Hannah: Daughters of the Sea #1 by Kathryn Lasky

Author:Kathryn Lasky [Lasky, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2010-01-31T13:00:00+00:00

The scullery maid was always the first up in the morning and the last to bed in the evening. There had been a great deal to clean up after that night’s dinner party. It was well after midnight when Hannah made her way up the back stairs to her bedroom. The guttering flame in the oil lamp that she carried cast only the smallest pool of light, but when she arrived at her room, she froze in the open doorway and stifled a cry. Suspended in the darkness were two small iridescent slashes. Then a mound rose from her bed. Jade arched her back, her tail swooped up like a scimitar, her jaws dropped open revealing two curved white fangs, and her eyes fastened on that spot on Hannah’s chest where the pouch rested beneath her dress. Hannah felt something seize within her. Her free hand automatically clutched at the pouch as a long hiss scalded the air. She wants my pouch! The thought streaked through Hannah’s mind.

She lunged at the cat, her oil lamp swinging. Shadows danced off the wall. “Out! Out!” The cat darted from her bed and out of the room, swallowed up by the darkness of the hallway. Hannah stood motionless, her chest heaving, her heart pounding.

She lay rigid in her bed all night. From her window she watched the darkness wear to the dim gray of the dawn. And finally, long before she had to get up, she rose and began her morning activities. But all day long the sound of that hissing cat seemed to follow her through the house. The only place she did not hear it was in the music room. The instant she stepped into the lovely room that now spun with May sunlight, the liquid sounds of the harp came back to her. And each time she entered the room her fingers longed to touch those strings. Suddenly she was aware of someone watching her.

“Mr. Wheeler! Wh…wh…what are you doing here?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

“I come here every day to lay the fire and dust.”

“It’s so warm. Is there really a need to come and build a fire on a lovely spring day like this?” Hannah didn’t know what to say. He took a step forward. “I’ll tell you what I think, Hannah.” She started at the sound of her name. Guests in the house never knew the names of servants of her rank. “I think you long to play that harp.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked in a trembling voice. He took a step closer to her. I should move away but I can’t, she thought. I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want to.

He was very close to her now. He picked up her hand and pressed it between his own cool hands. “I see music in you,” he said simply. She stared at his fingers. She could see a remnant of paint near the cuticle of his thumb, a dark, purplish gray that he had used to make the shadows and to bring out the folds in the girls’ dresses.

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