The Dragon Charmer Read Online Free

Fern said. “One of these days, I’ll have to change its mind.”
    Gaynor, who assumed she was referring to some kind of designer face-lift, tried to visualize hessian curtains and terracotta urns, and failed.
    Inside, there were notes of untidiness, a through draft from too many open windows, the incongruous blare of a radio, the clatter of approaching feet. She was introduced to Mrs. Wicklow, who appeared as grim as the house she kept, and her latest assistant, Trisha, a dumpy teenager in magenta leggings wielding a dismembered portion of a Hoover. Will appeared last, lounging out of the drawing room that he had converted into a studio. The radio had evidently been turned down in his wake and the closing door suppressed its beat to a rumor. Gaynor had remembered him tall and whiplash thin but she decided his shoulders had squared, his face matured. Once he had resembled an angel with the spirit of an urchin; now she saw choirboy innocence and carnal knowledge, an imp of charm, the morality of a thief. There was a smudge of paint on his cheek that she almost fancied might have been deliberate, the conscious stigma of an artist. His summer tan turned gray eyes to blue; there were sun streaks in his hair. He greeted her as if they knew each other much better than was in fact the case, gave his sister an idle peck, and offered to help with the luggage.
    “We’ve put you on the top floor,” he told Gaynor. “I hope you won’t mind. The first floor’s rather full up. If you’re lonely I’ll come and keep you company.”
    “Not Alison’s room?” Fern’s voice was unexpectedly sharp.
    “Of course not.”
    “Who’s Alison?” Gaynor asked, but in the confusion of arrival no one found time to answer.
    Her bedroom bore the unmistakable stamp of a room that had not been used in a couple of generations. It was shabbily carpeted, ruthlessly aired, the bed linen crackling with cleanliness, the ancient brocades of curtain and upholstery worn to the consistency of lichen. There was a basin and ewer on the dresser and an ugly slipware vase containing a hand-picked bunch of flowers both garden and wild. A huge mirror, bleared with recent scouring, reflected her face among the spots, and on a low table beside the bed was a large and gleaming television set. Fern surveyed it as if it were a monstrosity. “For God’s sake remove that thing,” she said to her brother. “You know it’s broken.”
    “Got it fixed.” Will flashed Gaynor a grin. “This is five-star accommodation. Every modern convenience.”
    “I can see that.”
    But Fern still seemed inexplicably dissatisfied. As they left her to unpack, Gaynor heard her say: “You’ve put Alison’s mirror in there.”
    “It’s not
Alison’s
mirror: it’s ours. It was just in her room.”
    “She tampered with it…”
    Gaynor left her bags on the bed and went to examine it more closely. It was the kind of mirror that makes everything look slightly gray. In it, her skin lost its color, her brown eyes were dulled, the long dark hair that was her principal glory was drained of sheen and splendor. And behind her in the depths of the glass the room appeared dim and remote, almost as if she were looking back into the past, a past beyond warmth and daylight, dingy as an unopened attic. Turning away, her attention was drawn to a charcoal sketch hanging on the wall: a woman with an Edwardian hairstyle, gazing soulfully at the flower she held in her hand. On an impulse Gaynor unhooked it, peering at the scrawl of writing across the bottom of the picture. There was an illegible signature and a name of which all she could decipher was the initial E. Not Alison, then. She put the picture back in its place and resumed her unpacking. In a miniature cabinet at her bedside she came across a pair of handkerchiefs, also embroidered with that tantalizing E. “Who was E?” she asked at dinner later on.
    “Must have been one of Great-Cousin Ned’s sisters,” saidWill, attacking Mrs.