Twisted Winter Read Online Free Page A

There were glass cups to be dipped into the punch, and straws for those people forced to drink through a hole in a rigid mask. The straws were very popular; they glowed in the dark.
    The children clustered round the punch-bowl, reaching for straws. Mrs Wallace and her partner paused beside them, and she dipped a cup into the fruit punch and drank. Then she carefully fitted a straw through the cruel snarling mouth of her friendin the twisted mask, and held up a cup so that he could drink too.
    The children watched, warily.
    Freddie Thomson was not a rotting mummy this year, but a unitard skeleton. He was lost in admiration, gazing up at the man’s head. “That’s the best monster mask I ever saw. Where’d you get it?”
    â€œNot a monster,” said the man, removing the straw from the hole in his mask’s awful unmoving mouth. His voice was husky, with an accent that sounded vaguely West Country. “It’s Herne. You know Herne.”
    â€œThe ghost in Windsor Great Park,” said Verity Ransom, who knew everything. She was a ghost in floating white silk, with a feathery white mask across her eyes. “Herne the Hunter. He haunts a big oak tree. But he had antlers.”
    â€œI had antlers,” said the man in the mask. He gave his head a little jerk, and a drop of blood from one of his forehead stumps flicked on to Verity Ransom’s ghostly white silk.
    â€œHow do you
do
that?” said Freddie Thomson in awe.
    Mrs Wallace said, “The Great Park story is more recent, Verity. This is a much older legend, from ourown old wood, Hunter’s Wood. Haven’t you heard it? A woodsman cut off Herne’s antlers, long, long ago, so Herne’s ghost protects the trees from anyone else who tries to cut them down. Whenever those ancient trees are in danger, his stumps bleed, and they tell him to come after the attacker.”
    â€œAnd he comes,” said the masked man softly. “Oh yes, he comes.”
    He bent his knees a little, so that his terrible head was at the same level as the children’s heads, and he turned, slowly, facing them one after another.
    Mrs Wallace said, “I wouldn’t want him coming after me, would you?”
    The children were backing away. “No!” said a small Fothergill devil fervently.
    Blonde Mrs Fothergill, an outsize Alice, reached for the little boy’s hand. She said reproachfully to Mrs Wallace, “You know, I really feel – ”
    The man in the mask turned his face to her, with its wide yellow eyes and glistening wounded forehead.
    â€œHerne the Hunter,” he said in his soft husky voice. “When there is danger, he comes hunting, and none can stop him.”
    The small Fothergill made a whimpering noise.
    Verity Ransom said in her high clear voice, “Don’t be frightened, Petey. It’s just Hallowe’en. That nasty old witch over there is really my mum, you know that. And this is just a Herne mask – look, you can see the string.”
    She pointed to the neck of the man in the mask.
    Freddie Thomson peered critically at the neat bow of tape just visible in the man’s dark hair.
    â€œYeah, there it is,” he said. “And I can see a fold where the mask doesn’t quite fit.”
    The man in the mask chuckled, in a totally different voice. “Darn! I’ve got to be more convincing!” And he gave a high screech and dived at the children around him. They scattered, howling happily, and the chase became a game. The Harlequins joined in, still playing, and the party was back in full swing.
    Mrs Wallace found Julian Hogg’s chunky green-clad form at her side.
    â€œGood evening,” he said. “So nice to see you. It’s Julian, inside this froggy outfit. I’m hoping you and I will come to a mutually profitable agreement later this week. Your lawyers have heard all the details from my people, of course.”
    Mrs Wallace held her brocaded mask