Winterspell Read Online Free PDF Page B

she often thought, alone in her bedroom, like need . She’d begun sending Godfather into the back room on pointless errands, to fetch her something or other for a project she was fiddling with, so that she could spend a private moment with the fearsome-looking thing. She would sneak over to it and press close, fancying it, in her more foolish moments, a stoic suitor who, with those hard arms as thick as her waist, would encircle her, bend her back, and whisper secrets into her hair.
    The truly great thing was that no matter how shocking her fancies grew, the statue never did a thing. He stood there, unmoving, and he did not lick his lips or pin her with hot, uneasy stares.
    But now, everything had changed. Now, Clara shoved such thoughts away, stalked over to the statue, and held up her sketches against it. Clusters of harsh lines, like the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt gone utterly savage, echoed one another—some on the paper, some on the statue.
    â€œTell me what it means.” Clara whipped her head around to glare at Godfather, who looked suddenly lost, ancient and small. “This wascarved on Mother’s throat, cut into her skin. And here it is on one of your possessions, as plain as daylight, and you never told me. They kept the photographs from me, but you . . . you know everything, Godfather. You must have known.” She paused, feeling childish and tired. She could not meet his eye. “Did you? Did you know these were left on her body?”
    Godfather watched her quietly for a moment. “I did.”
    A cruel, cruel punch to the gut. “ How did you know?”
    â€œI cannot tell you all of my secrets, Clara.” That look crossed his face, that secret, sly look that sometimes overtook him at his most genius moments, and his most rageful. It never failed to frighten her. She took a step back, choosing her words carefully. She always felt far from him at these moments, never more aware of his . . . otherness. Godfather was not like normal people.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me about them?”
    His face closed, and he turned away. “Your mother wanted me to keep you and your sister safe from harm, and that is what I have chosen to do—obey her wishes.”
    â€œHow does divulging one measly bit of information put me in harm’s way?”
    â€œOh.” He chuckled to himself. He retrieved his cane and studied the dragon’s head. “Oh, it is anything but measly.”
    Now was the time to catch him. Now, when he was distracted.
    Clara approached him. “Tell me, Godfather. What do the symbols mean? Why were they on Mother’s body and not on the others’?” She put her hands on his, pressed her cheek to his arm. He loved her; he would not be able to refuse her. “Mother would want me to know.”
    He stepped away, his sharp face in profile, his eye gleaming in the lamplight. “You know very little of what your mother would want, my Clara.”
    An even crueler punch. She backed away, brittle and confused. “How dare you! I knew my mother well.”
    â€œI didn’t mean that.” Godfather came back to himself, as if the veneer of madness had been ripped away. “Of course you knew her. I only meant that there are things young girls oughtn’t to know.”
    â€œThat’s rich, coming from you, who teaches me to fight and fashions me trousers.”
    â€œAll right, then. There are things as few people as possible ought to know. Dangerous things that grow more dangerous as knowledge of them spreads. Will that explanation suffice?”
    Such cryptic words. Even as Clara grew impatient with them, they made her think of Godfather’s strange stories, stories he had often told her and Felicity when they were small, and then told Clara alone, for Felicity had grown frightened of “wicked old Godfather” and stopped accompanying Clara and her mother on their outings to the shop. And