Where the Stones Sing Read Online Free PDF Page B

frighten you, Kai. Jack loves telling his stories, but don’t pay any heed to them … And here we are.’
    The children entered a long white room, almost as narrow as a passageway. Along one wall there were windows looking out over the cloister. For a horrible moment Kai thought that they all had to sleep together in the same room. Then she realised that one side of the room was divided into separate cells, each with a tiny arched window above the bed. Each boy had a separate little cell. The partitions were made of lime-washed white wood, which meant that the children could still talk to each other when they were in bed. Kai was soon to learn that Jack loved to keep everyone awake and shivering with stories of witches and goblins, of fairy creatures like the puca and the banshee, of ghosts and other creatures of the night. But now they all went into Kai’s cubicle.
    Roland, who had come along with them with a sulky look on his face, pulled at the cloak Dame Maria had given Kai and spoke for the first time, ‘You must have stolen this from somewhere – it’s far too good for you. I am going to confiscate it.’
    Kai felt a rush of fear. At the best of times she hated to bepulled at, and now, so tired that she was close to tears, the last thing she wanted was another tussle, a tussle in which her companions might discover that she was not a boy after all. She pulled the cloak closer around her.
    ‘Leave it be! she said. ‘Dame Maria gave it to me!’
    ‘Leave it be!’ Roland mimicked her in a high-pitched voice. ‘Oh, aren’t we the high and mighty one, with our friends like Dame Maria! But I don’t believe she gave it to you! You stole it like the thieving brat you are!’
    They were now both pulling at the cloak, and Kai was shaking, terrified that it would tear, or worse, that her secret might come out.
    But Jack pulled Roland back and said, ‘No, Kai is telling the truth. I know that cloak – it belonged to Philip. Look, there’s the tear he made that time we had the fight with the choirboys from St Patrick’s and we had to escape over the archbishop’s wall.’
    ‘Did you know Philip?’ Kai asked.
    Jack nodded. ‘He was one of my best friends. It was horrible when he died. Old Jenny Greenteeth got him in the end.’
    ‘Jenny Greenteeth?’
    ‘The witch that lives in the water. She pulls people to their death when they go on the Liffey.’ Jack’s voice had changed to deep sepulchral tones. ‘You can always tell that she’s around, lying in wait, when you see the green duckweed that grows where she is sleeping. Tom knows all abouther.’ Jack shivered dramatically and Tom nodded.
    ‘She’s a dreadful creature. All the millers tell stories of her. I have never seen her but my father’s uncle has, and he says he was never so frightened in his life.’
    Kai was not sure she believed in Jenny Greenteeth, but when she saw that Roland had gone very pale she realised that he did.
    Now Tom put his hand on Roland’s arm.
    ‘That enough, Roland,’ he said. ‘Leave the cloak alone. You are just making trouble and you know you are in Brother Albert’s bad books already for teasing Quincunx.’
    ‘Who’s Quincunx?’ asked Kai.
    ‘The kitchen cat. The terror of the kitchen mice. Do you like cats and dogs?’
    Kai, who had been chased by large numbers of farm dogs, guard dogs and even the occasional hunting dog, considered for a moment.
    ‘I am sure I like cats,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure about dogs.’
    Roland cut in, ‘Scared of them, are you? You’re worse than a girl!’
    ‘I’m not scared of them,’ said Kai, wondering if she would need to mention this small lie in confession. ‘I just don’t especially like them.’
    ‘You will have to come and visit our mill out at Kilmainham ,’ said Tom. ‘We have a little farm there too. We have loads of puppies at the moment and I know you will like them . We have kittens as well. We nearly always have kittens in one or other of the