To Seduce an Angel Read Free Page B

fairy-tale cellar, and she made him feel it, too, his heart beating in his chest. When she began again, his hands relaxed.
    â€œAt last the woodcutter and his wife were so hungry they sent their youngest sons out into the world with bread tied in neat bundles. These three passed the men in the fields, the church builders, and the busy market, but no one offered them a job. Hungry and weary they sat on a log to eat their bread. When a flock of birds flew near, the youngest said to his brothers, ‘Listen, the birds want to speak.’ He held out his hand with crumbs upon it. A bird hopped down at once and pecked them up. And when the three brothers rose to go on their way, they brushed the remaining crumbs onto the ground for the flock.”
    This time when she paused, Dav knew that she had reached the turning point. Now the brothers would get it right. Kindness, that was the point of the story, he felt sure, an easy moral lesson and there an end. He felt disappointed.
    Her concentration was perfect. She seemed so caught up in the world of the story that she did not notice rustlings and whispers from inside the pyramid.
    Consciousness of her femaleness thrummed in him like the low vibration of some powerful machine. Her gown seemed insubstantial, like cloud or water, loosely clinging to her form. He liked the look of her springy golden hair that might escape its bonds and her wide blue eyes and the way she wavered between trembling courage and contained purpose. He put her age at twenty or so. It occurred to him that she would have to be a prodigy to have the scholar’s knowledge of languages and maps and math she claimed to have.
    â€œThe last three of the woodcutter’s sons soon met the ogre, who asked them, ‘What do you have to say for yourselves?’
    â€œThe youngest opened his mouth to answer when the flock of birds flew round and set up such a din of beating wings and chirping that a person could not hear himself think. The ogre shouted and waved and drove the flock to the rooftop except one bird who settled on the shoulder of the youngest son and chirped in his ear.”
    The girl stopped speaking and put down the slate in her hands. Her voice dropped as if she had come to the last words of the tale. Dav could sense the edge of anticipation in the boys. She stood contained and cool, unmoved by the tension of the unfinished story.
    â€œWell, wot happens?” came a voice from within the pyramid. Slaps, grunts, and rustling hushed the speaker. Someone whispered, “Let ’er finish it.”
    Dav did not know whether to be amused or annoyed that she had engaged him in this test of patience. She had violated the fundamental rule of storytelling by leaving the woodcutter’s sons trapped in the ogre’s cellar and her audience unsatisfied.
    He could call a halt to the lesson and thank her, but if he did so, he, too, would not know the story’s end.
    He was sure the boys could see her, but she gave no sign of impatience. Again there was movement in the pyramid, and Robin, at eight, the baby of the band, poked his blond head out of the tunnel. “Please, miss, are you going to say wot ’appens?”
    In a flash Dav realized the unfinished story had been her strategy all along. But she showed no sign of triumph at this first victory. She was patient, Dav would give her that.
    â€œOnly you can finish the story.”
    Robin crawled out and sat at her feet. Savage whispers hissed at him from the tunnel. “’Ow can we finish yer story?”
    She looked as solemn as the little boy. “Each must answer the ogre’s question.”
    â€œâ€™Ow do we know wot to answer?”
    Swallow’s head emerged. “Robin, ye nodcock, it’s wot the birds say, isn’t it?”
    The girl handed Robin a slate. “I’ve written their words for you on these slates. There’s a word for each to tell the ogre.”
    Jay and Raven crawled out next, a