Chapter 2
In addition to the novel this book has a coloring pages in the back for the ultimate cozy experiance. Find it on Amazon
As we delivered my last bag of truffles, the short spear I used for flying grew longer as I pulled it from my robes. Brooms had become far more popular, but you couldn’t use them to stab the people who annoyed you. Not that I’d ever stab anyone with my spear, but the option was there if the opportunity presented itself.
“I just can’t understand how Reeve Humphry keeps getting elected,” Noreen said as she settled onto the spear’s shaft in front of me. “Nobody likes him.”
I kicked off the ground and soared up into the rain. In a duel between magic and gravity, it wasn't gravity that won.
“Nobody has to like him to recognize his importance to the community,” I said. “He scares the pixies and Fareesee into maintaining peace, more or less, and keeps the fear of Spriggans and Guernsey away.”
A shiver ran down Noreen’s spine, and I didn’t think it was because of the rain. The Guernsey Fee gave me the shudders, too. Legend held that they were fairies who lived on the islands to the south, who had worked with wicked witches to slaughter nearly the entire population on the islands where they’d dwelt centuries before. There were rumors that they were planning to do the same in England, and that some of the moonrakers had smuggled them in and helped them settle in Wiltshire. I trusted that my family hadn’t been involved, but again, no one ever told me anything. Still, I figured that whatever my Grandfather had done, he wouldn’t have been in league with the Guernsey Fee.
I flew down a rabbit hole and entered fairyland. The forests shimmered with a kaleidoscope of magnificent colors.
In flight, it didn’t take me long to get back to my family’s manor house, which was an ancient keep built during past wars supported atop trees. The manor had multiple layers, each generation of our family on its own level. One day, I would have my own layer with a kitchen of my design, although I would likely have to share it with my brother and sister. But they were younger, so I’d likely still get to design the concept.
I landed on the broom doc (or in my case, spear dock), at my kitchen window and left a trail of water on the stone floor as I entered. I kicked the window shut and peeled off my wet clothes once inside, leaving them in a pile on the mat as Noreen shook herself like a dog. I pulled on the shirt I wore as an apron, so I’d be dressed if any of my family came in. No point in going upstairs for dry clothes when I’d be changing into my finery for the ball in just a few minutes.
“We need something substantial to eat,” I said, heading for my hidden stash.
“We’ll be eating in an hour,” Noreen said. “Why fill yourself up now when you should be getting ready for the ball?”
“Party food is just for nibbling. I want something filling. I hate it when my stomach starts grumbling in the middle of a dance.” I felt in the window well for the pry bar I kept hidden there.
“I like the finger foods,” Noreen said wistfully.
“Granted, they are delicious, but you aren’t as difficult to fill up as I am,” I said. “I can’t get full taking dainty little bites. Mother would kill me if she found me spending too much time eating at a party. I need actual food if I’m going to have to make polite conversation all night.”
I went to the stone that hid my private stash of food and pried it up out of the floor. I smiled at the cache of cured meats, cheeses, dried mushrooms, berries, and pickled walnuts. I’d made sure that I would never be caught short if we had unexpected company. Nobility liked nothing more than to try and catch their betters out. It wasn’t happening in my house.
I pulled out nuts and dried berries to stash in the pockets of my under-gown. I’d begun sewing pockets into my undergarments when I’d started working in the kitchen with my father. The ability to hide food away came in handy in a house where snacking was frowned upon. And sometimes when doing deliveries, pockets came in very handy. There were things the Reeve should never see, and wouldn’t, not even if he turned me upside down and shook me. I knew how to secure my pockets.
“I would make an excellent moonraker,” I said, wrapping a piece of cured beef in a slice of cheese and stuffing it in my mouth.
A ringing bell startled me, and I scrambled to hide my food, but the stone was still in my hand when the door burst open. I spun guiltily to face the intruder, but it was only my little brother and sister standing in the doorway.
“Wow,” Jack laughed. “Your hair looks like the Kraken emerging from the sea!” He waggled his fingers like tentacles, his buffed, polished nails shining. He was already dressed to the nines, as was my sister. “Mom is going to have a conniption.”
Emma, the youngest, poked her head out from behind Jack. She was a full head shorter than Jack, but only a few inches shorter than me. She'd shoot past me any month now and be the willowy blond that my mother wished I had been.
My mother must have fussed over the two of them for hours already. Jack was in red velvet robes that would make the Chancellor of Oxford green with envy. Academic vestment, especially the fancier ones, were in vogue among witches and wizards. My sister’s scarlet robes were tied with a tight sash around her waist so that people would notice she was developing a figure. I assumed that touch had been added after my mother left her alone, and I wondered if it would remain.
“Mom’s going to freak when she sees you,” Emma agreed. “She’s been going on and on about how she hopes you’ve been up here getting ready.”
“I was working,” I said, pointing to the bag of reagents I’d set on the counter. “Anyway, she’s always freaked out, so what’s new?”
Jack knelt beside me to grab some food from my stash, sharing it with his familiar, a hob Fey in the form of a sparrow that he kept tucked in a pocket of his robes.
“How did you make my bell ring?” I asked.
Jack held up a couple of long blond hairs. “Took these from Mom’s comb. I thought it would be funny, and it was.”
“Remind me to decrease the sensitivity of my alarm,” I said in an aside to Noreen. “That should only ring for our actual, physical mom or dad.”
“Eat something,” Jack said to Emma, and he tossed her a jar of pickled veggies. She fumbled and dropped it, but it was enchanted to bounce like rubber. I had safety-proofed nearly all my items, since I was not going to lose any more glassware on the stone floor.
“I don’t know if I should,” Emma said, glancing at the door.
“Pickled walnuts will make your breath smell sweet and spicy,” he said. “For Nigel.”
She flushed.
“What’s this? A boy in the offing?” I teased.
“Nigel is a witch who has been studying potions with Emma. He’s from a Highfalutin family, so mother would approve, and his lashes are so long, he can tickle people with them.
“Does not,” Emma whispered, still flushing.
“I’ve seen him,” Noreen said. “He’s heir to one of the highlords.”
“Wow.” I looked Em over. “You must have told mom,” I said, pointing to the jewelry she’d borrowed. It was my mother’s most expensive necklace and matching earrings, clearly lent to impress.
We were interrupted by my warning bell going off again. I snatched a jar from Jack and stuffed the stone in the hole just before my actual mother opened the door.
“See you downstairs, Winifred,” Jack said and then grabbed Emma by the hand and dragged her out the door.
“Your hair looks like a gnarl of wet snakes,” my Mom said. “Like you’re a half-drowned gorgon. Why are you lingering up here? You have little more than an hour to be ready, and you haven’t even started.”
My mother was an intimidating sort of woman, tall and lean like a ballerina, or in her case, a sword fighter. Her dark hair was pulled back tight so that not a speck of it poked out of the front or sides of her pointed hat, and she had a gaze that could stop a child in his tracks.
“I just got back,” I said, pointing to my pile of wet robes on the mat. “It doesn’t take me more than ten minutes to get ready.”
“You haven’t seen your hair. Your brother prepped for at least two hours.” She was at least attempting to keep the growl out of her voice and the scowl from her face. If she showed any more emotion, she’d have Noreen and her goat familiar, Marnier, in tears.
I smiled. “He fusses. He was ready in ten minutes, and the rest of the time, he was just preening in the mirror.”
“Humor me and worry just a little more about yourself,” my mother said. “Or if not about yourself, remember that we have a responsibility to keep up appearances. The new Knight Errant will be there, and he might need help navigating between alliances and enemies. I’m hoping it will fall to you to help maintain the peace. Diplomacy is what you were born to do, Winifred,” she remarked with a serious expression on her face.
“Sure, mom, but it will still only take me ten minutes to get…”
“Make certain you are ready on time,” she interrupted, “rather than procrastinating. We wouldn’t want the drums of war to sound because some particular fairy refused to speak to a witch who didn't tame her medusa hair.”
I sighed. “I’ll get ready now and sit around after I’m done,” I said.
“That’s all I ask,” she said and left the room.
Noreen started laughing after my mother left the room. “You’d think you would have learned by now that you can’t out-argue a pirate. Your mother probably grew up fending off the advances of peg-legged miscreants. I have to admire your stubbornness, though. You assert your independence even when you know you’re going to lose the argument.”
“I wish there would be peg-legged miscreants at this party,” I said.
“There will likely be a hag or two, and the simmering tensions of war,” Noreen said. “Won’t that do?”
“All hidden under a veneer of polite unicorn crap,” I said, going upstairs to change.
Normally it might have taken me some time to think of what exactly I should wear to a party. However, the hostess of this one had custom-made a turquoise dress for me, accented with a light fawn brown embroidery, the color I was most comfortable with. I changed quickly, filling the pockets with goodies and hiding a short sword under my skirts, beside an extra wand. Mrs. B’s talk of Spriggans had clearly gotten to me, and there were always those simmering tensions of war that Noreen mentioned.
In addition to the novel this book has a coloring pages in the back for the ultimate cozy experiance. Find it on Amazon
No comments:
Post a Comment