Read The Time Fetch for Free Online Page B

like a kite being pulled in, stopping and starting. Edward saw, with a very unpleasant drop in his stomach, that the thing had no head.
    There were gasps and whispers. “What is it?”
    The thing hit the glass with a thud and someone screamed. For a moment, it hung there, suspended. Its arms seemed to stretch up and reach toward them. Then, suddenly, it crumpled and twisted sideways.
    “Look! It’s just an old coat,” someone shouted.
    And with relief, Edward saw it was true. It looked like an old gray raincoat. The wind must have snatched it up and puffed it full of air so that it only seemed alive. Now it spun away from them, jerking and turning, and then it fell out of sight.
    For a moment the whole lunchroom was silent, then the silence was broken with loud laughter and gasps of relief.
    Edward pulled himself away from staring out the window. He turned back to Feenix. “My rock, please.”
    Feenix’s face showed nothing. “What rock?”
    Edward turned his gaze to her hand. It was empty.
    “What’d you do with it?” he demanded.
    For a minute she was silent, then she said, “I think it’s time for you to stop following me around and steaming up my space.”
    “What are you talking about?” It wasn’t possible that she was saying what he thought she was saying.
    “I see you in the morning, peering out your window curtain when I go by.” Edward heard a few little snickers of delight break out around him.
    He took a step back. “You are grossly mistaken.”
    She smiled. “Am I?” She adjusted her little purse on her shoulder and turned away.

CHAPTER FOUR
    The Fog
    Brigit slipped into a seat and felt the heat in her face and neck slowly recede. She saw Feenix head out of the lunchroom followed by her little gang. Edward sat down in his corner. Danton bounced back to his lunch, laughing and talking to the people around him. No one turned to look at her. That she had been forgotten was both a relief and a disappointment.
    It hadn’t always been like this. She was a quiet person, it was true, but back in her old school she had had friends and people to sit with at lunch. But then Leo, her baby brother, had died in his sleep and her parents had decided that it would be best to move to a new place. Somewhere in the shuffle, she stopped talking. Her mother, she knew, was worried about this and thought maybe it was because Brigit felt guilty or something and had brought her to doctors. Brigit listened to the doctors politely and nodded her head yes and no, and returned to her silence. After a while her mother, who was so heavy with sadness, let her be. Her father seemed to spend more and more time at work, so she hardly ever saw him. Sometimes, though, he came to her room late at night when he thought she was asleep and just stood in the doorway. Only her grandad really tried to talk to her. He told her not to fret, that her voice had gone journeying and when she really needed it, it would come back to her. He was always saying things like this. He called her an Old Soul. He had been born in County Cork in Ireland and had come over here with his own mother and grandma when he was fifteen. He had an endless supply of stories about selkies and banshees and the little folk who lived in the hollow hills and could bring luck or ruin. He knew about the second sight and the songs that could make a person dance until they dropped. It used to be that most nights after dinner he’d sing her a song and tell her a story, but since Leo had gone, he had become more and more forgetful and withdrawn into his own past. Sometimes she imagined that they were all under some sort of enchantment and that if only she could find the right words she would call them all back. But whatever those words were, she had no idea and, of course, even if she did, she wasn’t sure she would be able to speak them.
    She finished her lunch and opened her book. She did not look up until the bell rang. She had been buried so deep in the wonderful