Advent Read Online Free PDF Page B

she’d disappeared.
      He felt himself calming down.
      The carriage was much emptier as they left the station behind. Outside, daylight was fading. There couldn’t be too much more of the journey to go. It occurred to Gav that he could probably find a pair of seats to himself now, where he could sit alone and try to get himself back together.
      He was just about to act on this thought when he felt fingers on his wrist. The middle-aged woman had leaned across close to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I know I said I wouldn’t bother you, but there’s a little thing I feel I should do and it ought to have a witness. It’s rather embarrassing. I’m not usually this batty, I promise.’
      He was too dumbfounded to answer at all.
      ‘It has to be just here, as we go over the bridge. It’ll only take a second.’
      He looked out of the window, helplessly following her gaze. They were riding on a viaduct above the streets, leaving the station behind. The winter afternoon, already dim, was darkening fast. Clouds had sunk and were becoming a fog.
      ‘I’d like you to hear a promise I’m going to make myself. It makes it more official. Bad luck for you that I happened to take this particular seat, hmm? Or something.’ She was talking too rapidly for him to agree to this aloud. ‘Anyway, I hope you don’t mind. I really will shut up after this.’ She extracted a small bottle from her pocket, unscrewing it as she spoke, and poured a little of something that smelled almost but not quite like whisky into the upturned cap. ‘Ah, here we are.’ The town fell away and the train began passing between bulbous steel girders. Gav saw a broad river far below. ‘Right. Here goes. Are you listening?’
      He couldn’t think of anything to do but nod.
      ‘Right. Good. I, Hester Lightfoot, earnestly and solemnly swear never to cross back over this river again so long as I live.’ She swigged the contents of the cap. ‘On pain of death. There, that should do it. Thank you. If you ever happen to see me east of here again, please feel free to . . . oh I don’t know, push me under a bus or something. Would you like a sip?’
      The train began to pick up speed, burrowing through the fog.
      ‘No . . . thanks.’
      She screwed the cap back on. ‘Thank you for putting up with that. That was the Tamar. That river. West of it is all Cornwall. I’m coming home, you see, so I thought I’d make it ceremonial.’ She tapped the open page of the book in her lap. ‘Like the choughs. We’re coming back, for good. I’m Hester, by the way, obviously enough.’ She stuck out her hand.
      The chuffs? Now Gavin was certain he was sitting at the same table as a lunatic. Grab your bag and move, he told himself, but with her hand right there in front of him he couldn’t.
      ‘Gavin,’ he said, shaking, furious with himself.
      ‘Nice to meet you. They say King Arthur’s soul went into a chough after he died.’ She lifted the book onto the table and pointed. ‘For a long time they left. I think people assumed they were gone for ever, but they returned to Cornwall a few years ago. I’m taking them as a good omen.’
      Gavin looked down. His vision swam.
      The picture Hester had her finger on showed a black bird with a beak the colour of embers and legs of the same vivid ruddy orange. He felt suddenly dizzy. The image was an echo of his dreams, the terrible ones of darkness spotted and streaked with fire and alive with battering wings, a piece of his night world torn out of him and thrust under his eyes. Hester’s words rang weirdly in his head: Good omen, good omen.
      ‘Are you all right?’
      She had closed the book. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
      ‘Yeah, fine.’
      ‘I’m sorry. I—’
      ‘’s OK. Forget it.’
      She studied him with disconcertingly steady interest. ‘All right, then. And now no more madwoman business. I promise.’ She put one finger to her