I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

Tendrils of raw fog floated up from the ice like agonized spirits departing their bodies. The cold air was a hazy, writhing mist.
 
Up and down the long gallery I flew, the silver blades of my skates making the sad scraping sound of a butcher s knife being sharpened energetically on stone. Beneath the icy surface, the intricately patterned parquet of the hardwood floor was still clearly visible even though its colors were somewhat dulled by diffraction.
 
Overhead, the twelve dozen candles I had pinched from the butler s pantry and stuffed into the ancient chandeliers flickered madly in the wind of my swift passage. Round and round the room I went round and round and up and down. I drew in great lungfuls of the biting air, blowing it out again in little silver trumpets of condensation.
 
When at last I came skidding to a stop, chips of ice flew up in a breaking wave of tiny colored diamonds.
 
 
It had been easy enough to flood the portrait gallery: An India- rubber garden hose snaked in through an open window from the terrace and left running all night had done the trick that, and the bitter cold which, for the past fortnight, had held the countryside in its freezing grip.
 
Since nobody ever came to the unheated east wing of Buckshaw anyway, no one would notice my improvised skating rink not, at least, until springtime, when it melted. No one, perhaps, but my oil- painted ancestors, row upon row of them, who were at this moment glaring sourly down at me from their heavy frames in icy disapproval of what I had done.
 
I blew them a loud, echoing raspberry tart and pushed off again into the chill mist, now doubled over at the waist like a speed skater, my right arm digging at the air, my pigtails fl ying, my left hand tucked behind my back as casually as if I were out for a Sunday stroll in the country.
 
How lovely it would be, I thought, if some fashionable photographer such as Cecil Beaton

Alan Bradley

Acclaim for Alan Bradley s beloved Flavia de Luce novels, winners of the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award, Barry Award, Agatha Award, Macavity Award, Dilys Winn Award, and Arthur Ellis Award
 
If ever there was a sleuth who s bold, brilliant, and yes, adorable, it s Flavia de Luce. USA Today

Delightful . . . [Flavia is] a combination of Eloise and Sherlock Holmes. . . . Fearless, cheeky, wildly precocious. The Boston Globe, on The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
 
  Utterly beguiling . . . wicked wit . . . The real delight here is [Flavia s] droll voice and the eccentric cast. People (four stars), on The Weed That Strings the Hangman s Bag
 
Outstanding . . . [a] marvelous blend of whimsy and mystery. Publishers Weekly (starred review), on A Red Herring Without Mustard