Free Secret of Light by K. C. Dyer

looked around.
    This tree is almost as twisted as the arbutus at Eagle Glen.
The thought gave her a pang as she brushed her hand along the gnarled trunk. She waited a full minute for anyone to appear, and then held her breath and scampered for a small doorway on the far side of the back wall, away from the kitchens.
    The room was empty and almost as dark as the stable had been. A small fire burned low in a grate in one corner, providing the only source of light in the tightly shuttered room. Darrell stepped quietly around a table laden withparchment and other paper-like materials. She rubbed the oily texture of a page between her fingers.
    A scratching sound under the far side of the table caused her to stop and peer through the gloom for any further sign of rodents. One rat was more than enough for the day. Rising onto the toes of her left foot, she cautiously stepped around the loaded table. The sound came again, and Darrell gathered her skirts around her knees and squinted at the surrounding floor.
    Like a wraith rising from the ground, a ghostly white face hovered over the far side of the table. Darrell bit down hard on her lower lip to stop from yelling out loud.
    â€œYou’re not going to scream, are you?” the head inquired.
    Darrell, dumb with fear, shook her head.
    â€œYou can drop your skirts. There are no mice here, or rats either, for that matter. Dante looks after them.” As if to prove the point, a cat slipped between her feet, arching his back against the chiselled wood of her leg. Thinking of Norton, her neighbour’s cat, she reached down for a pat, but the cat slipped off into the shadows.
    Darrell let the silky material of her heavy skirts rustle out of her numb fingers, and gathered her courage.
    â€œYou can’t be a ghost,” she said, somewhat unnecessarily, “though your face is so white, you look like one.”
    The pallid face took on a thoughtful expression as it examined Darrell. “How can you be so sure?” it asked, and then stood, removing all doubt.
    Darrell, her initial fear gone, looked at the figure in front of her with some curiosity. She stepped aroundthe table and gestured at the floor. “Most ghosts don’t have feet.”
    â€œPerhaps then it is I who should worry about strange, spectral girls wandering about, as you clearly don’t have feet either, from the sound of it.”
    Darrell flushed and sagged against the table for a moment, avoiding his eyes. Then she lifted her chin.
    â€œYou’re right,” she said quietly. “Though that does not make me a ghost, only a girl with one sound leg and one wooden.”
    â€œI knew it!” he exclaimed, and jumped at her in such a startling way she was forced to take a step backwards. “Let me see it,
per favore
,
per favore
! I want to examine how it works and how you are able to get around so well.” Darrell stepped back again, amazed that someone taller than she could sound so much like a small boy wheedling for a treat.
    â€œCertainly not!” She knew from her time in the fourteenth century that propriety would frown on her even being in this room unchaperoned with this young man, let alone showing him how her leg attached to the elaborate peg she wore under her heavy skirts. She frowned.
    â€œHow do you know I get around easily, anyway? Have you been spying on me?”
    The young man looked abashed. “Not spying, really,” he mumbled. “Just paying heed. I watched you walk in here and knew something to be amiss with your gait.”
    Her eyes adjusting to the gloom of the darkened room, Darrell took a good look at this curious non-ghost. She could now see his face appeared white becauseit was well-dusted with chalk, and his hair stood out from his head in tousled red ringlets, with chalk dust liberally distributed through it, as well. His hands were dirty and clutched a half-completed sketch along with the offending stick of chalk. From his