A Tangle of Knots Read Online Free PDF Page A

they actually did open the mail. Because sooner or later, that stupid letter was going to arrive, and if Zane didn’t have a plan, he was done for.

6

    Miss Mallory
    “C ADY! T HE MAIL’S HERE! ”
    Jennifer Mallory hadn’t noticed the mailman arriving through the fog, but nevertheless the mailbox was full. She clicked shut the mailbox door and headed through the damp gray air to the picnic table by the front door, settled between the carefully groomed bed of petunias on the left and the meticulously weeded pansies on the right.
    “Here’s one from the Sunshine Bakeoff,” Miss Mallory told Cady, who was busy making preparations for the party. Little Amy would be arriving with her new parents any moment. Miss Mallory pulled the thick envelope from the stack.
    “The tickets!” Cady squealed. And sure enough, there were three tickets inside, just the same as there were every year. One ticket for the baker, and two for her guests. (Since there was never anyone at the orphanage who stuck around long enough to attend special events, it had always only been the two of them—Miss Mallory and Cady—attending every year. Which meant that every year, one of the guest tickets remained, unused, inside its envelope.) “You don’t mind going again this year, do you, Miss Mallory?” Cady asked in that shy, thoughtful way of hers. “It must get awfully boring sitting there, watching cakes bake.”
    Miss Mallory put a hand to her chest, where an unwelcome tug had been growing all morning. She had a sinking suspicion that sooner rather than later there wouldn’t be an extra ticket left in that envelope at all. If Miss Mallory was correct about the tug in her chest (and she worried that this time she was), Cady’s perfect family was right around the corner.
    “There’s nothing I’d rather do in the world than watch you knock everybody’s socks off with one of your cakes,” she told Cady truthfully. Cady smiled her shy little smile. “I’ll come to watch you bake as long as you’ll keep inviting me.”
    “You know I’ll always invite you,” Cady replied. “Every single year.” The tug in Miss Mallory’s chest jerked a little harder, but she said nothing.
    While Cady strolled back to the table to straighten out the polka-dot cloth, Miss Mallory stuck her nose inside the Sunshine Bakers information packet.
    “There’s a change to the judging procedures,” she told Cady, crossing the fog to read to her. “‘This year, for the first time, the Sunshine Bakers of America Annual Cake Bakeoff will be judged by not one but—’”
    Without warning, Cady snapped her head up from the table. “My cake’s ready!” she announced, as though a buzzer had gone off in the kitchen. But of course, there had been no buzzer. Cady seemed to be able to sense things about her cakes, deep in her bones, the way Miss Mallory could with her orphans.
    Cady dashed off into the empty orphanage.
    Eleven years ago, the orphanage’s upstairs rooms had been practically bursting with girls. Girls giggling, girls fighting, girls making messes. Miss Mallory had never been happier. But as she grew more accustomed to her Talent, Miss Mallory had become faster and faster at matching orphans, and these days, she felt lucky if a girl stayed with her for a handful of hours. Day in and day out, the only constant Miss Mallory had come to count on was Cady.
    Precious Cady.
    From the instant Miss Mallory had held the sprite of a child to her chest on that foggy morning eleven years ago, she’d known the girl was special. The tiny little thing had wrapped her arms around Miss Mallory’s neck and shaped her body into Miss Mallory’s curves. And all at once, it had become clear to Miss Mallory that the child’s heartbeat matched up precisely with her own. Tra-thump. Tra-thump. Tra-thump. They were beating in time together, a perfect rhythm.
    Miss Mallory had named the girl Cadence.
    “Who braided her hair?” Miss Mallory had asked, marveling at the