By These Ten Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

peacefully beside her, and her town was not a welter of bones. Bright moonlight poured into the room through the open doorway, and perfect stillness reigned outside. But the room was freezing cold, colder than the bitter nights of winter, and Maddie felt a hideous presence. The enemy had not stayed behind in her nightmare. It had followed her here.
    A low murmuring came to her, a hissing, bubbling, muttering sound from the back wall of the house. Slowly it passed along the windowless wall, and she followed the noise to the storeroom. The muttering thing was moving around the end of the house. It was coming toward the open doorway.
    Teeth chattering, Maddie made the sign of the cross and knelt by the hearth in the middle of the room. Shutting the door wouldn’t help. It was nothing but a wickerwork panel covered with hide. Waking her parents wouldn’t help, either. The thing was almost here. She scraped the ashes of the hearth, hoping to find a friendly spark underneath, but the peat coals had been bedded for the night and would need coaxing to come back to life. Like a hare in a trap, she stared at the moonlit square of the open doorway, the only way out of the house. Her hands fumbled over the hearthstones and found her mother’s bannock spade.
    Colin the Smith had made his sister a spatula of iron to turn the oatcakes on the hearth. Its wooden handle felt solid in Maddie’s hand, and its thin, heart-shaped wedge came to a point. It wasn’t a knife, but it was a weapon of sorts, and Maddie felt glad of it. She clutched it and listened as the bubbling sounds came nearer.
    The square of moonlight vanished into inky blackness as a shape moved in front of the door. Maddie prayed for her life and hurled the iron weapon. A sound burst from the thing, a loud whistling shriek. When she opened her eyes, that great black shape was gone.
    â€œWhat is it?” demanded her father, scrambling up from the bed, and then Fair Sarah’s arms were around her.
    â€œSomething outside,” she whimpered, hugging her mother. “Something big at the door. It hissed.”
    â€œI’ll go see,” decided James Weaver, reaching for his knife. Then he froze right where he was. Maddie stopped in the middle of a word, and her mother’s arms gripped her tightly.
    A weeping, worrying sound rose into the night from somewhere very close. It keened and whined, gaining strength, until it became a scream, wavering in the air while time stood still. As it faded away, the three huddled together, clinging to one another for support.
    â€œI’ll just—just—go see,” stammered her father, holding the knife in trembling hands.
    â€œJamie,” sobbed his wife, “oh, Jamie, don’t go out there.”
    A shadow fell across the doorway again, and Maddie gave a gasp. “James,” called Black Ewan’s voice, “is all well with you?”
    â€œYes,” answered the weaver, shaking off his family. He wrapped his woolen blanket around his waist and shoulders, and he and the farmer walked away into the moonlight. Maddie and her mother heard the voices of neighbors calling from house to house, the bawling of cattle, and the wailing of children.
    Fair Sarah knelt by the hearth and built the fire, whispering over the spent coals the morning prayer to the Trinity. The frightened girl followed her lead, starting her chores, and the night began to brighten into the dim gray of early dawn.
    They heard the men coming back, talking loudly, their voices strained and excited. “Did you find it?” demanded Fair Sarah anxiously, going to the door. “What was it? Did it get away?”
    The men came up to the house. Black Ewan and Colin the Smith were carrying something heavy, but Maddie couldn’t see what it was.
    â€œIt got away,” said her father. “We don’t know where it went. But it found that young wood-carver on the path near the castle, and we don’t know