Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Acknowledgements
VIKING
Published by Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States in 2010 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Anna Kendall, 2010
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE
eISBN : 978-1-101-44433-7
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be repro-
duced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (elec-
tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both
the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of
this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and pun-
ishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage
electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
The city, characters, and events to be found in these pages are fictitious.
Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
http://us.penguingroup.com
To Jack
1
THE FIRST TIME I ever crossed over, it was market day and I was a little boy, barely six years old. I had spilled goat’s milk on the linsey-woolsey that Aunt Jo had spent weeks weaving, the linsey-woolsey that she was going to sell at market. Hartah beat me unconscious, and I crossed over.
No. That is not true. I must have crossed over earlier, in dreams. There must have been times when my infant self lay asleep, restless and feverish from some childish illness, pain in my head or belly or throat. That’s what is required—letting go, as in sleep, plus pain. Not great pain, but Hartah doesn’t believe that. Or maybe he just likes beating me.
That first time, eight years ago—the milk staining the bright green wool, my aunt’s gasp, her husband raising his head from the table with that look in his eyes, and I—
“Roger,” he said now, “you will cross over today.” Again Hartah raised his head, this time looking at me over the rim of his mug of sour ale.
My neck and spine turned cold.
It was barely dawn. We sat alone in the taproom of an inn somewhere on the Stonegreen Road. It wasn’t much of an inn. Three trestle tables of rough wood on the cobbled floor, two ladders leading to “rooms” above that were no more than lofts with dirty straw as pallets. The beams overhead were so blackened and ill cared for that soot dropped onto the tables. Still, last night my heart had surged with gladness when our wagon pulled into the stable yard. During the summer we almost never slept