Newes from the Dead($9.89Value)

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"Intriguing and captivating."―Celia Rees, author of Witch Child WRONGED. HANGED. ALIVE? (AND TRUE!) Anne can't move a muscle, can't open her eyes, can't scream. She lies immobile in the darkness, unsure if she'd dead, terrified she's buried alive, haunted by her final memory―of being hanged. A maidservant falsely accused of infanticide in 1650 England and sent to the scaffold, Anne Green is trapped with her racing thoughts, her burning need to revisit the events―and the man―that led her to the gallows. Meanwhile, a shy 18-year-old medical student attends his first dissection and notices something strange as the doctors prepare their tools . . . Did her eyelids just flutter? Could this corpse be alive? Beautifully written, impossible to put down, and meticulously researched, Newes from the Dead is based on the true story of the real Anne Green, a servant who survived a hanging to awaken on the dissection table. Newes from the Dead concludes with scans of the original 1651 document that recounts this chilling medical phenomenon. Newes from the Dead is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year. “Intriguing and captivating.” ― Celia Rees “A chilling, mesmerizing read.” ― Kirkus Reviews “A grabber of a premise.” ― School Library Journal “A historical mystery that is creepy in the best Edgar Allen Poe tradition, as well as thought-provoking.” ― Booklist “First-rate . . . Anne's story, handled with skill and passion, will be hard for anyone to put down.” ― The Times (UK) “A well researched, riveting read.” ― The Horn Book Mary Hooper is a very popular writer for children and young adults. Her brilliant historical novels have a huge fan base, as do her contemporary novels for teenagers. At The Sign of the Sugared Plum was selected as part of the 2010 Booked Up scheme and Fallen Grace has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2011. Mary lives in Henley-on-Thames. Newes from the Dead By Mary Hooper Macmillan Copyright © 2008 Mary Hooper All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-312-60864-4 CHAPTER 1 It is very dark when I wake. This isn't frightening in itself, because most of the year I rise in darkness, Sir Thomas insisting that as much of the house as possible be put in order before any of the family is about. It is the quality of the darkness that is strange; blacker than black, soft and close about me. I go to turn my head toward the window, to see if any streaks of light can be seen in the sky, but my head doesn't move! I try again, and again. I lift my hand — or try to — but it doesn't want to obey me either. It must be that I am deeply asleep, in some sort of trancelike state, and aware that I'm dreaming. I think I will just wait for it to pass so I may rise, dress, and go about my household duties. * * * The waiting continues, and I feel nothing: neither cold nor warm, hungry nor replete. I just sense the blackness and soaring emptiness, but this is not too unpleasant. Some time later, though I cannot tell how long, I perceive movement across the backs of my eyes: four blurry white streaks, moving and gliding in the blackness. The streaks are feathery soft and remind me of doves, or of the soft, enveloping wings of angels. The blurry shapes dance across my eyelids, but when I try to stop them, to endeavor to focus on one and see if I can spy a shining halo or a gold harp, I find it impossible. I would like it to be angels that I dream of, for I know that would be very lucky. The Reverend Coxeter told us that. He said that no matter whether you are a scullery wench or a lord in his castle, you are truly blessed if you dream of angels. I have tried to dream of them ever since I heard that, but have never succeeded. Suddenly I remember something and want to scream with terror, and the blackness loses its velvety softness and takes on an aspect of such vast and unknown fears that the angels disappear. What I have remembered is this: the last time I saw the Reverend Coxeter 'twas not in church, but in a bleak yard in the icy rain, and he was entreating the Lord to have mercy on me, preserve my soul, and convey me quickly to paradise. Behind him had stood a great crowd of people, a man wearing a black hood, and a mighty wooden scaffold from which hung a heavy, knotted rope. And it was for me that all these were waiting, for I was ... was about to be hanged. A terrifying thought comes to me: If this happened, am I now dead? No, I cannot be, for surely I can hear my heart thumping within me and echoing through my ears. Then is this the state that they tell us about in the Bible? Is this purgatory? I struggle to think, and recall that purgatory is said to be a painful state, with tortuous fires that cleanse the soul and bring it to righteousness. But how long does it last, this purgatory? A very long time, I think — thousands of years. My state is not painful now, though, so perhaps it might not be too terrible to be in purgatory. If it just means lying here quietly i