Read Online The Morrow Secrets by Susan McNally - Free Book Online

wonderful. Even if she disliked the sisters, she admired their ornate taste.
As she wandered up the staircase counting the spiders and trying to name all the different species of birds, she came face to face with Marlin, coming from the opposite direction, bumbling along on his spindly legs. This was her opportunity to dismiss him from his role as chaperone. If he didn’t like it he could take it up with Great Aunt Agatha. But by then it would be too late. She ran up the stairs to greet him.
‘Good morning Marlin,’ she said sarcastically.
The shrove hopped about when he saw Tallitha.
‘Well as you can see, from now on, there’s no need for your guidance. I can find my own way to my grandmother’s apartment.’
Marlin screwed up his beady eyes and shrunk back against the banister as Tallitha elbowed him to one side. She could hear his oaths and mutterings all the way up the crooked staircase.
‘I’ll be back for ye,’ he squawked and shook his fist, determined not to let Tallitha get the better of him.
‘Who cares,’ shouted Tallitha and stuck out her tongue at the nasty creature as she raced ahead to the Crewel Tower.
That morning there was an unusual amount of activity coming from the sisters’ dressing rooms. As Tallitha entered the apartment she could hear their animated chatter and the creaking of wardrobe doors while their maid servant, Dora, ran between the dressing rooms, flustered by their incessant demands. Eventually the sisters emerged in their finest and strangest day outfits. Edwina wore an otter-brown velvet suit with bright green gloves and a yellow feather boa. Sybilla wore a dress of dogwood rose with blue gloves and a purple feathered hat. The sisters were extremely pleased with their appearance and were obviously dressed to go out. Tallitha tried to keep a straight face.
‘You’ll have to occupy yourself today. There’s a sampler for you to copy, over on that dresser’ said Sybilla, waving her gloves dismissively.
‘The organising committee of Wycham Fair have asked us to judge the needlework competition and we’re going to choose the prizes. Florré will bring your elderflower cordial at eleven o’clock. We should be back in time for lunch,’ said Edwina excitedly.
Tallitha had never seen her grandmother look so animated and cheerful.
‘Do hurry up sister,’ snapped Sybilla, ‘or we’ll be late.’
With a swirl of cloaks and pungent lavender perfume, the sisters kissed Tallitha on each cheek and departed. Kisses from those beasts!
‘Eerrrh!’ thought Tallitha, ‘how ghastly!’ as she wiped away the traces of their sticky lipstick.
Tallitha could not believe her good fortune. For days she had been trying to engineer a reason for the sisters to leave their apartment so she could snoop about and just when she was not expecting it and was absorbed with plans about the night-time exploration, off they went!
Tallitha wasted no time. She hurriedly climbed the library ladder, using the lever to guide her along on the squeaky rail. She flew past poetry and geography, flora and fauna, gazetteers of the world, maps and travelogues. But nothing looked remotely interesting as a source of information about Asenathe. She went up and down the shelves getting ever more dusty, tired and hot. There were thousands of books and Tallitha realised the search would take much longer than a couple of hours. She needed days! Feeling disheartened she climbed down again.
It was almost eleven o’clock so she sighed and picked up the sampler. It was a complicated monogram of interwoven stitching in old script. As she looked more closely she could just make out the letters as an ‘A’ and an ‘M’ and her heart almost missed a beat. Perhaps this was Asenathe’s sampler and if so what did the other lettering say? But she couldn’t translate the words. Old Ennish was difficult enough to speak and she had never seen any of these words written down before. The stitches had an unusual twist to them too. She