The Ice King (A Witch Ways Whisper) by Helen Slavin Read Free Book Online Page A

the ordinary Lachlan. Something that Mrs Folds thought you were ideally suited to undertake…”
    Lachlan could hear his heartbeat, the way it sounded like footsteps crossing snow. He looked into Professor Folds’ animated face.
    “It’s an anthropological study to research and record the vanishing folklore and culture of the Sami people. ”
    As Professor Folds continued Lachlan was silent, his thoughts clear. Far North. A snow globe white out landscape. A flaw in the glass. A man. Walking. Walking. Know him now?
    “Mrs Folds has had no compunction in recommending you to the committee and they have approved the motion. So? What do you think? What’s your answer man? Are you up for a challenge?”
    They celebrated Lachlan’s forthcoming adventure with single malt.
    A week later Lachlan was making his farewells at the Folds home. Professor Folds had arranged for a cab to take him to the station and they had finished their evening meal. Mrs Folds had made a special presentation of his ticket North.
    “I could make a joke here, Lachlan and say that this is ‘just the ticket’ for you…” Mrs Folds smiled as she handed over the thickly laid cream envelope bearing the tickets and the first instalment of his funds. Lachlan remembered to smile but his mind had been distracted all evening by a memory of funeral plumes, of hats, of earth on a young woman’s coffin. Now, as he took his leave, icicle fingers reached into Lachlan’s skull to pick out the thoughts like lice. The bright white wording of them glittered in the air. “You will be lost Lachlan, but she will find you.”
    Mrs Folds leaned in to hug him.
    “May good fortune follow you North, Lachlan.”
    The doorbell tolled the arrival of the cab.
    The train would take Dr Lachlan Laidlaw a considerable way North, beyond that, there was a boat and beyond that, where the snow lay white deep, was a sled and dogs and the starlit night.
    *
    The wolf had followed Dr Lachlan Laidlaw for days. At first he had assumed it was interested in this intruder into its territory. Now, he knew it was laughing at him, at his efforts to outrun the hostility of this landscape. Lachlan halted in the snow and breathed hard. Icicles formed in his beard at once making a dissonant but magical chinkling sound as he moved his face.
    This, he thought, is the music I shall die to . Above his head the skies were no longer darkening. They were flared and shot through with the aurora. He took a moment to watch it alter from an acid green to a softer blue. He ought to be able to list the reasons why it changed, his brain stored the science of it somewhere but out here the world was elemental. All you really knew was that Odin owned the aurora and that whilst others looked up into a night sky blotted by street-lighting, out here, in the silence, there was nothing between you and the Gods. Here, Lachlan Laidlaw had reached the edge.
    He understood, at last, that the wolf was watching its next meal, that he himself was down to his last thought.
    Good. Now that his mind was clear and empty as a goldfish bowl he could regroup, push on with his task.
    The wolf was disappointed as its snack gathered renewed strength to push the sled forward and his meal slithered further northward.
    The wolf did not follow, for where this meal was headed was black ice country, a place for Gods and monsters.

PART THREE
    Coming of Age
    Vanessa Way: 1984
    Vanessa had walked home to Cob Cottage after a long shift waitressing at the Castle Inn. Her legs were tired but the muscles stretched out as she cut up through the wood rather than walk the long way round on Old Castle Road. As she walked the smell of chicken kiev and beer drifted away from her and she inhaled deeply the scents of leaf mould, fox and of the cool water of Pike Lake and felt better. She was not going to work at the Castle Inn pub restaurant forever although she understood, Jim Crake, who ran the place, rather wanted her to.
    She thought she might while