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.He was more shadow than boy.What was he wearing?The Whispering Boy stopped when Roland spoke.Maybe he had frightened him with the metal.He waved it again.The Whispering Boy began to come towards him.But this movement was as strange as the boy’s appearance, for though the ground on which they both stood was uneven and strewn with brick rubble, the Whispering Boy seemed to move as though he were sliding across a polished ballroom floor.The whispering noise grew in volume.Roland was beginning to think that running might indeed be the best option and, besides, there was no one here to witness his retreat.But just as he was thinking this, a big fat fly flew straight at him.He nearly brained himself with the metal bar trying to swat it away.But then another came, and another, and another, and in a few fateful, hideous seconds Roland realised what was happening, though his mind struggled to cope with the information.The Whispering Boy was only the shape of a boy and nothing more and that shape was formed from flies, countless flies, their sibilant movements causing a continual hiss like the whisper of a thousand souls.Roland turned to run, but the flies were quicker than even his thoughts.They flew to his face, smothering him, wrapping themselves around his mouth and nose like a living scarf.Roland clenched his mouth shut and tried to keep the flies out of his nose but he couldn’t block it and breathe.His mind struggled against the inevitability of his fate.His lips parted ever so slightly, and the flies took their chance.gThe flies re-formed into the shape of the Whispering Boy, though more raggedly this time, as if their discipline was all spent.Away they went, now in the form of a boy, now merely a cloud of flies, now nothing, now a boy once more.They shimmered and shifted and dissolved until once again they were nothing.Flies and nothing more.*While the Woman in White had been recounting her tale, I had been utterly caught up in it, my mind entirely concentrated on the listening and picturing of the words.I was there.I saw the Whispering Boy.I saw those flies.I witnessed that awful death.But yet again, I felt that I was not the only witness to those events.Something flickered at the very edge of my vision, something that was never there when I looked, something that was always a blur, a faint trace, a ghostly mirage.As soon as the story ended, it was as if the listening had used up an enormous amount of my strength and energy.Vampire-like, those tales were draining me.‘What time is it, miss?’ I asked again, no longer sure whether she had ever answered.‘It’s getting late,’ she said, making no attempt to look at her watch.I was shocked to see that the view outside was now almost monochrome: a vague sketch in shades of blue, while only the very uppermost edge of the bank was lit by the dying sun.‘My grandfather will be so worried,’ I said forlornly.‘He will be wondering what has become of me.I wish I could tell him that I was safe.’‘Your grandfather?’ said the Woman in White.‘Yes,’ I said.‘He is meeting me at King’s Cross Station and we are going to travel across London together to Charing Cross, where we shall board another train.At least I hope we shall.With all this delay, we may have to catch a later train and –’‘It is very kind of your grandfather to take such an interest in his grandson’s education.’‘My grandfather pays for my schooling, miss,’ I said.‘He has always taken a special interest in my education.He had an unfortunate experience as a schoolboy and it affected him deeply.’‘Really?’ she said.‘He was at a school where there was a terrible incident involving one of the boys.’‘How awful,’ said the Woman in White.‘Do tell.’‘Well,’ I said, trying to ignore the grin she now wore and determined to wipe it from her face.‘Actually, there was a suicide.’She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.‘I’m sorry if that shocks you.’ I hoped very much that it had.‘But I’m afraid that was what happened.And I’m afraid it gets much, much worse.’‘Go on,’ she said.‘It concerns the headmaster of my grandfather’s school.The boys called him Monty.His real name was Montague –’‘And what did this Monty do?’ she interrupted.‘He put it about that a certain boy was stealing things from the other boys [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]