Fairies and Felicitations (Scholars and Sorcery) by Eleanor Beresford Read Free Book Online Page A

street.
    I kick Ember first into a walk and then a trot, his wings unfolding. There are cheers from his adoring audience as first his front legs, then his rear lift into the air, and he carries me cleanly over the hedge.  
    I have to admit, I enjoy it just a little. A bit like returning to the pavilion after a half century, only it's Ember's glory really, not mine. I'll have to pay the piper in the end, but it's fun at the time. The kind of triumphs that only make sense to schoolgirls and seem silly to grownups.
      I’ll be part of the grown up world in less than a year. I can't make it seem real; I’m as bad as Cecily that way. I will have to leave Fernleigh Manor soon, of course. I'm a little sorry about leaving school, when it comes to that. Cecily and Esther will go on to university, there's no doubt about it, but I know I don't have the brains or the magical talent for that.
    So then, what? Some kind of training in London, perhaps, for some job or other, and Mother had said something in the holidays about trying to manage a few parties for me or something, although I hadn't paid much attention at the time. I hadn't wanted to think about what parties meant, that was the truth. I'd spent all summer trying not to think about a shaming few moments in the stables and how things had suddenly changed between me and my eldest brother's friends. The last thing I want to think about is parties in which the whole point is to meet nice young men.  
    As Ember circles down to the yard at Briar Stables, my cheeks are hot, and I don't think it’s just the exercise. Whatever I said to the other girls, I don't feel grown up in the slightest. And yet. . . aren't I already more grown up than I was last term? Isn't that why I am suddenly not just a chum to ride with for boy friends, but a girl whose hand to press and whose kisses to steal?
    I detest that nonsense. It makes me feel hot and red and somehow as if I've been caught out doing something wrong. I suppose that, when I'm really grown up, I'll want it. Right now it's something I want passionately to put off as long as possible.
    The obvious alternative to marriage is a job. Perhaps I could do something with fabled beasts. It's what I'm good at. The gift of communion with magical creatures, the kind the elves brought to Earth with them when they invaded hundreds of years ago, runs very strongly through my family. The problem is, I can't get a job as a groom, even if my family would allow it, not as a girl. Setting up my own place would be expensive, and while the family can stretch—just—to good schools for all of us, I'm afraid setting one child up with stables of her own is far too much to ask. I could work with Father helping to run the stables and train the younger steeds and monsters, perhaps, until I get married.
    I’m back at that again. Married. As I dismount in the stables, I shake my head. I suppose I will marry, eventually, but the thought of marriage and what comes with it is all mixed up with the unwelcome feeling of lips against mine and being, somehow, reduced by it. Just a girl.
    The worst of it all is that I really don't have anyone to talk to about it. It would be nice, I sometimes feel, to have a real friend of my own. Someone who understands. There's always Cecily and Esther, of course. I love them dearly; I know they're fond of me. It doesn't change the plain fact of the matter that they are more each other's chums than mine. Oh, they find me amusing, and they tolerate my quirks and queerness, and they don't mind making up a threesome with me. Still, I've never lost sight of the fact that Esther is Cecily's friend first, and somehow in a different way, than I am.  
    It's unthinkable to talk to them about this. Cecily, if I confided in her, would just tell me in her straightforward way that I should never have allowed myself to be kissed in the first place, not still at school and without some kind of understanding between the boy and myself. And the