Beware, the Snowman Read Online Free PDF Page A

I had packed a bunch of
paperbacks on the top. Underneath them, I found some textbooks and anthologies I
had used at school.
    As I pulled them out and stacked them carefully on the floor, I heard a
cough.
    And then a footstep.
    Someone else is in here! I realized.
    “Aunt Greta? Is that you?” I cried.
    But the voice that replied wasn’t Aunt Greta’s.
    “What are you doing?” a strange voice demanded in a raspy whisper.

 
 
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    The ceiling light flashed on.
    I blinked.
    Swallowed hard.
    And stared up at Aunt Greta.
    “You frightened me, Jaclyn!” she croaked.
    I jumped to my feet. “You frightened me, too!” I replied, waiting for my
heart to stop pounding. “What happened to your voice?”
    Aunt Greta rubbed her pale throat. “I’ve lost it,” she rasped. “Horrible sore
throat. It must be the cold. I’m not used to the cold of this village yet.”
    Her straight, white hair hung loose behind her. She tugged it off the collar
of her flannel nightshirt, brushing out tangles with one hand. “What are you
doing, Jaclyn? Why are you down here in the middle of the night?” she croaked.
    “That old poem,” I replied. “I want to find it. I can’t remember the second
verse. I—”
    “We’ll unpack the books tomorrow,” she cut in.
    She yawned. “I’m so tired. And my throat hurts so badly. Let’s try to get
some sleep.”
    She suddenly appeared so tiny and frail.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, following her from the room. “I didn’t mean to wake you
up. I couldn’t sleep, so…”
    Her eyes fell on my parka, which I had tossed onto a living room chair. “You
went out?” she cried, spinning to face me. I could see alarm on her face.
    “Well… yes,” I confessed. “I thought maybe a short walk…”
    “You shouldn’t go out in the middle of the night,” she scolded. She rubbed
her sore throat. Her eyes narrowed at me.
    “Sorry,” I muttered. “What’s the big deal, anyway? What’s so terrible about
going out at night?”
    She hesitated, chewing her lower lip the way she always does when she’s
thinking hard. “It’s just dangerous. That’s all,” she whispered finally. “What
if you fell in the snow or something? What if you broke your leg? There is no
one outside to help you.”
    “I’d roll home!” I joked. I laughed but she didn’t join in.
    I had the strong feeling she had something else on her mind. She wasn’t
worried about me falling down. She was worried about something else.
    But she didn’t want to say it.
    Did it have anything to do with the animal howls?
    Did it have something to do with the snowman on the mountain that Conrad had
warned me about? The snowman that Aunt Greta said was just a village
superstition?
    I yawned. I finally felt sleepy. Too sleepy to think any more about these
questions.
    I put my arm around Aunt Greta’s slender shoulders and walked her across the
hall to her room. “Sorry I woke you,” I whispered. Then I said good night and
climbed the ladder to my attic bedroom.
    Yawning, I pulled off my jeans and sweatshirt and tossed them on the floor.
Then I jumped into bed and pulled the quilt up to my chin.
    Pale moonlight washed in from the round window at the other end of the room.
I shut my eyes. No howls outside. No sounds at all.
    I snuggled my head into my soft pillow. My new bed still felt hard. But I was
too tired to care.
    I had just about drifted off to sleep when the whispered words floated into
the room….
    “Beware, the snowman, Jaclyn…. Beware, the snowman….”

 
 
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    I sat straight up with a gasp. “Huh? Who’s there?” I choked out.
    I stared across the room at the window. The unfamiliar shapes of my furniture
appeared silvery, ghostlike in the white moonlight.
    “Beware, the snowman…” the whispered words were repeated. “Jaclyn,
beware, the snowman.”
    “Who are you?” I cried. “How do you know my name?”
    Sitting up in the strange bed, I grabbed the end of the quilt,