Yesterday's Magic Read Online Free PDF

niece, Mrs. Merribelle
Wainwright.”
    Wymer stood up and smiled, causing Bella to
note that he was shorter than her and had very few teeth. Those he
had were yellowed and stained brown at the edges. He looked to be
somewhere between sixty and eighty years old. “Pleasure, Ma’am,” he
said. “Good to see you made it safely.”
    “Wymer runs the livery and handles all the
mail and telegrams coming in and out of Mantosa,” Aunt Freida
explained.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” Bella said.
    Freida motioned for Bella to climb up onto
the wagon. It had a narrow wooden seat that looked just big enough
for the two of them, with a ten-foot long flat-bed behind it. Bella
resisted the urge to rub her sore butt.
    Once they were situated, Aunt Freida grabbed
the reins and the two horses, both brown with a hint of red in
their shiny coats, took off. Once outside, Freida clicked her
tongue and the horses picked up the pace, their hooves making a
dull thud as they trotted down the hard-packed dirt road.
    As they left town, the dirt road grew
narrower and there were tall trees on both sides. She remembered
just enough of her junior-high-school geography to know that
eastern Kansas, where Mantosa was, was wooded, but the farther west
a person went, the trees almost disappeared and the prairie became
an endless stretch of land.
    About ten minutes later, they turned into a
lane that led to a small log cabin. Aunt Freida pulled on the reins
and the horses stopped, giving Bella a chance to assess the
building. It was perhaps forty feet long and it had two windows,
one on each side of the wide door. It had a shingled roof and a
tall chimney made out of large stones.
    It was sort of charming.
    Twenty feet to the right was a barn. It was
twice the size of the cabin and constructed of wide, unpainted
boards, so gray that they almost seemed to fade into the winter
sky. It had a big door, that was closed, and no windows that Bella
could see.
    The cabin and the barn were surrounded by
large trees that had lost their fall leaves. Long, barren branches
stretched to the sky. One especially tall tree, near the barn, had
a limb that was almost severed. There was just enough wind that it
gently blew back and forth, scratching against the barn roof. It
was a strangely rhythmic sound but it didn’t do much to put Bella
at ease.
    She’d never felt so completely isolated.
Bella looked off to her right, then her left, but didn’t see any
evidence of neighbors. Aunt Freida lived in the middle of freakin’
nowhere.
    Evidently sensing Bella’s concern, Aunt
Freida reached over and patted Bella’s knee. “I don’t like people
sniffing up my butt,” she said.
    Yes, well.
    Aunt Freida’s horses apparently knew the
drill. They pulled the wagon toward the barn and stood, their heads
twitching in anticipation, as Aunt Freida got down. Once she’d slid
open the big door, the horses pulled the wagon inside the dark
building.
    Bella couldn’t see much. But the smell was
similar to the Livery, although not as strong. She heard the
scratch of a match and suddenly the building was bathed in soft
light. Her aunt stood next to the wagon, holding a lantern.
    The building had a dirt floor and the roof
had a high pitch which allowed for a second story loft. She could
see bales of straw perched there. There was more straw scattered
inside the two horse stalls as well as buckets of water and some
sort of feed.
    She managed to get off the wagon without
snagging her long dress on anything and then stood at its side,
feeling useless. It was like any other first day on the job. She
didn’t know where to stand, what to do, and she was filled with a
sudden desire to be anywhere else.
    Aunt Freida hung the lantern on a wide post
and then stood in front of the horses. “This here is Sunshine and
this is Rain.” She patted the horses in turn and they tossed their
heads in response. Bella wondered if they were twins—they looked
exactly alike. Aunt Freida began to unhook