The Christmas Spirit Read Online Free PDF

that. And I was so relieved to see that she hadn't donned any real human clothes that I forgive 'er. 'Cause that is dangerous to a fairy or an elf. Once they put on human clothes, why, they might just as well be human for all that they can do. 'Cause they lose their powers, ye see, for all the while they've got them wicked garments on.
    So I had to be relieved that our Trudy hadn't done anything so hare-brained; though, as stubborn as she is, I should have known she wouldn't give up with just one try.
     
    "So," Francis said, once his anger had subsided. "Sir Matthew turned ye down to yer face."
    To Trudy, he seemed disproportionately pleased that her charm had failed. She frowned. "And what's so good about that? I thought ye wanted me to cheer him up."
    "Aye, but I never said nothing about doing it in the daytime when he had all his reason, so it's just as well he's proved too hard for you to trick."
    "He's not so hard," Trudy said, with a lift of her chin. "He just knows he's much too weak to go traipsing all over London. Whereas, if I make him feel better, I'm sure he'd follow me anywhere."
    "Ho! Ho! Got your dander up, have we?" Francis nearly tumbled over himself with laughter. "And I thought me sister, Trudy, didn't give a fig about her charms. 'Tisn't often that yer beauty fails ye, is it, sister?"
    "It didn't fail me. If I had wanted Sir Matthew to follow me, he would have, and make no mistake about it," Trudy said, unable to resist a boast. "But, the truth is, ye don't understand what I was trying to do. The concept of charity is way beyond ye."
    Francis's giggle floated out into the air and echoed in the starlight. And he refused to stop his teasing. Nothing would have given Trudy more pleasure in that moment than to tell him she had another plan, but afraid that Francis would try to stop her, she bit her tongue and did not mention it.
    He was her brother, a slightly over-bearing brother, and he would learn soon enough.
     
    And, so, I should've watched her, as I told her I would; but ye see, we elves ain't a particularly consistent lot. And, so, I let meself be distracted from our family business, which I shouldn't. But I did.

 

Chapter Three
     
    Matthew lay shivering beneath his sheets, the weighted curtains of his bed half drawn against the draft. For many hours since Ahmad's departure, between the periods of intense heat and the longer, more painful bouts of teeth-chattering chill, he had strained to keep his vision lucid. But minutes ago, it had started to dim. The ecru plaster of the wall he faced had changed shapes, then come alive. Its wooden frame became a window onto a moving canvas of vicious beasts, both human and brute. A terrifying landscape shifted from desert to jungle and back again, creating shadows of menace to cloud Matthew's mind.
    A parade of characters he'd encountered on his explorations passed before his vision: the Ras of Abyssinia, his patrician face endowed with a pair of murderous eyes; the tiny chief of Galla, dipped in butter and riding on a cow; the King of Karagwe, wreathed in smiles as he lay with his fat, milk-fed wives.
    And then the panic seized him, clawing with despair. The gut-wrenching knowledge that he might never again see his home. Fear that Helen would never hear a whisper of what had become of him.
    He thought of the months he had journeyed, the endless months he had been held captive, unable by trick or strategem to send her any kind of message. Would she wait and wait for word until she, too, was dead?
    He pictured her sitting by the fire, unaware of his hard-won success. The fame and glory he had sought burned to mere ashes and air. And his discoveries, for which he'd sacrificed so much, what were they but deserts and lakes and swamps drawn in cruelty and pain?
    He was weak. Too weak to mount a vigorous escape, too weak even to mount a horse. And Ahmad carried him mile after mile through black-mired ground to their freedom.
    He fought to stay alive, fought to keep