The Spellcoats Read Online Free PDF Page A

here.”
    Robin wrung her hands. She will be ladylike. “But how can we leave, with the River in flood and Gull like this? Where should we go?”
    I could see she had gone helpless. It annoys me when she does. “We can go away down the River and find somewhere better to live,” I said. It was the most exciting thing I have ever said. I had always wanted to see the rest of the River.
    â€œYes. You can’t pretend you’ve enjoyed living here this winter,” Hern said. “Let’s do that.”
    â€œBut the Heathen!” Robin said, wringing away. I could have hit her.
    â€œWe look like the Heathen,” I said. “Remember? We might as well make some use of it. We’ve suffered for it enough. I suppose Aunt Zara thought we were Heathen when she told us to go away.”
    â€œNo,” said Robin, being fair as well as helpless. It makes a maddening combination. “No, she couldn’t have. She just meant we look different. We have yellow, wriggly hair, and everyone else in Shelling has straight black hair.”
    â€œDifferent is dead tonight,” Hern said. Clever, clever.
    â€œWe’ve only Uncle Kestrel’s word,” said Robin again. “Besides, Gull’s asleep.”
    So we sat about, with nothing decided. None of us went to bed. We could not have slept for the thousand noises of the flood, anyway. It made rillings and swirlings, rushings, gurglings, and babblings. Shortly there was rain going blatter, blatter on the roof and spaah when it came down the chimney and fell on the fire. Behind that the River bayed and roared and beat like a drum, until my ears were so bemused that I thought I heard shrill voices screaming out across the floods.
    Then, around the middle of the night, I heard the real, desperate bellowing when our cow was swept away. Robin jumped up from the table, shouting for help.
    Hern sat up sleepily. Duck rolled on the hearthrug. I was the most awake, so I scrambled up and helped Robin unblock the back door. It came open as soon as we lifted the latch, and a wave of yellow water piled in on us.
    â€œOh help!” said Robin. We heaved the door shut somehow. It left a pool on the floor, and I could see water dripping in underneath it. “Try the woodshed!” said Robin.
    We ran there, although I could tell that the cow’s bellows were going away slantwise down the River now. Water was coming in steadily under the woodshed door. We pulled the boat back easily, because it was floating, but when we opened the door, the wave of water that came in was not quite so steep. Robin insisted that we could wade through the garden to the cow. We hauled up our clothes and splashed outside, trying to see and to balance and to hold skirts all at once. The rain was pouring down. That hissed, the River hissed and gluck-glucked , and the water swirled so that I half fell down against the woodshed. I knew it was hopeless. The cow was faint in the distance. But Robin managed to stagger a few yards on, calling to the cow, until even she was convinced there was nothing we could do.
    â€œWhat shall we do for milk?” she said. “Poor cow!”
    We could not shut the woodshed door. I tied the boat to one of the beams, and we waded back to the main room and shut that door. The woodshed is a step down. Soon water began to trickle under that door, like dark crawling fingers.
    Robin sat by the hearth and I sat with her. “We shall drown if it comes much higher,” she said.
    â€œAnd Zwitt will say good riddance and the River punished us,” I said. I sat leaning against Robin, watching water drip off my hair. Each drop had to turn twenty corners because my hair hangs in springs when it is wet. And I saw we would really have to leave now. We had no cow. We had no father to plow our field. Poor Gull could not do it, and Hern is not strong enough for that yet. We had no money to buy food instead, because no one would take my