The Spellcoats Read Online Free PDF

weaving, and even if we had, the people in Shelling probably would not sell us any. Then I remembered they were going to kill us, anyway. I thought I would cry. But no. I watched the firelight squeeze a smile out of the Young One’s face, and Duck’s mouth open and shut on the hearthrug, and the water from the woodshed trickle into a pool. Robin was soft and warm. She is maddening, but she does try.
    â€œRobin,” I said. “Did Mother look like us? Was she a Heathen?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Robin. “It’s all vague. I think she had hair like ours, but I may be making it up. I don’t remember. I don’t even remember her teaching me to weave.”
    That surprises me still, Robin not remembering. She was nearly eight when our mother died. I was much younger when Robin taught me to weave, and I remember that perfectly. I can recall how Robin did not know the patterns for all the words, so that she and I together had to make quite a number up. I am not sure that anyone except my family will be able to read much of this, even of those who know how to read weaving. To everyone else, my story will look like a particularly fine and curious rugcoat. But it is for myself that I am weaving it. I shall understand our journey better when I have set it out. The difficulty is that I have to keep stopping because the clicking of my loom disturbs poor Robin.

3

    Now the thing that finally decided us to leave was this. It was around dawn, though there was no light coming in round the shutters as yet. My neck ached down one side, and my mouth tasted bad. The fire was very low, but I could see Duck rolling and stirring in front of it. Hern was sitting on the table.
    â€œThe floor’s all wet,” he said.
    I put my hand on the hearthrug to move, and it was like a marsh. “Ugh!” I said. It is a noise there is no word for.
    At that the door to the bedroom swung open, and there was Gull in his nightshirt, feeling at the frame of the door as he had done before. I heard his feet splash in the water on the floor. “Is it time?” Gull asked.
    â€œTime for what?” said Hern.
    â€œTime to leave,” said Gull. “We have to go away down the River.”
    Robin, I swear, had been asleep up to then, but she was on her feet, splashing about, trying to soothe Gull back to bed before he had finished speaking. “Yes, yes. We’re leaving,” she said. “It’s not quite time yet. Go back to bed till we’re ready.”
    â€œYou won’t go without me?” Gull said as she shoved him back through the door.
    â€œOf course not,” said Robin. “But we haven’t packed the boat yet. You rest while we do that, and I’ll call you as soon as breakfast’s ready.”
    While she put Gull back to bed, Hern and I splashed about in an angry sort of way, filling the lamp and lighting it again and putting the last logs on the fire. Duck woke up.
    â€œAre we really leaving?” he said when Robin came back.
    Hern and I thought Robin had just been soothing Gull, but she said, “I think we must. I think Gull knows best what the Undying want.”
    â€œYou mean, the Undying told him we must go?” I said. Early though it was, my back pricked all the way down with awe. Usually I only get that in the evenings.
    â€œGull must have heard us talking,” said Hern. “That explains it just as well. But I’m glad something made up your stupid minds for you. Let’s get the boat loaded.”
    Then I did not want to go at all. Shelling was the place I knew. Everywhere beyond was an emptiness. People came out of the emptiness and said things about Heathens with spells, the King, and war, but I did not believe in anywhere but Shelling really. I did not want to go into the nowhere beyond it. I think Hern felt the same at heart. We went slowly into the woodshed with the lamp, to push the boat out ready to load.
    Water rolled