A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) Read Online Free PDF

your sister?”
    “Stepsister,” Cynthia said automatically. She’d been attempting not to think about Coriander and the part she’d played in her hairy hands. There was no denying that Cynthia was mostly to blame. Had Coriander been less nasty—to Cynthia to Mistress Camilla—this incident would have gone much differently. But the repercussions had gone way beyond what she had intended.
    “What do you think?” Cynthia was struck with how odd it was to have someone to ask for advice.
    “I’m always up for a good prank.” Remi puffed out his chest in a froggy kind of sigh. “But this one seems to have gone a bit far.”
    Cynthia nodded and swallowed hard. “I guess I’ll have to confess.” She wondered what Lady Wellington would do. So far, they’d never beat
en
her. Would they turn her out of the house?
    “Whoa! I wouldn’t go that far.” Remi didn’t have a lot
of
control over his webbed feet, but he waved one frantically at her. “Can’t you go and see the warlock? Or his wife?”
    That option seemed almost as grim. Almost.
    The kettle began to shrill.
    “I guess it’s a place to start.” She stood and shook a few crumbs from her dress into the fire. Using the edge of her skirt to protect her hands, she unhooked the kettle and poured it into her bucket of cold water. She checked the temperature with the tip of her finger. A little cool, but she was too tired to heat more water. She reached behind her neck and began to unbutton her filthy gray dress.
    She remembered Remi a second later and looked over her shoulder at the little frog watching her with wide eyes.
    “Turn around.”
    “I’m just a frog,” he tried to argue.
    “You’re not a frog. You’re an enchanted prince. And that’s a direct quote.”
    He grumbled under
h
is breath and turned his back to her. Cynthia stripped, giving herself the world’s fastest sponge bath. Even directly in front of the dying fire it was cold . She slid into her nightgown and put her dress in the bucket with the rest of her bathwater to soak.
    “All right,” she said to Remi, as she took her last sheet of paper from the three-legged table. Folding herself onto her cot with the nub of a pencil in her hand, she looked at him expectantly. “What do I say to your parents?”
    He hopped onto her bent knee and looked at the paper with a frown. “Dear Mom and Dad. This is your youngest son, Remington. I am a frog because Laron is an ass.”
    Cynthia smiled down at the paper and began transcribing—with a few alterations.

 
    Chapter 5
     
    “Now you know why that poor guy was throwing pebbles at your window.”
     
    “REMI.”
    The frog opened his eyes and blinked several times. He was curled up on Cynthia’s pillow like a cat. There was no light in her room. The fire was dead and it was still dark outside.
    “Hmm?” he asked, still sleepy.
    “I’ve got a few errands to run. Want to come?”
    Remi looked at the black window and back to Cynthia. “What time is it?”
    “Five. We’ve only got an hour.”
    He nodded once and that was all it took for her to scoop him into her pocket. She tiptoed up the stairs and eased out the courtyard door.
    “Where we… going?” Remi yawned from her pocket.
    “Post your letter.”
    The hazel tree filled the space. It was lofty with sweeping branches that seemed to push the building on either side. She stepped over her mother’s small headstone, placing a quick kiss on her fingertips and pressing them into the cool marble.
    “Hey Mom.” She didn’t come to her mother’s tree often. If Lady Wellington found out how much it meant to her, Cynthia wouldn’t be surprised if she had it chopped down. Placing her boot on a worn, familiar knot, she grabbed a lower branch and swung herself into the tree. The path through the branches as well-known as the road to town.             
    “This is not a post office.”
    “It’s my post office.”
    Remi poked his head out of her pocket. “Let me guess,