‘It’s so sad,’ Tanya says. Alice must have collected dolls for the daughter she never knew and who never came home, from countries she never visited, that only bore a vague relation to the dolls that represent them.
‘I’ve been trying to contact Catherine,’ Alan says, as if reading Tanya’s mind.
‘Any luck?’ Tanya says.
‘Not so far. I’ve hit a blank with the adoption agency.’
‘What can I do?’ Tanya asks. She wants to complete the circle. Weave everyone together.
‘Even if we find her, she may not want to hear about her birth mother, remember that. You can’t join everything up, Tanya.’ Miss Quill touches Tanya’s shoulder very briefly. ‘You should know that.’
‘Don’t you think we should clear up in here, though?’ Tanya says again.
‘We’ll leave it to the bone spiders to decide what to do with their house. We’ll check in on them soon.’
The bone spiders are waiting by the door when they come out. ‘Goodbye,’ Tanya says. The little bone spider jumps onto her hand.
The mother bone spider walks across the hallway, her feet tick-tocking across the floor. She stops in front of them, bends her head, and places one of her legs behind the other.
‘How long do you think they can stay there?’ Tanya asks, stopping in the garden and looking back. It’s dusk. The stone house stands grey against a sky the colour of sherbet lollipops. A snail slowly climbs the railings.
‘Well, we’ve got some news about that,’ Miss Quill says. She nods to Alan.
Alan blushes. ‘Felicity, Miss Quill’s solicitor, has seen to it that Constantine Oliver has to return the money to Alice’s estate. The evidence of a cover-up was overwhelming and he wasn’t inclined to fight for some reason.’
‘Fear is a powerful persuader,’ Miss Quill says.
‘You’re a scary woman,’ Tanya tells her.
‘Thank you, Tanya,’ Miss Quill replies, standing taller.
‘Felicity, thanks to Miss Quill—’
‘Don’t bring me into it,’ Miss Quill interrupts, bristling.
‘Fine. Felicity, on behalf of Alice’s estate, has appointed me caretaker for the house,’ Alan says, smiling shyly, ‘for at least a year, with a view to continuing when we find a charity to turn the stone house into a home for newly arrived refugees.’
‘The bone spiders can stay here, spinning good dreams for residents,’ Miss Quill says. ‘Or, if they want to go home one day, I know someone who might take them. I’ve done some research and it looks like they’re from a remote star system. They must’ve fallen through the Rift.’
‘Until then, I’ll be looking after the bone spiders,’ Alan says.
‘Felicity will be coming in to check up on you,’ Miss Quill says. She’s not looking at him.
‘Really? Not you?’ Alan asks, not looking at her.
‘I’m a busy woman, Alan F. Turnpike, I may well be otherwise engaged on Thursday at half past seven. We’ll have to see.’
Alan’s grin gets bigger.
‘Glad that’s cleared up,’ Tanya says. ‘But there’s one thing I haven’t worked out. Why did I go to the stone house in the first place? What draws lonely people to it?’
‘I would’ve thought that was obvious,’ Miss Quill says. ‘Dandelions.’
‘Dandelions?’
‘You said you blew on a dandelion clock that first day. Some of them stuck to you. There were more in the air, carried by the breeze. Some of those may have stuck to you and to other people.’
‘So?’
‘I thought everyone knew that they’re homing beacons.’
‘They are?’
‘In many planets, people add a homing device to wind-wandering seeds. They seek out the desolate.’
‘The bone spider tried to bring her daughter back to the house by sending out the filamentous achenes?’
‘Exactly. Only she found other lonely people instead,’ Miss Quill says.
Tanya looks up to where she first saw Amira. Lit up by the lilac skies of a distant planet, the cobwebbed windows look like stained glass.
She picks the last dandelion clock in the garden and blows. Four o’clock. Not even close. The filamentous achenes catch a lift on the breeze and, hopefully, lead someone home.
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About the Authors
PATRICK NESS is the creator of the BBC television series Class and the author of nine novels and a short story collection. He’s best known for his books for young adults, including his New York Times bestselling novel The Rest of Us Just Live Here, the acclaimed Chaos Walking trilogy, More Than This, and the Carnegie Medal-winning A Monster Calls. A Monster Calls was released as a major motion picture—with the screenplay by Patrick himself—starring Liam Neeson and Sigourney Weaver. Born in Virginia, Patrick lives in London.
www.patrickness.com
A. K. BENEDICT writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins, and Doctor Who action figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit Award and is in development as a major eight-part television series by Company Pictures. Her second novel was Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts. She’s written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish, and her short stories have been featured in anthologies, including Great British Horror and The Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea, England, with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.
www.akbenedict.com
Books by Patrick Ness and A. K. Benedict
Class: The Stone House
Class: Joyride
Class: What She Does Next Will Astound You
Books by Patrick Ness
The Rest of Us Just Live Here
Credits
Cover photographs © Getty Images; © Shutterstock
Cover design by www.headdesign.co.uk
Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
CLASS: THE STONE HOUSE. Copyright © 2016 by A. K. Benedict. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958064
ISBN 978-0-06-266617-8
EPub Edition © February 2017 ISBN 9780062666192
* * *
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Originally published in the UK in 2016 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
First US Edition, 2017
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