Dangerous Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

able to get a meal or two out of it."
    Millicent smiled and bowed her head. "Thank you, sir. How much is it?" She pulled the coins out and held them out to him with her work-chapped hand. "This is all I have."
    "No need," he said. "Consider it a gift. Just take it. It's already wrapped and on the counter."
    Millicent walked over and picked up the two package of meat, counting her blessings as she did. "Thank you so much, sir," she said and pulled the top of her bodice down a bit. For his kindness, the butcher deserved a reward. But when she turned back to him, his back was to her. She frowned, disappointed.
    "Well, good day then," she said, and started towards the door. But before she stepped out, Gertrude Hatch walked in and stood before her, a look of shocked incredulity on her bird-like face.
    "Miss Salter, just what do you think you're doing?"
    Millicent looked at the older woman, baffled. "I was just leaving, ma'am."
    "So I see. And with two cuts of meat I know you cannot afford to buy!"
    Millicent shook her head. "No, ma'am. Your son, you see. He was kind enough to give these to me."
    "Lester!" Gertrude's high-pitched voice reverberated off the walls of the shop. Her son lumbered over.
    "Yes, mother?"
    "This girl tells me you gave her this meat? Is that so?"
    Lester looked down and shook his head. "I told her she could have this one. He pointed to the package in her left hand. It's just a bit of fatty venison still on the bone." He pointed to the package in her right hand. "But not this one. This is this a choice cut for the preacher."
    The two Hatches - mother and son - stood there, looking at Millicent with stark disapproval. The girl shook her head, more insistently now. "No - I..."
    "So this is how you repay our charity, you filthy little urchin?" hissed Gertrude. "By stealing?"
    Millicent shook her head, her face blanching with fear. Lester had told her to pick up the meat wrapped in paper, and she had. She'd not known there was one she wasn't supposed to take. She opened her mouth to tell them this, but Gertrude advanced on her, her pinched features wearing a look of incredulity.
    "Do you know what the penalty is for stealing? It'll be the stocks for you, girl, and worse than that once it get out that you sought to steal not just from us but from the preacher!"
    Millicent gasped, the shock of Gertrude's words prompting her to find her voice. "I did not know!" she said.
    Gertrude ignored the young washerwoman's attempt to explain. "And just who do you think will hire a thief to take in their things? I can assure you once word gets out not a single person in town will come calling for your -" She looked down her nose in distaste at the girl - "services."
    Millicent was in tears now and held out shaking hands imploringly to Gertrude and Lester, who had come over to stand beside his mother. The threat terrified her. Even now it was all she and her ailing mother could do to on some days to scrape together enough buy the essentials that they needed. If she were branded a thief, they would starve. The image of a widowed mother who'd already known so many hardships swam before Millicent's eyes. She sank to her knee, abandoning a defense she knew would not be believed and instead began begging for mercy.
    Gertrude motioned for her son to shut the front door. As he did so, Gertrude shot a triumphant smile at his back and then leaned down to the kneeling girl and transformed her smug expression into one of fake compassion.
    "My dear, my dear," she said. "I know facing the consequences of your sin must be difficult. But face them you must, and reap the harvest of what you've sown. Unless...."
    Millicent looked up, hope in her puffy eyes. "Unless what?" she asked, her voice desperate.
    "No," Gretrude said, standing and turning her back on the girl. "It is too much to ask. You probably would rather be in stocks."
    Millicent was on her feet now, rushing to the older woman's side. "No. please, tell me. I'll do anything. Please! My