Read Winged: A Novella (Of Two Girls) for Free Online

With a sigh, Katherine
closed the door and observed her surroundings. It was definitely
more comfortable than her room in Dorset. She quickly slipped off
her clothing and into a wool shift provided by Mrs Potts for the
night.
     
     
     
     
     
    The goose-bed bed was magnificent. Soft and almost inducing her to sleep immediately. Her mind
was still crowded with images of her travels through the London
streets. She lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. London was
slowly slipping into slumber.
     
     
    ~*~
     
     
    She awoke, to the smells of breakfast
wafting into the chamber. She did her morning ablutions, dressed
and found her way down to the kitchen where Mrs Potts shoo-ed her
away good-naturedly and bid her stay in the study room. Grinning,
she wandered around the house. She remembered the faint tinkling
sound she’d heard last night and made her way to the source.
     
    Light from the emerging dawn sun was
glistening off crystals. Or clear glass of some sort . She
stopped in her tracks and simply stared. She was looking at row
after rows of crystal shapes, mostly birds and winged shapes,
hanging from the ceiling. They filled the entire area. Like
delicate wind chimes, they gave forth a sweet tinkling sound.
     
    It was a beautiful sight.
     
    “It is my garden of crystals,” Alethia’s
voice startled her and she wondered how the blind girl was able to
locate her. “It is my favorite place.”
     
    “It is beautiful,” Katherine admitted,
lingering for a moment to look at the crystal shapes again.
     
    “Yes, it is,” Alethia said with a soft smile
on her lips. “Come. There is breakfast on the table.”
     
     
    Breakfast was hearty scrambled eggs, with
freshly baked scones. All from our own garden , Mr Forrester
declared proudly. He was a tall man with fair hair and a shocking
bush of a moustache. His eyes twinkled merrily when he spoke, much
to Katherine’s growing sense of curiosity. Alethia edged ever so
closer to her and said that she would elaborate further later in
the day.
     
     
    ~*~
     
     
    Mister Forrester retreated into his workshop
to work on his new automata after breakfast while Mrs Potts
prepared the Yule dinner in the kitchen, together with Marjorie, a
maid. Alethia drew Katherine aside, to the crystal garden.
     
    “My father believes in growing our own
food,” Alethia began and Katherine blinked, in amazement and total
disbelief.
     
    “ Surely not in this weather?”
     
    “Come. Let me show you.” Alethia led her
puzzled friend to a door, close to the the kitchen. She opened it.
Katherine expected it to be extremely cold but the air meeting her
face was warm .
     
    She stepped out into a summer’s day.
     
     
     
    “Basic sun-lamp and strong netting to keep
the cold and garden pests away,” Alethia explained in the
background while Katherine looked around, shocked. There were
vegetables. Wheat. Oats. Clucking informed her that there were chicken . Plump white plover hens pecking away at seeds. “Our
neighbors think we are lunatics. But the idea is successful.” A
large flower-like lamp shone down upon the vegetables and assorted
crops.
     
    “The turkey has to be bought,” the blind
girl said ruefully. “That is our annual indulgence. It is Yule
after all. Mrs Potts saves all the feathers and turns them into
decorations.”
     
    Katherine shook her head, almost spinning
with the influx of new ideas and concepts. There was a summer’s
garden right under her nose and flourishing well, even though she
knew it was actually winter beyond the netting and the strange
sun-lamp. It was definitely a marvelous invention.
     
    Throughout the day, she had tiny tin-men
underfoot as well as steel-puppies nuzzling her ankles in strangely
canine affection. Sun-fliers, fragilely made like the hummingbirds
from South America, darted about, their metal wings beating
rapidly. She allowed one to alight on her finger, only to have it
whiz away in a blur of bronze wings. The steel-puppies –