The Sweetest Dark Read Online Free PDF Page A

in hand. The symphony had not ceased, but I was ignoring it. It wasn’t really there, and if it was, it was the result of someone else’s madness, not my own.
    One of the horses let out an unhappy whicker, and the carriage rolled back some. I heard for the first time the driver’s low voice, not so much words but a soothing string of sounds, and the horse subsided.
    Mr. Hastings was talking now, but I didn’t bother to try to make it out, nor did I bother to wait for him or the driver to climb down and open the door for me. I grabbed my case and had my other hand on the latch as soon as the wheels stopped moving. I was hungry and on edge and more than ready to be free; I leapt out onto fresh gravel, into the purple dense dark.
    For a horrible instant I thought they had played a joke on me and we had driven in a great circle, because it seemed I was standing where I had been when I first entered the carriage, right back outside the station with its phonograph after all.
    Amethyst sky, silver stars. A ragged black line of trees stretched beyond me.
    Then the horses began to snort and stomp. When I turned about, I saw the castle.
    Iverson.
    It actually was a castle, high and wide and utterly ominous, a series of narrow windows glowing amber against the stone. It had round towers with peaked roofs, heavy arches set deep into the sides, and a notched edging along the top just visible from where I stood. It loomed over me, over all of us, eating up the stars.
    The horses whickered again, one louder than the other. It turned into a squeal, climbing higher and higher, and over it rose Mr. Hastings’s voice.
    â€œGet back there, will you, girl? You there! Eleanore Jones! Get back, I say!”
    I retreated hurriedly into a hedge, then stumbled around it; I’d thought he was addressing the horse.
    From behind the hedge I heard the driver once more, still speaking so soft, but it worked, because the squealing stopped and within a minute the snorting, too. I peered cautiously past the foliage to see Mr. Hastings limping my way, his white hair poking out from under his cap and his hands knotted into fists.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I blurted, an instinctive reaction to being caught in the wrong by an adult. Old lessons, scored deep into my bones: Duck your head, apologize at once, perhaps they’ll let you skulk by.
    But Mr. Hastings only paused, looking at me there six feet away with my side pressed against the thorns of the prickly hedge. I had nowhere to skulk.
    â€œGah,” he said, or something that sounded like that. He shook his head, and his voice seemed to gentle. “She’s a good ‘un, the old mare, but every living thing has its limits. You’ll need to learn better, city girl. Keep clear of the beasts, you hear?”
    â€œYes.”
    He nodded, as if that had settled things between us, and jerked his chin toward the castle doors.
    â€œReady?”
    â€œYes,” I said again, which was an absolute lie.
    He stumped off. I began reluctantly to follow.
    â€œWait,” called the driver from behind us.
    I swiveled, hearing footfalls approaching lightly. Against the stars all I could see was that he was blond and broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of grace that bespoke a natural athlete, someone who probably ran and rode horses and swam leagues in the ocean every bloody day.
    In two breaths he was before me, still in shadow, lifting something round between us.
    â€œYour hat,” the driver said.
    I took it from him, and our fingertips brushed.
    With that mere glancing touch, the music I’d been attempting so hard to repress flared to life, a brilliant, beautiful explosion of sound that filled my body and flooded my senses, wiping away everything else like chalk from a slate board. I was suffused with a pleasure so profound, it robbed me of sight and speech; I was only blind aching bliss, and for all I knew I was moaning with it, just like the whores on the