Twisted Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

walked for about an hour. I couldn’t seem to stop, as though my legs were mechanically taking me forward like a machine, and I sang as I walked: it was a song that my dad had written for me. As far as I knew it was the only thing he’d left – that, my name, and the ankh of course.
    Hannah and roses, Hannah and flames,
    Whatever who knows is, Hannah’s my name…
    That’s how it began, and maybe it was silly, but it kept me going.
    I’d never walked so far before, even though I’d been used to walking up one hill and down the other and up again in hilly Bristol, there and back to school. But this was different: flat, and the canal didn’t really change much, until I came to the gates.
    When I saw them, I slowed down. At first, from far away, they appeared as a small black patch at the end of the canal. When I drew a bit closer, they looked like a doorway into the sky. They were huge, made of black metal, and they reared up above the motionless water of the canal. I could see some sort of mechanism – a wheel – set into the side of the gates, and probably this opened them. It did not look as if it had been moved for years. It looked painted shut, not rusty, just thick with black paint so that it shone, even though the sun was covered by the clouds.
    I stood for a long time and looked at the gates. There didn’t seem to be any way around them, unless you climbed up the bank, which was quite steep. I listened, but I couldn’t hear any traffic, although there must be roads somewhere: I thought I was near Highbridge and that wasn’t far from the M5: you could hear the motorway from along way away. Maybe it was so still because it was a Sunday.
    A twig snapped and I turned. There was a man standing behind me. He made me jump, and for a moment, my heart banged in my chest. But he was old. He had a walking stick and in the brambles was a little old dog like a piece of a hearthrug. He had come down the slope: now that I looked more closely, I could see a tiny path.
    â€œAfternoon,” he said. He sounded quite posh, like a retired teacher.
    â€œI was looking at the gates,” I said.
    â€œThe King’s Drain.”
    â€œSorry?”
    â€œIt’s called the King’s Drain. It’s a sluice. Do you know what that is, young lady?”
    â€œYes. They explained it in school. It’s like a gate for keeping water in and out.”
    He looked pleased. “That’s right. This one lets the water out at Highbridge. If there’s a high tide, though, they close the gates, because otherwise too much water will come in from the sea and flood up.”
    â€œI saw a flood,” I said. “When we came here from Bristol. It was all over the road.”
    He nodded. “Yes, that happens, sometimes. Most of this land is below sea level. That’s why it’s called ‘Somerset’. Before they put in all these drains and gates, it was flooded all winter – you could only graze cattle in the summer, you see, so it was called the ‘summer country’.”
    That made sense. “That’s interesting,” I said.
    He waved the stick at the gates. “They’re important, those. Keep the sea back. Well, I’d better be getting along or my wife will be wondering where I’ve got to.”
    He gave me the polite smile that some grownups give to kids and called the dog on. I waited until he had gone further down the path and then I saw him cut up through another little path and disappear. It wasn’t that I hadn’t trusted him, actually, but I felt like being on my own. I didn’t want to leave the gates, but then it struck me that it would get dark soon and I didn’t like the thought of being on the towpath when I couldn’t see. So I went back, walking quickly and singing my dad’s song under my breath, along the canal, and the stream, and the field. I could feel the gates all the way, though, over my