Read Online Trixter by Alethea Kontis - Free Book Online Page B

might want to steal her for themselves. Not that they had encountered anyone as of yet, but Trix was thankful for the gesture as well. He found he liked to look at people when he spoke to them. When Lizinia faced the sun, any conversation was positively blinding.
    They took turns carrying the sack of apples they had collected—it remained heavy, as they each needed only one a day to stay energized. When they stopped to rest, Lizinia wove a sturdy chain of daisies and vines from which Trix could hang Wisdom's tooth around his neck. It had not yet ceased to amaze Trix how nimble her small fingers were, despite the fact that they looked to be made of solid gold.
    “You’re very good at that,” he said, when he remembered that Mama had advised him it was not polite to stare. “My sister Friday would like you. She’s deft with a needle. And weaving. And mending. And pretty much anything else that involves laundry.”
    “You mention your sisters a lot,” said Lizinia.
    Trix shrugged. “Hard to avoid, what with there being seven of them and all.”
    The golden girl smiled—her teeth, like her eyes, had not been coated in the cats’ magic metal. “The way you talk about them, though…the tone of your voice, the look on your face…you all must love each other very much.”
    “We do,” he said. The guilt of poisoning Mama, Papa, Saturday and Peter rose up in his stomach again and the shame left a bitter taste in his throat. He did not yet feel comfortable confessing this transgression to Lizinia. Thankfully, she had not asked why none of his family accompanied him on this trip. Trix pushed the terrible feeling aside and tried not to think about it.
    “So…Sunday is good with words. Saturday is a hard worker. Friday is good at sewing.” Lizinia pulled a knot tight and moved onto the rest of the plait. “What are you good at?”
    “Making messes,” Trix said proudly.
    Lizinia looked up at him. Her irises held an amber hue and Trix wondered if they had been that color all along, or if they had been changed by the magic gold as well. “You shouldn’t do that,” she said.
    He’d been so caught up in imagining what Lizinia had looked like before her gold bath that he didn’t hear exactly what she’d said, but Trix was familiar enough with the women in his family to recognize a scolding tone. “Do what?”
    “Talk about yourself like you’re a pest,” she said. “Do you honestly think you’re such a horrible person?”
    “No,” Trix said with a little less confidence. “Of course not.”
    “Do your brothers and sisters call you names?”
    “We’re siblings,” said Trix. “We’re always calling each other names. No harm is ever meant by it. It’s all in good fun.”
    “Peppina used to call me horrible names,” said Lizinia. “Mama too. They also said it was ‘in good fun.’ Only I was not the one having fun.”
    Trix noticed that her hands had begun to tremble. He took them in his own, as he would have had she been any of his other sisters. (Except maybe Saturday, who was careful to never show weakness.) “My family is kind, Lizinia. We are loud and messy and we make up stories and we call each other names. We work and we play and we eat and we love and we have great adventures. It’s a good family. You would like them. And they would love you, just as they love me.”
    “But do you love yourself?”
    “I…” It wasn’t a question anyone had asked Trix before, and so it was nothing he’d ever previously considered. It was true, he was good at making messes, better than anyone else he knew. And he rather enjoyed the results of those predicaments, be they disastrous or otherwise. He was a Woodcutter, after all: adventure was in his blood. “I believe I do. Do you?”
    “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t think so.” Her voice wavered.
    “If you cry, are your tears water or gold?”
    Lizinia’s shock at the question distracted her from her sadness, as Trix had hoped it