Caedmon’s Song Read Online Free PDF

went on.
It sounded very close. Finally, she realized it was the seagulls. They must have found a shoal of fish, or perhaps a cat had spilled the dustbin at the back of one of the fish bars and they had
zoomed in on that. It was a terrible noise: the sound of raw hunger and greed. She pictured the gulls ripping dead fish apart, blank white faces speckled with blood.
    She sighed and turned over again, pulling the sheet up around her ears. The gulls had woken her from a dream. Maybe she could get back to it. All her dreams were good these days –
technicolour jaunts of indescribable beauty, full of ecstasy and excitement, visits to alien worlds, flying easily through space and time.
    They hadn’t always been like that. For a long time she had suffered from terrifying nightmares, dreams of blood and shadows, and then for a while she hadn’t seemed to dream at all.
The good dreams only started when the dark cloud in her mind disappeared. At least, she had always thought of it as a cloud, or perhaps a bubble. It was opaque, and whichever way she looked at it,
it always deflected the light so that she couldn’t see inside. She knew it was filled with all her agony and anger, yet it refused her entry.
    For so long she had walked around on the edge because of that cloud inside her. Always on the verge of violence, despair or madness. But then one day, when she found the right perspective, she
saw inside and the darkness dispersed like a monster that vanishes when you discover its true name.
    The seagulls were still wailing over their early breakfast when Martha drifted off to sleep again and dreamed about her secret lake. Its waters flowed from the fountain of youth, clear and
sparkling in the sun that never stopped shining, and she had to swim through narrow coral caverns to get to it. Only she knew about the lake. Only she could swim so effortlessly so far without the
need for breath. And as she swam, the sharp, pinkish coral cut thin red lines across her breasts, stomach and thighs.
     
8
    KIRSTEN
    The first thing Kirsten saw when she opened her eyes was a long curving crack in the white ceiling. It looked like an island coastline or the crude outline of a whale. Her
mouth was dry and tasted bad. With difficulty, she swallowed, but the vile taste wouldn’t go away. Around her she could hear only quiet sounds: a steady hissing; a high-pitched, rhythmic
bleeping. She couldn’t smell anything at all.
    She moved her head and glimpsed shadowy figures sitting beside her bed. It was difficult to focus from so close, and she couldn’t make out who they were. Then she became aware of muffled
voices.
    ‘Look, she’s coming round . . . she’s opened her eyes.’
    ‘Careful . . . don’t touch her . . . she’ll wake up in her own time.’
    And someone bent over her: a faceless figure all in white. Kirsten tried to scream, but no sound came out. Gentle hands touched her brow and pushed her shoulders firmly back onto the hard bed.
She let her head fall on the pillow again and sighed. The voices were clearer now, like a finely tuned radio.
    ‘Is she all right? Can we stay and talk to her?’
    ‘She’ll talk if she wants to. Don’t push her. She’s bound to be feeling disoriented.’
    Kirsten tried to speak but her mouth was still too dry. She croaked, ‘Water,’ and someone seemed to understand. An angled straw neared her mouth and she sucked greedily on it. Some
of the water dribbled down the edges of her dry, cracked lips, but she managed to swallow a little. That felt better.
    ‘I must go and fetch the doctor.’
    The door opened and hissed shut slowly.
    ‘Kirstie? Kirstie, love?’
    She turned her head again and found it easier to focus this time. Her mother and father sat beside her. She tried to smile but it felt like it came out all crooked. Her teeth felt too big for
her mouth. Her mother looked beside herself, as if she hadn’t slept for days, and her father had dark heavy bags under his eyes. He