Read In The Coils Of The Snake for Free Online

with Catspaw in his library. While the busy goblin King recorded
the day’s decisions, writing left-handed because
of his awkward paw, she ran her eyes over the closely packed shelves, scanning the long sets of matched
volumes. She was bored with her
inactivity and annoyed at her own boredom, and she wasn’t feeling particularly gracious. But that didn’t
matter; she would have the right
smile ready for her royal fiance when he looked up at her.
    With a slight frown,
the goblin King took her hand and exam fined the jewelry she wore. Among his
own gifts, he spied Kate’s bracelet and touched it with a finger.
    “Mother tells
me you’re afraid of the dark,” he said. “I hadn’t known.”
    Miranda
was taken aback by the revelation and felt anxious about
what it might mean.
    “Did something here
cause it?” he asked.
    “No, it started
when I was young,” she answered reluctantly. Then she realized he had
noticed her hesitation.
    “How?” he
demanded, and she decided that she had better tell him the truth.
    “One
day Mother was scolding me, and I told her I was glad that I
was going away when I grew up. There were lots of things we couldn’t say because of the magic, but there were
still things that we could say.
    “Mother always
hated to hear that sort of thing — I don’t know why; as much as she disliked me,
you’d think she would have been glad, too. This time, she glared at me and
said, ‘You’ll go away, all right. You’ll be
locked up forever in the dark. Let’s try it out and see how you like it.’
    “She dragged me
downstairs to the cellar and shut me into a room.
Not one ray of light came in. Then she stood outside and talked to me
while I screamed and pounded on the door. ‘There are things in the dark that can’t come out in the day,’ she told me. ‘You’re cursed. You’ll never escape.’”
    “She
could say that because it was a lie,” growled Catspaw. “The
magic only blocked her from speaking the truth about the kingdom. It’s
unfortunate that Til is part of my family; I can’t take goblin revenge. All the same, I don’t see why her life should be going so
well. I’ll have to give the matter some thought.”
    “I’m
sure she didn’t keep me there very long,” Miranda told him, oddly uncomfortable over the calm threat. “Papa let
me out. He was yelling at Mother,
just as upset as I was. He was probably afraid of what Marak would do. But Mother was very cool about it. I remember she laughed at him. She said, ‘Maybe now she’ll
want to stay with me.’
    “She
was right, too. I was afraid to see the sun go down, terrified all
night, and the nurse wouldn’t let me keep a candle. I crept out of bed and huddled in a patch of moonlight, thinking
about how Marak always visited after
dark. The next time he came, I didn’t run to greet him, and I cried when
he walked into the room. It sounds silly,
time different but it was the first time I noticed how different he was from everyone
else.”
    “What did he
do?” asked Catspaw with interest. “Did he work any spells?”
    “I don’t think
so,” she answered. “He was just himself. He held me on his lap, and
he talked to me.” Her voice wavered because of the lump that had formed in
her throat. She stopped abruptly and studied
the diamond bracelet. Sometimes it still hurt terribly to think of him.
    Catspaw
leaned toward her as she glanced up and held her gaze with
his own. “My spells keep the lamps lit, Miranda,” he said quietly. “I
won’t ever leave you in the dark.”
    Miranda
was touched by his consideration. She hadn’t imagined the
goblin King like this. She saw her royal suitor as someone to charm and
impress, but she hadn’t realized that she would have to trust him. Maybe he wouldn’t always seem like such a stranger, she thought
with relief. She remembered Marak’s last talk with her: Catspaw will be all
that to you.
    “That night
when I was frightened, Marak told me about my future,” she