The Ice King (A Witch Ways Whisper) Read Online Free PDF Page A

wolf on a white ground.
    “It’s nonsense.” Lachlan reasoned. “No one can read the future, Liv. It’s a con.”
    “It’s fun.” her voice had that insistent tone and she squeezed his hand. Sometimes, in company with Olivia, Lachlan felt like a bullock being switched disobediently through a field. It was a brightly sunny day and he was feeling hot and out of sorts.
    “It’s not.” he matched her insistence.
    “Lach…what is the matter with you? It’s the Goose Fair it’s all nonsense that’s the point of coming, to lose yourself in the fun of…nonsense.” she was snuffling at him again and he found her twinkly tinkliness was like broken glass. He was realising that he wanted to get away from Olivia Dashford, lacy knickers or not. He reached into his pocket for the last of his money.
    “We’ll have to walk home” he looked at her. Walking home was not one of Olivia’s favoured pursuits, in fact, as Lachlan thought about it, she would prefer to ride home in a golden carriage driven by white horses.
    “You can give me a piggy back” she giggled and kissed his cheek. He felt the tug of her hand as she led him towards the fortune teller’s tent. He pulled back.
    “Aren’t you coming in?” Olivia pulled her displeased baby face. Lachlan felt an urge to slap it.
    “Only enough cash for one of us. You want to know the future, I’m going to…”
    Olivia was not dismayed and before he had finished the sentence she was ducking in through the grubby tasselling on the slightly frayed doorway. Lachlan paused a moment, he had been going to sit on the gate and wait, but that seemed like a bore, and he soon wandered off.
    He meandered around the Goose Fair, the sounds clashed at him, each stall and ride seemed to have a different tune playing from it and the effect was a cacophony. The colours of the paintwork on the signage began to nag at him, the distressed gilding, the blood red, the vein blue and bilious green. There seemed to be weapons everywhere from the shooting galleries to the dart games, it was, somehow, a small war zone. Lachlan felt his discontent rise. Roll on Oxbridge, he was no longer part of this, there was something else waiting for him and it was Elsewhere.
    It appeared that Olivia Dashford had an epic future ahead of her as it took her a very long time in the fortune teller’s tent. Lachlan walked the entire Goose Fair and returned to find her still inside. He waited, impatiently, sitting atop the farm gate.
    At last, she emerged, at least, he thought it was Olivia, this young woman seemed smaller somehow and drawn in, her face a pale cross oval. She stepped towards him and offered a wan smile.
    “Shall we head back?” her voice was not tinkling and, he noticed, she did not take his hand.
    They walked through the fair, their silence at odds with the clatter and whirl around them.
    “Was it fun?” Lachlan ventured at last. Olivia turned a harsh glare on him, her eyes like black glass.
    “You think you are very clever don’t you Lachlan Laidlaw. So very, very clever…” there was bitterness and spite in her tone. He shrugged it off.
    “I said it was nonsense.”
    She said nothing, her glare intensifying.
    “Nonsense? Hm. She knew about you.”
    Lachlan could imagine the spiel that Olivia had been spun about her future with her boyfriend.
    “You’re pretty Liv, anyone could guess you had a boyfriend…” Lachlan dug his hands into his empty pockets. Oh, not quite empty, a coin left.
    “Called Lachlan Laidlaw?” Olivia challenged him, folding her arms tightly across her chest, her foot tapping. Lachlan considered this evidence for a good long moment.
    “It’s the Goose Fair Liv, everyone knows everyone around here…” his argument was shaky. The Goose Fair was a travelling fair and none of the stallholders and fairground people were local, but he stuck with his only logic, his possible reasoning. Olivia unfolded her arms and looked impatient.
    “Yes. Well. Whatever you say,