Black Lake Read Online Free

mother. Kate was always the first to become restless, to walk to the window, to watch the water streaming down it, to suggest that they lived in the most boring place on earth. Their mother, Marianne, used to say, “Only boring people are bored,” but lately she had given up and taken to ignoring Kate as best she could. Philip was glad of this. He didn’t like feeling that it might have been better had they been born somewhere else—that there was a world sliding by without them.
    It looked misty outside, but today there would be nowhere to read. Slumping onto the floor, his head banged against the bottom of the windowsill and then he banged it again, on purpose, for no good reason at all.
    He sat there until his backside began to ache and he thought he’d better get up. He told himself that when he wanted to come back and look at Muckish and Dooish, he could. It was still his room. Dulough was still their house. Their father had told them so in his study after Christmas. He’d come to an arrangement with the government: Tourists would visit Dulough and the money they paid would fix the things that needed fixing, like the roof and the chimneys. It was very expensive to keep such a big house going and they didn’t have the money to do it on their own anymore. Philip thought that Francis could have fixed things, but he didn’t say it. The decision had been made.
    On the landing it was surprisingly quiet. Philip had expected to see men everywhere, but aside from his feet creaking the same old floorboards that had creaked all his life, there was no sound. He wandered into the upstairs drawing room just in case he and Kate had been left some schoolwork to do. His mother would often leave them elaborate notes, assigning chapters to read, suggesting how long it might take them to do a certain lesson, how she would be back at a certain time (sharp!). But of course the drawing room was empty now, too. The long mahogany table where they did their work had left indentations in the carpet like the ones in his bedroom. The sofa with the sagging rose-patterned covers was gone, as was the sideboard that held all the board games and the old Meccano set. In the bay window, the wicker chair where his mother sat in the evenings had vanished too. The only thing left was the huge gilt-edged mirror, still hanging precariously above the fireplace. Philip looked up and saw himself reflected back, a scrawny boy in a green woolen jumper and blue corduroy trousers. He wondered if the mirror was being left behind for the tourists. With a bit of luck, he thought, it might squash one of them.
    Above the main stairs, there was a long stain on the wall where the tapestry of the hunt had been. The hall was as dark as always, the only light coming in through the stained glass window at one end. Even on bright days, it was a gloomy, slightly frightening place, and on days like this, when the grayness seemed to have come down from the sky and settled on everything, he didn’t like to be there at all. Ordinarily he took the servants’ staircase, which began outside his bedroom door and went directly down into the kitchen. As the house didn’t have servants anymore (except for Mrs. Connolly, who wasn’t really a servant), he had never met anyone on the back stairs and considered them his territory.
    Dulough’s front door was big and heavy. It would have taken two Philips standing side by side with their arms stretched out to span its width. He stood on the ends of his toes, reached the latch, and put all his weight into pulling it towards him. Day filled the hall. The gravel swept in a semicircle around the front door; it was filled with chairs, tables, sideboards, beds (he could see his own), cupboards, bedside tables, armchairs, sofas, the wicker chair from the upstairs drawing room, and a rolled-up carpet. It was as if the house had taken a great breath and spat out its insides.
    Each piece of furniture had a label that said either “Cottage” or