The Lost Gate Read Online Free PDF Page B

who had been left behind to wait for him.
    Danny dropped from the lowest branch to the ground and faced them. “How much trouble am I in?” he asked them.
    â€œWith me,” said Aunt Lummy, “none at all.”
    â€œThose girls should have been wrapped in a sack long ago, to teach them sense and manners,” said Uncle Mook.
    â€œBut Zog and Gyish are now your enemies,” said Aunt Lummy, “and they want you dead, to put it plainly. And many there are who think they have a point, and that the only reason you’re still alive is because your parents are who they are.”
    â€œAs if Mama would miss me if I died,” said Danny, “or Baba would even notice I was gone.”
    â€œDon’t be unjust,” said Uncle Mook. “Your parents are complicated people, but I assure you that they care a great deal about you and think about you all the time.”
    â€œBut if the Family decided I was drekka and dangerous and had to be killed, Baba would put me up in Hammernip himself, and Mama would shovel on the dirt.”
    â€œNonsense,” said Aunt Lummy.
    â€œOf course they would,” said Uncle Mook. “It’s their duty.”
    â€œNow, Mooky,” said Aunt Lummy.
    â€œThe boy is old enough to know the truth,” Mook said to her. And then to Danny, “They know their duty to the Family and they will do it. But right now the madness is over and it’s time for you to come back home to eat. With us, I think, in case somebody takes it in their head to make a preemptive strike before your folks come home.”
    â€œOh, Mooky,” said Aunt Lummy impatiently. “Don’t scare the boy!”
    â€œHe should be scared,” said Mook. “He should have cut off a hand before he put those children’s clants in a sack. Now he knows it, but the deed’s been done. Everything he does from now on will be viewed with suspicion. If we mean to keep him safe, we have to help him learn to be as innocuous as possible. No more strutting around about how smart he is in school—”
    â€œHe never struts,” said Aunt Lummy. Danny was grateful that she defended him, but he realized that there had been times when he flaunted his superiority in classwork.
    â€œIt looks like strutting to the other children,” said Mook, “and you know it.”
    Aunt Lummy sighed. “If only he could leave here and grow up in safety somewhere else.”
    â€œDon’t put a thought like that into his head!” cried Mook.
    â€œDo you think I haven’t thought of it a thousand times?” said Danny truthfully. “But I know they’d track me down and find me, and I won’t do anything like that. The only life I’ll ever have is here, and all I can hope to affect is how long it lasts.”
    â€œThat’s the attitude,” said Mook. “Humility, acceptance, willingness to sacrifice.”
    They led him back to the house, and Danny ate well that night, since Lummy’s best talent was neither with rabbits nor students, but with cooking. After dinner, she insisted on applying her favorite and smelliest salves to his injuries, and when she pulled his shirt off, he was relieved to see that his self-inflicted replacement injuries had left bruises, though small ones.
    â€œWell,” said Lummy, “either Zog is getting weaker in his old age or he was being gentler than it seemed, because you’re only bruised a little.”
    â€œDanny has the resilience of youth,” said Uncle Mook. “They’re tougher than they look, these children.”
    Well-salved and stinking to high heaven, Danny went to bed. Only then, alone in the darkness, did he allow himself to know what he must know: that he intended to survive, no matter what.
    Now the entire business of his life was to figure out a way to escape from the North Family compound in such a way that they could never find him. Fortunately, unlike so many