Greetings from Madame Sidler! This week I read chapters 42-47 of North! Or Be Eaten. By now I suppose my fellow readers have picked up on my appreciation for creepy passages. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that I enjoy creeping in secret passages. Perhaps that’s why people call me creepy? Hmm. Let’s not dwell on that. At any rate, here is an excellent creepy passage.
When yellow light from the strike of the match filled the chamber, Janner was so shocked by what he saw that he wouldn’t have been surprised if his heart leapt up his throat, out of his mouth, and landed with a splat on the dirt floor.
Someone sat against the opposite wall, staring at him.
She was dressed in rags, her skin leathery and caked with grime, and her eyes were bottomless pits set in the wrinkled landscape of her face. She looked familiar, which told Janner she must be one of the hags of Tilling Court.
He dropped the match and everything went black.
She laughed. It was a dry, papery laugh, a dead crackle.
“Child,” she whispered.
Janner was too terrified to move. He imagined her crawling toward him in jerking movements, those wide, black, spidery eyes able to see him in the dark somehow. Fangs bumped and growled in the house above. He wondered which was worse: capture by the Fangs or the wet stink of the hag in the cellar.
“Child,” she whispered again, louder.
Janner closed his eyes and tried to shut out the world. When he heard the woman grunt and drag herself across the floor toward him, his breaths came in short, desperate gasps. His head seemed to thicken; bright points of light danced across his eyelids.
Her hand touched his foot, and Janner tried to scream, but his voice made no sound. The stars burst into fiery colors, and he had the sensation of falling slowly upward and into the dreadful, silent well of space.
—From chapter 46, “The Strander Burrow.”
What was your favorite passage this week—from the book club reading or anywhere else? Post it in the comments!
This week in the forum, there’s a new thread about songs of lament. There are also all kinds of other conversations—names, favorite characters and quotes, Andrew’s sly sneakery, the First Well, and more. Feel free to strike up a conversation on any Wingfeathery topic that interests you!
This week the passage I chose has definite spoilers, so don’t read it if you don’t want to know.
This is a section I both love and hate. I’m glad this isn’t the end of the story and that there is still more to be told.
From Chapter 35 The Fate of Sara Cobbler
“Go!” Sara screamed again.
Already burning with guilt, already aching from the sadness he knew he would feel, Janner snapped the reins. The carriage pulled forward, bouncing as it roled over the Overseer’s foot and dragged him to the ground. Mobrik finally overcame Sara Cobbler, and the portcullis came down. The rear of the carriage cleared the falling gate by inches.
Janner turned, tears stinging his eyes, and caught a final glimpse of the Fork! Factory! Sign. Below it, through the bars of the gate, he saw the Overseer rolling on the ground, screaming. He saw Mobrik’s face, his lip curled with hatred as he watched Janner escape.
And he heard Sara Cobbler crying.
For several minutes, Janner knew nothing but that sound. It filled his head and became not just Sara’s voice, but the voices of all the children in Skree, all the parents in Skree whose lives were torn and trashed like old paper.