• Complain

Tim Powers - Hide Me Among the Graves

Here you can read online Tim Powers - Hide Me Among the Graves full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2012, publisher: William Morrow, genre: Romance novel / Science fiction / Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Tim Powers Hide Me Among the Graves

Hide Me Among the Graves: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Hide Me Among the Graves" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Winter, 1862. A malevolent spirit roams the cold and gloomy streets of Victorian London, the vampiric ghost of John Polidori, the onetime physician of the mad, bad and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Polidori is also the supernatural muse to his niece and nephew, poet Christina Rossetti and her artist brother Dante Gabriel. But Polidoris taste for debauchery has grown excessive. He is determined to possess the life and soul of an innocent young girl, the daughter of a veterinarian and a reformed prostitute he once haunted. And he has resurrected Dantes dead wife, transforming her into a horrifying vampire. The Rossettis know the time has come Polidori must be stopped. Joining forces with the girls unlikely parents, they are plunged into a supernatural London underworld whose existence they never suspected. These wildly mismatched allies a strait-laced animal doctor, and ex-prostitute, a poet, a painter, and even the Artful Dodger-like young daughter must ultimately choose between the banality and constraints of human life and the unholy immortality that Polidori offers. Sweeping from high society to grimy slums, elegant West End salons to pre-Roman catacombs beneath St. Pauls cathedral, Hide Me Among The Graves blends the historical and the supernatural in a dazzling, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride.

Tim Powers: author's other books


Who wrote Hide Me Among the Graves? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Hide Me Among the Graves — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Hide Me Among the Graves" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Tim Powers Hide Me Among the Graves To Joe Stefko and Thrse DePrez And - photo 1

Tim Powers

Hide Me Among the Graves

To Joe Stefko and Thrse DePrez

And mother dear, when the sun has set

And the pale kirk grass waves,

Then carry me through the dim twilight

And hide me among the graves.

Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti, At Last

PROLOGUE

Hide Me Among the Graves - image 21845: The BedbugI.

So I grew half delirious and quite sick,
And thro the darkness saw strange faces grin
Of monsters at me. One put forth a fin,
And touched me clammily: I could not pick
A quarrel with it: it began to lick
My hand, making meanwhile a piteous din
And shedding human tears: it would begin
To near me, then retreat. I heard the quick
Pulsation of my heart, I marked the fight
Of life and death within me; then sleep threw
Her veil around me; but this thing is true:
When I awoke, the sun was at his height,
And I wept sadly, knowing that one new
Creature had love for me, and others spite.

Christina Rossetti

THE FELT-PADDED BASE of the ivory bishop thumped faintly on the marble chessboard.

Check, said the girl.

The face of the old man across the table from her was in shadow the curtains were drawn across the street-side windows, and the chandelier overhead hung crookedly because of the gas-saving mantle screwed onto it and all she could see under the visor of his black cap was the gleam of his thick spectacles as he peered at the chess pieces.

Both of them hated to lose.

And mate in two, he said. He sat back, blinking owlishly at the girl.

She sighed and spread her hands. I believe so, Papa.

The old man thoughtfully lifted the ebony king from the board and looked toward the fireplace, as if considering throwing the piece onto the coals. Instead he put it into the pocket of his robe, and when his hand reemerged it was holding instead a thumb-sized black stone statue.

Christina raised her eyebrows.

Old Gabrieles answering smile was wry. I carry it around with me now, he said, very close. Not that it does me any good anymore. Nothing does.

He put it down onto the square where his king had stood, and it clicked against the marble.

Wanting to head off yet another melodramatic elaboration along the lines of his Nothing does, Christina quickly asked, What sort of good did it once do? Youve said its buona fortuna.

She and her sister and two brothers had seen the little statue on a high shelf in their parents bedroom ever since they could remember, and they had even taken it down and incorporated the stumpy little stone man into their games when they were alone, but this was the first time in her fourteen years that she had ever seen it downstairs.

It led me to your mother, he said softly, all the way from Italy to England, and I thought it might keep us healthy and prosperous, not not destitute and losing my sightAnd that one talent which is death to hide, lodged with me useless

Christina could see him blinking behind the thick lenses, and saw the glint of the tears that were always embarrassingly ready these days, especially when he quoted Miltons sonnet about going blind. She wished she had let him win the chess game.

Adopting a manner that reminded her of someone, Christina lightly quoted a later line from the same sonnet as she stood up and began to pick the chess pieces from the board: Doth God exact day-labor, light denied? And she smiled at him and went on, I fondly ask.

Yes, you foolishly ask, he snapped. Where is your mother, tell me that! Embroidering in the drawing room, could it be? Corpo di Bacho, where is the drawing room?

It occurred to Christina who it was that her own indulgently dismissive manner reminded her of her mother, comforting Christina or one of her siblings when they used to wake up from nightmares.

And she remembered that when they had been troubled by nightmares, her father had always dropped the little stone statue into a glass of salted water. She couldnt recall now whether it had ever helped.

Her mother at the moment was out at work as a day governess, and this rented house on Charlotte Street had no drawing room.

Christina had laid all the chessmen except the black king into the wooden box, and now, leaving the statue alone on the board, she knelt by her fathers blanketed knees and took his cold, dry, wrinkled hand.

How did it lead you to Mother?

He was frowning. Light denied, he said. I should destroy the damned thing. This is my last summer. Italy never again.

She blew a strand of hair back from her forehead. I wont listen to you when you talk like that. Again she reminded herself of her mother, as if she were the parent now, and her father had become a petulant child.

Is it a compass? she asked.

After a moment his scowl relaxed into a grudging smile. You were always a contrary little beast. Tantrums. Cut yourself with scissors once when your mother corrected you! I should never have told you about it.

Tell me about it.

He sighed. No, child, its not a compass. Am I being selfish? It gives you dreams that are not really dreams.

Like second sight?

Yes. I knew about statues, from my days as curator of ancient statuary at the Museum of Napoli some of them are not entirely lifeless. And I belonged to the Carbonari there, who also know more than a little about such things.

Christina nodded, noting the black spot on his palm he had often told the children that it was the mark of Carbonari membership.

And then King Ferdinand outlawed the Carbonari, and I fled to Malta but in 22, when I was thirty-five, there was an earthquake, and I, he said, scratching his palm, sensed this little stone, north of me. A summoning compass, if you like! I sailed east of Sicily, past the Gulf of Taranto and Apuleia, many perils, all the way up the east coast of Italy to Venice, following the, the dream-song that led me to find himhe nodded toward the tiny lone figure on the chessboardin the possession of an ignorant Austrian soldier.

Led you to find him. Not it, she thought.

He freed his hand to ruffle her brown hair. Understand, child, I had at that point nothing to lose. The Pope had already excommunicated the Carbonari.

Christina was momentarily glad that her sister, Maria, was living with another family as a governess, for Maria was virtuous and devout; and that her brother William was at work at the government tax office in Old Broad Street, for at the age of fifteen William was already a mocking skeptic.

Her brother Gabriel, though, who was off at Sasss art academy in Bedford Square, would be intrigued. Christina wished he were here.

She nodded. I understand.

Hesitantly she reached her hand across toward the statue, giving her father time to tell her not to; but he made no objection, and her fingers closed around the cold thing.

Into her mind sprang the last line of the Milton sonnet: I also serve who only stand and wait. But that wasnt right it was supposed to be They, not I.

You shouldnt touch it, he said, now that she already had.

She let go of it and drew her hand away. Did you buy it, from the Austrian soldier?

Her father waved his hand in front of his spectacles. In a sense, child.

Christina nodded. And this little stone man gave you a a vision of Mother? Here in England?

That it did, though Id never been to England, and I fell in love with her image and set out to find her and marry her. He nodded firmly. And I did.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Hide Me Among the Graves»

Look at similar books to Hide Me Among the Graves. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Hide Me Among the Graves»

Discussion, reviews of the book Hide Me Among the Graves and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.