Free Arsenic with Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde

pattern?”
    â€œNah, I just made it up. There’s some patterns and magazines and stuff over there if you want to look.” She waved a hand toward the south wall. “I’m Beanie, by the way.”
    â€œBeanie—that’s an unusual name. Is it short for something?”
    She screwed up her pixie face into a comical grimace. “My real name—my actual birth certificate name—is Princess Diana Spenser. Can you believe it? My mom was obsessed with her. She has the soul of a paparazzi with no one to stalk. And the really silly thing is, when Diana got to be a princess, she wasn’t even Spenser anymore. But lucky for me, my brother nicknamed me Beanie when I was little ’cause I had this beanie I wore all the time.”
    Beanie held up her knitting, considered it, then turned the long strip and starting picking up stitches down the side. “And my brother—you really won’t believe this—my brother’s name is Prince Charles. He goes by Chuck, but when I want to wind him up I call him ‘the brother formerly known as Prince.’”
    Emily allowed her mouth to quirk. “The two of you together could almost be Bonnie Prince Charlie.”
    Beanie scratched her nose with the point of a free needle. “You know, that’s a thought. Next Pirate Day Ball, he can be Prince Charlie, and I’ll be a bonnie lass.”
    â€œPirate Day? When’s that?”
    â€œFourth of July weekend. We get a real mob here then. You gonna stick around?”
    â€œI have no idea. I just came for my aunt’s funeral, but things are getting a little more complicated than I planned for.”
    â€œOh right, you’re old Beatrice’s niece, aren’t you? Mrs.… Cavanaugh, was it? I saw my mom’s article about you in the paper.”
    Spenser. The penny dropped. The soul of a paparazzi, indeed.
    â€œAnd you knit. Wow, I hope you do stick around—you could keep me in business.” She cast a professional eye over Emily’s cardigan. “That’s an awesome sweater. Did you make it?”
    â€œJust finished it a few days ago.” Emily was rather proud of this cardigan, with its intricate Aran cabling and the shaping she’d designed herself to echo that of her suit jacket: peplum, shawl collar, puffed sleeves. The yarn was a lightweight taffy-brown tweed.
    â€œMay I?” Beanie reached out a purple-nailed hand and fingered the edge of the peplum. “You do great work. Hey, wanna make some models for me? I’d give you the yarn at cost if you let me show a piece for a month or two. People want to see the yarn made into normal sweaters and scarves and stuff, and I just can’t stand following patterns, y’know?”
    Emily was reluctant to commit herself to anything that long-term, but before she could voice her objections, Beanie cut her off. “We can start with that cashmere. What were you thinking—shawl? Socks? Scarf and hat?”
    Emily held up her free hand, palm out. “Whoa there, Nelly! I don’t even know how long I’ll be in town. And I can afford to pay full price for the yarn. What do you say I just buy it for now, and if I’m still here when I finish my piece, I’ll let you have it for a while.”
    â€œFair enough. Have to admit I can use the money. That new guy, what’s-his-name, he’s threatening to raise the rent.”
    â€œBrock?”
    â€œYeah. Is he like your cousin or something?”
    â€œNo real relation. Beatrice’s late husband was his uncle.”
    â€œGood. I don’t want to diss a relative of yours, but even if I hadn’t already been sorry to see Beatrice go—which I was—having him for a landlord is enough to make me want to dig her up and bring her back. She’d make a pretty wicked zombie, don’t you think? Put him in his place, for sure.”
    Beanie chuckled, then her eyes lit. She dropped her knitting,