Mystical Circles Read Online Free PDF Page A

through into the sitting room, and as she joined him, he swung to face her.
    “I’m well aware those two words are much misused,” she said.
    “Even more so here. Express all emotions – good and bad . That’s what he tells them. And so they do. Especially the last.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Ha! Best not go into it.” He held her gaze. “Wait till you’ve tasted it yourself.”
    Then she heard a sound like a nut being cracked behind her. She spun, and gasped. She was staring into the eyes of a parrot.
    He balanced on his perch on one foot. His cage occupied the corner of the room next to the leadlight window.
    “Meet Groucho,” said Don. “He’s Craig’s.”
    “How did I manage to miss him before?”
    “Ah. Keeps quiet when it suits him,” said Don.
    He waited while she went over to stroke the parrot’s plumage of cobalt blue and deep yellowy orange. Then he moved alongside her. “Pricey he was too. Craig wouldn’t have any other.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes. Set him back a thousand. And don’t forget maintenance costs. He’ll likely live to sixty,” he added darkly.
    They watched the parrot scattering bits of walnut shell over the floor, and using his blunt tongue to extract the nut-meat. She reached out, and scratched his wing. At this, he hopped off his perch and onto her hand. He walked up her arm, and began to rummage in her hair with his beak. She was so engrossed by him that several minutes had passed before she remembered Don again.
    He touched her on the shoulder. She gave a start, causing the bird to rise to the ceiling in a flurry of sapphire and gold. He settled on the top of a bookcase, quizzing them with a glittering eye.
    She turned to see Laura had rejoined them. How childlike she was. The dress was probably meant for a thirteen-year-old. Though Juliet reckoned Laura might be in her forties.
    “Ah, Laura.” Don took his opportunity. “I’ll be off then, Juliet. Laura will show you where to find lunch.”
    “Thank you, Don.”
    He gave a curt nod and left the room.
    “Come through into the kitchen.” Laura led her to the farther door. “There are two others in there I can introduce you to.”
    “I’d like that.”
    As before, though slightly odd in her manner, Laura seemed friendly enough. Encouraged, Juliet followed her through the dining room, and out into the passage, where they turned left into an open doorway.
    The kitchen she found generously supplied with copper implements, brightly polished, hanging from the beams overhead; and the whitewashed walls between the black timbers were decorated with large bunches of dried flowers. A pale youth in his late teens sat at one end of the oak table, stirring a spoon round and round in a soup bowl. At the other end stood a thickset man in a lime-green shirt, busy sawing at a granary loaf.
    A list of rules pinned to a cork noticeboard above the fridge began with the statement: On the following days, silence will be observed at breakfast and lunch . She wondered if Craig liked to keep up a myth that the group had rules to be adhered to. But there again, she knew nothing to suppose it didn’t. However, that day, Friday, was absent from the list.
    Both men had stopped what they were doing to stare at her.
    “Sam and Al,” cried Laura, “meet Zoe’s sister, Juliet.”
    Ah, thought Juliet, so one of these two is Al. The man whose bedroom was near Laura’s, a fact which had caused giggles when she mentioned it. Which one was he?
    “Juliet, the journalist?” The youth opened his eyes wide.
    “Yes, Sam,” said Laura.
    Sam shrank back in terror.
    “The media isn’t that scary, is it?” laughed Juliet.
    Then she realised what a big deal it was for this group of people to trust Zoe after only three days here to invite her journalist sister to visit. Though she supposed it was Craig they trusted, not Zoe, for he was the one who’d given permission. Odd though, when clearly he had issues with his father, and she’d have thought