The Goblin's Price by Lidiya Foxglove

Author:Lidiya Foxglove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lidiya Foxglove

Chapter Thirteen

Hester

* * *

I was pacing, waiting for the Trickster Mage to appear, watching the windows, when he suddenly dropped down from the rafters right in front of me.

I shrieked. "Don't you dare surprise me like that! I am already in a state."

"I do enjoy surprising people in a state," he said. "I decided to wait for you this morning."

"Where were you?”

"In the rafters."

"Like a bat. How fitting."

"There's a fine pondering perch up there," he said, pointing to the sturdy beams.

“What are you pondering?”

“I heard the king is beginning to have some feelings for you.”

Ohh—ohh—it does seem like that, doesn’t it! screamed the troublesome voice inside me that just wanted to be held and touched and loved.

But I knew I had to ignore that voice. I had to master a little magic on my own so I would never rely on King Reginald the way my mother had relied on my father.

“Never mind him,” I said. “I want to learn magic.”

The Trickster Mage snapped his fingers, looking pleased. “I have a different lesson for you today.” He went to one of the bales of hay and pulled something out from behind it: a well worn leather-bound book.

“You will make a very poor witch if you can’t read a word,” he said. “In the end, magic comes from the moon and stars and wild things, and yet, witches are keepers of knowledge and spells take memory. If you cannot even write your own name, you will struggle to be what you wish to be.”

“Well, I know that,” I said. “I wish I could read; it wasn’t like I chose to be ignorant. Father didn’t think girls should go to school. I used to watch other girls walk past our house to go; farm girls who probably could have used their book learning even less than I did, but their families wanted them to have an education. Fancy that. They couldn’t go during harvest, but it was something!” I couldn’t help a sigh. I tried to forget that wrenching feeling. When I was little, Mother used to plead with Father to let Susan and me go to school, but even then he refused.

Even when I had a whole family, we weren’t happy.

“Here is your chance,” the Mage said. “I expect you to work very hard at it.”

“I will.”

He handed me the book. I opened it and saw pictures of all the herbs and plants I knew from my garden, and many more besides. “It has pictures!” I said.

“Yes, so it does.”

“It must have been expensive.”

“I had it floating about,” he said, waving a hand. “I have it all in my head by now. What does this say?” He pointed to a word beneath a picture.

“Violets?” I said, simply naming the flower.

“So begin there,” he said, handing me a stick. “Write it in the dirt.”

The floor was covered in a fine layer of dirt and dust, but I didn’t know the first thing about how to write.

“Each letter is a sound,” he said. “So what do you suppose that first letter and first sound is?”

“Vi?”

“V.

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