The Facts of Life and Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

overhanging room in the haunted house. The water was slate-grey with white veins, and when it withdrew it hissed and made a deep clicking sound as the big round stones rolled about the beach under the waves.
    It was hypnotic.
    She didn’t know how long she’d been here. Maybe an hour. It was getting dark and she was getting cold, but she kept waiting for one more wave, one more retreat.
    One more.
    One more.
    Ruby shifted a little against the musty floor. Her chest hurt.
    Again.
    She’d first noticed the pain when she’d been reading
Pony & Rider
on the old rug that was the same colour as the big spiders that marched into The Retreat in the first week of every September, as if they’d booked a room. It was a sharp ache, like lying on a hair bobble. But when she looked there was nothing there.
    Now, as then, Ruby drew her forearms under her sides a bit, to relieve the pressure on her chest.
    Just one more wave.
    ‘Can I look?’
    Ruby took her face from the hole in the floor to see Adam Braund standing beside her.
    He laughed. ‘You have a red ring round your whole eye.’
    She blushed and touched her face, but felt nothing.
    ‘It’s not bad,’ he said. ‘It’ll go.’
    She shifted over, and Adam lay down and put his eye to the hole. Ruby was on her tummy beside him, propped on her elbows, staring at the wall. There had been paper on it once – yellow daffodils and purple crocuses. Now the flowers were faded to brown, just like real ones, and speckled with black damp.
    ‘We should make another hole,’ said Adam. His voice was muffled, because he was speaking into the floorboards. ‘Then we can both watch.’
    ‘OK,’ said Ruby.
    He got to his feet and Ruby trailed around the house behind him, while he picked up scraps and tested window frames. There wasn’t much left that the children hadn’t already dropped into the ocean.
    ‘Shit!’ Adam sucked his thumb, and when he took it out of his mouth blood welled quickly, then leaked away through the tiny canals of his skin. It made Ruby feel a bit sick to see it.
    ‘Does it hurt?’
    ‘No,’ said Adam. He wiped the blood on his jeans, and started to tug at a banister spindle. It came free with a surprising jerk, and they both laughed. Then Ruby followed him back through to the overhanging room.
    Adam chose a place twelve inches from the knothole, where two floorboards were parting and daylight already showed through. He inserted the spindle and twisted and levered until the rotting board split and opened into a new hole a few inches wide, then he picked at the edges until the worst of the splinters were gone.
    ‘There,’ he said, and lowered the spindle through the new hole. ‘Let’s watch this.’
    They both got on to their tummies again – their elbows tucked in and their hands in fists next to their ears – and counted down together.
    ‘Three.
    ‘Two.
    ‘One!’
    Adam let go of the spindle and it speared the next wave and disappeared. Then they saw it again, briefly, tumbled in the froth, before it was sucked out to sea for ever.
    ‘Cool,’ said Ruby.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Adam. He shifted to get more comfortable and his leg nudged Ruby’s. She nudged back, and he held firm. Without taking their eyes from their spy-holes, they giggled as they pressed their calves and ankles against each other in a fake tussle, then gave up and subsided into silence.
    They watched the sea for another five minutes, then Ruby remembered how cold she was. She was about to get up and go home when Adam spoke. His lips were so close to the floor that Ruby had to ask him to repeat it, so he lifted his head and looked at her.
    ‘Do you know why this house is haunted?’
    ‘No.’
    He turned his head and looked at her. ‘Do you
want
to know?’
    Ruby pursed her lips and thought about it. She’d thought
Haunted House
was just a name they called the dilapidated old building. Sure, it was run-down and creepy and had cobwebs and draughts and drips and weird noises, but until