February Thaw Read Online Free PDF Page A

wizard's house.
    It looked different, dark and empty. She'd lived there as human for twenty-four years and for almost fifty years in her true form before that – had, in fact, helped the wizard decide to buy it – but she felt no more connection to the house now than she did to any other building on the street. Burning a little copper out of the air pollution, the brief blue flare the elemental equivalent of a human sigh, she wondered if everyone who discovered they were adopted felt as disconnected to their past.
    The distinctive sound of Alynne parking by Braille pulled her out of her funk and she swooped down to windshield level.
    "Swamp gas ahoy." Alynne stepped out onto the sidewalk and hip-checked the driver's side door closed. "You look like one of those will o' the wisp things."
    "Sometimes I was."
    "Yeah? You ever lure men into swamps to drown them?"
    "Once or twice in the old days to protect the wizard." Carlene lead the way up the path. "It's not something I could do now."
    "Not even to a really bad man?"
    "Well, I guess..."
    "Not even to some guy who like broke your best friend's heart and ripped off her favourite pair of motorcycle boots when he left?"
    "I'm not luring Richard into a swamp to drown him."
    "Bummer."
    "Now be quiet until we get inside. Ever since he retired, Mr. Chou has taken it on himself to be a one man neighbourhood watch."
    "Was he the guy who found your mom passed out in the garden?"
    "Beth wasn’t my mother." It was more of a sizzle than a snarl.
    "Oh yeah. Sorry."
    The spare key to the side door was inside the hollow body of the hedgehog boot scraper. Alynne fished it out, unlocked the door, and the two of them slipped into the house.
    "Don’t turn on the lights," Carlene cautioned.
    Moving carefully down the basement stairs in the dim glow from her friend, Alynne snorted. "This is your house now. There's no law against breaking into your own house."
    "If I don't have a body, I can't have a house."
    "But we're here to get you another body."
    "And until we do, we shouldn't be here."
    Alynne paused and shook her head hard. "Whoa. Paradox. I hate it when this happens."
    Carlene decided it might be safest not to ask how often Alynne had found herself in similar situations, although she was beginning to realize how much of their friendship seemed to be built on a willing suspension of disbelief.
    The workshop door was locked as well, but there was no spare key.
    "It's a wooden door, can't you burn through it?"
    "I can burn one molecule of oxygen at a time and slip through the key hole, but I need you in the room with me."
    "So burn the whole door down."
    "The heat would ignite the rest of the house."
    "Not good." Alynne boosted herself up onto the washing machine and sat swinging her legs. "Well, you've always been the smart one."
    Carlene settled into the recycling box and absently started burning old newspapers one sheet at a time. She'd always done her best thinking on organics.
    "I thought you quit smoking?"
    "Ha. Ha." Extending herself a little, she burned the smoke as well.
    "So how come you're not igniting the rest of the house now?" Alynne wondered unwrapping a stick of gum.
    "Paper burns so quickly it's easy to control."
    "You think your mom's cable is still hooked up? 'Cause if we're not accomplishing anything down here, I'd like to go upstairs and watch bull-riding."
    "Beth wasn't my mother." Rising off the paper, Carlene moved toward the door. "There has to be a way in."
    "Fire's not out."
    "What?" Adjusting her point of view back the way she'd come, Carlene flared briefly orange. "Crap. Could you throw some water on that..."
    "What’s the magic word?"
    "Water!"
    Alynne shrugged and blew a bubble. "Close enough."
     
    *
     
    Burning around the lock did, indeed, set the door on fire, but after Carlene had moved up by the ceiling and safely out of the way, a bucket of water put it out again.
    "Could I put you out with this?"
    "No. I'd just burn the oxygen in the water. I’m not a