Kit's Wilderness Read Online Free PDF

travelers.” He ran his hand across my book. “Very neat. And all the right answers, I’m sure. You’ll go a long way, lad.”
    I stared out, saw the trees, the swamps, the sea flooding in. Then blinked, and saw the wilderness, the falling rain.
    “Mysterious business,” he said. “It was the light and heat of the sun that made those trees grow. Then they lay pitch-black in the pitch-black earth. And we come along and dig it out. And what did we want from it? For the heat it gave, for the light it gave.” He touched the tree bark. “This stuff, blacker than the blackest night, holding the heat and light of the ancient sun in it.”
    He giggled, moved the fossil across the desk as if it was still alive. He slid it onto my written page. “It’s for you,” he said. “And the fossil tree as well.” He slid that onto my page, rested it on my answers. “Gifts from a time traveler,” he said. He touched my shoulder, laughed gently. “Giving out my tales and treasures,” he said. “Soon there’ll be nothing left to give.”
    I slipped the ammonite into my pocket, told myself I’d keep it with me always now. A treasure from my grandfather. A gift from the deep, dark past.

 

    “L ook,” said Mum.
    It was Saturday afternoon. Bright sunlight. She was at the open window; a gentle cool breeze was coming through.
    “Come and look,” she said.
    I stood beside her.
    “What?” I said.
    She put her arm around my shoulder. “There.” Askew’s father was further along the lane, tottering alongside the fence. He kept stopping. He reeled, held on to the fence, lowered his head, drew deeply on a cigarette.
    “Here!” he yelled. “Get yourself here!”
    “Drunk as a lord,” said Mum.
    He rocked backward, caught the fence again. “Get yourself here!”
    “Jack Askew,” she said. “Drunk as a lord again.” Then there was Askew himself, head hanging, walking slowly from the river toward the man. His dad called him on, with drunken swings of his arm. And Jax was there, walking slowly too. Shuffling.
    “Move it!”
    Askew reached the fence. The man grabbed his son by the throat, pulled him close. We saw his bare teeth, saliva dripping, his great flushed face. He snarled into the boy’s ear. Askew looked down, hung his arms by his side, tried to turn his face away, but the man kept dragging it, slapping it back. He whispered, gripped the boy’s throat tighter, laughed and snarled. Then he let go, reeled backward, caught the fence, stood upright, spat, smoked, staggered on along the lane.
    “And let that be a lesson to you!” he yelled. He turned to the houses. “What you looking at?” he shouted. “Eh? What you looking at?”
    We took a step backward away from the window. He went on glaring, reeling. Cigarette smoke streamed from his open lips.
    “Imagine,” said Mum. “Imagine having to live with that, having to put up with that.”
    I nodded, and felt her hand stroking my shoulder.
    “You’d have to get so tough,” she said.
    “Or pretend to be tough.”
    “Yes, or pretend to be tough.”
    Jack Askew staggered onward. His son watched him for a moment; then he eased himself to the ground, and leaned back against the fence. He sat there with his head hung low and his arm around Jax. We saw his shoulders trembling.
    “Poor lad,” whispered Mum. “Poor soul.”

 

    A skew’s den. The floor was damp with yesterday’s rain. Water had trickled down the walls through Askew’s carvings. The scent of damp, of the candles, of the bodies crouching there. Allie faced me through the flickering light. She watched me, but there was nothing in her eyes. I stared at the others, these children like me from the ancient families of Stoneygate. Had something like death really happened to them? Had they really gone through something like the children on the monument? Or was it just a game and they had all pretended? I read their names.
    John Askew, aged thirteen; Robert Carr, aged eleven; Wilfred Cook, aged