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

Eleanor was sick of it. She was sick of watching the parade of bruises and tear-stained faces and swollen bellies and knowing that she couldn’t do a damn thing about it. And not just that. She was sick of her bare floorboards, sick of being snubbed by all her neighbours, sick of this choking, stained city. She’d never seen a horizon and when she stared into the sky it was depthless, like the lid of a box.

It was all Mr Pembroke’s fault. He bruised everything he touched and her future was no exception. She took another swig.

Well, she’d put a stop to that. She’d have Charles for her husband and get Aoife out of Granborough House, and all it would take was a word. Just a few little words. After that Eleanor could remake the world as she wished it, with all her money. She could mend all the things Mr Pembroke had broken, see all the places he’d kept her away from. All that she’d dreamed of was within her grasp, if she only had the courage to remove this last obstacle from her path.

She put the bottle down. It was empty, and she hadn’t noticed.

If you want something, my dear, you must ask for it.

She knew what she wanted. She had always known. Now, she would take it.

‘I wish that Mr Frederick Pembroke would die before the sun comes up.’

The world went still. Moonlight gleamed on glass. A mouse watched her, motionless underneath the dresser. Every grain in the wood stood out sharp. The briefest pressure settled on her shoulders, like a mother’s loving hands.

Eleanor woke up the next morning in her own bed. Everything ached. Sunlight streamed through her curtains, staining the room jade green. Train whistles shrieked, carts rattled past her windows and a few streets away, the church bells chimed ten.

She sat up. Her stomach lurched, and the inside of her mouth tasted foul. Her head ached, too, the way it always did after she’d been crying.

She splashed cold water on her face. Her dress was dumped on the floor, crusted with mud and still damp. Had it been like that yesterday, when she’d come back from Granborough House? She couldn’t remember. She checked her purse; she was short four shillings. Surely she hadn’t been stupid enough to take a hansom all the way back to Peckham – but, no, she’d taken the train, hadn’t she? Eleanor felt the brandy boiling at the back of her throat and retched into the bowl on her washstand. She vowed never to touch alcohol again.

She looked up, and met the eyes of her pale reflection. She wouldn’t need any more brandy. She’d never have to make a wish like that again. There was nothing in her way now. She felt the knowledge settle on her like stones in her pockets, and retched again.

She pulled on her shawl and went downstairs. Bessie was in the kitchen, singing tunelessly as she went through the cupboards. She smirked when she saw Eleanor.

‘Good night, was it?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Bessie slapped a couple of onions on the kitchen table and began to peel them, flicking onion skin and clods of earth across the floor.

‘Bessie, what do you mean?’ Eleanor asked.

‘Heard you come in, didn’t I? At an hour that decent folk is all in their beds. Not surprised you don’t remember. You was lolloping up the stairs worse’n a sailor.’

Eleanor flushed. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Bessie gave her a knowing smile and went back to her onions. The knife flashed in her hand. Bessie couldn’t know about Mr Pembroke, or she wouldn’t be smiling like that.

‘Did … did I have any callers after I stepped out? Or letters, perhaps?’

‘Now why’re you asking about that, miss?’

‘I … I don’t …’

Bessie set down the knife and grinned at her. ‘You think I don’t know you’ve been slipping off to see your fella, and what you got up to the last time round? Bet that’s why you was asking about callers. Afraid you’d missed a fare?’

‘How dare you. How dare you! Get out of my house. I never want to see you again!’

Bessie laughed. ‘You can’t dismiss me, miss. You ain’t the one who pays me.’

It had been two days since Eleanor had made her wish. Rain slapped against the windows. Wind bellowed down her chimney and made the fires flicker. The snap of harnesses and the trundle of wheels hid in the howl of the storm. With all the noise of the street lost, every creaking floorboard might have been someone approaching her door. Setting her hairpins on her dresser sounded like a key clicking in the lock. The slightest noise sent her rushing to the nearest window, heart hammering, but there was never anyone there.

She knew that Mr Pembroke was dead. She could feel it. But until she had the news, she could not stop flinching at shadows.

A lamplighter shuffled down the street, bent in the wind. The pole wobbled in his hands, and the gaslamps flickered like pale yellow butterflies as he passed.

Eleanor tried to regret the wish, but felt nothing. She had done the right thing. Mr Pembroke was the last obstacle to her happiness and now he had been removed. Aoife would be safe, Eleanor and Charles would be married, and her money would be her own. All she would have to worry about now was the final wish. The black-eyed woman would be waiting for Eleanor to make it for the rest of her life.

The black-eyed woman saw everything that Eleanor did. She could never get away from her. In church, at Mrs Cleary’s, with Charles – dear God, she’d seen her with Charles. If Eleanor never made the last wish, all the most intimate moments of her life would have an audience. The exact spot in her drawer where she’d hidden her savings, the red-haired guardsman who’d winked at her when she was fourteen, her one and only attempt to write poetry. Once she’d clutched