Strange Star by Emma Carroll EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Emma Carroll
- Language: English
- Genre: Action & Adventure Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
IT WAS FELIX’S JOB TO deliver the invitation. On such a sparkling,
sunny morning after weeks of cold rain he was glad to be outside,
stretching his legs. Not that he had far to go—Mr. and Mrs. Shelley’s
villa was just a short walk through the apple orchard. He’d be back at
Diodati again in less than twenty minutes, the job done.
Yet this wasn’t just any job. Or any invitation. And despite
knowing it was a servant’s responsibility to deliver messages, not
read them, Felix couldn’t resist glancing at the card in his hand. Lord
Byron’s words, in still-wet ink, read more like a challenge than an
invitation. Felix prickled with excitement.
Tonight was going to be spectacular.
Once through the orchard, Felix raced up the steep steps to the
Shelleys’ front door. His master, Lord Byron, had known Mr. and
Mrs. Shelley and Miss Clairmont back in London, where he lived
most of the year. Like him, they were writers. Free thinkers—at least,
the Shelleys were. Mr. Shelley, a poet, was tall and sickly thin. Mrs.
Shelley, smaller, quieter, had the fiercest eyes Felix had ever seen.
And Miss Clairmont, stepsister to Mrs. Shelley, was a whirlwind of
emotions who cried as much as she laughed. Like Byron, the little
group had come here to Switzerland for the summer to take in the
mountain air. As individuals, they were interesting enough, but
together, their sparks became flames.
At the top of the steps, Felix noticed the shutters at the Shelleys’
windows were still closed. It was too early for them to be awake.
They’d stayed late at Diodati last night, when, even then, the talk had
been strange. They’d spoken of experiments done on corpses. Of a
dead frog made to twitch as if alive. It was all Felix could do to trim
the candles slowly and pour coffee drip by drip, just to stay in the
parlor and listen.
So when he knocked on the front door with a rat-tat-tat he
didn’t expect anyone to answer; the noise simply echoed down the
long, empty hallway. The Shelleys didn’t care for rules, Lord Byron
said. In which case, Felix hoped they wouldn’t mind an invitation
slipped under the door instead of being delivered safely into their
housemaid’s hand.
As Felix turned to go he caught a glint of sun on glass. Not every
shutter was closed after all. At a small window near the top of the
house, someone was watching him. Felix shielded his eyes to get a
better look. The person staring down was a child—a girl of about ten
—with curls of white-blond hair. Someone—Frau Moritz, probably—
had mentioned that the Shelleys had adopted the girl on their travels.
Smiling, Felix raised his hand to wave. “Hullo!” he mouthed.
The girl stared, her eyes as wide as soup plates. Slowly,
tentatively, she waved back, though she didn’t return his smile.
—
At the Villa Diodati, Frau Moritz, the housekeeper, was standing on
the kitchen steps. The sight of her there, hands on generous hips,
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