The Forest of Adventures (#1 of The Knight Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF

get your coat.”
    I looked out through eyes that
suddenly belonged to somebody else and I saw the figure of Mum,
small, softly rounded, her hair pulled out in wildness, her face in
a contortion of concern.
    “An accident? Sam?” I managed
to grab hold of these two connected bits of information from
somewhere inside my head.
    “Yes Mina - and we have to go
to the hospital now. Do you understand what I am saying?
Now!”
    Mum dashed off with purpose. I
heard her rummaging in the hall and within seconds she returned
with my coat in her arms. I felt her lift my limp arms and stuff
them into the sleeves of my jacket just like she’d done when I was
a small child.
    I felt her hand in mine.

6. SLEEP
     
    Sam’s body lay on a bed of a
softly lit cell. By the side of his bed, a nurse closed his folder
of notes and padded out. As she closed the door behind her, she
looked right into me and offered me a weak smile nodding consent
for me to go in.
    I stood still and silent by his
bedside. His face was covered in a net of small cuts; the result of
glass from the windscreen having raced towards the softness of his
flesh. His nose was swollen, broken by his impact with the steering
wheel. It was this impact that had broken his consciousness too.
Wires and tubes trailed all over his battered and beaten body so
that he looked more like a weird and fascinating science experiment
rather than a healing human. The deafening silence of the room was
interrupted only by the rhythmic bleeping of the heart monitor.
    The doctor’s words whirled
round my head. Sam’s father couldn’t be contacted and I knew that
he was probably slumped in his chair, pissed and out of it. Martha
had lied to the receptionist, telling them that Sam and I were
engaged to be married. Even as she’d said it, I was filled with a
horror that maybe this would now never be possible.
    Dr. Morris explained slowly and
as gently as she could, that Sam was critically ill and that there
was a serious chance he wouldn’t make it through the night. She
told us to prepare ourselves for the worst and hope for the best.
Apparently it wasn’t in our interest to give us false hope.
    Sam was in a deep coma and the
hospital staff were locked in a tug-of-war just to keep him from
slipping across the invisible line between life and death. Even if
they managed to pull him over to the living side, for which they
didn’t seem to hold out much hope, then it would be likely that
part of Sam’s brain would be left behind.
    Another doctor came briskly
into the room, picked up Sam’s file, tapped his pen and looked over
at him. At first I hadn’t thought that he’d noticed me. I supposed
to him, all of this was quite normal. Another day at the
office.
    “Hello.” My voice came out like
the voice of a shy child. “Is he alright? I mean I know he’s not
alright but …. I suppose what I mean is, is he any worse?”
    He didn’t make eye contact; he
was busy with his monitor readout.
    “You need to understand Miss
Singer, that Samuel’s very unwell. He’s undergone serious trauma
and you must prepare yourself. We’re doing everything we can and we
promise you he’s not in pain.”
    His beeper went. He checked it
and then flashing me a well-practiced and tired smile he left the
room. It seemed that there was nothing left to say.
    It was late by the time we left
the hospital. Fairy lights forgotten, the path to our house was a
dark and slimy route. Uncle Josef had let himself in. Mum must have
phoned him whilst we were at the hospital and we arrived home to
find him sprawled over the sofa, half a bottle of wine by his side,
his signature red braces dangling by his side.
    Once, when I had been small
enough to find such things curious, I’d asked him why he wore them.
He’d told me that he had a secret life as a clown but it was tops
and I mustn’t tell anyone. As I got older and wiser he told me that
he wore them to be ironic. I suspected he wore them because they
reminded him of