Free The Perilous Journey of the Not-So-Innocuous Girl by Leigh Statham Page B

lurched forward in a vain attempt to capture it before it fell. Her hand grabbed nothing but air just before she heard the plink … plink … of its brass body bouncing away.
    “No, no, no!” Tears sprang into her eyes. How would she ever get it back?
    Suddenly, the very moment she heard the fourth bounce, a light sprang up from the little bug’s position, illuminating the entire stairway and most of the room below. With the way clearly lit, Marguerite sprang to retrieve it.
    She scooped it up like a precious stone and cradled it to her breast, tears freely falling down her cheeks. She turned it over in her hands, carefully examining the light shining out of its eyes.
    “What magic is this?” Her heart fluttered when she thought of Claude and the time he must have spent crafting the tiny creature. “No wonder he didn’t want me to lose you! I wonder what else you can do.”
    She looked up and pointed the cricket’s face at her surroundings. The room below her was made of solid stone and smelled musty from being cradled in the earth for decades with no ventilation. Wooden beams lined the ceiling and cobwebs hung in all directions. Large trunks lined the walls and a few were scattered about the floor. Archaic metal contraptions covered in dust and more webs from spiders long dead were stuffed in corners here and there.
    “This must be some sort of storage room. I wonder how long these things have been down here.” She quickly calculated dates in her mind. The estate was at least two hundred years old. “There could be anything down here!” She spoke in a whisper to her cricket as she scanned the forgotten treasures before her, trying to decide what to investigate first.
    A rust-colored trunk near the foot of the stairs seemed newer than the others. She carefully picked her way down the steep stone steps and bent to inspect the lock. It wasn’t latched so she tried pushing the lid up with the palm of her hand. It popped up easily, letting loose a cloud of dust and dead bugs.
    Inside, stacks and stacks of papers were tied with brightly colored ribbons. Some seemed to be letters, others official documents or notices from the government. She gently picked up a small packet tied with a strand of lavender silk. Turning it over in her hands, she looked for clues as to what the contents may be. On the back of the packet she saw her father’s name printed in a beautiful script, obviously a woman’s. She pulled apart the layers to peek inside without having to open the bundle. She saw the opening line of what appeared to be a personal letter.
     
    My Dearest Jean,
     
    “A love letter?” Marguerite whispered. “Who would write my father a love letter?”
    A terrifying thought occurred to her then. Was Pomphart’s plan to leave her trapped in this forgotten place? To die along with the rest of these memories? If no one could hear her then no one would find her. Pomphart could tell her father she had run away and no one would think anything of it, knowing how unhappy she was with the plans to move to Lyon. She looked desolately at the stacks of trunks. She pictured her skeleton being discovered decades from now and people weeping—“If only we’d known Pomphart was evil!” Maybe Captain Moreau would come looking for her when she didn’t board the ship in the morning. That would be an excellent drama. The ship … how desperately she wanted to be on that ship now!
    Suddenly the door at the top of the stairs flew open and a bot plunged into the stairway. “M’lady Marguerite?” It was Outil’s soft metallic voice.
    “Outil! You scared me half to death!” Marguerite plunged the letters into her pocket, they only just fit. “How did you find me?” She shut the trunk and ascended the stairs.
    “Madame Pomphart does not have good intentions. I activated the homing mechanism on the cricket in order to observe your safety. When I saw that you were below the manor house I came at once.”
    “There is a homing