Lady Tremaine – Rachel Hochhauser

The sky had turned a clean, bright kind of blue, and the light felt long and sharp, as if intending to bestow upon each leaf and blade its very own shadow. My daughters and I were sandwiched into the bench of the chaise, along with a stack of quilts, a rolled carpet, two easels, paints, the half-finished canvases, and a basket of biscuits, tarts, fruit, and three loaves of bread.

“It is not entirely fair that Elin must repay you, when you used the apple money from apples we all picked.” Rosie had twisted herself into a small degree of concern for her stepsister and sat, eyeing Mathilde and I, with a look of mild reproach. “She picked one apple for every five I got down.

Every ten!” Mathilde, sitting on my other side, was distracted by retying the ribbons of her hat. “Rosie.” I bent toward her, adding some slack to the reins in my hands. “We have been selling your embroidery bits for years to buy what we can. Both of you have worked and worked.”

I shook my head. “It’s so much more than apples. I am done compensating for her indolence.” Mathilde finished her bow and leaned forward to look at Rosie, across the bench. “Why do you suddenly care?” Her question was ignored. “Why are we going out today of all days? We need to work on our dresses.” “Today is more than a picnic.” I peered into the bushes at the side of the road, looking for the right spot to pull over. “It’s because she complimented your hat, isn’t it,” Mathilde said, more to herself than her sister.

Rosie ignored her and bent forward to nudge the cloth off the top of the food basket. “How do you mean it’s more than a picnic? There is nothing but bread and fruit!”

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If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillan.com/piracy. OceanofPDF.com For Bea. And for Isabel. OceanofPDF.com CHAPTER ONE I’ve been warned to be wary of strangers in the woods since I was a little girl. A person, alone, unfamiliar, hidden in the dappled darkness, is not to be trusted.

And, certainly, the woods can hide the sorts of people you’d rather not encounter. Outlaws and outcasts. Gruesomely mutilated pariahs—those with fingers taken for thieving, lips and tongues cut out for lying, flesh rotting for submission to disease. But just as shadows serve to hide and disguise, they also provide privacy and solitude, and, if you look carefully, beauty. The darkness of the woods offers a break from watchful eyes and rules to follow and stiffened skirts and the never-ending etiquette of being a woman in the world.

For a few short hours of the day, I’ve always considered it a fair trade: darkness for freedom. But when I first heard the twig snap and saw the man ahead of me, I was scared. I saw beard and sword and steel. Year after year of warnings— to stay in the light, to travel in pairs, to avoid complicity in your fate— surfaced with one shallow breath.

That morning, it was early, and I had been somewhere I was not supposed to be. No matter if the stranger intended no harm. Fear makes people dangerous. And you see: To him, I, too, was a stranger in the woods. I had started my day as usual. Feet out of the bedcovers before dawn, searching for slippers on the cold floor. The hurried application of smock and kirtle, frost riming the obsidian windowpanes.

I shoved my hand into a leather glove and gently roused Lucy, who slept beneath the velvet folds of her own wing. Keeping a peregrine in my bedchambers was unusual, but it was my only means of indulging her. All else with a falcon was measured, calculated, managed, tied down. She was trussed to her perch.

Flew only when allowed.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 8d6dad3dc7d45ffc
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 4,844,737 bytes (4.62 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 323
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 535.74 minutes
• Total Words: 107,147
• Total Characters: 592,492
• Average Words per Page: 331.72
• Average Characters per Page: 1834.34

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