Autumn Read Online Free PDF

getting soaked on horseback. Lightning cracked the grey sky and darkness hovered though it was barely mid-day.
                  Arabel and Eli encountered no one else from the search party as they traversed the moor. They stopped to rest the horses near a soggy bog and Whipsie turned her great eyes upon Arabel, as if beseeching her for a respite from the elements.
                  “Sorry old dear,” Arabel said ruefully, “but I believe we’re out here for some time yet.”
                  “We’ll have to turn back in the next hour, though, if we’re to make it back to Murphy’s by nightfall,” Eli interjected.
                  Arabel started in surprise. She had completely forgotten they needed to return home tonight.
                  “You have to get back to work,“ she mused, “and I need to sneak in quietly and hope my grandmother doesn’t know I’ve been running around The Corvids with a strange young man, completely un-chaperoned!” Arabel’s lips twitched in a sudden break of humour as she pictured Amelia Bodean searching the house for her and noticing the unslept-in bed.
                  Eli grinned at Arabel. “I’ve seen your grandmother in town,” he drawled laconically. “She’s quite formidable.”
                  “Yes,” Arabel agreed without hesitation, “that she certainly is.”
                  They continued to search, only turning back when they encountered another pair of the party who also had come up with nothing. Discouraged, Arabel and the others led their mounts to the main meeting place and she noticed immediately that the mood was utterly desolate as no one had found any clues at all. Klara was still very much a missing person.
                  Back at the Rosewood Inn, the mood was darker and impatience and anger seemed to be mounting. A large, rough man addressed the proprietor in the lobby.
                  “How do we know you haven’t done something to the young lady?” he snarled.
                  The proprietor looked aghast. “We run a respectable establishment here, sir, and no one has ever gone missing from our grounds before! While we are truly saddened and upset, we are doing all we can!”
                  The large man did not seem appeased and the general air was filled with a tension so thick that Arabel felt no one was safe. It was as if the grey swirling energy was baiting them, laughing at their efforts somehow. Arabel knew she and Eli had to leave, and soon, as events were going to take a darker turn, so she ordered food to take with them and quickly packed up her small haversack.
                  The ghostly woman in grey was standing at the window, peering out anxiously.
                  “Let me know if you see anything,” Arabel said to her wryly, and then turned and vacated the premises.
                 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

A Cracked Reflection
     
                  The ride back to Blue Jay Hollow was uneventful and Arabel and Eli spoke very little, each lost within their own respective thoughts.
                  Arabel received no further intuitions in the matter of the missing girl, the dead woman, or the three mysterious men and the grey swirling energy. All Arabel knew was that she desired a hot bath and a good meal, and directly following those, the haven of her own, sweet bed. Arabel wondered if she was shallow, to be yearning for these small comforts when one girl had lost her life and another might very well be fighting for hers at this precise moment.
                  Eli glanced at Arabel. She was frowning as she rode and her black hair was slicked to her forehead from the precipitation. She looked so young and vulnerable that he wanted to comfort her but there seemed to be nothing to say. Eli sighed and wished again that