Castle of the Wolf by Sandra Schwab Read Free Book Online

still open door. She saw how the threshold of stone had been hollowed out by innumerable feet—a chain of people stretching back far into the past. She put her foot onto the stone, made herself part of the chain, and stepped through the door.
    She came into a wide, high hall. A ribbed vaulting stretched above her, with painted flowers blooming around the center rosettes and in points running toward the walls. Threadbare tapestries and dark portraits of people in clothes from bygone ages adorned the pale gray. On one side stood an empty chimneypiece, on the other a colorful, tiled stove next to a table and a few chairs. Yet despite the furniture, the room appeared empty and chilly. And the four doors on all sides did nothing to improve Cissy’s mood.
    Her steps sounded unnaturally loud in the silence, and she half-expected to find another gargoyle lurking even in here. Yet there was no trace of another being—be it of stone or human flesh and blood—in sight.
    Cissy crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her foot tapped an annoyed staccato on the floor. “What is the matter with these people?” she muttered before she cleared her throat several times to holler, “ Guten Ta-hag! ”
    This finally produced the desired result: one of the doors was thrown open.
    “Miss Celia Fussell!” An older man approached her, in his wake a motherly looking woman. He hurried toward Cissy and, taking her hand, shook it as if he wanted to dislocate her arm. “My dear Miss Fussell,” he said, his small horn-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. “My dear Miss Fussell. My dear, dear child.” He halted the shaking, and with the forefinger of his free hand righted his spectacles. “You are Miss Celia Fussell, are you not?”
    Cissy blinked, eyeing him carefully. “Indeed I am, sir.”
    “Yes, yes.” He patted her hand. “You look exactly like your dear papa.” His face changed, his features shifting until he reminded her of a sad puppy. “We were so sorry to hear of your loss.”
    “Thank you, I—”
    His face lit up again and he continued the patting. “But we are very happy to have you here, aren’t we, Anna?” He half-turned to look at the woman behind him.
    Cissy could not help noticing that his cheerfulness seemed almost too bubbly, too exaggerated. It was rather worrying, but she aimed at keeping a smile on her face. “Thank you for this kind welcome, sir. So you would be…”
    He beamed at her and patted her hand some more. “Graf Ferdinand von Wolfenbach.”
    “Graf von Wolfenbach.” She wondered whether she should curtsy, but this did not seem to fit the hand patting and shaking. “So you would be master here?”
    With surprise, she saw flustered color blossom on his cheeks. “I…er…well…” He turned and threw the woman behind him an imploring look. “I…”
    In the distance Cissy heard strange, uneven tapping. Tap-dam, tap-dam .
    Graf von Wolfenbach’s color deepened, and his hand patting became slightly frantic. He looked back at her, gulped and plastered a forced smile on his face. “I am not…um…exactly the master of the Castle of Wolfenbach.”
    The tapping sounds stopped. “No,” a new voice said from behind Cissy. “ I am the master of the Castle of Wolfenbach.”
    Cissy’s hand slipped from the Graf s grasp. Slowly she turned in the direction of that new voice, dark and compelling.
    The man was tall and as lean as a greyhound. Wavy dark hair fell into his strong-boned face, almost into his burning eyes. A sneer twisted his mouth as he stood in the middle of the vast hall, arms crossed in front of his chest. Cissy’s gaze wandered over his body, over his shabby, dusty clothes, over the twist of his hip that rested the weight on his sound right leg and relieved the wooden left.
    He cocked an eyebrow at her. “ I am the master of the Castle of Wolfenbach.”

Chapter 4
    Cissy blinked.
    If he was aiming at impersonating the villain from a gothic novel, he was succeeding rather nicely.