Steemjammer: Through the Verltgaat Read Online Free Page A

was his sister so upset from their parents’ absence that she was seeing things?
    “Oh,” she gasped, “I know who it was. Rasputin !”
    Will made a face. “Huh?”
    “It had to be.”
    “Who?”
    “Rasputin.”
    “I heard that. Again: huh?”
    She had to take a moment to calm herself.
    “One night I couldn’t sleep,” she explained, “so I went downstairs to get some milk. Mom and Dad were talking, and they didn’t know I could hear. I didn’t mean to listen to them. I couldn’t help it.”
    “It’s okay,” he said. “What did they say?”
    “That someone named Rasputin wanted to kill us! He must be very evil, because they called him ‘our enemy’ and sounded very worried.”
    “ Rasputin ? Are you sure you heard them right?”
    “Yes!”
    He took a moment to frame his thoughts. “Angelica, I don’t know what to tell you, because Rasputin is dead .”
     
    ***
     
    Even with his assurance that the mysterious “enemy” was dead, Angelica wouldn’t leave her room until Will, armed with a crossbow, patrolled the yard several times and made sure no one was there. He asked her to toast them some cheese sandwiches while he got a history book, and he showed her how the infamous mystic, Rasputin, had indeed died in Russia, long ago.
    “See?” he tried to calm her. “He couldn’t have been in our yard. He was murdered.”
    “What if he’s a vampire?” she argued stubbornly.
    “Oh, come on.”
    She pointed at his picture in the book. “Well, he looks creepy enough to be one.”
    “But the sun’s out. Look, I bet this is what happened. Some random guy got curious about our smokestack and animals, so he snuck up to check us out. When you screamed, he ran away, and we’ll never see him again.”
    “Maybe. Who’s Rasputin, then?”
    “A dead guy.”
    “Then, who are Mom and Dad scared of?”
    “You got me.”
    “And why do we learn to fight with swords and crossbows? What about all the safety drills?”
    Will grew concerned. She was getting very worked up.
    “We have fire drills,” he said gently, hoping to calm her, “in case Beverkenhaas starts burning, and we have boiler alarm drills because - well, boilers are dangerous, if you don’t take care of them. You know that.”
    “But what about ….” Something about her sentence frightened her so much that she couldn’t finish.
    “What?” Will urged.
    “They always creep me out.” Still scared, she lowered her voice. “Shadovecht drills.”
    Will laughed. “Is that what you think he is?”
    “No, he’s too small, but what if he’s spying for them?”
    “Shadovecht? They aren’t even real.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because it’s the sort of things parents make up to frighten their children into being good.”
    “But that would be lying! Dad says we can’t do that.”
    “Do you even know what a Shadovecht is?”
    That stopped her a moment. “Well, they’re very bad, and I know Dad wouldn’t lie like that.”
    “Okay, maybe Shadovecht is his word for burglars, and those drills are so we know what to do if there’s a break-in. But it won’t happen because we don’t have anything worth stealing. So cheer up!”
     
    ***
     
    “Angelica,” Will called that afternoon, “can you hold the light?”
    Earlier they’d shut off the haaskooler or house cooler. By noon, Beverkenhaas had become a sweltering sauna, so Will had decided to turn it back on. That meant reconnecting the belt drives that spun circulating fans, the chain drives that ran the compressor, and the gear system that worked the heat exchanger. Creating a simple on-off lever for this was one of many items on his father’s long “to do” list.
    His sister arrived with a lantern, but he knew she’d been staring anxiously through a window at the yard.
    “You should see your hair,” he said, hoping to distract her.
    She saw her reflection in a window and laughed. It was particularly hot and humid that day. Normally, her hair stood up like a vase full