Read Online Magic Below Stairs by Caroline Stevermer - Free Book Online Page B

that would. You can’t help growing,” Bess reminded him. “It’s their own fault for feeding you.”
    â€œThat’s just what I’m afraid they’ll think,” Frederick said. “I’ve had enough of not eating to last me a lifetime.”

    Hetty the seamstress welcomed Frederick to her workroom. She was a plump little woman in brown with a spotted scarf wrapped around her shoulders. The spots on the scarf and her quick sharp gestures made him think of a hen. “Mrs. Dutton told me you had Mr. Kimball’s permission for my help, and I see you need it.” She made him take his coat and breeches off.
    Frederick sat on a stool in the corner while she inspected the garments. “Do you think you can make it fit again?”
    â€œOh, yes. Plenty of room to let the seams back out.” Hetty held up the coat to show him. “The tailor who fitted this for you knew his craft very well indeed. I’ve never seen such tiny stitches.”
    â€œThere was no tailor.” Frederick almost laughed at her mistake. “I only happened to fit the coat—it wasn’t made for me. No fitting, I promise you.”
    â€œNo?” Hetty smiled to herself. “You know best, of course. But I say, to sew a seam any finer, you’d have use magic.”
    Not for the first time, Frederick wondered how it was that the livery had come to fit him so exactly. Georgie, the previous orphan, had been a larger boy than Frederick. Had Billy Bly helped Frederick even then? Frederick wished he still had Billy Bly with him. There was so much he wanted to know.
    â€œI saw it done once.” Hetty had removed the lining from the coat and was carefully picking out the stitching of the seams. “We had wizards here for the cursebreaking, and afterward I saw one of them use magic to mend a torn sleeve. Stitches so tiny he made, you might look all day and never see the repairs.”
    Frederick drew his stool up a bit closer. “You were here when this house was cursed?”
    â€œOh, yes. It wasn’t so long ago, after all. The curse was cast on the Schofield family, not on any of us.” Hetty’s hands stilled as she thought back. “All the same, we kept our distance. Such evil may cast shadows, the wizards told us, so we took care.”
    â€œWere you here when the curse was broken?”
    Hetty threaded her needle and began to sew up the seams again. “I said we kept our distance. We were down in the village. Dreadful it was, though. Even from there.”
    â€œWhat was it like?” Frederick asked.
    â€œLike a summer storm, all darkness and lightning. We saw flashes of light all the way down in the village. What we heard of it was like thunder.” Hetty looked up from her needlework. “One of the wizards, young Mr. Pickering with the torn sleeve, had a weakness for my mother’s pastry. He told us stories afterward. He said at times it was like something squeaking, something between a mouse and a bat. Young ears are better than old, so he heard it better than the old wizards could, it was that high-pitched. Sometimes though, the worst times, it was shrieking. It was the shrieks that broke the windows, he told us.”
    â€œGet along with you,” said Frederick. “How can a shriek break a window? A shriek is just a loud noise.”
    â€œMagic,” Hetty replied. “If you ever hear the like, you run, understand? Don’t look around to see where it comes from. Just run.”
    â€œNow you’re making fun of me because I’m from the city,” Frederick said.
    â€œCross my heart, it’s true, every word,” said Hetty. “It was worst in the room his lordship sleeps in. That’s what the young wizard told us. He wasn’t mocking us, I swear it. He had too much fondness for pastry to risk losing Mother’s goodwill.”
    â€œShrieking.” Frederick shook his head. “Squeaks and shrieks. You