Lyre Read Free

cackle, followed by a pained choking sound.
    For what seemed like half a lifetime to Yuri, but was probably little more than ten seconds, there was no sound of anything other than waves softly lapping against the broken ruins of the boat.
    Finally, one of the women sighed.  ‘We should do as he says.’
    ‘I guess.’
    ‘She’s just a kid.  I feel a bit bad.’
    Yuri was tempted to sit up and launch herself, fists, nails and feet, at the women.  Instead, she wisely kept her body limp.  She felt herself being raised up.  The movement made her head spin and her stomach roil.  And it wasn’t until she woke up in a hospital bed with her mother asleep in a chair beside her that she was aware of anything else.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
    PART ONE
     
     
     
     
    He was presented by his father with a Lyre and taught to play upon it, which he did to such perfection that nothing could withstand the charm of his music. Not only his fellow-mortals but wild beasts were softened by his strains, and gathering round him laid by their fierceness, and stood entranced with his lay. Nay, the very trees and rocks were sensible to the charm. The former crowded round him and the latter relaxed somewhat of their hardness, softened by his notes .
     
    Orpheus and Eurydice by Thomas Bulfinch.

CHAPTER ONE
TORQUAY, DEVON, 2003
     
     
    Yuri fidgeted.  Another town.  Another school.  Another office waiting to be given another timetable and another set of excuses to explain away how shitty her first day would be.  Her mother had conveniently forgotten what it was like to be a teenager: that having friends and familiarity was everything.  If she had remembered or if it had even for one minute crossed her mind that Yuri had thoughts and opinions of her own, then they wouldn’t have moved for the fifth time in eight years.  And they certainly wouldn’t have moved to a small seaside town which was entirely made up of Caucasian faces.  Where Yuri would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.  She kicked distractedly at the wall behind her at the thought and received a warning frown from the receptionist.  Yuri frowned back at her. The receptionist scowled and made a little annotation on a notepad in front of her.  Yuri smirked.  Go ahead, she silently told the woman.  I won’t be here long enough for your little notes to make any difference.
    A bell rang.  From outside, a range of shouts, cries and curses could be heard as pupils everywhere made their way to the first class of the day.  Yuri felt herself tensing up.  She’d deliberately arrived early in the hope that she’d be given everything she needed before school started.  That way she could have been in the first classroom and sitting down by now, rather than being forced to walk in halfway through a lesson and have thirty pairs of eyes watch her and judge her as walked alone and had to find a spare seat.  Yuri had made that walk before.  She knew what it was like.  She kicked the wall again.  Stupid school.
    The receptionist cleared her throat.  This time, Yuri pointedly ignored her and instead stared up at the giant clock overhanging the entire reception area as if to remind everyone that this was a SCHOOL.  And in a SCHOOL it was important to be on time.  If you were a pupil, of course.  If you were a teacher then you could be as damned well late as you pleased and nobody cared. 
    A harassed looked woman with a coffee stain down her shirt in the shape of the African continent rushed in.  She gave Yuri a cursory glance then stepped quickly over to the receptionist.  A few sentences were exchanged, then the woman walked over, pasting on a smile that was so fake it could have given Milli Vanilli a run for their money. Last year Yuri had watched a documentary about the pop duo on the BBC, in the vain hope it would give her some more street cred to know more about British music.  When they’d first moved to England, she had stubbornly clung to