Wrighting Old Wrongs by Maria Grace EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Maria Grace
- Language: English
- Genre: Steampunk Science Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
September 1870, Brighton, England
The loud and, if Rebecca was going to be honest, hideous clock ticked and
whirred, giving fair warning that the wretched bird inside, more spectral
raven than cuckoo, was about to burst onstage. The bedraggled little thing
made two shrieking appearances before she stilled the Air around it with a
sharp pull of her fingers, muffling its third cry. Offended—no, it was not
sentient, and unable to take offense, but it was gratifying to imagine it was
—the bird returned to its hiding place within the old Gothic clock.
It would stay there for another hour, only to repeat the cycle, demanding
to be silenced by her Skill once again. Noisy, disruptive, dreadful little
contraption. She ought to pull it down, get rid of it, and be done with the
disagreeable thing.
The customers of Fuller’s Fix-All wouldn’t mind. More than one feared it
would be the death of them, the way it screamed every hour like the
harbinger of death.
Rebecca Fuller leaned back on her stool near the workbench and removed
her wire-rimmed glasses to glare at the intricately carved, dust-collecting
tribulation. It was not as if there were any other family around to care if
Father’s Master-Wright project were on display or not. Her customers did
not, and could not, ever know its precise nature. Father was always the one
who insisted it be front and center, a memento of his proudest achievement.
Who would not want such a reminder staring at them when the debt
collector came calling?
Gracious, what had rendered her such a crosspatch this afternoon? She
laughed to herself as she wiped her glasses along the shoulder of her
practical, drab work dress. Forever dusty and dirty, they were.
It had been a long day, part of several long weeks. The pressure of the
coming debt payments must be getting to her. Best not continue on with
such a sour disposition, lest she earn a reputation as a bitter old spinster.
No,
focus on remembering that the lockbox upstairs now contained nearly
enough to cover the moneylender’s demands. And he would not be calling
for another week. All would be well. She settled her glasses onto her nose
and blinked the cluttered—no, not cluttered, it was busy—shop into focus.
Tools, great and small, hung along the back wall, all worn, but well cared
for, and mostly for show. She managed the actual work in the cellar
workroom, away from prying eyes, not at the front-of-shop workbench
where she did small manual tasks to remind customers their beloved items
were in expert hands.
Wood-paneled walls, dust-free through no small effort
of her own, made the broad space homey and smell just right, like Father.
Shelves lined the left wall and glass-fronted cabinets on the right.
Some of Father’s works still lingered on those shelves, waiting to find
homes, but these days it was her work that filled them. Bits and bobs
fashioned from scraps and discards that made their way into her hands.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB