chapter 1.

She was not sure if it was the stone, or some fey quality of the light but everything was golden. Gilt lamposts and the crown of Isis, molten in the canals and all the birds sung like wire nightingales from the towers. Did they have to wind them up? She wondered. Faces peered from cornerpieces, faces with tusks and horns and dainty claws, but she was not frightened, she knew who they were meant to keep out. Out of Hamelin she came, following the sound of a flute, curly haired boy, but he dissapeared. Fauns in the gardens, robins on fences and croquet in the meadows. Evensong and bells that shook the stones themselves. Bicycles clattered over cobblestones as the wind made raven wings of scholar’s robes. These pages were old and yellowed, they crackled underfoot, muffled by the dust.