The Swallow Read Free

light. There were no ghosts. But I didn’t want to go to sleep again because I knew they would be waiting for me, just on the other side of the border between awake and asleep.
    I picked up my book with shaking hands and began to read. It was a book called
Jalna
that I had found on my grandmother’s bookshelf.
    I read for hours. Every time my eyes started to close I sat up and forced myself to stay awake and keep reading. When the light started seeping round the curtains I finished the book and then I finally let myself drift away. I slept without dreams until Kendrick woke me for breakfast.
    The next night the dream came back. And the next night. I dreaded going to sleep. I read late into the night, trying to stay awake. It turned out that the
Jalna
book was part of a series about a big family, and my grandmother had them all, so I started to read my way through them.
    Every night the pattern was the same. No matter how hardI tried to stay awake, I still fell asleep eventually. Then the dream would come, with its crowds of clamoring ghosts, and I woke up in a sweat. Then I read until dawn, when I could safely fall asleep again.
    We moved to the house behind the cemetery at the beginning of July. By the beginning of August, I was very, very sick.

HEADACHE
    Polly
    I woke up with a headache. Maybe that’s why I lost my temper at breakfast.
    It all began with eggs. Or the lack of eggs, to be precise. During the week we always have porridge for breakfast, but on Saturdays we get eggs. But this Saturday we had stupid old porridge again because Mum ran out of eggs on account of making deviled eggs on Thursday for some ladies from church who came over to have a meeting about “The Poor in our Midst” or something.
    I was grumbling about the porridge and Dad took a deep breath and said, “Now, Polly,” and I knew he was going to start off on another lecture about all the hungry children who would give anything to have lumpy old porridge day after day after day, so I jumped right in there.
    “I don’t care about those hungry kids so don’t start telling me about them. All I care about is eggs. Saturday is eggs day and I want eggs!”
    I picked up my bowl of porridge and slammed it down on the table, hard. The Horrors snapped to attention and nudgedeach other, staring at me and grinning. Moo and Goo rolled their eyes, and Lucy looked down her nose at me in disapproval.
    “Polly, that’s enough,” said Mum automatically. “You’re too old to be having temper tantrums at breakfast.”
    I knew she was right but that just made it worse. I picked up the bowl, higher this time, and dropped it again, really hard. It broke, and the gloopy porridge splattered all over the place.
    Silence. Everyone held their breath. It was like that moment when a wave pulls back and another one is about to come roaring in.
    Right on cue, Dad reared up.
    “ YOU !” he thundered, pointing a finger at me like he was the wrath of God and he was going to strike me dead with bolts of lightning. “ YOU !! LEAVE THE TABLE THIS INSTANT !”
    When Dad gets like that there is only one thing to do. Get out of the way, fast, or he’ll start throwing things and yelling like mad. He’s got a terrible temper, and Mum says I got mine from him, but he’s bigger and way more scary than me, I can tell you. I think it’s kind of hypocritical for a man of God to have such a vile temper, but if you think I’m going to tell him that you’re crazy and you don’t know my father.
    I got out of there, fast, and went straight up to my hiding place in the loft. And there I stayed. After a while I ate some crackers and wished I’d eaten my porridge, because I was hungry. The house was really cold.
    I cried a bit. I felt pretty bad. I knew I was being childish at breakfast, I knew I was being mean to my mum about the eggs,because she is really busy and can’t always remember everything. But that just made me feel worse inside. And my head still hurt.
    I was huddled