Excerpt from Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I called out, "Can you show me? Show me what it's like?"

The moon'd swum into the lake of night.

We skated one orbit.

The shadow-kid was still there, crouching as he skated, just like I was. We skated another orbit.

An owl or something fluttered low across the lake.

"Hey?" I called out. "Did you hear me? I want to know what it's—" The ice shrucked me off my feet. For a helterskeltery moment I was in midair at an unlikely height. Bruce Lee doing a karate kick, that high. I knew it wasn't going to be a soft landing but I hadn't guessed how painful a slam it'd be. The crack shattered from my ankle to my jaw to my knuckles, like an ice cube plopped into warm squash. No, bigger than an ice cube. A mirror, dropped from Skylab height. Where it hit the earth, where it smashed into daggers and thorns and invisible splinters, that's my ankle.

I spun and slid to a shuddery stop by the edge of the lake.

For a bit, all I could do was lie there, basking in that supernatural pain. Even Giant Haystacks'd've whimpered. "Bloody bugger," I gasped to plug my tears. "Bloody bloody bloody bugger!" Through the flinty trees I could just hear the sound of the main road but there was no way I could walk that far. I tried to stand but just fell on my arse, wincing with fresh pain. I couldn't move. I'd die of pneumonia if I stayed where I was. I had no idea what to do.

 

"You," sighed the sour aunt. "We suspected you'd come knocking again soon."

"I hurt"—my voice'd gone all bendy—"I hurt my ankle."

"So I see."

"It's killing me."

"I daresay."

"Can I just phone my dad to come and get me?"

"We don't care for telephones."

"Could you go and get help? Please?"

"We don't ever leave our house. Not at night. Not here."

"Please." The underwatery pain shook as loud as electric guitars. "I can't walk."

"I know about bones and joints. You'd best come inside."

Inside was colder than outside. Bolts behind me slid home and a lock turned. "Down you go," the sour aunt said, "down to the parlor. I'll be right along, once I've prepared your cure. But whatever you do, be quiet. You'll be very sorry if you wake my brother."

"All right . . ." I glanced away. "Which way's your parlor?"

But the dark'd shuffled itself and the sour aunt'd gone.

Way down the hallway was a blade of muddy light, so that was the direction I limped. God knows how I walked up the rooty, twisty path from the frozen lake on that busted ankle. But I must've done, to've got here. I passed a ladder of stairs. Enough muffled moonlight fell down it for me to make out an old photograph hanging on the wall. A submarine in an arctic-looking port. The crew stood on deck, all saluting. I walked on. The blade of light wasn't getting any nearer.

 

The parlor was a bit bigger than a big wardrobe and stuffed with museumy stuff. An empty parrot cage, a mangle, a towering dresser, a scythe. Junk, too. A bent bicycle wheel and one soccer boot, caked in silt. A pair of ancient skates, hanging on a coat stand. There was nothing modern. No fire. Nothing electrical apart from a bare brown bulb. Hairy plants sent bleached roots out of tiny pots. God it was cold! The sofa sagged under me and sssssssssed. One other doorway was screened by beads on strings. I tried to find a position where my ankle hurt less but there wasn't one.

Excerpted from Black Swan Green by David Mitchell Copyright © 2006 by David Mitchell. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.