The house is crowded with mourners. The world and his oyster knew and loved her grandmother, and the funeral in the seaside village’s ancient church was packed. A celebration of a life, the vicar intoned.
Jean agrees, but all through the service, and afterwards as she helps her mother pass around sandwiches in the front room, her mind returns again and again to Granny’s bequest.
‘There’s something I want you to have,’ she told Jean in the last days before she slipped into the sleep before death.
She raised an arm an inch off the bedcovers, her crippled hand gesturing to the massive mahogany wardrobe which stood against the wall.
Jean had often searched for Narnia in this wardrobe, believing as a tiny girl that if only Granny would store fur coats there instead of satiny capes and black boots, she would be able to burrow her way to Lantern Waste.
‘A book, in a wooden casket at the back,’ Granny said, her dry voice cracking. ‘Take it, when I’m buried but not before. Read it immediately after that.’
Jean passes the sausage rolls and can’t stand it any longer. Excusing herself to yet another villager who wants to hug her and be sorry for her loss, she slips from the room, up the grand stairs and into Granny’s bedroom.
The bed is neatly made, the dressing table polished, the unlabelled crystal cut bottles of colourful lotions and potions – which Jean rarely saw Granny use – tidied into serried ranks. The mirror glints in a brief burst of sunshine finding its way through the heavy lace which hangs between the velvet curtains.
Jean pulls open the wardrobe door, scrabbles behind the layers of old hat and shoe boxes. There is the casket, as promised, and when she pulls it out and lifts the lid, there too is the book. Thick, with a leather cover embossed with a border of gorgeous images of plants and birds, and with a moon, sun and stars orbiting the centre. The signs of the zodiac fill odd spaces here and there.
Jean resists opening it. She takes the book downstairs and without bothering with a coat, runs across the out-of-season deserted road to take the path between the low dunes to the beach. Kicking off her shoes, she plumps onto the damp sand, stretches out her legs, and opens the book at Chapter One: ‘How to raise the dead’.
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No I haven’t read Inkheart. Perhaps I should….
Sally had been sitting so long on the sand reading her book she was beginning to freeze.
It had been a pleasant, unseasonable winter’s day, the sun shining from a cloudless sky and, encouraged by weather bureau’s forecast, she had headed for a nearby beach.
Not many people about at this time of year and she settled happily at the water’s edge to begin a novel she had been planning to read for ages.
The novel was all about goblins and werewolves and other mythical creatures – and soon had her completely entranced.
So engrossed was Sally that she totally forgot where she was and it was only an icy wind blowing on shore that raised her from her reverie.
She looked up and realised with surprise that it was becoming very late. The weather had turned cold and she began to shiver, wrapping her cardigan around her against the elements.
She stood, slipped on her sandals and shook the sand from the towel on which she had been sitting.
A shadow fell across her vision and, looking up, she was surprised to see a goblin-like figure standing before her.
“Wh..who..are you? she asked, totally shocked.
“I’m Rumplestiltskin,” he replied in a clear, high voice.
“B..b..but you can’t be,” she stammered, completely overcome.
“Well, I am.”
“Well then, where have you come from?” Sally asked.
“Guess,” he said giggling.
“My book?”
“Close,” Rumnplestiltskin replied. “However, I have a little house just up there in the sand dunes.
“If you’re good and hurry up I’ll show you.”
The goblin took Sally by the hand and led her up a path away from the beach. With some trepidation, disbelievingly she wondered what on earth she was about to find.
A likely story! But have you read Inkheart? Where characters from the book get transferred into our world when the book is read by a Silvertongue. Theoretically for kids …
Really! Good luck with that!! LOL