Precious and Fragile Things Read Online Free PDF

the responsibility to her, and she doesn’t want it. She tries to keep her fingers closed, refusing the flower. Her mother grips her wrist.
    â€œTake it, Gillian.”
    This is the woman Gilly remembers better. Wild eyes, mouth thin and grim. Hair lank and in her face, the hat gone now in the way dreams have of changing. Her mother’s fingers bite into Gilly’s skin, sharp as thorns and bringing blood.
    â€œYou love them,” Gilly’s mother says. “Don’t you love them?”
    â€œI do love them!” Gilly cries.
    â€œYou have to take care of what you love,” her mother says. “Even if it makes you bleed.”
    Gilly woke, startled and disoriented. She didn’t know how long she’d slept, how far they’d gone. Didn’t know where they were. She rolled her stiff neck on shoulders gone just as sore and stared out to dark roads and encroaching trees. Steep mountains hung with frozen miniwaterfalls rose on both sides.A train track ran parallel to the road, separated by a metal fence.
    Had she seen these roads before? Gilly didn’t think so. Nothing looked familiar. The man took an unmarked exit. They rode for another hour on forested roads rough enough to make her glad for four-wheel drive, then turned down another narrow, rutted road. Ice gleamed in the ruts, and the light layer of snow that had been worn away on the main road still remained here. A rusted metal gate with a medieval-looking padlock blocked the way.
    He pulled a jangling ring of keys from the pocket of his sweatshirt and held them out to her. “Unlock it.”
    Gilly didn’t take the keys at first. It made no sense for her to defy him. In the faint light from the dashboard his narrowed eyes should have been menacing enough to have her leaping to obey his command even if the threat of the knife wasn’t. Yet she sat, staring at him dumbly, unable to move.
    â€œGet out and unlock the gate,” he repeated, shaking the key ring at her. “I’m going to drive through. You close it behind me and lock it again.”
    She didn’t move for another long moment, frozen in place the way she’d been so often tonight.
    â€œYou deaf?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œJust fucking stupid, then. I told you to move. Now move your ass,” he said in a low, menacing voice, “or I will move it for you.”
    This morning she’d stood in her closet, picking out clothes without holes or too many stains, jeans with a button and zipper instead of soft lounge pants with an elastic waist. She’d dressed to go out in public, not like the stay-home mom shewas. She’d wanted to look nice for once, not dumpy and covered in sticky fingerprints.
    She should’ve worn warm boots, not the useless chunk-heeled ones that hurt her feet if she stood too long. No help for it now. She’d chosen fashion over function and now had to face the consequences. Gilly got out of the car. Immediately she slipped on some ice and almost went down, but managed to keep upright by flailing her arms. She wrenched her back, the pain enough to distract her from the tingling in her drive-numbed legs.
    Frigid air burned her eyes, forcing her to slit them. Her nose went numb almost at once, her bare fingers too. The padlock had rusted shut, and the key wouldn’t turn. Her fingers fumbled, slipped, and blood oozed from a gash along her thumb. It looked like ketchup in the headlights. Gilly clasped her hands and tried to warm them, tried to bend her fingers back into place, but they crooked like talons.
    At last the key turned with a squeal, and the hasp popped open. She slipped the lock off and pushed the gate forward. Ice clinked and jingled as it fell off the metal. The gate stuck halfway open, grinding, and she pushed hard, her feet slipping in the icy ruts. Her palms stung against the cold metal; she had a brief vision of the movie A Christmas Story and the boy who stuck his tongue to the