Rook: Snowman Read Online Free PDF

dismissive shake of his head, as if to say, ‘Let her try. She can’t do it any harm.’
    Laura pressed her forehead between the cat’s ears and murmured to it, crooned to it, very softly. Jim could catch only a little of what she was singing. “… don’t hide yourself … come out, we pray … come out and dance in the light of day … in the rabbinical book it saith … the cats cry when, with icy breath … Great Sammael, the Angel of Death … takes through the town his flight …”
    “Laura, it’s bought the farm,” Ray protested. “Don’t mess with it any more. Give it some dignity.”
    But Laura raised her hand over the cat’s body and wrote a figure in the air. Nobody could have realized what it was, except for Jim, because he was able to see things that other people couldn’t see. He could see shadows, spirits, and ghosts. And he could by the lingering disturbance that Laura had left in the air that she had drawn a curl with a tail.
    “What’s that?” he asked her, nodding toward the shape in the air as if it were still there.
    “A ghost-mouse,” she said. “It’s one of the things that cats can’t resist.”
    “What’s a ghost-mouse?”
    “It’s a little part of your soul. When you sleep – especially if you sleep with your mouth open – a bright little ghost-mouse escapes through your lips and runs around the house. Nothing can stop it and nobody knows what it wants. But if you wake up before the ghost-mouse returns, you lose a little part of your soul. That’s why you should never let a cat stay in the room with you while you sleep. It will always try to catch your ghost-mouse as it comes out of your mouth. That’s why there are far more unexplained deaths in households with cats than there are in households without them.”
    “Ghost-mouse, huh?” said Jim. “Well, you learn something new every day.”
    “You can see spirits and stuff, can’t you, sir? You should be able to see ghost-mice, too.”
    She drew the figure again, and then again, and softly called out, “Come on, cat. Come on back. I know you’re only hiding.”

    “Come on, Laura,” said Ray. “Leave it alone, it’s history. Don’t you think I tried everything?”
    But Laura closed her eyes and tilted her head back so that the sun shone from the coins around her hair. She whispered something that Jim couldn’t hear, but he suspected what it was. The revival. The invocation to the dead, to return. He felt the back of his neck prickle.
    She stood up. The cat lay on the grass, its legs wide apart, its dried-out fur fluffing in the breeze.
    “What did I tell you? Dead!”
    But then it seemed as if a cold shiver swept across the grass, like a cloud briefly covering the sun. Jim looked up, and when he looked back, the cat had lifted its head and was looking at him.
    “It’s alive!” squealed Dottie. “Look, Mr Rook! It’s alive!”
    Slowly, the cat rolled itself over. It lay on its side for a while, panting. Then, on trembling legs, it managed to stand up. Laura knelt down beside it again, and held out her hand, and the cat suspiciously sniffed at the tips of her fingers.
    “I can’t believe it,” said Ray. “I could have sworn it was totally and utterly kaput.”
    “Me too,” Jim told him. “I know cats are supposed to have nine lives, but that was pushing it.”
    The cat walked around in a cautious circle, sniffing and peering at all of them. Eventually it walked over to Jim and rubbed itself against his legs.
    “Looks like you’ve been adopted, Mr Rook,” said Christophe.
    “Unh-hunh. Not me. I’ve been planning on buying a dog.”
    “Too late now. She’s definitely taken a shine to you.”
    Jim picked the cat up and stroked her. He didn’t believe in fate, as a rule, but ever since he had lost his previous cat, thefeline formerly known as Tibbles, he had felt that he would show up again, somehow, maybe in a different form. And he could hardly ignore the spectacular way in which this cat had