The Shadow in the Glass by JJA Harwood (any book recommendations txt) 📕

all of this. The sooner she could pay other people to descend into the swell of humanity on her behalf, the better. Mrs Pembroke had never gone anywhere she had not wanted to go. She’d had people for that.

Eleanor faltered. Someone smacked into her, swearing, but she paid them no mind.

She could wish for Mrs Pembroke to come back. She could wish for her mother to come back. The black-eyed woman had said she could wish for anything, hadn’t she?

Eleanor drifted into the shade of a plane tree, its leaves already browning. A beggar was leaning against the bark; he held out his hand, but Eleanor ignored him. She didn’t have any money of her own, anyway.

Could she really bring Mrs Pembroke back? What would happen if she did? Would the world snap back into place as though she had never died, or would she reappear, whole and healthy, after everyone had mourned her for three years? Eleanor had not quite made her peace with Mrs Pembroke’s death – even if Mrs Pembroke had lived for thirty more years, it would still have been too soon – but three years of grieving had taken their toll. Even if she woke up tomorrow and Mrs Pembroke was alive again, she would still feel the weight of all those years without her. Would she ever be able to look at her again? Would she ever be able to stop?

Besides, she thought, remembering the woman’s flat, black eyes, wishing the dead back to life might not be a good idea. All her instincts told her that anything the black-eyed woman brought back would not be as it had been in life. She might keep them in terrible agony, forever stuck on the point of death but unable to pass on. Despite the heat, Eleanor shivered. Her own mother’s death had not been easy. To be stuck, forever, in that state …

Eleanor shoved the thought away at once.

A plump woman with puffy, red-rimmed eyes and a yellowing kerchief around her neck sidled up to her. ‘Pardon the intrusion, miss,’ she wheedled, ‘but I can see you’re distressed. Is it money you’re after? Only I couldn’t help noticing your lovely hair, such a beautiful shine on it. I could give you three shillings for the lot, if you’d step this way …’

Eleanor recoiled and fled into the crowd. A fiddler nearly caught her in the eye with his bow. A small girl chased a hoop into her legs. Trays of sweating ices, damp ginger beer and cloudy gin were shoved under her nose. Eleanor ignored them all, barging through the crowds with her head held high. It was silly to think about such things – especially in public, where anyone might see her distress. She ought to put them out of her mind, as she always did.

But with the wishes, she’d never have to think of such things again. Poverty, hunger and illness – these did not have to trouble her now. She could drag everyone she cared about back from the brink of death and set them so far above their cares that they would not even remember what hardship looked like. She could feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, cure the sick. And she could do all of that just by wishing for money. Anything she wanted, she could take. She’d never need to be afraid again.

The street pressed in on all sides, hot and close. But Eleanor held her head high and set her shoulders back, lit with a power she was only just beginning to understand.

Everything around Eleanor seemed so small.

The laundress hadn’t cleaned Mr Pembroke’s suits properly; the water had been too hot, and the fine wool had shrunk. Mrs Fielding had shouted at Eleanor when she found out, because Mrs Fielding was tired and overworked and Eleanor was there to be shouted at. Eleanor could not bring herself to care. All she could think about was the wishes.

She would need to be sensible, of course; her next wish needed careful consideration. But every time Eleanor saw a gleaming landau trotting along the street, every glimpse of a dress in brilliant blue or glowing pink, every burst of song, she knew she could take it. All the fine and lovely things of the world could be hers. What did scrubbing and polishing matter when compared to that? She moved around Granborough House as if she was asleep, but she had never felt more awake. Even when she was scrubbing the marble hall floor, the sound of the brush seemed to say wi-shes.

Lizzie had noticed.

She stuck out her foot when Eleanor passed, to see if she would trip. She ‘accidentally’ knocked Eleanor’s dinner onto the floor. She engaged Mrs Fielding in a long and loud discussion about Leah’s morals, or lack of them, and kept glancing at Eleanor to see if she’d crack. Eleanor said and did nothing. She only flinched when Mrs Fielding said ‘of course, I wasn’t surprised at all. Girls are always throwing themselves at the master.’ Reality had cut through to Eleanor then in one vicious slice, and her hands were clenching before she even realized it. But she held in her anger, and went back up the servants’ staircase to call Lizzie names in the privacy of her own room.

Her bed was completely drenched.

Eleanor seethed. Lizzie was trying to provoke her into doing something stupid, so that Mr Pembroke would have an excuse to take Eleanor aside for a ‘private word’. The sensible thing was to ignore her, but Eleanor was so, so tired of being sensible. She checked her case, heart pounding, and sagged with relief when she saw that the shoes were still there. God knew what Lizzie would’ve done if she’d found those, especially after that poor shoemaker had been robbed.

The sun was setting in a blaze of crimson. Eleanor’s little room was filled with red light. She drank it in, breathing deep until her anger stopped throbbing. By the time she had