Free The Winter Witch by Paula Brackston

wisps of it curling from his nose. I was seven years old and I had a dragon for a father.
    “If you are not able to travel,” he told me, “the next best thing is to read. Read all you can, girl. And store up that knowledge, for you never know when you will need it.” He paused, sitting straight, looking thoughtfully at me. I have often, over the years, tried to see what was behind that expression, what it was he was trying to tell me. “A person has to tread his own path, Morgana. Life will set things to pulling you in all directions, tugging you this way and that.” He puffed once more, leaning back so that the light from the fire could scarcely reach him, two smokinesses rendering him faint, ghostlike. The only substantial thing about him was his voice. “Tread your own path,” said he once more.
    The next morning he was gone, and I never saw him again.
    The memory lulls me to sleep and when I awake some hours have passed and the room is in darkness save for a short candle flickering on the windowsill. I am surprised to find the patchwork quilt has been taken from the bed and placed snugly over me. Cai must have done it. Must have come to speak with me, found me sleeping, and thought to make me more comfortable. The man is a riddle. I might sooner have expected him to wake me and tell me to make his supper. I rise and peer out of the window. The night is bright, constellations clear, the moon aglow. It is hard to judge the exact hour, but the house is quiet, as if I am the only one awake.
    I drop the quilt onto the bed and snatch up my woolen shawl instead. I take the candle and lift the latch on my door carefully. Again, as I pass the door to Cai’s bedroom, I sense something out of kilter with the still silence of the night. I have the sensation of being observed. I pull my shawl tighter about me and continue downstairs. I have already identified those boards and stairs which complain at my footfalls, so I am able to descend to the kitchen quietly. The fire in the range is out. There is a faint smell of smoke lingering, but the unpleasant evidence of my calamitous attempt at cooking has gone. The table is cleared and everything returned to its proper place. Conflict unsettles me. I am glad proof of my clumsiness has been erased, but I am uncomfortable at the thought of my husband having to wash away the grime of my error. It should not fall to him. And now I feel strangely in his debt. Hunger rumbles in my stomach and I fetch a lump of cheese and a hunk of bread from the pantry. I am about to sit on the window seat when I see Cai is sleeping in the carver at the far end of the table. I wonder I have not woken him with my blundering about. How often, I wonder, has he fallen asleep down here? I remember after Dada went away I would sometimes find Mam in her chair by the kitchen range. She would explain it away as having been overtired and having drifted off. Only later did she admit to me she found her bed too lonely. Does he still miss his first wife so? Am I to compete with a ghost?
    Now I notice the corgis curled at his feet. Bracken opens one eye, recognizes me, surely more by scent than sight in the dimly lit room, gives a halfhearted wag of his tail and goes back to his slumbers.
    Hush, little one! Do not wake your master.
    Cai is sleeping deeply. I am close enough to reach out and touch him. He looks younger, somehow. In repose his features lose something of the sternness that I see. Or at least, I see it when he looks at me. Am I so perpetually bothersome? His collarless shirt is of good quality, and that is a fine woolen waistcoat. I can see the fob and chain of a gold watch. He likes to look … respectable, I think. Even when at home, tending his livestock. Not the image some of the drovers have, with their long coats and rough ways. I admit, though, he has always presented himself well. On the occasions when I saw him at Crickhowell market he was well turned out, despite being on the move with the