The Red Judge by Pauline Fisk Read Free Book Online

and walls and cottages that might give the landscape its recognisable shape. The Afon Gwy still glinted on its way down the valley, and St Curig’s church tower was its usual solid self, rising up behind the trees in Grace’s garden. But almost everything else I knew had disappeared. Half the trees had gone, and so had half the houses, hidden by snowdrifts.
    Even the huge old yew that marked the boundary of Grace’s garden had almost disappeared, hidden by a camouflage of snow. The churchyard behind it wasone single carpet, all the gravestones buried. The meadow was a single carpet too, sparkling all the way down to the river. The fields beyond the river were sparkling, and the hills were sparkling too, folding in on each other all the way up the pass road.
    I looked at it all, and knew that there was no way I’d get back to Cary today. Nothing I did would get me out of here. Suddenly I felt afraid. I looked at the snow, and it seemed to me that it was winking like thousands of lights, right across the valley. Thousands of corph candles, burning for a death!
    What had happened in the night, while I was asleep? Was Cary all right? Had something terrible happened to her? I slammed the window shut and fled the room in search of a phone. But no sooner had I reached the stairs than I caught a glimpse of a light down in the hall. I couldn’t hear a sound, but I knew I wasn’t imagining it. Somebody was down there –
and they were coming my way!
    I tore back into my bedroom, shut the door, pushed the bed in front of it and dived underneath, pulling the quilt over my head as if the black corph candle was in the house and I had just seen it. I knew that I was being crazy, because it wasn’t real, just something out of legend, but I actually felt as if it was coming to get me. The light grew under the door, and then I heard something as well. It sounded like paws padding on bare boards, and there was a snuffling noise too. It came along the landing, heading my way, and I drew back under the bed as far as I could get.
    Then I heard a panting noise outside the door and suddenly it wasn’t just corph candles that I had to worry about. It was the
C ŵ n y Wbir
as well. Thedreaded hounds of hell.
    No!
I thought.
It can’t be!
But it seemed it could. Slowly the door began to open, forcing the bed back against the wall, taking me with it. Then the room filled up with light and great grey shapes entered the room, their paws clacking towards me as if they could smell my fear.
    They knew exactly where to look for it. I went to pull the quilt over me but, before I could, they looked under the bed and our eyes met. Then a single light started coming towards me and a voice said, ‘What are you … doing down there … are you all … right are you … lost is something … wrong is that … really you Zed …
is it you?
’
    Had I been in less of a panic, I would have recognised that voice immediately. Only one person I knew had that broken way of speaking, cutting up his sentences into groups of three words at a time, interrupted by stops.
    But, by then, I was past recognising anything. I pulled the quilt right over my head, and it was only when a hand reached under the bed and pulled it off that I finally understood what was going on. A big face, framed by a squashy felt hat, loomed into view.
    â€˜It’s
you
…’ I said, staring at my father’s younger brother –
Pawl Pork-pie
.

7
Pawl Pork-Pie
    My mother never had much time for Pawl. I asked her once if he and my father had been alike, and I’ll never forget the expression on her face, as if the idea was unthinkable.
    Apparently not, I thought, and never dared to ask again.
    I suppose he was an embarrassment to her – a big shambling man who couldn’t string his words together, tended to wear his clothes back to front and inside out, and often didn’t brush or wash his hair because he said