The Thirteen Hallows Read Free

invalid, who lived with her nephew in a farmhouse in Wales, was the victim of a terrible accident.
    Later, Judith would come to realize that these were no accidents.
    Millie had never left Wales. Her parents were killed in the Blitz and she’d been adopted by the Welsh couple who cared for her. Judith remembered Millie, the oldest of the group of children, as extremely practical. At eight years old, she’d taken it on herself to look out for the ragtag group of evacuees, especially the younger children who were no more than four and a half at the time of Operation Pied Piper, when three and a half million children were evacuated to the country in three days. In the early years of World War II, it was believed that German aircraft would bomb all the major cities, and the only way to keep the next generation alive was to evacuate them to the countryside. Four hundred were evacuated to Pwllheli in Wales in the far west of the country, and a small group of thirteen, including Judith, ended up in the mountainous county of Madoc. Twelve of those eventually returned to their homes, but Millie remained. The obituary read that Mildred had somehow fallen out of her wheelchair, tumbled down a flight of stairs, and impaled herself on the steel banister.
    Judith had written it off as a horrible event.
    Unfortunate. Unexpected. Untimely.
    Until the next death.
    Judith had never liked Thomas Sexton. Tommy had been a bully as a child. A fat boy with curly red hair and brown piggy eyes, he used to torment the younger children, teasing them incessantly. Tommy had grown up to become an even bigger bully, earning his living as a debt collector in his youth and, after retirement, making a living as a collections agent and moneylender. Two months ago, he had been slain in Brixton in what the police called a gangland killing. The brutality of his murder had excited some press interest: His chest had been opened from throat to crotch, and his heart and lungs had been removed. MODERN RIPPER STALKS LONDON , the headlines read.
    Judith hadn’t been surprised by Sexton’s murder. She had always known that Tommy was going to come to a bad end. She remembered one night when he had been caught shining his flashlight up into the sky as the enemy bombers flew over, trying to attract their attention. One of the grown-ups had caught him and beaten him silly. Later, he boasted to the others that the punishment was worth it; he’d been hoping they would bomb the town because he wanted to see a dead body.
    When she had learned of Georgina Rifkin’s death in Ipswich three weeks ago, Judith had felt the first icy trickle of fear. The death of two people who knew the secret was a coincidence. The death of three was something more. Officially, Georgie, a retired schoolteacher, had fallen into the path of the National Express. Later, Judith had discovered the online rumor that the old woman had been tied spread-eagled to the train tracks.
    Only four days ago, Nina Byrne had died in Edinburgh. The press reported that the retired librarian had accidentally tipped a pan of boiling oil over herself as she cooked in the kitchen of her apartment. Judith knew that Nina never cooked.
    And now Bea.
    How many more were going to be savagely killed?
    Judith Walker knew that they were being systematically slaughtered, and she wondered when it would be her turn.
    Judith stood, lifted a sun-faded picture off the mantelpiece, and carried it to the window. Tilting it to the light, she looked at three irregular rows of thirteen smiling faces. It could have been a classroom photo, with the elder children standing in the back and the younger ones kneeling and sitting in the front. The black-and-white photograph had long faded to sepia, and it was difficult to make out any detail in the faces. Mildred, Georgina, and Nina were all standing in the back, asserting their eight-year-old independence with their arms easily slung over one another.
    A smirking Tommy was kneeling to Bea’s