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

your stepmother was intercepting your mail so you found a way around that.”
    “You could say that.”
    Cynthia balanced on her toes, gripping a s
l
ender branch for support. She reached into a large hollow just above her head
,
. She smil
ing
ed when her fingers closed on a letter. She placed it in her pocket. Whistling the same tune as earlier, she paused and waited. The bright red head and yellow body of a tanager fluttered overhead. He perched on a branch that brushed Cynthia
's
shoulder, fluffed his feathers and sang to her softly.
    She smiled and held out Remi’s letter. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Weston.” He peeped at her his head darting forward to grasp the letter in his beak. “Landry Keep, please.”
    The bird cocked his head to the side, regarding her with one beady eye. He flapped
h
is wings twice in agitation.
    “He needs more of an address than that,” Cynthia addressed her pocket.
    Remi jumped out of her pocket, wrapping the pads of his webbed hands and feet around a twig. He hung on in an impossible looking vertical position. “South of the Lustrom River. Near Bremenstein.”
    The bird’s beady eye studied Remi a moment before darting into the air.
    “Now we wait.” Cynthia looked down and started picking her way down the tree. Remi hopped down several branches until he could climb on her shoulder.
    “Have you always been able to talk to birds?”
    Cynthia glanced at him clinging to the thin gray fabric of her dress. “No. It was a gift from my mother.” She paused, placing her palm on the bronze, peeling bark. “What’s left of her spirit is in this tree.”
    Remi was silent as Cynthia jumped the last few feet to the ground and headed toward the front of the house. She transferred Remi back to her pocket.
    “You’re going the wrong way. My warm cozy bed is in the opposite direction.” Cynthia smiled at the lightening sky.
    “It was your suggestion to visit the apothecary.”
     
     
    A single light was on in the little apartment behind the apothecary shop. Cynthia tapped on the door and hoped that visiting too early wasn’t an offense that would get her
cursed
. It took several minutes of knocking before she could hear a heavy tread inside. Madam Camilla with her salt and pepper hair tumbled around her shoulders was still in her nightdress and a shawl. She blinked at Cynthia in surprise.
    “What do I owe this pre-dawn wake up call?” the woman sniffed.
    “I’m so sorry. You must think me crazy coming here at this hour.”
    “Crazy or guilty.”
    Cynthia’s eyes met the woman’s in surprise.
    “Don’t look like that. It didn’t take the wisdom of the ages to figure out what had happened to your sister’s hair.”
    “Stepsister.” Cynthia took in Madam Camilla’s smug look. “Then why did your husband curse her?”
    Madam Camilla stepped out of the doorway and waved Cynthia inside. She pointed her to a seat at a tiny table under the shop window. She lit a candle and maneuvered herself into a chair.
    “That girl needs to be taught a lesson in manners. She had no business to come in here and threaten me, no matter who did what to her hair.” The older woman folded her hands on the table. “Besides, my husband has a bit of a temper.”
    “What should I do?”
    “There’s nothing for you to do.” Madame Camilla pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “The
curse
is not yours to be undone.”
    In her pocket, Remi gave her a little poke.
    “Only an act of compassion will return her to her rightful form.”
    Cynthia had known Coriander since she was eleven. She searched back through the last six years and tried to remember one instance of kindness, one moment of gentleness or sympathy toward anyone. She came up blank.
    “Does she know?”
    Madame Camilla nodded. “She does.”
    Cynthia did not see this having a happy ending.
    Madame Camilla stood and led her to the door. “Now you get home before they wake up.” Cynthia jerked her head up. The