Page 1 (1/2)

1

A Stranger in the Night

Thehorse’s eye, and in the mouse’s eye, too, when Tolly fetched it out from under his pillow to see The clock went tick-tock, and in the stillness he thought he heard little bare feet running across the floor, then laughter and whispering, and a sound like the pages of a big book being turned over

LM Boston,

The Children of Green Knowe

Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain Many years later, Meggie had only to close her eyes and she could still hear it, like tiny fingers tapping on the pane A dog barked somewhere in the darkness, and however often she tossed and turned Meggie couldn’t get to sleep

The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages ‘I’ with a hard, rectangular thing like that under your head,’ her father had teased, the first time he found a book under her pillow ‘Go on, adht’

‘Soie had said ‘But it only works for children’ Which ie had never called her father anything else

That night – when so ie had one of her favourite books under her pillow, and since the rain wouldn’t let her sleep she sat up, rubbed the drowsiness froly when she opened it Meggie thought this first whisper sounded a little different fro on whether or not she already knew the story it was going to tell her But she needed light She had a box of matches hidden in the drawer of her bedside table Mo had forbidden her to light candles at night He didn’t like fire ‘Fire devours books,’ he always said, but she elve years old, she could surely be trusted to keep an eye on a couple of candle flaht She had five candlesticks on the sill, and she was just holding the lighted match to one of the black wicks when she heard footsteps outside She blew out the match in alarm – oh, hoell she remembered it, even many years later – and knelt to look out of the hich ith rain Then she saw him

The rain cast a kind of pallor on the darkness, and the stranger was little lea to his wet forehead The rain was falling on hinored it He stood there ht at least war at the house

I ie But she stayed put, her heart thudding, and went on gazing out into the night as if the stranger’s stillness had infected her Suddenly, he turned his head, and Meggie felt as if he were looking straight into her eyes She shot off the bed so fast the open book fell to the floor, and she ran barefoot out into the dark corridor This was the end of May, but it was chilly in the old house

There was still a light on in Mo’s rooie had inherited her love of books froe fro could lull her to sleep better than Mo’s cal Nothing chased nightmares away faster than the rustle of printed paper

But the figure outside the house was no dreaht was bound in pale blue linen Later, Meggie remembered that too What unimportant little details stick in the memory