Read Online Tangled Ashes by Michèle Phoenix - Free Book Online Page A

delicate way she shaped her words. It made her English sound somehow daintier and lighter than the language Americans spoke. “I was raised in Québec,” he finally said. “Just until the age of ten, but I thought you should know.” Jade looked at him questioningly. “You know—in case you get tempted to talk about me behind my back or something.”
    “I’ll try not to talk about you at all,” she said with a sweet smile, turning back to the lettuce in the sink. “Yes, I am indeed a femme à tout faire , though the term is often used in a derogatory way.”
    Beck held up his hands. “Hey, no offense . . .”
    Jade looked at him pointedly. “I love kids. I love teaching. I love cooking. I love cleaning. If I can make a decent living doing what I love, I’d prefer to call it a career rather than label it a social status.”
    Beck considered her statement for a moment, surprised again at the fluency of her English. He eyed the clock. Twenty minutes ’til six. He’d miscalculated this move. Twenty minutes of conversation seemed an overwhelming prospect.
    “And you, Mr. Becker? Is your trade a calling or a status symbol for you?”
    Beck opened his mouth for a sarcastic reply, but Philippe and Eva interrupted his retort with a flamboyant entrance into the kitchen. “Jade, Jade! We found a giant snail!” Philippe yelled as he ran up to the sink, the pride of the hunter on his face. “Look!” He held out his prize, a nondescript snail of fairly large size—but to his eyes, it seemed to be a fantastic dinosaur.
    Jade took a step back. “That’s—hmm—that’s lovely, Philippe,” she said, clearly not inclined to get a closer look at the snail.
    “Can we cook him and eat him?” Eva chimed in, her British accent round and rich.
    Jade put a hand to her chest in mock horror. “What?” she squealed. “You want to kill the biggest snail this castle has ever seen?” The children’s eyes grew wider. “You want to eat the largest creature you’ve ever trapped during your fierce hunting expeditions in the woods?” She was making the statements so dramatic that even Beck found himself getting caught up. The children began to shake their heads, her words elevating their common snail to the rank of mythical beast. “You want to slaughter the king of this venerable castle for meat ?!” she finished with great flair.
    Eva and Philippe stared, wide-eyed, as her words settled over the kitchen. When they finally spoke, it was in a machine-gun fire of overlapping statements.
    “We’re not going to eat him!” Philippe declared.
    “No, we’re really, really not!”
    “We’re going to make him a crown . . .”
    “And build him a little mini snail castle . . .”
    “And dig a moat around it and put water in it . . .”
    “And call him King Snail.”
    Philippe paused long enough to give his sister a disparaging look. “We can’t call him King Snail.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because it’s too normal,” he said, drawing out the last word. They both stared at the snail for a while, trying to derive inspiration from its dull brown shell. Jade looked on in amusement, and Becker tried hard not to find the scene endearing.
    Eva’s face was pinched in thought, her freckled nose wrinkled with concentration. “I know!” she finally squealed, clapping and skipping a little where she stood. “We can call him . . .” She paused for dramatic effect and lowered her voice to utter, “King Kong!”
    “That’s a monkey,” Philippe said with obvious disdain.
    “Yeah, but it’s a really big monkey,” Beck muttered, surprising himself and earning a surprised look from Jade.
    “It’s a good name,” Eva persisted. “It’s a really, really good name!”
    But Philippe was still racking his mind for a better one. “King . . .” It looked like the perfect name was trapped inside his mind, and the mental constipation was turning his face red. “King . . . Rover!” He punched his fist into the