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new—unless Alison was there and
“permitted” her to approach the gate, the same thing had always
happened before.
    Still,
to be able to break free from the spell
at all
was a triumph, and
Eleanor was not going to allow disappointment to ruin her small victory. And
after a quick, breathless, skipping run around the dormant garden, she was not
going to allow discovery to take that victory from her, either. She went back
to her scrubbing. Except that she wasn’t scrubbing at all. She was
sitting on her heels where she could quickly resume the task when she heard
footsteps and simply enjoying the breathing space.
    The
sound of high-pitched voices in the parlor told her that the ladies were having
their tea. Just outside the door, starlings had returned to the garden and were
singing with all their might. The kitchen was very quiet now, only the fire on
the hearth crackling while the stove heated for dinner. Alison’s mania
for forcing her to clean meant that the kitchen was spotless, from the shining
copper pots hanging on the spotless white plaster walls to the flagstone floor,
to the heavy black beams of the ceiling overhead. It looked very pretty, like a
model kitchen on show. But of course, no one looking at a model kitchen ever
thought about the amount of work it took to make a kitchen look like that.
    She
stared into the fire, and thought, carefully. If this glimpse of limited
freedom wasn’t some fluke, if incomprehensible fate had at last elected
to smile on her—well, her life was about to undergo a profound change for
the better.
    Her
stomach growled, and she smiled grimly. Yes, there would be changes, starting
with her diet. Because one of the things that the spell on her did was that it
prevented her from going into the pantry late at night to steal food.
    In
many households, the food was kept under lock and key, but Eleanor’s
father had never seen the need for that. He felt that if the servants needed to
eat, they should feel free to help themselves.
    Alison
hadn’t felt that way, but the pantry still had no lock on it, and while
Mrs.Bennett had lived here, it hadn’t needed one. The cook had kept a
strict accounting of foodstuffs, but that wasn’t why there was no
pilferage. Mrs.Bennett had kept everyone so well fed that none of the other
servants had seen the need to raid the stores.
    With
Mrs.Bennett gone, however, Alison had changed the spell that bound Eleanor to
keep her from the stores. Howse, of course, never appeared in the kitchen, and
wasn’t going short either, since she shared Alison’s meals.
    But
Eleanor had heard all the servants’ gossip, before they’d given
notice, and she knew all the tricks for stealing food now that she hadn’t
known back before Alison came. So if she had even one chance at the
pantry—well, she knew how and what to purloin so that even if Alison
inspected, it would not be apparent that anyone had been into the stores.
    What
a thought! No more going to bed hungry—or feeling sick from eating food
that had “gone off” and been rejected by Alison because that was
all that there
was
for her to eat. Or at least, there would be none of
that
if
she could bend the spell enough to get into the pantry at
least once.
    And
suddenly, with a great leap of her heart, she realized that within a few days
or a week at most, she would have the house to herself, as she always did in
spring and fall. The annual pilgrimage to London was coming, when Alison and
her daughters went to obtain their spring and summer wardrobes. Always before
this, she had found herself restricted to the kitchen and her own room entirely
for those few days. But perhaps
this
spring—
    The
sound of fashionable shoes with high heels clicking on hard stone broke into
her reverie, and she quickly bent to her scrubbing. When Alison appeared in the
doorway, striking a languid pose, Eleanor looked up, stony-faced, but did not
stop her scrubbing. But she was much more conscious of the fire on the