Burglars and Bluestockings by Julie Berry

Author:Julie Berry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2023-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Once upon a time, the quivering, tingling feeling of magic emanating from that sardine tin would have thrilled me down to the tips of my toes. Now it felt hot and heavy, like a lump of molten lead in my hands. I slipped it into my travel valise and went back to eating, but the dark, rich stew became bitter ashes in my mouth.

What was I doing?

Saving Tom.

What right did I have to do it?

Mermeros was mine long before he was Tom’s. I could see this matter more clearly than he could.

Wasn’t I betraying a friend?

No. I was protecting him from disastrous mistakes he would regret for life.

Wasn’t I being selfish?

No. I wasn’t going to make that last wish for myself. Definitely not.

I turned, and turned, and turned it over in my mind, and no matter how I examined the dilemma, my actions felt justified.

Why, then, did I feel so guilty? Why, in the pit of my stomach, was I sure I’d become a traitor instead of a friend? Instead of an ally, a thief?

I poked chunks of potato with my spoon, moving them around in the gravy of my stew, barely seeing what I was doing. I looked up and noticed a few hotel guests gazing at me strangely and realized how I must have looked—one thirteen year-old girl sitting all alone at a table with four bowls of stew. Oh, well.

A large group of men in bowler hats entered the hotel, clutching valises, and asked to be checked into their rooms. They seemed to be in their mid-twenties or thereabouts—fully adult, but still young. From their loud laughter and conversation, it was clear that they knew each other, that they’d gone to Cambridge University together, and that they were having a reunion of some sort.

“Good thing the girls have gone mad, or we wouldn’t have seen each other till Christmas,” one of them was saying.

“We’ll squash their folly, then have our own bit of fun,” laughed another.

I glowered at them. Eight or nine of them, come to make a holiday out of dashing the hopes of girls like Pip and Trixie, Megs and Lizzie. And even, someday, me. It took all my self-control not to hurl a crock of stew at them. My fingers crawled toward the strap of my travel bag, where Mermeros lay hidden.

I caught myself short. I’d swiped the sardine tin from Tom because he was growing too vengeful, and here, only moments later, was I any different?

A man sitting at a table opposite me turned the pages of his newspaper, and the motion caught my eye. I glanced up, and for a moment, he seemed familiar to me. I peered more closely at him. He noticed and favored me with a smile.

“Good day, miss,” he said. “Do I know you?”

“I was just wondering that myself,” I told him. “I thought you looked familiar, but I was mistaken.”

“You’d be surprised how often I hear that,” he said. “I must just have one of those faces that looks like everyone’s brother-in-law.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.