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Back The Lollipop Shoes
Chapters (96)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. The Lollipop Shoes
  4. Dedication
  5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  6. PART ONE
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. PART TWO
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. 6
  19. 7
  20. 8
  21. PART THREE
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. PART FOUR
  29. 1
  30. 2
  31. 3
  32. 4
  33. 5
  34. 6
  35. 7
  36. 8
  37. 9
  38. PART FIVE
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. PART SIX
  52. 1
  53. 2
  54. 3
  55. 4
  56. 5
  57. 6
  58. 7
  59. 8
  60. 9
  61. 10
  62. 11
  63. 12
  64. PART SEVEN
  65. 1
  66. 2
  67. 3
  68. 4
  69. 5
  70. 6
  71. 7
  72. 8
  73. 9
  74. PART EIGHT
  75. 1
  76. 2
  77. 3
  78. 4
  79. 5
  80. 6
  81. 7
  82. 8
  83. 9
  84. 10
  85. 11
  86. 12
  87. 13
  88. 14
  89. 15
  90. 16
  91. 17
  92. 18
  93. 19
  94. Epilogue
  95. About the Author
  96. Also by Joanne Harris

But now I could feel something else coming back. A memory – a familiar sound – a scent of something far away. It was getting closer now, moving in like the pointing star in a Nativity scene. And I could almost remember now – except that I didn’t want to remember. I closed my eyes. I could hardly move. I was suddenly sure that if I moved even a little bit, then all of it would come rushing out, like a fizzy drink when someone’s been shaking the bottle, and that once opened, there’d be no going back—

I started to tremble.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Zozie.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.

‘What are you afraid of, Nanou?’

I could hear the charms on her bracelet moving and the sound was almost exactly the same as that of the wind-chimes above our door.

‘The Kindly Ones,’ I said in a whisper.

‘What does that mean? The Kindly Ones?’ I could hear the urgency in her voice. She put her hands on my shoulders then, and I could feel how much she wanted to know, it was trembling all through her like lightning in a jar.

‘Don’t be afraid, Nanou,’ she said. ‘Just tell me what it means, OK?’

The Kindly Ones.

The Magi.

Wise men bearing gifts.

I made the kind of noise you make when you’re trying to wake up from a dream, but can’t. There were too many memories crowding me, pushing me, all wanting to be seen at once.

That little house by the side of the Loire.

They’d seemed so kind, so interested.

They’d even brought gifts.

And at that moment I opened my eyes very sudden and very wide. I didn’t feel afraid any more. At last I remembered. I understood. I knew what had happened to change us; to make us run away, even from Roux; to make us pretend we were regular people when we knew at heart we could never be.

‘What is it, Nanou?’ said Zozie. ‘Can you tell me now?’

‘I think so,’ I said.

‘Then tell me,’ she said, beginning to smile. ‘Tell me everything.’

PART SIX

The Kindly Ones

1

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Monday, 10th December

AND NOW AT last, here it comes, that December wind, screaming down the narrow streets, stripping the year-end rags from the trees. December, beware; December, despair, as my mother always said. And once again, as the year draws in, it feels as if a page has turned.

A page – a card – the wind, perhaps. And December was always a bad time for us. The last month; the dregs of the year; slouching towards Christmas with its skirt of tinsel dragging in the mud. The dead-end part of the year looms; the trees are stripped three-quarters bare; the light is like scorched newspaper and all my ghosts come out to play like fireflies in the spectral sky—