The Taken by Sarah Pinborough Read Free Book Online

plenty of locals had been hung and burnt there, suspected witches included.
    She wasn’t sure if he found the town and its history as engaging as she did, but he nodded and asked the occasional question.
    “Hey, look at that.”
    This time it was Simon that was pointing something out to her, and Alex followed his gaze. It stopped at the corner of one of the narrow side streets that petered out at the edge of the bank of woods.
    “Isn’t that a bit odd?”
    She stared. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
    There were two children standing in the rain face-to-face on the road, and as she and Simon got closer she could hear they were singing, or at least reciting something. The one whose back was to them was a girl, wearing a black tunic dress and thick tights over her thin frame, and the boy facing her had glasses on, as wet as Simon’s were. Alex didn’t recognize either of them, which was strange because she was pretty sure she knew all the kids in the village, at least by sight.
    “What the hell are they doing out at this time in the morning? And not wearing coats?”
    Simon shrugged. “God knows. My experience of children and parenting is pretty limited. Maybe they’ve snuck out.”
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    As Alex and Simon came up level with them, the words and the way the children were standing began to make sense. Neither child broke the rhythm as they turned their heads and smiled at the two adults.
    “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man,
    Bake me a cake as fast as you can. …”
    They clapped their hands together in patterns that are lost from memory as childhood passes, and as she walked by them, Alex found their smiles a little uncomfortable. Too confident. Not like children should be.
    “Roll it and pat it
    And mark it with B
    And put in the oven for baby and me. …”
    The girl looked no more than fourteen and the boy was a couple of years behind her. His jeans and sweater didn’t match with her more formal clothes either.
    Their voices jarred as they recited the nursery rhyme, her accent Liverpudlian but his more Yorkshire, the abrasiveness of each clashing with the other. So they weren’t local. Maybe they were staying at The Rock or the caravan park a couple of miles away. Either way, Alex was pretty sure they shouldn’t be out so early.
    She paused and Simon stopped beside her as she called back to them. “Hey, kids.
    Do your parents know you’re out playing? Don’t you think you should go home and get some coats on?” She tried her best disarming smile, despite feeling suddenly awkward. Maybe it was the way the children were looking at each other and smiling as if there were a joke being played on her, and not a nice one at that.
    “You don’t want to waste your holiday catching the flu, do you?”
    The little boy stared at them for a moment, his 47
    rain-splashed glasses making his eyes look blurry, and as both children broke off the game and rhyme in perfect synchronicity, he took a battered red New York Yankees baseball cap out of his back pocket and pulled it onto his head. The girl gave them one more smile and then took the boy’s hand.
    Alex expected them to turn around and head back to The Rock, but they didn’t, instead breaking into a run up the side street that led nowhere but the woods.
    Beside her, she felt Simon’s jacket brush close to her own.
    “Do you think we should go after them?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t think so. She was old enough to look after him.” Raising an eyebrow, she glanced up at the tall man. “And they weren’t exactly friendly.
    My aunt would have crucified me for being so rude to adults when I was a child.”
    She tried to make a joke to break the weirdness of the moment. “Kids these days, eh?” But once again she’d been reminded of her strange experience in the night.
    He nodded, but he was still staring after the children that had already disappeared into the woods, and Alex knew he was only half-listening. “You okay?”
    Simon didn’t speak for a moment, chewing