The Book of Spells (Private 0.50)

As soon as Eliza saw him, she found she couldn’t move. He was laughing uninhibitedly with a group of his friends, and she had a moment to enjoy the sound, to let it fill her from the tips of her ears to the tips of her toes. Then he turned from his companion and found her with his eyes. His laughter stopped. Eliza’s knees all but gave out on her at that moment, and she was grateful to have Catherine at her side to support her.

“Eliza, do you feel faint?” Catherine shot her a worried look.

“No, no, Catherine. I’m fine,” Eliza said, blushing furiously.

At that moment, the boy’s companion turned around. His entire face brightened.

“Eliza Williams!” he said in a booming voice.

It took Eliza a moment to focus on this person who’d said her name. His pinstriped shirt barely contained his broad shoulders, and he wore a formfitting tweed vest. His tie was loosened, his sleeves buttoned at the wrist. His face seemed slightly square, which might have been due to an obviously fresh haircut that left him nearly shaven around the ears, but his smile was kind and his brown eyes warm.

“It’s Jonathan Thackery,” he said, bringing a large hand to his own chest. “We are to be brother and sister, once May and George wed.”

“Mr. Thackery, of course!” Eliza stepped forward and extended a hand, which he clasped in both of his. She had met Jonathan at the engagement party his parents had thrown for May and George over the summer, and they had spent nearly the entire next day sunbathing with their siblings on the lake near the Thackerys’ summer home.

“Allow me to introduce you to my friend here,” Jonathan said, slapping his hand on the blond boy’s back. “Eliza Williams of Beacon Hill, Boston, this is Harrison Knox of Manhattan, New York.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Williams,” he said, looking her in the eye. “Welcome to Easton Academy.”

Eliza opened her mouth to reply, though she wasn’t certain she would be able to get any words past the sudden tightness in her throat. “Thank you,” she finally managed. “Do you two know my friend Cath—” She turned to introduce Catherine, but the girl had slipped away. Eliza’s brow knit as she turned back to the boys. “Perhaps she was an imaginary friend,” she said, joking over her embarrassment.

Both Jonathan and Harrison laughed.

“Well, how did you find our tunnel, Miss Williams?” Harrison said, turning to the side slightly and, in effect, edging Jonathan out of the conversation. Jonathan joined a much more raucous group of boys who had formed a loose circle around a grinning Alice. “I hope the spiders and mice weren’t too unpleasant for you.”

“It takes more than mice and spiders to intimidate me,” Eliza replied. Feeling warm, she wished she had a fan of some sort, although an item might have seemed out of place in a damp, windowless basement. “On the contrary, I enjoyed it. It reminded me of something out of an adventure novel.”

Although I could have done without the eerie whispers, she thought with a shiver.

Harrison’s handsome jaw dropped slightly. “You read adventure novels?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Eliza asked.

Harrison considered this. “Everyone worth talking to, I suppose.”

Eliza smiled as he held out a hand toward a pair of chairs near the wall. She sat down, tucking her skirt beneath her legs. Her heart fluttered like mad as he sat next to her.

“What have you read?” he asked with genuine interest.

Eliza hesitated. Her mother would have a fit worthy of Marie Antoinette if she knew that Eliza was even considering telling him about the novel she had smuggled to school in her travel bag. She sat up a bit straighter and looked Harrison in the eye.

> “I’m in the middle of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair,” she replied.

His eyebrows shot up and he turned fully sideways in his chair, the soles of his shoes scratching against the cement floor. “I’ve just finished that one. What do you think of it?”

“I adore it,” Eliza gushed. “It’s horrifying in its vivid details, and the tragedy just mounts from page to page.”

Harrison smirked. “You enjoy tragedy, do you?”

“Of course not. But when Mr. Sinclair wishes to make a point, he’s certainly deft at making it.”

“Has he turned you socialist, then?” Harrison asked, a bit of a challenge in his voice.

“Hasn’t he turned you?” Eliza asked.

“Not I,” Harrison said with a laugh, shaking his head.

“But I’m glad his work caused the government to start regulating the working conditions in our factories.”