The Cornerstone Read Online Free PDF Page A

Cornerstone.
    The universe remained resolutely unexploded.
    Holding it his hand, he couldn’t believe this thing had nearly sucked the life out of him. It looked… well, boring .
    Max’s grandfather Charlie was a prodigious reader and had a book collection in the thousands; some bought in shops, others picked up second-hand from numerous car boot sales. His entire house was taken over by sturdy chestnut bookcases crammed full of hardbacks and paperbacks. It was probably a better collection than the one at Farefield library.
    One amazing find at a jumble sale had been an entire series of classic novels - including a few Jane Austens and a smattering of Charles Dickens - printed in the early part of the 20th century.
    The set had been priced at £10, which Max’s grandfather had thought obscenely cheap. He’d bought them all with barely concealed glee and made them pride of place on one of his enormous bookcases back home.
    Max had been bored out of his brains many times in Charlie’s house while his mum made small talk with her father. He’d always end up idly scanning the bookshelves and had looked at the novels in the collection a number of times, very glad nobody was forcing him to read one.
    The Cornerstone looked similar: Plain, dusty and about as exciting as a wet weekend in Bognor.
    The title was embossed in silver on the front cover, but there were no pictures or illustrations, so nothing gave away what was inside.
    The spine was broken, worn and covered in scuff marks, as if the book had been kicked around and treated in a careless fashion.
    It looked rather unremarkable on the whole.
    …it wasn’t glowing or singing, for instance.
    Very carefully, Max cracked open The Cornerstone, holding it like a bomb about to go off.
    The pages felt similar to the crumpled note in his pocket. They had that same silky quality and felt equally odd to the touch.
    The actual contents were strange as well.
    There was no library insert to be stamped when the book was borrowed. In fact, there was no indication this was a library book at all.
    Flipping the page, there were no publishing details to be seen either. Nothing about copyright, reprint dates, or what other excellent titles may be available from the same author.
    This book had none of that, just:

    House of Carvallen

    …written at the top of the page.
    There was no information about the author either. Not even a name.
    Max thought it strange that The Cornerstone gave no indication who’d written it. He guessed they’d wanted to remain anonymous in an attempt to create an air of mystery.
    The title was printed again on the third page, and at the top of the fifth it said:

    - 1 -

    Max started to read, eager to see what this strange book was about:

    It was, for all intents and purposes, the perfect day to visit the library.
    A sullen, overcast October afternoon, it was the kind of day the word listless seemed invented to describe - until you remembered somebody had also thought up charmless, which was even more appropriate.
    It was drizzling.
    The constant, sticky kind that’s good at getting under the collar and giving anyone foolish enough to venture outside a wet neck for their trouble.
    You’d think all hope and joy had been banished from the world on a grey afternoon like this - if you were in a melodramatic frame of mind, that is .

    That’s weird.
    How big a coincidence was it that the book started on a day similar to this one and featured a library?
    He continued:

    Max Bloom was just plain bored as he reached the town centre, having been forced out of the house by his irate mother.
    The town was Farefield, which nestled on the south coast of England between two major cities, and suffered from an inferiority complex because of it.
    Oh, and it was a Thursday.
    This doesn’t have any bearing on the events about to unfold, but the devil is always in the details if you look hard enough.

    Max had heard of books where the reader identified with the main