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hearth
than usual, and to keep her face still, she concentrated on it. The warmth
felt—supportive. As if there was a friend here in the room with her. She
concentrated on that.
    Alison
wore a lovely purple velvet tea-gown with ornaments of a cobwebby gray lace,
with sleeves caught into cuffs at the wrist. As usual, her every dark hair was
in place—and there was a tiny smile on her ageless face. She made a tiny
gesture towards her stepdaughter, and Eleanor fought to keep her expression
unchanging, as she saw, more clearly than she ever had before, a lance of muddy
yellow light shoot from the tip of that finger towards her, and briefly
illuminate her.
    But
she also saw, with a sense of shock, something entirely new. As that light
struck her, there appeared a kind of cage of twisted and tangled, darkly
glowing cords that pent her in. The cords absorbed the light, writhed into a
new configuration, then faded away, and Eleanor sat up straighter, just as she
would have if she had felt the compulsion to scrub ebbing.
    “That’s
enough, Ellie,” Alison said. “The laundry’s been left at the
tradesman’s entrance. Go get it and put the linens away, then leave the
rest for Howse.”
    “Yes,
ma’am,” Eleanor said, casting her eyes down, and thinking, wishing
with all her might, Tell me you’re going to London! Go to London! Stay
for a long time, a fortnight, or more! Go to London!
    And
she bit her lip again to stifle the impulse to giggle, when Alison added
thoughtfully, “I believe we’ll be going on our London trip in two
days, if the weather hold fine. You’ll be a good girl while we’re
gone, and do all your work, won’t you, Ellie.”
    “Yes,
ma’am,” she replied, getting to her feet, slowly, and brushing off
her apron, using both actions as an excuse to keep her head down.
    “Go
tend the laundry.” And once again, out of the corner of her eye, she saw
a lance of grayish yellow light strike that tangle of “cords” and
make it visible for a moment, saw the cords writhe into a new configuration.
But this time she felt something, the faint ghost of the sort of compulsion she
usually experienced, driving her towards the hall and the tradesmen’s
entrance. She allowed it to direct her, because the last thing she wanted was
for Alison to guess that her magic was no longer controlling her stepdaughter
completely.
    As
she folded and put away the linens, though, she wondered—what had
happened? And why now?
    I’d
better take advantage of it while I have the chance, she decided, finally. Who
knows how long this respite will last?
    The
usual chores occupied her until dinner, more floor-scrubbing, bath-drawing,
tidying and dusting and dishwashing, while Howse tended to her own duties, and
Alison and her daughters went out to pay calls or do their “work.”
It wasn’t what Eleanor would have called work—sitting in meetings
debating over what sort of parcels should be sent to “our boys in the
trenches,” or paying visits to the recovering wounded officers in the
hospital to “help” them by writing letters for them or reading to
them. Alison and her daughters did not deign to “help” mere
unranked soldiers.
    Eleanor
heard them return and go upstairs to change for dinner. That was when she
prepared what she was able to cook, then laid the table and waited in the
kitchen until summoned by the bell. Then she served the four courses to the
four diners in the candlelit dining room with a fresh, white apron over her
plain dress. It was ham tonight, from the Swan, preceded by a delicate
consommé from a tin, a beetroot salad, and ending with a fine tart from
the Browns’ bakery. Though this was one of the more difficult times of
the day, as she served food she was not allowed to touch and watched the girls
deliberately spoil what they left on their plates with slatherings of salt and
pepper so that she could not even salvage it for herself, tonight she comforted
herself with the knowledge that
her
dinner