Cogling Read Online Free PDF Page A

the automation. “Fetch my slippers.”
    Edna hurried from the room, shutting the door behind her.
    A figure in a cloak rounded the top of the stairs.
    “I beg your pardon….” Edna’s voice tapered off and her eyes widened.
A hag.



In the dreaming, I am seeing.
    he plump hag stood outside Lady Rachel’s bedroom, licking her lips. Below a lace babushka, her wrinkled skin appeared blotchy around her puckered lips. A wart grew alongside her left nostril, with a hair poking from it. Her knobby hands clutched a basket covered by a green cloth. The scent of lavender, with an undertone of sandalwood, clung to her cloak.
    “Mother Sambucus!” Edna crushed the muffin, crumbs dribbling, as goose bumps broke out across her arms. She’d never been so close to a hag before. The silver eyes seemed to burn her skin with their gaze. Edna willed herself not to gag at the sour taste in her mouth. To calm her nerves, she tugged on a curl and her bracelet of prayer beads slid down her arm.
May the seven Saints protect me.
Could she sense Edna’s likeness to the hags, that wretched darkness that refused to fade?
    The hag nodded, air whistling through her nostrils. “You know me.”
    Although taller than Edna by only a few inches, the woman’s demeanor made Edna shrink against the door. “Y-yes, ma’am. Everyone in the city knows about you.”
    “Oh?” Mother Sambucus showed a crooked front tooth, blackened around the edges, when she spoke.
    Edna bit her lower lip. “You’re…over two hundred years old. You… bless weddings and christenings.”
Of those who fill her pockets with gold.
    “May the moon bless you,” Mother Sambucus rasped. “I’m here to bless Lady Waxman for her wedding.”
    Did the hag know what Edna planned to do? She forced herself not to think about it, in case the hag could read her mind. The hag might not want the foxkin freed, or feel compelled to report Edna’s traitorous plan.
    “Where is Lady Rachel?” the hag wheezed.
    “She’s within.” Ice from the hag’s stare crawled over Edna’s skin. Keeping her eyes lowered, Edna waited until the hag entered Lady Rachel’s chamber before she took to the back stairs, passing the sunroom, and hurried through the yard to the stable.
May the seven Saints keep me safe despite the evil within my soul.

    Inside her chamber, Rachel sat on her settee, crossed her legs, and smoothed her skirts over the velvet cushion. “For my wedding, I would like to be blessed with artistic talent. Every
proper
Lady knows how to paint for her husband, but I’m afraid my landscapes aren’t”—she puckered her lips—“realistic enough.”
    Mother Sambucus set her basket on the marble table beside the door. “As you wish, Lady Waxman.”
    “Of course, I also want to have a handsome son. My husband would love that. Father will pay any price.” Rachel folded her hands in her lap. “How does this work? Will it be like when you gave me silky hair?”
    “That was a special potion. For these blessings, you must dream.”
    “I always dream.”
    “Then you must dream extra hard.” From her basket, Mother Sambucus lifted out a metal box and a pocket watch.

    Should I keep the dropped muffin?
Edna’s family could use the food, but it’d been soiled.
I don’t need noble handouts. We’re not that poor yet that we have to eat garbage.
Dumping the muffin by a woodpile, she hid the linen napkin in her apron pocket and stepped through the stable doors.
    “Hello?” Edna called. A horse whinnied. The grooms must have been helping park the locomobiles in the carriage house. Perfect. Excitement tingled along her nerves and the darkness refrained. Straw crunched beneath her boots, perfuming the air with an earthy aroma. She pushed back a bouncy curl that refused to stay in her braid.
    “Foxkin? Where are you, little guy?” She peered into each stall hoping to spot a cage. The horses eyed her before returning to their hay. Only Rachel’s favorite mare came to the stall