The Book of Beasts Read Free

compound, restless and disconnected. She and Matt had never been separated from each other for any significant length of time, and Em kept imagining she could hear him sneaking up behind her or sitting next to her at meals. But he was never there. He was a phantom presence, a lost limb, haunting her.
    During those first dark days, the other adults at the Abbey had insisted Em stay inside to avoid any serious manifestations of her fears. One day, when she had wandered down to the beach from the kitchen, Jeannie’s rose bushes had burst from the soil one after the other, sprouted feet and trotted behind Em like ducklings, their buds opening and closing in unison. It had taken Simon hours to catch them all, and even yesterday Em was convinced she’d spotted one of the animated roses grinning at her from behind a tree.
    Without Matt, there was only one other person who could help her.
    Zach Butler’s Guardian abilities, his mad computer skills and his age had made him close to Matt, but his connection to Em was much deeper. Deaf since birth, Zach communicated through signing and lip-reading. He also connected with Em telepathically. He looked like a younger version of his dad, Simon – tall and fit with a footballer’s athleticism.
    Zach! Em shouted in her head. Get in here. Quick.
    She stared at the robed figure, who stared back. I’m cracking up , she thought.
    Em fished frantically under her pillows for her comic. She had been working on the piece about a warrior princess for several days, drawing and shading as a way of keeping her mind off things. She had fallen asleep last night revising several panels. Had she drawn this guy as some kind of secondary character? She didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t in her comic book.
    Rolling up the pages, Em hurled them at the figure. Instead of exploding into slivers of light and fragments of colour as Em’s lucid dreams usually did, the figure shifted slightly to his left. The comic fluttered to the floor.
    Em scrambled back against her headboard. ‘Seriously! Who are you?’
    The figure wore a long white wool robe with a wide collar that was stitched in golden threads like a tapestry. At the centre of the heavy robes was a swirling silver helix. The more Em stared, the more the helix appeared to pulse.
    Behind the figure, Em noticed an impression in the rock-face that shimmered and stretched up into her bedroom ceiling. It was as if the figure had stepped out of the rock itself. The rock was shot through with silver veins, and looked to Em a lot like the cliffs of Era Mina, the small island that faced the Abbey across a short strip of water.
    A fur cloak hung from iron clasps in the shape of a peryton at his shoulders, and in his right hand he gripped a sceptre with a similar beast on its hilt. His limbs were long and lithe, and with his chiselled jawline and his wavy dark hair curling on to his shoulders, he reminded Em of a younger version of her ancestor, Duncan Fox. Or an older version of Matt.
    The figure opened its mouth, releasing a rush of putrid air. Gagging, Em covered her nose with her pillow. It wasn’t just his breath that reeked. His entire body smelled of filth, sweat and wet fur. He smelled feral. Like a wild animal.
    Zach! Wake up!
    The figure cocked his head, startling Em. Had he heard her?
    He had dodged the comic book. He was aware of her presence.
    This was no lucid dream. This was something else entirely.

FIVE
    Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages
    Matt scrambled through the tangled briar beneath the hanging wave. He had to reach the shore before the monstrous wall of water crashed down and obliterated the island. If his father had created this wave, he had to know.
    He thought about drawing, animating something to help him get to the shore more quickly. But as he dodged and ducked and darted through the drenching spray from the wave and the muddy ground under him, all he could picture were his mother and his sister. Dead,