Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus Read Online Free PDF

inconveniently and tragically (for such things happened in the south, as everyone knew). And the stable lad liked to say that when the Summer People returned to the village three years later, they brought with them a wretched story and a black-haired babe. The Summer People left Tuva at the inn, making signs of the evil eye as they fled. And everyone in the village agreed not to touch Tuva or talk to her for she was a “Danger to Their Souls” and “A Very Wicked Child.”
    “I tell you, I thought of dashing her brains with river rocks and leaving the Spawn in the forest to die,” said Tuva’s grandmother to the bishop one morning, as he dined on split peas and salty ham. “She is as bad as they come; as black haired and black eyed as the foul fiend who seduced my Yngvar, and that’s the truth. But Christian charity stilled my hand and so did the sight of her face. For she has my son’s face, God bless us all, right down to the bones, even as she has that harlot’s blood.” The grandmother ground out through her clenched teeth. “She’s all I have left of him, curse her to hell, and so she lives under my roof for now.”
    The bishop shot a quick glance at Tuva, as she shivered behind her curtain of tangled hair. Then he said mildly to the grandmother, “Wicked children will be punished soundly, and good ones rewarded, as God judges, dear woman. Or don’t they teach that in this village?”
    “It’s so,” said the grandmother darkly. “But the child must be beaten often anyway, lest her gypsy ways lead the rest of us into ruin.”
    Though the bishop claimed to travel north in autumn so that he might enjoy the miraculous northern lights, Tuva never once saw him look at the sky. Instead he spent endless hours in his rooms, pouring over papers, which seemed to be nothing more than lists of names, muttering to himself and making checkmarks, his plump cheeks quivering. But his companion, whom he called Peter, often went out into the night, especially when the aurora borealis burned. Then he would stand very still in the snow, his long fingers clasped at the small of his back, hollow cheeks turned to the sky, until his black coat glistened with snow and ice.
    One night he gestured at Tuva, as she crouched by the doorway of the inn, keeping her thin bare feet warm under her ragged skirt. “Come here,” the bishop’s companion said.
    Tuva tiptoed toward him cautiously. He was so very tall and thin! And even in the light of the arcing, mysterious night rainbows, she could see how brightly his eyes burned. When she drew near enough, he suddenly snatched her up in his arms.
    “It’s not right that you should be so underdressed when the nights are so cold,” he said gently.
    Tuva said nothing at first, for her heart beat fast and her throat closed. But soon she noticed how his body gave off delicious heat; how his coat seemed to be lined with soft fur; and how good he smelled, like peat fires and pine needles and smoke. Gradually she unclenched her body and nestled into his embrace; for it was very nice to watch the sky in his arms, the stars sparkling between great silvery night flowers, which blossomed into impossible colors.
    Tuva did not know how long he held her but finally he asked, his voice seeming to rumble through her whole body, “Are you really as wicked as your grandmother says?”
    Tuva had been sucking her thumb and nodding into sleep, but she answered automatically, “I am the worst of children and I am cursed to hell for all eternity, sir.”
    “I thought so,” said Peter. He sounded pleased.
    The bishop and Peter left, as they always did, on the first of December, taking their baggage and lists and ink stands with them. Tuva never saw them depart. Instead, they seemed to vanish in an instant, like a pair of candle flames snuffed by the wind. Then there would be the long, dark winter, with only school and church and the occasional group of reindeer herders to break the cold monotony, until