Read Fairies and Felicitations (Scholars and Sorcery) for Free Online

enlightening little talk, and remember my advice. And next time, try not being such an unmitigated little fool.”
    Charley waves vaguely at me as Esther takes her arm, and I can hear her as they leave the chapel: “She went to you for advice? Is she desperate, or merely sadly misled?”
    “Such lack of respect for my wisdom and goodness does not become you, Charles. I flatter myself I did her errant soul some good,” Esther says, and the door shuts behind them.
    I bury my head in my hands, counting slowly to fifty, then go in search of my friend. If that is the correct term for that little devil.

    “Go away, Anne, Emily and I are busy,” the red-headed creature has the unmitigated cheek to say when I track her down in the common room. “Unless you want to learn something yourself, of course. Your mathematics are hardly as good as your poetry.”
    For a moment I consider grabbing her by one of her pointy ears and hauling her off squalling. Caution prevails over righteous vengeance. The dimples in her chin are enough to warn me that Kitty knows precisely why I’m in such a temper, and if I cause a scene, she is just as likely to share the joke with the rest of the form.
    I turn my back on her without a word and stomp off to a corner, grabbing a book as I go. Kitty can wait. If she’s hoping I go off the boil, she has not yet learned how long I can simmer.
    “Why is Anne in a snit?” Emily asks in a voice not quite low enough to escape my hearing.
    “Saint Valentine’s Day.” Kitty giggles.
    Emily sighs. “I know you’re dying for me to ask for details, so I won’t give you the satisfaction. Right, you give this problem a go for me.”
    My only consolation is that Kitty has doomed herself—or, I suppose, to be strictly honest, I have doomed her—to an evening being coached in maths. She detests maths. Too much like hard work.
    Kitty manages to evade being alone with me for the rest of the afternoon and evening, even going so far as to sit with a rather bemused and annoyed Emily, who would clearly prefer to be with her own friends, at supper. When I make the mistake of looking directly at Kitty, she opens up her big, lovely eyes at me and looks sad and lost and innocent, but I am wary of her Charming Gift and turn away. I can bide my time.
    That night, when I judge the other girls are asleep and there are as yet no snores coming from the next bed, I slip through the curtains and pull off Kitty’s bedclothes. She squeaks.
    “Shut up, you’ll wake the others,” I whisper.
    “It’s freezing! Anne, you beast!”
    “Put your dressing gown on, then, and come into the hallway.”
    She opens her mouth to protest. She must see at least some of my expression despite the darkness, because she clamps it shut, and follows me without further demurral.
    Once in the hallway, however, she has the gall to break into giggles. “She read it, then? Oh, Anne, I wish I could have seen her face! And yours!”
    “Kitty, really, how can you laugh? After you betrayed me like that?”
    “Betrayed you? Oh, angel, no. It was only a harmless Saint Valentine’s Day prank. And I did you a favour, really. You’ve been cracked on Esther for simply ages, and you never would have had the courage to confess your feelings without me.”
    “You—I—I have not!”
    “Nonsense.” Kitty winks up at me. “You meant every word of that beautiful poem, you know it. As if a Colonial clod like Cecily could have risen to such heights of expression! Esther wouldn’t have believed it was her for a moment.”
    “But you said…”
    “You deserve it, anyway, for thinking I would have been so obsessed with revenge. What kind of friend are you? For all my faults, and I will admit they are many, Anne, I never have been known to hold a grudge.” She clasps her hands appealingly.
    She’s right. Kitty is, in her own way, rather sweet natured. Her malice has no real edge.  
    A slim wedge of defiance reminds me that Kitty, of all people, has no