Read Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) for Free Online

gold—much like dwarves, ha ha. Stirring allows sufficient air into the mixture. Without air, the experiment would not work.”
    Ophelia refrained from rolling her eyes. The professor’s
hot
air was probably responsible for putting countless college boys to sleep.
    “Now,” Winkler went on, “I filter the mixture using that screen—
fräulein
?”
    Prue handed him a small screen of fine metal mesh.
    Winkler poured the sludge onto the screen, over a second bowl. A liquid dripped through, leaving the sludge on the screen. He set it aside.
    “The final step is zinc powder. That small bottle there.”
    Prue passed him a corked amber bottle.
    “Not poisonous, I hope,” Mr. Hunt said in a droll tone.
    Winkler tapped white powder into the bowl of liquid. “Quite innocuous. Now—observe.”
    Everyone crowded close. Tiny flecks of gold winked in the whitish slurry of zinc.
    “Is that—?” Mr. Coop said.
    “Gold,” Winkler said. “The soil about the small
house is filled with gold.”
    *   *   *
    In the subsequent commotion, Ophelia saw Prue slink out of the library.
    “Ma’am,” Ophelia whispered, bending close to Mrs. Coop’s ear, “you look pale—shall I bring you a cup of tea?”
    “Do I?” Mrs. Coop said distractedly. “No, no, we’ll have tea in only an hour.”
    “You must think of your health.”
    “Very well, Flax, some cool water, then.” Mrs. Coop dove back into excited conversation with the others.
    Ophelia slipped away.
    *   *   *
    She caught up to Prue in the servants’ stair.
    “What were you doing above stairs?” Ophelia said. “Mrs. Coop will be furious, once she stops to think of it.”
    Their footsteps echoed off the stone walls.
    “Katrina cut her finger on a broken wineglass,” Prue said, marching down the steps. “Had to fill in for her.”
    Ophelia threw her a sharp glance. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing.” Prue sniffled.
    “Wait.” Ophelia touched her arm.
    Prue stopped on the stairs.
    “Why have you been crying?”
    “Haven’t.” Prue smeared her sleeve across her nose.
    “Prue.”
    “It was
awful
.”
    Ophelia wrapped her arms around Prue and lowered them both to a seat on the cold steps. Prue cried like a baby against Ophelia’s arm. Ophelia waited until the weeping subsided.
    “Prue, tell me what happened. Have you been hurt?”
    Prue smudged her wet cheeks and shook her head. “I wish we was back in New York.”
    “It won’t be too much longer, now.”
    “These people are rats!”
    “Shh.”
Ophelia pricked her ears. She thought she’d heard a sound, further up the stairwell. She waited a few seconds. Nothing. She lowered her voice. “We oughtn’t speak ill of our employers, because if they hand us our walking papers, we’ll be in a worse fix than ever. Tell me, what happened to make you so upset?”
    “It’s all because of Hansel.”
    “Hansel?” Ophelia frowned, thinking of the smiling-eyed youth who worked in the castle gardens. “He seems pleasant enough.”
    “Oh, he
is
pleasant.” Prue perked up. “Pleasant and helpful and ever so kind to me.”
    “Lads of nineteen have been known to be kind to pretty girls.”
    “He’s
nice
.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, after luncheon today the dirty china, silver, and crystal came into the kitchen like a landslide. I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off just trying to keep up—”
    The castle was short on servants, since many had left when Count Grunewald had sold the place, and the Coops had yet to hire replacements. Everyone was run off their feet with extra work.
    “—and I ran smack into Karl, and he was carrying a half-eaten chocolate cake the size of Pennsylvania, and it went all over me.”
    “And you cried?”
    “Not then,” Prue said. “But I almost did, because I looked like I’d been wallowing in a pigpen, and Hansel always comes in after meals to take away the scraps—for his chickens, and they aren’t so different than pigs, are they, so