Free A Bitter Magic by Roderick Townley

Paris labels.
    Cole takes pillows from the divan. “It would help if we knew what we were looking for.”
    I close the drawer and move to the bookcase. Novels by that popular lady author who writes under a man’s name. More novels. Also a number of thin books that turn out to be poetry. I move on.
    I feel something hard in my pocket. Cole’s turtle. “I like him,” I say, pulling it out. “He cheers me up.”
    “That’s what I was hoping.”
    “You were?”
    “I thought you needed some cheering up.”
    “Was I that glum?”
    “You were…serious.”
    I think a moment. “Wait. How long were you watching me?”
    He doesn’t answer.
    “Cole?”
    “Long enough to figure out you were different.”
    I give him my famous stare.
    “Different. You know. More going on upstairs.”
    What does that mean?
I step on the ottoman to reach a silver decanter on a shelf. There’s something in the bottom of it. “Cole. Come here.”
    He climbs up next to me on the ottoman. In my open palm lies a gold ring.
    “Hello,” he says.
    I hold it up and squint to see better. “Looks like an inscription.”
    I feel his breath on my cheek. I’ve never been this close to a boy before. I wobble a bit, and he steadies me with an arm around my shoulder.
    “To M,” he reads, “with love…”
    “From P,” I finish. “This is a wedding ring!”
    “
M
would be Marina.”
    My breath lightens.
    “But why,” he continues, “would she hide it?”
    I can’t think with him so close. But there’s another excitement as well: the letter
P. My father?
This is the first clue I’ve ever found. Paul? Philip? Peter? What else? Phineas?
    A loud door slams behind me.
“Just what is going on here?”
    I practically fall off the ottoman. Uncle Asa stands by the entrance, stiff as a fireplace tool. Cole lowers his hand from my shoulder.
    “I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.” Asa reaches up and snatches the ring.
    He turns a cold eye on me. “And the
key
.” He holds out an impatient hand.
    I stare back, fighting panic.
    The hand stays out.
    With a sigh, I dig in my pocket and give him the key.
    “Sorry, sir,” says Cole. “I got lost in the maze, and Cisley—”
    “I’m not speaking to you.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Anyway, you’re not lost.”
    “I’m not?”
    “No,” says Asa, his voice dead cold. “You’re
fired
!”
    “No!” I cry without thinking.
    Asa looks at me. “Actually,” he says slowly, “yes.”
    He turns to Cole. “Now get out!”

PART TWO
Nobody Sings at the Castle

Chapter Fourteen
    There are problems with having a keen sense of smell. Uncle Asa’s laboratory, with its vials of chemicals, pots of dying flowers, cages of lizards, and bins of compost—it’s making me a little sick. After days of tests, I can hardly take it.
    Or is it him I can’t take? He fired my only friend! I should never speak to him again, yet here I am cooperating. The main reason is to find some clue, something that could lead me to Mother.
    Asa, of course, thinks I’m here because I’m just wild to learn about my special abilities. Well, all right, yes, I am. Of
course
I am, now that I know I have them. But I’m not so sure I want
him
to know about them.
    Working up here hasn’t been fun, and it’s gotten less fun as days go on and I keep failing his experiments. He’sangry that I can’t hear whispers through brick walls. Or
see
through brick walls. Or see
around
walls.
    “Here,” he says, taking a mallet and smashing a glass vial, “put that together. No hands.” I’m supposed to reassemble it through mental effort alone.
    Now,
there’s
a power I’d like to have, especially around Miss Porlock. It would save her so much embarrassment—and so many teacups.
    “Why can’t you do this?” snaps Asa. “Marina could do it when she was five years old.”
    “You told me yourself. Different people have different abilities.”
    “Yes. You can smell at a distance.” His voice is acid.
    The tests go on.
    I’m bad,