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Back The Village Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CONTENTS
  5. START READING
  6. PROLOGUE
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  56. CHAPTER FIFTY
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  61. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  62. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lloyd nodded in acknowledgement. Dawn worried him at the best of times. But she could be trusted. Of that much, he was sure. ‘All right then, show of hands. Who wants her to find out more?’

Everyone’s hand except for that of Reverend Humphries went up.

‘Seems like we’re in agreement,’ Lloyd said. He looked at his wife, taking in her terse expression. ‘Joanne, is there something you want to say?’

‘I don’t see why we can’t make them a little uncomfortable while they’re here.’

‘Fine,’ Lloyd said, with a sense of finality. ‘Now, if we’ve covered everything?’ He was met with silence as he took in the villagers’ faces. ‘Good. Then you know what to do.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ten Years Previously

Grace peeked through her bedroom door as voices rose from the living room. Mummy and Daddy were arguing again. She had heard the crack of Daddy’s gun as he was hunting in the woodlands and hoped he hadn’t shot any deer. Then again, he couldn’t have, given he’d come home in such a bad mood. Harsh whispers rose from the confines of the living room. It was nothing new.

She tugged on the bandage covering her left arm. The itching was intense now, her scratching bringing a short bout of satisfaction before feeling like someone had raked a hot poker down the length of her arm. On the days when she wanted to claw her face, her mummy fastened mittens to her hands, taping them off at the wrists.

‘You’ll thank me one day,’ she’d say as Grace howled in pain. ‘You don’t want scars on your pretty face.’

At least her daddy had made her room nice. She loved the TV in the corner of her bedroom that he had fitted to the wall. Every time he came home from work, he brought her either a Disney movie or a toy. Her collection of DVDs was stacked in a rack in the corner and was almost as tall as her. She loved the quilt Mummy had made her, and the pastel-pink paint on her wall. She’d even put fairy lights up over her bed. This was the house Mummy grew up in, and she was sleeping in Mummy’s old room. But Grace had never met her grandparents, and she had seen her aunt Petunia only twice. She was a thin, beady-eyed woman who coughed a lot and smelt of cigarette smoke.

‘Do you have to go away again so soon?’ Her mummy spoke to her father in the doorway. ‘We’ve only just got here.’

Peeping through the crack in the door, Grace watched her daddy run a hand through his wavy brown hair. ‘It’s not as if you don’t know the place,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be happy, being back home.’