The Treasure Box by Penelope Stokes Read Free Book Online Page A

semicircle of acorns in the grass, with their little hats bowed down facing the doll. “These are her faithful fairy minions, who have come to do her bidding.”
    At first Vita thought she might be viewing the yard surrounding Jacob’s cottage, for a stone’s throw away she could see a sturdy hut with a thatched roof and wild pink flowers climbing over the doorway. But a woman, younger and thinner than Bridget, came to the doorway and stood there leaning on her broom, smiling at the girls. Rachel’s mother, Rose Woodlea.
    â€œWhere’s that sister of yours got off to?” she asked her daughter.
    Rachel shrugged. “I don’t rightly know, Mam.”
    â€œWell, if you see her, tell her to come inside straightaway. She left without finishing her work. There’s wood and water yet to fetch, and I’ve got a colicky baby on my hands.”
    â€œDo you want me to do it?” Rachel got to her feet.
    â€œNo, child, it’ll wait a while. You’ve done your own chores, like the good girl you are. There’s no point to your doing Cathleen’s as well. That girl takes on like the Queen Mother herself. She’s got to learn responsibility, or she’ll die a pauper.” She shook the dust off the broom and went back into the house.
    Rachel shot Sophie a black look. “Die a pauper? Not likely, that one.”
    Sophie reordered the fairy minions into two straight lines and then looked up at Rachel. “So where is she?”
    â€œI expect she’s down at the village green, making eyes at that almighty dolt, Rafe Dalton.”
    â€œDalton? The landlord’s son, do you mean?”
    Rachel nodded and flopped down on the grass next to Sophie.
    â€œShe’s been after him for weeks.” She tilted her head and took on a high-pitched, mocking tone: “Oh, Rafe, you’re so handsome!
    Oh, Rafe, you’re so smart!”
    â€œHandsome? Smart?” Sophie grimaced. “He’s dumb as a rock with a face like a draft horse. And Cathleen’s only thirteen!”
    â€œShe doesn’t care. He’ll inherit his father’s money and land; that’s all she’s interested in. And when she marries him, she’ll be”—Rachel screwed up her mouth in disdain—“a la-dy .”
    â€œIt’ll take more than a rich husband to make a lady out of Cathleen,” Sophie said.
    As Vita watched the girls playing and laughing together, an unfamiliar emotion stirred within her, something akin to spring fever. She’d once had a friend like Rachel, so long ago it seemed like a wisp of smoke on the wind—not even a dream, just the echo of a memory of a dream. Hattie, the girl’s name was—two doors down on East Chestnut Street in Asheville, in the neighborhood where she grew up. Hattie Parker . . . Parkinson. Or maybe it was Mattie. Vita couldn’t remember.
    But she could recall vague images of drawing hopscotch blocks on the sidewalk with brightly-colored wedges of chalk.
    Hiding under the porch in the cool semidarkness. Dressing up for Halloween in Mama’s high heels and a musty-smelling fur cape from an old trunk in the attic. Putting doll clothes and a yellow bonnet on Harley, the Parkers’ big gray tabby cat. Trading plastic rings from a Cracker Jack box and promising to be friends forever.
    Forever. How long was that , Vita wondered, in Cracker Jack years?
    Sophie and Rachel, with their heads together arranging Queen Titania and her acorn fairies, didn’t see the attack coming. Suddenly a foot slammed down onto the grass, crushing several fairies and grinding Titania herself into the dirt.
    â€œYou told, didn’t you?”
    Sophie looked up. Cathleen stood above them with both hands on her hips, her mouth twisted into a scowl and her cheeks the color of boiled beets. She glanced over at Rachel to see a look of sheer terror pass over the girl’s ashen face.
    â€œYou told Mam where I