Read Fell (The Sight 2) for Free Online Page B

fondly. “Shouldn’t you be in the meadow with Teela? Why did you sneak away, boy?”
    The sheepdog whined softly and lay down beside her, his huge black eyes looking up guiltily and his tail wagging. He was often sneaking off to be with Alina. How different Elak was to the savage creature she had just seen in her dream, and how glad Alina was of it.
    “You mustn’t run off like that, boy. Malduk will punish you, and me too,” whispered Alina tenderly. “But it’s so good to see you.”
    The girl smiled and stroked the collie’s furry head. He felt so warm and soft, and she suddenly realised how desperately fond she was of Elak, and his sister, Teela.
    “Dear Elak, you’re my friend, at least,” said Alina. “Animals don’t mind if I’m a changeling or not, do they? Not like the stupid villagers.”
    Alina lay there stroking her friend, and she smiled to herself at her own foolishness.
    “You don’t understand me, do you, Elak?” she whispered. “Oh, I know you and Teela answer the whistles Malduk taught me, but it’s not as if animals are like people, is it, really thinking and feeling, I mean?”
    Alina sighed, wishing that people were as nice as animals, and Elak gave a whimper, but of course he said nothing. If little Mia had been there, she might have argued. She had said something to the older girl only two days before that Alina remembered now. “Not just anyone can reach animals like you, Alina, and not even the fairies know their hearts as well. Father always said animals sense what’s inside a person. That’s why they trust you.”
    But Alina thought of a day in the little wooden church in Moldov, when the priest had talked so scornfully about animals. “The holy Church teaches that God made man above all the animals,” he had sermonised loudly, “and we must trust in His power.” The priest was a cruel man, very unkind to the dogs in the village, and Alina suddenly wondered if animals could really think like people, and if they could what it was they thought about.
    “What do sheep dream about, Elak?” she asked the dog suddenly, but he just whimpered again and licked her hand.
    “Nothing but grass, I bet, Elak, or warm milk and a hole in a fence?”
    Alina yawned and so did the collie.
    “It’s such a silly life, Elak, a sheep’s. Munching on grass and drifting about in a flock, just to be shorn for your wool, or slaughtered at the Christ Mass. What’s the point of it, and why do they group together so stupidly like that?”
    Elak lay there dumbly, and Alina ruffled the fur on his head with a grin, then answered her own question. “Perhaps they feel safer in the fold, dear Elak. Like most things do.”
    The conversation had been rather one-sided, and Alina began to feel dizzy again. She lay back once more, but found herself still awake, staring mournfully at the slats in the old wooden ceiling, letting in the bitter weather, and the little flakes of snow that fluttered down, but vanished before they even reached her.
    Alina was beginning to doze again when the hackles rose on Elak’s back. There was another noise, outside this time, and the dog started to growl furiously at the barn door.
    “What is it, boy?”
    The door opened and closed again noiselessly, and there in the darkness Alina Sculcuvant saw the glint of an axe blade. Elak sprang up with a snarl, but Alina caught hold of the dog as she realised who was standing there.
    “No, Elak, don’t, it’s only Mia.”
    Across the barn the little girl put the axe down carefully against the door and walked towards her friend. She was carrying a heavy sheepskin coat under her right arm and a cloth bundle in her left. The thick woollen coat was an old one that Malduk used to wear up in the mountains with the sheep, and was almost bigger than Mia was.
    “For you, Alina,” said Mia, as she reached her bed. “You’ll need it on a bitter night like this.”
    She held it out proudly to Alina, as Elak lay down again and put his