-You are reading episodes of THE POWER IN THE DARK, which is Book 1 of THE
ANCIENT BLOODLINES TRILOGY by Barry Mathias. ISBN: 9781897435113
CHAPTER 10
When Gwen awoke she was cold and she ached all over. She shivered violently and tried to stand up. Her left leg gave way under her and she fell to the ground and gave a cry of pain. Peter sat up with a start; he had been dozing fitfully since first light.
"'All right?"
"Yes. It's my leg, it's numb." She began to rub the circulation back into the limb. "I feel cold and damp. We must get moving and find some place to dry our clothes and get some warm food."
"I be cold as well, an' my leg hurts all the time." Peter got to his feet and began to beat his arms across his thin body. "Still I've 'ad worse nights."
"You have?" Gwen's voice was full of disbelief.
"There 'ave been many nights when I 'ad to sleep outside after my farder beat me." He rubbed his twisted leg.
"Beat you?" Gwen could not imagine such behaviour from a father. Tom Roper had never raised his voice to her, let alone hit her. "That must have been awful," she murmured.
"Oh it weren't that bad," Peter said, enjoying her attention. "I got used to it." He tried to think of something brave to tell her. "I used to get rats walk all over me."
Gwen shuddered. "What about your mother?"
"She was afraid of 'im. 'E would beat her something rotten." He yawned. "I 'ope 'e's dead."
"You mustn't say such things," Gwen said. She rose unsteadily to her feet. "You must not wish anybody dead."
"Why not then?" Peter protested. "Ye would wish 'im dead if 'e was ye farder."
"I wouldn't!" Gwen spoke sharply. "There must be some good in him."
Peter laughed scornfully. "Huh! What do ye know about anything! You've 'ad it soft! All ye life ye've 'ad it soft." He hobbled about in front of her, like an ugly gnome, his grimy face creased in an angry grimace. "Ye've 'ad it soft!" he bellowed, jabbing a dirt-encrusted finger at her. "Ever since ye were given to 'em!"
"What do you mean given?" She had been in the act of walking away from Peter's unpleasant display, but now she faced him defiantly.
Peter looked sheepish. "It's what me mother said. That's all."
"What did you mean?" She spoke with icy calmness, and her dark eyes bore into his. She took a sudden step towards him, and Peter, realizing she was taller than he was, backed away, tripped over a clump of ferns, and fell sideways in a tangle of limbs. "It's not my fault," he whined. "Me mother said it."
"Said what?" She was standing over him. He felt utterly demoralised.
"Alright," he gasped. "Me mother said we was not to speak of it, 'cos Tom Roper's wife, ye mother," he added quickly, "she weren't able to have no children. Then sudden-like she 'ave a baby, just like that, 'cept it were not a baby she 'ad but a child more like."
"A child? What do you mean?"
"Thee! It were thee that suddenly came. But ye weren't hers, ye was given to 'er, an' ye farder," he swallowed, "he ain't ye farder neither. Ye was given to 'em."
"I don't understand you," Gwen said and moved away from him. But, even as she spoke, she recalled a number of things that had seemed strange at the time, but which she dismissed as merely curious or unimportant. She had always felt a distance between her mother and herself. As a young girl she sensed she was different to the other children: always leading the games or remaining happily aloof when it suited her.
