The Children Of The Mist Read Online Free PDF

shadows, past a donger, a set of Portaloos and a crane, she forgot her preoccupations. Close up, the three-story building seemed much taller.Peering through a windowpane still crisscrossed with masking tape they saw it was empty inside, the concrete floor covered in grit and dust.. It had that slightly sad feel of all empty places. Morven tried the door, but it was locked. She hadn’t really expected anything else. They moved on and had a look at the second building, its flat concrete roof pale in the moonlight. It was longer than she’d thought, which was good. Dog ran around exploring every nook and cranny.
    A sudden noise made Morven freeze. She looked at Zest and was only half-reassured when she saw him turn and look in the direction of the sound. Somewhere back at the bigger building. It was a soft tap, tap, tap. Irregular and interspersed with a sound like someone unwinding sticky tape. Odd.
    â€˜Do you hear that?’ she whispered.
    Zest gave her the oddest look. ‘What?’
    â€˜That tapping and stuff.’
    For a moment she stopped and listened again. At first she thought she had just imagined it, then, as she was about to shrug it off, it started again. ‘There,’ she said, ‘over by the other building.’
    Again, that look. ‘What do you hear?’
    â€˜Tapping and a sound like, you know, sticky tape coming off a roll.’
    Zest blinked, and his lips formed a silent word which Morven was certain rhymed with luck. He looked at her and then abruptly turned on his heel. ‘Come on,’ he yelled.
    Morven flinched at the volume of his voice. But there was something else, a certain something in his tone, half excited, half fearful. For a moment Morven felt a desire to leave the site. To get on her board and skate off down the path, back to the city. The night suddenly seemed vaguely threatening, and she felt an alien sense of vulnerability. Dog came streaking up to her, and woofed. The bark echoed off the buildings, making Zest’s efforts feeble by comparison. Morven looked around fearfully. Nothing happened. No boogie man or — worse still — irate security guard. She just had the jitters. As Dog’s voice finally stilled she pushed her paranoia aside and hastened after Zest.
    At the far side of the completed building he stopped and waited patiently for her to arrive. ‘Can you hear it now?’
    Morven listened. There it was. It was louder. Much louder. ‘Yes, I hear it.’ She looked around trying to find whatever it was. The noise was so intense she must surely be able to see the source.
    â€˜Morven, it’s there.’
    Morven looked to where Zest pointed, at the top of a large pane of glass. She looked, but could only see the blackness. ‘What?’
    Zest took a step closer and tapped the glass up in the right hand corner. ‘There.’
    Mystified, Morven moved closer. She stood on tiptoe and craned her neck scanning the window. After several seconds she sighed and shook her head. ‘Zest, what are you rabbiting on about? I can’t see anything except a bloody spider.’
    He did not reply. A bit irritated and out of patience with his cryptic behaviour, she looked at him demandingly. Still he did not speak.
    â€˜What?’ She was a bit cross now.
    By way of reply he looked back up at the window. And then it started again. That noise. Mesmerised, Morven watched the spider as it worked at its web. The precise movements of its legs coordinated exactly with the extraction of a thread of silk and then the delicate weaving of the exotic trap. Morven could not believe what she was seeing andhearing. It was impossible. It was mad. Or — more likely — she was mad. And then she turned to Zest. For, of course, if she were crazy, so was he.
    â€˜You can hear that too?’
    He grinned. ‘Yep.’
    She looked back at the spider, which was still again. Her brain went into overdrive as she tried to find some