Mistress of Souls: A Prophecy of the Sisters Novella Read Online Free Page A

Stepping to the end of the row of shelves, she hid behind them, watching as a group of three girls made their way to the back of the store without so much as a glance her way. She stood, listening as they spoke. She could not quite make out the words, but they were followed by a deeper voice, which she recognized as James’s.
    She clutched the Keats book to her chest as she strained her ears to listen, but she could make out nothing more than a murmured exchange. A few moments later, the girls’ voices got louder, and Alice knew they were returning to the shelves at the front of the store. She held her breath as they came closer, exhaling only when they turned into the row of shelves next to the one behind which she hid.
    “Now, that is a gentleman with whom I’d like to stroll,” one of the girls said suggestively.
    They snickered, and Alice eased forward, peering through a gap in the shelves where the books were removed on both sides.
    Now she could see them, Victoria Alcott and Hope Chesterfield, together with another girl Alice did not recognize. They were perusing the books aimlessly, more intent on their observations of the man who had been her sister’s beloved.
    “I wonder if he’s still pining after Amalia Milthorpe,” said the unfamiliar girl.
    Victoria laughed harshly. “If he is, he’s a fool, and I’d not like him to court me anyway. Everyone knows the Milthorpes are cursed.”
    Alice’s heart thumped wildly in her chest, a slow fury beginning to boil in her veins.
    “Do you think so?” the girl asked softly. “I think it’s very sad, everything they’ve suffered.”
    “When I was home on holiday, my mother said there have been dark goings-on in that house,” Victoria said. “She said there always have been.”
    “But don’t you think that is nonsense?” Hope asked. “Superstition? Perhaps they are simply unlucky.”
    Victoria snorted. “If it is simply a matter of luck, I’m the queen of England. Both parents and a brother dead in ten years? And no disease? No injury?”
    “I heard the brother fell into the river,” Hope said.
    Victoria raised her eyebrows. “In a wheelchair? What, pray tell, would a crippled boy be doing close enough to a river that he could drown in it?” The other girls were silent as she continued. “And I’ll tell you something else I heard: Amalia and Alice were with him when he drowned.”
    “You’re not suggesting they had something to do with it?” Hope asked.
    “Well,” Victoria said slyly, pretending to scan the books on the shelves in front of her. “Lia has run away to London.”
    “Lia?” Hope gasped. “Surely not her. Why, she was as meek as a mouse. If anyone was involved it would have to have been Alice. Weren’t you friendly with her, Victoria?”
    Alice studied Victoria’s face through the stack of books, watching as her smugness turned to panic. “Not really,” she said coolly. “We were friendly at one time, but that was ages ago, and I was never even invited to Birchwood Manor. Anyway, Alice always was the strange one.”
    “How do you mean?” the unnamed girl asked.
    “Oh, you know,” Victoria said. “A little too gay, always laughing and making mischief as if her life depended on it, and forcing us to go along, too.”
    “And did you?”
    Victoria hesitated. “Well, yes, but only because we were frightened.”
    “Frightened?” the girl said in surprise. “Frightened of what?”
    Victoria put the book back on the shelf. “Why, of Alice, of course. She had a mean streak a mile wide. You were either her ally or her enemy, and no one wanted to be her enemy. We were only nice to her to stay on her good side, not because we actually liked her.”
    Alice’s cheeks were on fire, her face aflame with shame as the girls twittered about getting back to class before their absences were noted. They shuffled out of the row of shelves, and Alice moved back into the shadows, waiting for the bell on the door to signal their