Chapter 17: The House on Ashgrove Lane

The stone at the top of the Ashgrove road was warm to the hand, and nobody in the village could say why.

Draconia put her palm on it on Sunday morning, with a notebook open in the other, and felt it hum faintly against her glove.

Harry stood on the far side with his own hand flat to the rock.

They were meant to be measuring it.

The Warden had said so, and the Board had said so.

The villagers who had come out to watch from their doorsteps had said so too, in lowered voices.

"Four degrees," said Harry, reading the little brass gauge. "Above the other one."

"Write it down."

"I'm writing it," said Draconia.

"You are looking at the road."

He was.

He had been looking at it since they came round the bend.

It ran away downhill between two stone walls, a narrow lane with a gate halfway along, and behind the gate a house.

It was a grey house with a slate roof and a green door.

All the windows were shuttered, and the garden had gone to seed over what must have been ten years.

Draconia knew every stone of it.

She had never been inside, and she had been told what was in it.

"That's Ashgrove Lane," said Harry.

"Yes," said Draconia.

"You said, in the first week, that it was something you couldn't discuss."

"I did," she said.

"I thought it was a rule of your house, and not about me."

She said nothing.

He put the gauge away in his pocket and turned round.

He did not look angry.

He looked tired, and a good deal older than the first day, and he spoke without any particular heat.

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