tight to his arm with both tiny paws. He murmured something to her, and she murmured back, and he rocked her as if she was a baby.
    Van watched enviously.
    Absorbed in Zizi’s antics, Van had quite forgotten his scars, but now he remembered. He threw the plum stone into the fire, and began to withdraw, his head hunched down once more. At once Fairnette’s look of anxiety returned, and she put out a hand imploringly.
    Emilia did not want him to go. So she said,‘You wondered who we were and what we’re doing here. Well, it’s a long story, full of dastardly deeds and desperate danger.’
    He paused, and half turned his head towards her.
    â€˜We’ve been chased over half of England,’ she said, ‘by a cruel man who hates the gypsies and wants us all to hang by the neck until we’re dead. We’ve been helped by all sorts of strange people – a highwayman . . .’
    â€˜Who only robs people who won’t drink a toast to the king with him,’ Luka said with a snort of laughter.
    â€˜. . . and a smuggler . . .’
    â€˜And a witch!’ Luka said.
    â€˜And a poor young widow who hadn’t left her house in seven years,’ Emilia said, remembering Lady Anne Morrow sadly.
    â€˜And a priest who likes to gamble and drink fine French brandy,’ Luka said, grinning widely.He had grown to be very fond of fat Father Plummer, and it had been very hard for them to say goodbye to him.
    â€˜Not to mention Tom!’ Emilia cried, wondering how their friend was doing. They had left him with Father Plummer to recover from a shotgun wound he had got helping them, and she could not help being anxious about him.
    Van was staring at them, caught between his desire to retreat into his room once again, and his desire to know more.
    Emilia made a little gesture with her hand towards the table. ‘You see, it all began when we went to Kingston Fair to raise some gold for my sister’s bride price . . .’

The Secret Society
of the Swallow Feather

    B eatrice sat bolt upright, unable to rest her head back against the stone wall because of the heavy contraption fitted over her head, an iron bar forced into her mouth to clamp down her tongue. It was, she had been told, a scold’s bridle. It was made to stop women from nagging.
    Or, in Beatrice’s case, from singing.
    She had only been crooning a lullaby to her little cousin, but it seemed Pastor Spurgeon couldnot abide even that. He thought it a sin to raise your voice in any way but prayer and, in his case, preaching.
    All her life Beatrice had sung whenever the whim took her, and she had always been praised for her beautiful voice. Apart from the pain of the bar in her mouth, and the weight of the iron on her weary head, and the dreadful feeling that she was gagging and choking all the time, it was the shock and humiliation of the punishment that had Beatrice weeping quietly in her corner.
    She looked across at her grandmother, who sat hunched against the wall, her chin sunk down onto her chest, her breath wheezing. Her eyes were almost shut. Behind the heavy lids, the eyeballs quivered. It gave Beatrice the shivers.
    Suddenly Maggie took a deep