Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 83: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PN hl Be i i he ee ' \ . | THE OTHER WING — ee ae 79 he meant to try; he meant, also, to succeed. He deliberated. At night he could not possibly manage it; in any case, the Ruler and her host all left it after dark, to fly about.the world; the Wing week be empty, and the emptiness would frighten him. "Phcettaes he must make a daylight visit; and it was a daylight visit he decided on. He deliberated more. There were files and risks involved: it meant going out of bounds, the danger of being seen, the certainty of being questioned by some idle and inquisitive grown-up: “Where in the world have you been all this time’—and so forth. These things he thought out carefully, and though he arrived at no solution, he felt satisfied that it would be all right. That is, he recognized the risks. To be spaced was half the battle, for noth- ing then could take him by surprise. 3 The notion that he might slip in from the garden was soon abandoned; the zed bricks showed no es there was no door; from the courtyard, also, entrance was impracticable; even on tiptoe he could barely reach the-broad_ window-sills of stone. When playing alone, or walking with the French gov-- erness, he examined every outside Gee ibility. None offered. The shutters, sup- posing he could reach them, were thick and solid. Meanwhile, when opportunity offered, he stood against the outside walls _and listened, bis eee pressed against the tight red bricks; the towers and gables ot the Wing rose overhead; he heard the wind go whispering along the eaves; he imagined tiptoe movements and a sound of wings inside. Sleep and her Little Ones were busily preparing for their journeys after dark; they hid, but they did not sleep; in this unused Wing, vaster alone than any other country house he had ever seen, Sleep taught and trained her flock of feathered. Dreams. It was very cpee tur They probably supplied the entire county. But more wonderful still was the thought that the Ruler herself should take the trouble to come to his particular room and personally watch over him all night long. That was amazing. And it flashed across his imaginative, inquir- ing mind: “Perhaps they take me with them! The moment I’m asleep! That’s why she comes to see me!” Yet his chief preoccupation was, how Sleep got out. Through the green baie doors, of course! By a process of elimination he arrived at a conclusion: he, too, must enter through a green baize door and risk detection. Of late, the lightning visits had ceased. The silent, darting figure had not peeped in and vanished as it used to do. He fell asleep too quickly now, almost before Jackman reached the hall, and long before the fire began to die. Also, the dogs and birds upon the curtains always matched the trees exactly, and he won the curtain game quite easily; there was never a dog or bird too many; the curtain never stirred. It had been thus ever since his talk with Mother and Father. And so he came to make a second discovery: His parents did not really believe in his Figure. She kept away on that account. They doubted her; she hid. Here was still another incentive to go and find her out. _ He ached for her, she was so kind, she gave herself so much trouble—just for