The Winter Ghosts Read Online Free PDF Page B

and a downy softness, like black feathers, and I hoped that George had felt this obscure pleasure at the moment of his departing. No terror, most of all no pain. Just release. The sense of being welcomed home.
    Then the present came rushing back, violent and bright and brutal. The Austin hit one of the boulders set along the edge of the road to warn travellers of the drop, striking it head on and with such force that the bonnet buckled. A spasm of pain shot up through me as my head snapped back, then jerked forward and hit the dashboard.
    After that, nothing.

The Watcher in the Hills

    Whispering. I could hear whispering, voices slipping between the mountains.
    ‘ I am the last, the last, the . . .’
    Heard over the howling of the wind, sometimes far away, sometimes closer, so close I imagined I could feel breath upon my cheek.
    ‘ The others have slipped away into darkness .’
    ‘Here,’ I tried to say, but no sound came.
    Then the sound of sobbing, a desperate scratching of rock upon rock, and a terrible weeping. Piano, pianissimo, moriendo, like the final strains of a country bell ringing out for evensong.
    ‘Over here,’ I murmured. ‘Please. Help me.’
    I can’t be sure how long I was in this state, neither conscious nor yet quite unconscious. The sensation was like drifting underwater at the lido, swimming slowly, slowly up through the deep green water, closer and closer to the surface and the light. Sight, touch, sound. The tips of my fingers, the whiteness behind my eyes, my toes within my boots.
    Then I was choking, coughing. Not drowning, waking. I was coming round. I could feel the pump and hiss of my heart beneath my ribs, rattling like a snare drum. I swallowed hard. When I put my hand up to brush the snow from my cheek, I saw that the tips of my gloves were red. And when I looked down, the snow and glass and blood were mixed together in my lap, glittering and yet dull at the same time.
    I let my shoulders fall back against the seat. Even that slight movement caused the car to tilt and I knew I had to get out. It was balanced for the time being, but how long it would remain so was anyone’s guess. Later, I learned that a shock absorber had snapped and the jagged metal had caught on the rocks beneath the snow.
    I had a sense of the minutes counting down to some zero point. I looked at the clock on my dashboard. Last time I’d noticed, it had been coming up for two. Now the glass was shattered and the hands hung uselessly down at half-past six.
    My head was throbbing. I steadied myself, then leaned forward and released the catch on the door. The gusting wind immediately surged through the gap and sent the door slamming back against the wing, making the car rock. Cautiously, I swung out one leg, then the other, vaguely aware of being relieved that I was able to do so. I propelled myself into a standing position, sending the remains of the windscreen showering from my lap, then staggered away from the car. The wind boxed my ears so hard that I struggled to keep my balance, but I managed finally to get the door shut.
    Hunching my shoulders against the bitter cold, I ran my hand along the coachwork, trying to assess the level of damage. I’d bought the Austin earlier in the year with the modest legacy left to me after the death duties had been paid on Father’s estate. Its value was as much sentimental as financial. It was the last link between him and me.
    The good news was that I was not seriously injured. And that the car had not gone over. The bad news that there was no possibility of getting it going again without assistance. Debris lay all around. Shards of glass crunched beneath the soles of my boots. The bonnet had buckled and the radiator had collapsed in on itself, like a broken ribcage. One of the front lamps had been snapped clean off and the other hung crooked, bashed up and attached to the body only by the thinnest of wires.
    I knelt down in the snow. Metal and bits of pipe hung beneath the