14
Papa once told me thatbooks were treasure chests of knowledge. It was the winter after I turned seven. We were in his study taking our tea near the warmth of the fireplace. The velvet drapes were pushed back from the window, heavy droplets of rain pounding against the roof and peppering the glass in clear, crystalline orbs.
I was leaning over his shoulder, watching him flip over the worn pages of a thick volume. The print was so small I had a headache looking at it.
“Papa, why must you read that book?” I whined, tugging his ears. “Can’t we join Genevieve and stepmother in the parlor?”
He laughed, the sound like warm honey to my ears. “Lydia has her own plans with Genevieve, my flower,” he said. He closed the book anyway, just to please me. I climbed onto his lap, glad to have his undivided attention.
“Would you like to learn how to read, Amarante?” Papa asked after a moment. I stopped playing with his cravat and looked up at him. He hadn’t shaved that day, the whiskers on his chin shadowing his face.
“To read? Mrs. Handel said I was too young to learn,” I said.
“You mustn’t always listen to your governess,” Papa said. He lifted me from his lap and set me down, reaching for a thin book on the shelf behind him. “Here,” he said, placing the book on his desk. “I will teach you.”
I stood on my tiptoes as Papa opened the covers to reveal vibrantly colored illustrations and large letters.
“That looks difficult,” I said.
“Ah, don’t you know, Amarante? When you read, you will learn about the world, or be swept on fantastic adventures you could never imagine,” he said with great zest, pointing at the window to the great beyond. The rain had stopped and a hint of golden sunlight peeked through the dense, gray clouds.
“Really?” I said.
Papa smiled his knowing smile. “The more knowledge you gain, the wiser you’ll be. And books, my flower, are treasure chests of knowledge.”
I had never been a great reader, regretfully, for I was easily intimidated by the books Papa so loved. He often read volumes on philosophy or economics, or novels as thick as my mattress. I never could imagine myself comprehending any of it.
As a result, the books Lana gave me sat under my bed for several days. I was almost afraid to let them touch daylight, as if they would crumble to dust if the sun made contact with the pages. But I knew that Lana’s books were nothing like Papa’s. Even after days out of my sight, they held my curiosity. I eventually asked Tori if I could take a peek at their library, where I stripped off the dust jacket of Lady Strongfoot’s sappy romance novel to conceal what I was actually reading. This garnered some strange looks from Tori and Genevieve as I devoured the pages at every meal.
“Ah, the prime age for young girls to fill their heads with mush,” Lord Strongfoot said when he noticed my undivided attention to what he thought wasA Sailor’s Seduction: Tales of Romance at Sea.
I was too distracted to be embarrassed. It turned out that Papa was right—booksweretreasure chests of knowledge. And books on witch magic were like pirate coves of rare gems and antique gold. My muddled ideas about magic and types of witches finally made sense. Like Lana had said, every witch’s magic worked differently. Whereas one witch could hear the thoughts of plants and animals, another could sense their usefulness or purpose in a potion or charm. I thought about the colors I saw and how I instantly knew what they meant.
The crystal Lana gave me was another odd change. With each passing day, I became more familiar with it and sensed that it became more familiar with me. It hummed whenever I touched it, as if emitting its own energy. Slowly but surely, I called upon the colors with ease and made them disappear just as quickly. I knew the jar on Tori’s desk emitting puffs of pale pink was meant to get rid of freckles and the tube of paste oozing indigo blue in Lord Strongfoot’s pocket tamed his hair and beard.
I stopped being startled by my witch traits and instead began to admire them. My cheeks glittered as if brushed with gold dust. My eyes, instead of the dark earthy brown I was used to, caught the light in quite an entrancing way. Genevieve teased me for staring at the mirror more times than I’d like to admit. She once told me all young ladies go through a phase of admiring their own beauty. I was embarrassed, but admittedly during that time, I found my features more pleasing than I had ever before.
As the days passed, another letter came from the palace, this time notifying us of the next event of the Season: a talent show. Hosted by the music mistress Madam Lucille, it would require the debutantes, as well as select young men who wished to join, to showcase their personal talents to the attendees of the Season. For me, this was cause for some anxiety.
“A talent show?” Tori said. She looked positively delighted. “Prime time to whip out my old lute.”
Genevieve decided to exhibit her watercolor paintings and do a live demonstration. Meanwhile, I was trying very hard not to think about all the things I was terrible at.
“I actually regret escaping stepmother’s lessons,” I moaned to an amused Genevieve. “Who would’ve thought this day would come?”
Lydia forced us to learn a multitude of ladylike arts, including playing the piano, painting, and embroidery, among other activities. I barely passed as mediocre on the piano and my embroidery was a definite disaster. Luckily, there were still two weeks to prepare.
Ash was similarly amused when I told him of my plight. I had returned to the library as promised and the two of us actually cleaned the east end, as he had requested the servants to leave the work for us.
“Why not try dancing?” he said, wiping the panes of the window with a damp rag as I swept the floor.
