The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales by Kate Mosse Read Free Book Online Page B

sharply. ‘Enough.’
    ‘I wasn’t saying anything out of turn, I was just . . .’
    Monsieur Hélias glanced over his shoulder at Gaston. ‘It is not for everyone.’
    Gaston flushed. He knew what people thought of his family, how they tattled about them.
    Régis’s mother put her hand on her husband’s arm.
    ‘Joseph,’ she murmured.
    From the set of his shoulders, Gaston realised Régis’s father was still angry, but he said nothing more. He clicked the reins and the trap jerked forward. Régis looked sideways at Gaston and shrugged, as if to apologise.
    The rest of the journey passed in silence.
    Gaston’s parents didn’t come.
    After waiting up until nine o’clock, Monsieur and Mme Hélias finally went to bed, leaving the boys sitting by the fire and telling them not to be too late. The only sound was the ticking of the kitchen clock and the floorboards creaking upstairs. As soon as the house was quiet, Régis put down his book and gestured for Gaston to follow him.
    ‘Come on,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I’ll show you.’
    ‘But if my . . .’
    He stopped, the look on his friend’s face making it clear Régis no more expected his father to show up now than he himself did.
    ‘But what if your parents wake up and find we’re not here?’ he said instead.
    ‘They won’t. They’re both up so early for the cows, they sleep like logs. Come on.’
    The cold pinched at their cheeks as the boys made their way across the fields to the rocky gully that ran down to the beach of St Colomban.
    The ground was damp, but they perched on the rocks beside the narrow stream for a while, without speaking. Listening to the sea rolling in between the headlands.
    Then, suddenly, Régis’s head snapped up. He turned to Gaston, his eyes bright in the dark, his voice brimming with excitement.
    ‘There,’ he said. ‘Can you hear them?’
    Gaston frowned. ‘Who do you mean?’
    ‘Them,’ Régis said, dropping his voice. ‘The dead who live beneath the sea.’
    ‘You can’t believe . . .’ he began, then stopped. Gaston could see his friend was serious; this wasn’t an old Halloween story.
    Aware of Régis watching, he leaned forward and listened more intently. This time, above the slide and drag of the shingle, he could hear a low moaning sound. In the wind through the rocks, sculpted and pierced by countless tides, shrill voices, plaintive and lost. The nerves he’d felt standing in front of the whole school earlier came back, a sharp tug in the pit of his stomach.
    ‘What’s that noise?’ he whispered.
    ‘Did your parents never tell you the story?’
    Gaston shook his head. They had, in truth, taught him next to nothing.
    ‘Many thousands of years ago, or so it’s said, there was a causeway there that led to an island. With every generation, with every high tide, it was eaten away little by little until, finally, there were only a few inhabitants left. They refused to go, though everyone here begged them to leave. Finally, when the highest of the spring tides came, the village was flooded and the island disappeared beneath the waves.’
    Gaston stared, not sure what he was supposed to say.
    ‘That’s why there is a light beneath the water,’ Régis continued in the same, low voice. ‘They keep it burning for the drowned souls who live there. They eat limpets and blue mussels and seaweed and live in the caves with giant crabs. Fish swim around their heads and through their ribcages in great silver shoals.’
    Gaston wanted to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat. He looked out to sea.
    ‘I can’t see a light,’ he said.
    ‘Over the year, it fades and goes out. That’s what happens tomorrow on the Feast of St Colomban: they light it once more so the drowned village can been seen.’
    For a moment, Gaston was silent. ‘Your parents believe this old fisherwife’s tale?’
    ‘They talk about it when they think I’m not listening. It’s true.’ He paused. ‘I believe it too.’
    The boys fell