The Night Animals


 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Part One: The Fox
 
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 
 Part Two: The Hare
 
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 
 Part Three: The Raven
 
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 
 Part Four: The Otter
 
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgments
 ‘The Hunt for the Nightingale’ Teaser
 About the Author
 About the Illustrator
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Start of Content
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Copyright
 
 
 
 
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 ‘An iridescent story that shines with hope and love’ Katya Balen
 The Night Animals
 Sarah Ann Juckes
 illustrated by Sharon King-Chai
 
 
 
 
 
 Praise for The Hunt for the Nightingale
 
 ‘An incredibly moving story of feeling lost and finding your way again’
 Lisa Thompson, author of The Rollercoaster Boy
 ‘A clever, gentle adventure with a masterful plot that deals with the difficult subject of grief so poignantly’
 Emma Carroll, author of The Tale of Truthwater Lake
 ‘Will break your heart and mend it together again’
 Piers Torday, author of The Last Wild
 ‘Full of hope and beauty, and ultimately a healing song to nature’
 Hannah Gold, author of The Last Bear
 ‘Brave, unforgettable and beautiful’
 Lauren St John, author of The White Giraffe
 
 
 
 Also By Sarah Ann Juckes from Simon & Schuster
 The Hunt for the Nightingale
 
 
 First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
 Text copyright © 2023 Sarah Ann Juckes
 Illustrations copyright © 2023 Sharon King-Chai
 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
 No reproduction without permission.
 All rights reserved.
 The right of Sarah Ann Juckes and Sharon King-Chai to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
 Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
 1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road, London
 WC1X 8HB
 www.simonandschuster.co.uk
 www.simonandschuster.com.au
 www.simonandschuster.co.in
 Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
 Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
 PB ISBN 978-1-3985-1092-0
 eBook ISBN 978-1-3985-1094-4
 eAudio ISBN 978-1-3985-1093-7
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
 
 Mum and Dad – this one’s for you
 S.A.J.
 For Adrian and Emma
 S.K-C.
 
 
 
 PART ONE THE FOX
 
 
 
 1
 Night is at its deepest, darkest centre when she comes.
 I’m dreaming about being stranded on a wild island when I slowly notice the paws on my chest like two solid nothings. They feel the way ice does when you hold it in your hand – like something so cold, it’s just numb.
 And then I open my eyes and I see her.
 She has the same strange opal glow I remember them all having, but I can still make out the rust red of her coat and hungry yellow of her eyes. The glow from my nightlight is watery, but gleams off the claws pressed into my pyjama top and the tip of her nose as she sniffs me. Her black-tip ears are pointed back towards my bedroom door, listening.
 Maybe I should be afraid, but I’m not. I’ve seen others like her before, although not for a while and never this close. They were sometimes just a rainbow haze in the sky when I was feeling lost, or a splash of colour under the surface of the swimming pool I was afraid to dive into.
 But this one is here – sitting on my chest, in my bedroom, in my house, in the dead of night.
 A fox. A ghost fox.
 My heart flutters like a trapped bird.
 The ghost fox is staring at me, hardly moving at all. And I’m frozen too, even though the empty pressure from her paws feels strange on my chest.
 My whole house is silent as