The Sword Bearer Read Free

door.
    " 'Ere, lad, what's tha' doin'? What's tha' makin' such a to-do about?"
    "It's me granma! She's lyin' in th' hallway! She's ill! Please come, Mrs. Smith."
    The tall lady wasted no time. She pushed past John and hurried into the hallway of his grandmother's house. A man's voice called from somewhere in the Smith's house. "Is she all right Elsie? What's 'appened?"
    John was standing in the corridor behind Mrs. Smith who was kneeling down by his grandmother. He could hear Mr.Smith's footsteps walking hurriedly from the one house to the other.
    "I think she's gone, 'Arold. I think she's gone. She must 'ave 'ad a stroke. Go an' fetch th' doctor. Tell 'im to come at once."
    The man turned and began to run down Pimblett's Place toward Ellor Street and the nearest doctor. John was still shaking as he watched Mrs. Smith pull the woolen shawl from around her shoulders and lay it gently across his grandmother's head and shoulders to hide the staring eyes.
    "Mrs. Smith!" John's voice was not working properly. "Is she—is she ... ?"
    Mrs. Smith rose to her feet and pulled him close to her, holding him against her warm body and rocking him gently from side to side. For a few moments she said nothing. Then, "It'll be all right. It'll be all right, young John. You see if it won't. You're goin' to be all right."
    But John knew, knew by what Mrs. Smith had not said as well as what she had already said. Gone meant "dead." His grandmother was dead and Mrs. Smith didn't want to tell him.
    His panic had left him, and he was strangely calm. His eyes were tearless and his mouth dry. He felt very, very wide awake, but at the same time felt as though nothing was quite real.
    He let himself be held by Mrs. Smith who seemed to be talking to herself as much as to him as she repeated endlessly, "It'll be all right, luv. It'll be all right."

2
----
Troubled
Sleep
     
     
    They sent John upstairs, not as a punishment but because they said, "It would be better that way." Mrs. Smith promised to bring him some hot cocoa later on. "An' there's a birthday cake on th' kitchen table. Just imagine! On your birthday, young John. Well, well! These things do 'appen. Don't cry, lad. Don't cry."
    Now though John did not feel in the least like crying, he was glad Mrs. Smith seemed to think he was. He knew he ought to cry. People in books always "wept piteously" when somebody died, and he felt guilty because he could not have wept piteous-ly even if he had tried. He tried to read a book but gave up. Grandma Wilson was dead. His mind could not grasp the idea. Nothing seemed real. What would happen to him? Would they let him stay in the house by himself? Why was he not crying? He felt only fidgety, restless and strange. The whole world was different, dreamlike.
    Absent-mindedly he pulled the string up over his head and began to fiddle with the gold ring and the gold locket. The ring was a heavy signet ring so worn that sometimes he thought the letters were not letters at all, but some sort of design. "It's a very old ring," his grandmother had told him. "I don't rightly know how old. It must be worth a lot of money, but I'll never sell it. An' don't you ever sell it, John Wilson, until you know what it's about. He owes you that much at least"
    Usually he enjoyed dreaming up adventures about both the ring and the locket but tonight something felt wrong about them. He frowned and tried to concentrate but found his thoughts flitting here and there, sometimes to Grandma Wilson, then to the mysterious sounds of busyness down below and then to what was to happen to him. Then his eyes widened and he stared with open-mouthed dismay at them. "She's dead—an' now I'll never know! She was going to tell me today!"
    Fingers of fear stole round his heart His mother and his father. Were they still alive? Where were they? How would he ever find them? He no longer felt like making up stories. He wanted the truth.
    He opened the locket and touched the lock of hair. Whose hair? And