White Crow Read Free Page B

earlier, gazing up to the heavens, the devil is staring right at her, grinning.
    Leering.
    Now, Rebecca reads properly the name of the pub painted on the front wall, large black ornate letters on the creamy white brick, and she understands. The sign has one picture on one side, and a different one on the other.
    The Angel and The Devil.

    1798, 8m, 23d.
    I am afraid.
    O Lord! Look down on this, my Evening, and mend it, before Sunset comes forever.
    1798, 8m, 24d.
    I must record that I received a visitor this morning. As the sun shone fair on the Rectory gates, I spied a figure approaching, and at once knew it to be Dr Barrieux.
    My hands trembled as I, finding Martha absent, opened the door to my home. He waited but briefly and yet would only stand two feet inside, and then invited me to dine at the Hall on the eve of the Lord’s day, being the morrow.
    1798, 8m, 25d.
    God!
    What I found there, at the Hall!
    I cannot set it down tonight. I will take a bottle to my bed and that and God will aid my sleep, I pray.
    1798, 8m, 26d.
    God abandoned me in the short hours of the night, and I was sent a series of visions of Hell.
     
    Who can measure this place?
    It is infinite. The sky is brooding and red, the ground is hot, and sharp, and cuts the soles of the feet. The air is rent with the cries of the sinful as they receive their punishment, a flaming wind blows upon all sides causing madness, as of dogs.
    What vast unnameable horrors are found!
    I saw them all.
    The sinners each tortured for all eternity according to their crime.
    The lustful are cast upon spits and roasted on the fires of their former passions, and yea, are whipped by devils with the faces of dogs and the legs of the horse. They whip the lustful ones with leather thongs made of their own skin.
    On another mountainside, are the gluttonous. Here they swim among the slurry from their own greed, forever drowning.
    There lie the blasphemers, among piles of dry and dusty stones, each forced to eat the rock of truth they denied in life. They choke and gag as their teeth splinter and blood wells from their gums in never-ending streams.
     
    I awoke from my torments in the dark morning, and slept no more.
    Such are the visions of Hell.
    But what then, is Heaven? How does the celestial realm appear? Why, Lord, is it so much harder to bring to sight than the other place?

Friday 23rd July
    F riday night and Rebecca considers her fate.
    Should she re-read the stupid novel she finished this morning, or watch The Wizard of Oz, for some reason the only DVD in the house.
    Her father’s gone out. She doesn’t know where. It seems he’s out when she’s in and she’s out when he’s in, a carefully orchestrated avoidance.
    She’s texted a few people back in Greenwich, but had no replies, which makes her feel like ancient history. She’s texted Adam, as if everything is okay between them, telling him a little about Winterfold, a little about Ferelith, but he hasn’t replied either. She’s miles away from home, with all the freedom in the world, but nothing to do. Not even anyone else to do nothing with.
    As she thinks that, the girl, Ferelith, pops into her head. She tries to pin down what she found so strange about her, but can’t. It’s more than the way she looks, though, she knows that. More than her thin pale skin and pixie eyes. It’s something about what’s inside, but Rebecca can’t tell what that is yet.
    Idly, she gets off the sofa and picks up the case for the DVD, her face burning as she remembers being caught singing.
    She wonders what the film is doing there. Her father won’t have bought it, even he knows enough about her to know she’s too old for that kind of stuff now. Maybe the people who own the house left it.
    She wonders how long her dad will stay in this cottage, what will happen when they go back home, whether they’ll have to run away again.
    She stops herself, checking that she did actually think of it as running away. But what else would