Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

to carry a little bit of home with you wheree’r you roam! I’ll sleep better knowing you have it, Silas.”
    Mother Peale patted the pocket in her apron filled with earth. “There, now. Go where you like. I shall be able to keep things quiet in your absence for a short time, if absolutely necessary.”
    Silas was relieved that she’d put the dirt into the empty pocket and not the one holding the death watch. “But I am not leaving you. I am going to visit my father’s grave, an errand of but a moment. In a day or so, after a little more research, I will walk to a house on the far side of town and be back before dark in all likelihood.”
    “Silas! I took you for a learned man!” exclaimed Mother Peale. “That house, well . . . it’s neither here nor there. That is what folks say of it. Neither here nor there. It is a queer place, if you don’t mind my saying so. And as I’ve told you, where you think it is has very little to do with it.”
    “Do you mean to suggest that there is something strange about my family and their habitations, Mother Peale?” Silas said in mock surprise.
    But Mother Peale grew serious and concern flushed her cheeks. “I only mean to say, a visit there may take longer than you think, and I pray that when you return, I shall still be here to welcome you.”
    All humor had left her voice, and her words made Silas nervous. Her tone reminded him just how little he really knew about the world that he’d entered, all his put-on confidence aside. Below, somewhere near the bottom of the hill, a dog howled and Silas jumped. “What the hell was that?”
    “What the hell, indeed,” replied Mother Peale, unshaken by the wild night call. “That is surely the black dog. Have you not heard it before, Silas? It is often here, upon the hill, when someone is about to die.”
    “I’ve never heard that sound before, Mother Peale. Do you mean someone is going to die . . . now?”
    “Soon, I expect,” she said, looking up as another low howl broke the surface of the night. “I wouldn’t let it worry you, Silas, unless you actually see the black dog. That is a grim omen to be sure.”
    Silas kept looking back over his shoulder with a worried expression.
    “You don’t like dogs?” Mother Peale asked wryly.
    “I don’t feel one way or other about them. But that dog sounds . . . very large.”
    “My mother told us as children not to trust a great black dog if we met him on the road. ‘That’ll be the Shuck, and no mistake!’ my mother told me. Road hounds are an odd sort. Wanderers. Though the ones you see in cemeteries are just as strange by my reckoning.”
    “Have you seen a dog here before, on the Beacon?”
    “Oh, yes. And elsewhere besides. I saw a black dog just before you came to Lichport. I thought it boded ill for your arrival, but then, it was your uncle that was taken, so that was all right, wasn’t it? Oh, aye, I’ve seen one here on the Beacon before. Just after a funeral, that was years and years ago, but I can still see its ember-eyes and feel its cold breath on my hand. My mother told me that once, folks would make sacrifices to the dead, to keep ’em peaceable just after their dying time. And those offerings were given at the burial plots. But times changed and folk weren’t as keen to leave all them good victuals and finery about just to rot or get stolen. No one likes waste. So, it became the custom to leave a guardian to watch over the burial places between funerals. The spirit of the last one buried had to remain until the next person died and was buried, then it would be their turn to keep lookout. Well, that was all right for a time, but the dead can be a restless lot, eager to be about their business if they can. So then the dogs were left. A dog, usually black, was buried near the more recent grave and the dog’s ghost took up the watch. Usually it was all right, and that dog stayed put and watched over the dead.”
    Silas’s eyes were fixed on Mother