Angels in the Architecture Read Online Free PDF

morning, followed by Berta’s outburst, had stifled all notions of small talk and camaraderie, and many left the market early. If there was to be trouble, best be behind their own closed doors when it came.
    And so the Warriner men and boys, rattled and begrudging, set themselves back in their cart with less traded than they ought, and each boy knowing the hunger of a poor trade, and the father knowing the guilt of it. Not a man to wonder why though, but consider instead the means by which his fortunes may be reinvigorated, Gamel wandered through a list of possibilities in his head. The effects of the day would pass before the next market so this hardship would be short-lived. Gamel had no particular fear of the old woman’s warnings. It was possible of course that some other minor calamity would ensue and then folk would point to Berta’s prescience and they’d feel safe the worst had passed, and then of course it all would.
    Gamel was as simple as any other such man in that his life and the laws of it were simple and clear-cut, and that he was no man of learning. But he held a strength of insight that went beyond the superstitions of his day and for that he was unusual. He did not tolerate much small talk, could not abide gossip, and he knew of little that was not of this world that he ought to give much attention to, other than that it was wise to give heed to Church teachings and whatnot, for appearances mattered in some things..
    Thomas noticed, in part, the feelings of those around him. They came as a dulling of the normal light , and he instinctively knew to remain more still and quiet.
     
     
    Later that day , the water of the Dyke went unusually calm. Riding along its side and atop their wagon Thomas eyed its shining surface and his soul knew that it foretold a warning. Thomas felt the same pang of darkness that he felt briefly with the swan in the cart earlier in the day, although he’d forgotten that now. He was used to seeing the lights play on the water of the dyke, but the way the light played out now did not make him want to look, and he looked at his father’s back instead.
    When a great rumbling began to be heard, which was not the noise of a hundred cartwheels turning, Thomas was the only one not to wonder what this was and not to feel so uneasy.
    Because Thomas saw light that others didn’t, he knew also when his brothers began to be scared. He saw the light go dark in their stomachs first, and then in their hands and finally their eyes. He couldn’t see his father’s hands or his eyes as he drove their cart home, but he felt his father’s stomach greyed just like the others. They didn’t draw light into their mouths, and even though no one breathed many still screamed. Because they screamed without taking breath, they were swallowed into a dark fear very quickly, and Thomas couldn’t see them anymore.
    Gamel Warriner halted his nag and fought to control the horse’s uppitiness, as the earth shook and swayed beneath wheels and hooves. The boys weren’t sure to jump from the cart or hold on for dear life, as it jostled as much from the horses’ rearing as the ground’s uproar. Pots and baskets fell about, and some of their unsold produce leapt into the dust, spoiling now for its further trade, although no one cared nor even really noticed. A split fissured from the side of the dyke ahead of them and water spilled into it, a small rivulet crossing the cart’s path.
    ‘Wha’s i’ , Pa?’ screamed one of the boys. ‘Wha’s i’?’
    Gamel struggled with his h orse and did not answer the boy as the shaking went on and on. As with any event causing great fear, time slowed down and the agonising over life or death in such uncertainty was an interminable suffering for almost everyone in the County, but especially the ignorant, which was still most people.
    For Thomas there was some more message reaching out to him in-between things, and some part of him tried to distinguish a new light from