Ice Crown by Kay L Moody

Author:Kay L Moody [Moody, Kay L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marten Press
Published: 2019-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

NINE

LETTERS.

They captured the essence of Marmie, but not the smell. They didn’t hold the soft edges of her wrinkled skin or the few gray strands in her hair. How many strands of gray were there now?

Talise hadn’t seen Marmie in ten years. When she first joined the academy, the one thing she feared most was forgetting Marmie’s face. At first, it took no effort at all to recall her sparkly smile and gray eyes. The first few years, it was easy.

And then it wasn’t.

Now she wondered if she had imagined that freckle under Marmie’s right eye. Or was it her left? Had her lips been full or thin? She never thought to look when she was younger.

Marmie insisted Talise would never be able to forget her as long as she loved her. But she was wrong. She loved Marmie with more heart than she even knew was capable.

And she could barely remember her face.

Talise clutched the letters against her chest and breathed them in again, praying for even the hint of a smell.

Of course it never came. What did Marmie smell like? Now she’d never know. At the funeral, she’d smell like embalming fluid. That wasn’t Marmie. All Talise would really get was to see Marmie’s face again.

Her beautiful face that had sacrificed everything, everything for Talise to be here.

Why did fate have to be so cruel as to let Marmie see Talise get so close to the competition, but not close enough to win? Talise had bought Marmie a riverboat ticket so she could attend. If things had gone according to plan, Marmie would have had one full day of food and rest. It would have been the best she’d felt in years.

And now she was dead.

Gone.

Sand seemed to scrape down Talise’s throat as she tried to swallow. She clutched the letters to her chest as she paced across her bedroom.

How was she supposed to compete like this? How could she focus now?

She swallowed again and brushed an errant tear from her cheek.

She just had to put a mark on Marmie’s gravestone. If she could just leave a mark on the gravestone, then she could focus again. Why was Mrs. Dew taking so long to tell her when the funeral would be?

Talise’s bedroom door opened a crack, and the letters flew through the air as she wrenched the door open. Her arms sagged at her sides when she saw Wendy in the doorway.

Talise turned away and tucked a strand of chin-length black hair behind her ear. “I thought you were Mrs. Dew.”

“Why weren’t you in class this morning?” Wendy asked.

Gulping seemed like a good way to subdue the frog in Talise’s throat, but the sandpaper feeling only got worse. Considering how much she’d been crying, it made sense that her throat was dry.

“I had a, uh… personal…” Why was she trying to be brave in front of Wendy? Wendy was her friend. But maybe if she could be brave in front of Wendy, she could be brave in front of everyone else too.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.