Mara and Dann Read Online Free PDF Page B

the woman. ‘All the different species together? No, it was a flood. We’ve seen today how it must have happened.’
    The man was pulling from the mass of bones a ribcage so big that when he stood inside it the ribs were like a house over him. The ends of the ribs rested on the wet earth and sank in because of the weight. The big central bone, the spine, was nearly as thick as the man’s body. If some of the ribs had not been broken away, leaving gaps, the man would not have been able to pull it: it would have been too heavy.
    â€˜What on earth could that have been?’ said the woman, and he answered, ‘Probably the ancestor of our horse. They were three times as big.’ He went on standing there, with the broken ribs curving over him, the moon making another shadow cage with a blotch in it that was his shadow, lying near.
    â€˜Don’t forget where this place is,’ said the woman to Mara. ‘We’ll do our best to come back, but with things as they are who knows…’ And she stopped herself from going on, thinking she would frighten Mara. Who was thinking, That means she doesn’t know how frightening all the other things she has said were. And how could Mara remember where the bones were when she didn’t know where she was going?
    â€˜Come on,’ said the woman, ‘we must hurry.’
    But the man didn’t want to leave. He would have liked to go on poking about among those old bones. But he came out from the ribs of the ancient horse and lifted up Dann, and they walked on, Mara holding tight to the woman’s hand.
    Soon it was dry underfoot. They were back in the dryness that Mara knew. She could hear the singing beetles hard at it in the trees. She felt her tunic: dry. The mud on her legs and feet was dry. Soon they would all be thirsty again. Mara was already a bit thirsty. She thought of all that water they had left and longed for it. Her skin felt dry again. The moon was getting its late look, and was going down the sky.
    It was hot. Everything was rustling with dryness: grass, bushes, a little creeping wind. Then, ahead, was a Rock Village, and the man said to the little boy, ‘Don’t make a sound,’ and the woman said to Mara, very low, ‘Quiet, quiet,’ and they were running towards the village. It was notempty like the other one, for it had a feel of being lived in, and from a window in a house light came, just a little, dim light. And in a moment they had reached this house, and the man had slid the door along, and a tall woman came out at once. She put her hand on Mara’s shoulder; and when the little boy, half asleep, slid down out of the man’s arms, she put her other hand on his shoulder; and the three big people whispered over Mara’s head, fast and very low, so she could not hear; and then she heard, ‘Goodbye Mara, goodbye Dann,’ and then these two who had rescued them – and carried them and held them and fed them, brought them safely through all that water – they were running off, bending low, and in a moment had disappeared up into the trees that grew among rocks.
    â€˜Come in,’ said this new woman in a whisper. And pushed the children inside, and followed them, and pulled the door across in its groove.
    They were inside a room, like the other rock room, but this was bigger. In the middle was a table made of blocks of stone, like the other. Around it were stools made of wood. On the wall was a lantern, the same as the ones that were used in storerooms or servants’ rooms, which burned oil.
    On the walls too were lamps of the kind that went out by themselves when the light was bright enough and came on when it was dark, and dimmed and lightened as the light changed; but these globes were broken, just like the ones at home. It had been a long time since these clever lamps had worked.
    The woman was saying, ‘And now, before anything else, what is your