Twisted Winter by Catherine Butler Read Free Book Online Page A

stamping it into slush.
    â€œKeep an eye on him,” said Mum.
    I took my history book outside, and leant against the footpath stile near where he was playing. I couldn’t study, though. I had to watch Dill as he scuffed my gorgeous snow and warbled in a tooth-edgey falsetto. Suddenly the whole scene felt like The Symbol of My Life.
    She
must have come up along the coastal path behind me, but I didn’t hear her approach. There was no soft, powdery huff, huff, huff of feet stirring snow. All I knew was that suddenly there was another figure leaning over the fence, watching Dill.
    It was a woman in a pale blue coat, with silveryfake fur around the neck and hood. I thought she looked Swedish, with her pale lashes and pure gold hair. Her face was tanned, but I wondered whether it was a skiing holiday tan, not a beach tan. I realised that I was blocking the stile and moved hastily, but she carried on staring over the fence.
    I waited for the usual inane comments that Dill draws out of adults.
He’s having fun there, isn’t he? Wish I was his age.
But the silence stretched.
    â€œHe’s my brother,” I said. It was weird to start a conversation that way, but all I could think of to do was to answer the routine remarks that hadn’t been made.
    â€œThen can’t you stop him doing that?” answered the woman, without looking at me.
    Her tone held the suppressed frustration that I often felt when I watched Dill. When she glanced at me at last, her small frown melted away, as if my face had mirrored her own feelings.
    â€œNo,” I said. “I can’t. Mum lets him do whatever he wants.”
    Her irises were dark at the rim but silvery grey nearer the pupil. In contrast, her lashes were shockingly white. As we locked gazes, I felt thewoman enter my head as a guest. She walked through the rooms of my mind, but disturbed nothing, trod no dirt into the carpets. She ran her fingertips along surfaces and examined them, then nodded approvingly.
    â€œNo,” she said softly, “but you would if you could. He spoils
everything
, doesn’t he?”
    I flushed, and nodded. The ‘steam’ that had never been ‘let off’ filled me right then. For the first time somebody understood. The relief was painful.
    â€œSome people do,” the woman murmured. “They do not care how long others labour to create, to restore, to clean, to preserve – they must always mar. Destroy. Stain.”
    â€œThere’s nothing I can do about it.” My voice sounded mangled and tearful.
    â€œAnd if you could do something?” she asked softly. “Something to stop your brother spoiling anything pristine, ever again?”
    â€œYou mean, apart from throwing him off the cliff?” I gave a hasty-sounding laugh to show it had been a joke. Somehow it hadn’t sounded like one.
    She smiled. “Oh, nothing that drastic would be necessary.”
    I was starting to get a tingle-kneed feeling as if the precipice was much closer than it actually was, as if it had been inching towards us during the conversation.
    â€œYes,” I said. “I’d like it if all the spoiling and breaking just
stopped
.”
    â€œThen bring him here,” she said.
    And I did. I walked over to Dill, my face burning, and a terrible warmth in my chest. I called him over. I picked him up. I walked back to the woman at the fence.
    I didn’t know what would happen. I would love to tell you that I thought it would be nothing terrible. But deep down I think I knew.
    â€œWhat’s his name?” she asked, giving him a smile bright as dewdrops.
    â€œDill.”
    â€œHello, Dill.” She leant over the fence, and kissed him on the forehead.
    Dill’s blue eyes widened, and he screamed. When the woman straightened, I almost expected to see her kiss seared into his forehead, but there was no mark. I set him down, and watched him stumble away with a feeling of shock and