Read Online The Blood List by Sarah Naughton - Free Book Online

arms.
    ‘Have you upset anyone recently?’ Juliet said.
    ‘Only Abel.’
    She gave a humourless laugh. ‘Whatever you think of your brother, he is no friend of Beelzebub. No, I was thinking of witchcraft.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Perhaps
someone has performed maleficium on you.’
    Barnaby sighed. Every time anyone in the village sickened or died Juliet was convinced it was caused by malevolent spells. Like most of the villagers she was a firm believer in witchcraft. She
hung charms on her bed and always bashed in the shells of boiled eggs once the insides were scraped out, to prevent witches using them as boats. Frances had removed at least three witch-bottles
from the chimney that Juliet had hidden up there to protect the household, scolding Juliet that their contents of hair, nail clippings, pins and urine were ludicrous and revolting. Once Juliet had
even tried to cure a stye in Barnaby’s eye by licking the eyes of a live frog and then licking the infection: for that Frances had almost dismissed her. Abel often accused Juliet of being a
wicked pagan and threatened to report her to Father Nicholas. Barnaby was sure his mother was right when she said that cleanliness and faith in God would keep you far healthier than cat’s
urine and dried spiders, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to ignore a magpie or to cross his knife and fork on his plate (although Abel deliberately did so to upset Juliet).
    And tonight, while the fire whispered in the grate and beetles clicked in the thatch, he found it hard to scoff at her beliefs.
    Instinctively he glanced across at the black square of the window. But it was cloudy now – too cloudy to see any flying shapes silhouetted against the moon.
    ‘You were lucky to escape unharmed,’ Juliet said. ‘Something was protecting you. It seems that the spirits of the forest have not forgotten you.’
    He looked at her uneasily, then quickly finished the milk and went up to bed. There were times he liked to be reminded of his origins, but not tonight.

3
Kingdoms of Darknes
    He woke the next morning stiff and bruised from his fall in the forest. But no-one seemed to care about that. All they were interested in was that he had gone there alone. His
normally level-headed mother screeched like a fishwife and after haranguing Barnaby she turned on her husband. Henry was too soft and indulgent with Barnaby, the boy was growing up spoiled and
arrogant and needed to be disciplined with a firm hand or he would become unmanageable. While Abel smirked from the landing Barnaby just stared at her in astonishment. It was not like her to care
so much about his comings and goings: usually she was far too busy coddling and fussing over his brother. If it had been Abel with a bruised backside, he would have been bedbound for a week with
hot compresses and spiced honeyed wine.
    It was an eternal mystery to him (and, Barnaby suspected, his father) how Abel occupied such a position in his mother’s affections. Abel was self-pitying, humourless, spiteful and
cowardly: a snivelling little toad, as Griff put it. And yet whenever he raised his long face from his Bible Frances was there with a beaming smile for him, listening politely as he spouted some
verse obviously chosen for Barnaby (‘
Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall . . .’).
When his skinny legs hurt from kneeling on the cold church floor,
his mother would massage them; if he got a tickle on his bird-chest she would rub beeswax and eucalyptus into it.
    Barnaby, on the other hand, could do nothing right. If he been brave, it was reckless attention-seeking, if he was charming he wanted something, if Abel struck him he must have said something
cruel, if he struck Abel he was a bully.
    When one of Henry’s associates brought back a pineapple from the Americas one Christmas, Frances allowed Abel to polish off the whole thing, for the sole reason that Barnaby had refused to
eat his goose wing