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.Hence theovergrown condition of the Old Road, the grasses sprouting in the eroded ruts, the bushescreeping up onto it a little more every year.Even though the Old Road would save the wearytraveler several miles, no one took it who had the slightest chance of being on it after the sunwent down.For there was a ghost that haunted the place, a vengeful, angry ghost; one that inhabited theSkull Hill Pass.It was no legend; it had been seen reliably by the few very fortunate soulswho had managed to elude his grasp by fleeing his pursuit past the running water of thestream at the foot of the hill.The new road had been built fifty years ago, or so Rune hadbeen told, after Father Donlin went up on the hill to exorcise the Ghost, and was found upthere in the morning, stone cold dead, with a look of utter terror on his face.That, in fact, was how most of the victims were found; and no one who ever went up there atnight returned alive.Those few who had escaped death had been going down the hill whenthe sun set, having miscalculated or suffered some mishap on the road that had delayedthem past the safe hour.There had been five victims besides the Father that Rune herselfknew about, and stories spoke of dozens.No one knew how long the ghost had been there, nor why he haunted and killed.GrannyBeeson, Thom's grandmother, and the oldest person in the village, said he'd been there aslong as she remembered.And now Rune was walking straight up the haunted hill, into the Ghost's power.Deliberately.Seeking the Ghost out, a spirit that had killed a holy priest, as if her music had a chance ofappeasing it.With more than enough time, as she climbed the uneven, root-ridged track, to regret herimpulse.She squinted through the trees at the setting sun; she reckoned by the angle that once shereached the top of the pass, she'd have a little more than half an hour to settle herself andwait for her-host.There seemed fewer birds on this track than the other, and they all seemedto be birds of ill-omen: ravens, corbies, blackbirds, black boat-tails.She tried to think if any of the ghost's other victims had been female.Maybe he only wentafter men-But, no.Granny Beeson had said that two of the dead had been lovers running off to getmarried against the girls' parental wishes, so the thing killed women too.Stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself.If I live through this, I am never going to let mytemper get me into this kind of mess again.Not ever.I swear.But first, she was going to have to survive the rest of the night.CHAPTER FOURAs sunset neared, the few birds that had been about made themselves vanish into thebrush, and Rune was left alone on Skull Hill without even a raven for company.It might havebeen her imagination, but the trees seemed a little starved up here, a strange, skeletalgrowth, with limbs like bony hands clawing the sky.It seemed colder up here as well-and thewind was certainly stronger, moaning softly through the trees in a way that soundeduncannily human, and doing nothing for her confidence level.She looked around at the unpromising landscape and chose a rock, finding one with a littlehollow.She spent some time pulling up some of the dry grass of last year's growth, givingthe rock a kind of cushion to keep the cold away, and sat down to wait.As the crimson suntouched the top of Beacon Hill opposite her perch, and crept all-too-quickly behind it, shebegan to shiver, half with cold, and half with the fear she had no difficulty in admitting nowthat she was alone.Of all the stupid things I've ever done, this was one of the stupidest.It was not a particularly spectacular sunset; no clouds to catch and hold the sun's last rays.Just the red disk sinking towards and then behind the hill, the pale sky growingdarker-deepening from blue to black, and all too soon; the stars coming out, brightest first,pinpoints of cold blue-white light.The wind died to nothing just at sunset, then picked up again after the last stars appeared.Rune took out her fiddle with benumbed fingers, and tuned it by feel, then sat on her rockand fingered every tune she knew without actually playing, to keep her fingers limber.Andstill nothing happened.She was tired, cold, and her fear was fading.Her bones began to ache with the cold [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]