Published by: RBF Books

  The Wright Way to Begin

  Copyright © August 2024

  Maria Grace

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any format whatsoever. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For information address author.MariaGrace@gmail.com

  Author’s Website: RandomBitsofFascination.com

  Contents

  Dedication

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  Also By Maria Grace

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  DEDICATION

  For my husband and sons.

  You have always believed in me.

  Chapter 1

  Brighton England, October 1867

  Why was it the last customers of the day were always the ones that wanted to linger? Rebecca Fuller locked the door to Fuller’s Fix-All and leaned heavily against it. She removed her wire-rimmed glasses, polishing them on her skirts, and glanced around the shop.

  Tools, great and small, hung along the back wall, all worn, but well cared for, and mostly for show. She managed the actual work in the cellar workroom, away from prying eyes. At the front-of-shop workbench, she did minor manual tasks to remind customers their beloved items were in expert hands. Wood-paneled walls, dust-free through no insignificant effort on her own, made the broad space homey and smell just right. Like Father.

  Shelves lined the left-hand wall and glass-fronted cabinets on the right. Some of Father’s works still lingered on those shelves, waiting to find homes, but these days it was her work that took up most of that space. Bits and bobs fashioned from scraps and discards that made their way into her hands. A novel means to supplement her stretched-too-thin income, and draw in customers, both curious and sentimental, when they had an idle hour and spare coin in their pocket to spend.

  The string of brass door bells tried to ring, as she moved, but were muffled, or was suffocated, against her black ruffled skirts. The mourning crepe-draped portrait of her father watched from the far wall, underneath the ghastly, gothic cuckoo clock, with the ragtag, disheveled raven, that had been his life’s finest achievement.

  Finest, but definitely noisiest, and most annoying achievement. Even so, it earned him Master Full Wright standing in the Guild, and that was all that really mattered, wasn’t it? The clock’s hands clicked into the place to mark the noon hour. The gears inside whirred, warning the bird was about to appear.

  Rebecca gathered a handful of Air as the black raven with real feathers shot through the door and its first scream echoed through the empty shop. She jerked the Air tight around the clock, silencing the bird. It would have been polite to let it scream to its heart’s content, but Father was not here to be offended by her suppressing his favorite creation.

  One month ago—how could it already have been a month?—he had been laid to rest, tucked in with a mortsafe rented by the Guild to ensure grave-robbers were kept away. How ironic it was that they did more for him in death than they ever had in life.

  She set a sign in the front plate-glass shop window: “Will open again at 3pm” and pulled the heavy canvas window blinds in place behind it. Now all she needed was the picnic basket and she could be off.

  A sharp, cool breeze blew in from the shore, tinging everything with the scents of saltwater and the sea. She could have taken the horsecar to the cemetery near St. Nicholas Church, but a walk of a mile and a half was such a little thing, hardly justifying the cost of the ticket. And the passengers could be so noise and rowdy when one wanted a bit of quiet for reflection. Overhead, gulls cawed raucously, oblivious to her show of mourning going on below them.

  Was it really a show, though? She genuinely mourned Father’s loss. And she mourned the fact that she was now alone in the world, and not quite ready to face it on her own. Many women were married, with several children at twenty-five, managing their own households and their husband’s affairs. So, by all rights, Rebecca should be ready for this.

  “Should be” being the operative statement. What should be often was not.

  She swallowed hard and adjusted the wicker basket on her arm as she crossed the busy street, dodging determined carriages, horse carts, and their leavings, as she went. That was one convenience the horsecar was good for.

  Journeyman Wrights did not own their own shops. They were not supposed to practice without the supervision of a master. But she now owned Fuller’s Fix-All and had no Master Wright to supervise her. And none interested in taking on the challenge, making her an inconvenient enigma that the Guild would rather suppress and ignore than openly acknowledge. Such a legacy Father had left her.

  Though the sun had reached its zenith, the warmth was thin at best. Thin with the scarcity that would embrace them all with the soon coming winter months, when the holiday-makers would stay home, fewer ships would sail and the entire city of Brighton seemed to slow down, even sleep.

  She hated winter—it would come no matter what, but she hated it. Mother had died during the winter. Joseph had died in the winter. Now she faced life alone, looking into the stark mien of winter. A cold, cruel taskmaster, the season laughed at the promise of holiday celebrations, redoubling its efforts as the new year dawned, facing wind and want.

  So melodramatic!

  Enough maudlin mulligrubs. She needed to keep her focus on the future, what would be, not what was already immutable.

  As she passed the magnificent Royal Pavilion on Church Street, the familiar grounds of St. Nicholas Church came into view, a lovely bastion of green among the sometimes-stark buildings of the city. Just past the church building, across the street, her destination, the western addition to the cemetery. She passed through the narrow white Wright-wrought marble arch that held open the tall, wrought iron-fence that separated the living from the dead of Brighton.

  And kept the resurrectionists out of the cemetery. Most of the time.

  When it did not, well, that was what the mortsafe was for. Ghastly unsettling thought that.

  A wide graveled path through old shady elm trees, bedecked in colorful leaves starting to fall, guided her through the restful park to a deceptively unkept corner. Hemmed in with large trees and a hedgerow hid an overgrown mortsafe. Beneath those iron bars, Father rested. A modest granite headstone declared Father’s presence and would remain, even after the mortsafe was moved to guard another’s earthly remains, reminding the world that Morris Fuller had existed.

  And conveniently concealing more than it told.

  Three familiar men stood beside Father’s grave. Rebecca gasped as she ducked behind the nearest tree. So wrong that they should be here uninvited.

  No, that was a ridiculous assertion, but it was how she felt. Especially when, if she had her way, she’d happily have nothing to do with them for the rest of her life.

  She pressed against the deep grey-brown furrowed bark of the obligingly wide elm tree. The ruffles of her dark skirt blended into the bark’s broad intersecting ridges. If she stayed still, she might remain unobserved.

  The last thing she needed was a forced conversation with the trio. She did not fear them—no, she feared what she might say to the wizard, the candle stub, and the rat: Masters Allbright, Cinderford, and Fitzsimons, the local Wright Guild officers. They hated Father and did everything in their power to deny her membership and advancement in the Guild. She had nothing civil to say to them.

  “How much longer will the mortsafe be necessary?” The thin nasal voice was the rat, Fitzsimons, the tight-fisted Guild treasurer. Everything about him was pointy and twitchy and rodent-y.

  “I am told three months should be sufficient to our purposes. In such cases, one would rather do too much than too little, I think. There are those, even among our own numbers, who would do unsavory things with our dead, seeking to understand what makes us so unique. All of us are at risk, and Full Wrights more so.” Guild Master Allbright was probably stroking his long grey beard, the very image of a wise old wizard from a fairy story. The sort of wizard who seemed gentle and kindly, but would prove to be anything but.

  “In London, there is a secret crypt below the Guild Hall where all Masters are interred.” Candle stub Cinderford, a burnt-out Master Fire Wright, admired the London Royal Court Guild more than was healthy. Shorn black hair turning silver topped his head, the end of a burnt-out candlewick atop his short, stout frame.

  “What we have done is sufficient. The grave has not been disturbed and it seems unlikely to happen. I am satisfied.” Guild Mater Allbright said.

  Satisfied that Father was dead and no longer a nuisance to challenge their adherence to moldering Guild traditions.

  “What are we to do with that flame-taming daughter of his?” Cinderford rarely referred to her by name. Being acknowledged as a flame-tamer, strictly speaking, was an insult, but it was also a tacit recognition of her Skill, something she could not lament.

  “What is there to be done? Women do not belong in the Guild. She is an unnatural aberration, not to be encouraged.” Not the first time she’d heard that particular whine from Fitzsimons.

  “She has been granted journeyman status.” Allbright tsk-tsked under his breath.<

br />
  “We should take control of that dashed shop, then. Journeymen must have a Master. She has none, and there is no one willing to have her. What more is there to it?” Fitzsimons huffed. If he had rat-whiskers, they would have been twitching.

  She pressed her fist to her mouth. This was not the time or place to take them on.

  It was not.

  Still, heat built in her fisted hands. She opened them slowly, exhaling and inhaling deliberate, measured breaths. The heat dissipated—yes, yes. An inadvertent blaze would do nothing to further her cause with the Guild.

  “Although harsh, Fitzsimons makes a solid case.” Cinderford nearly always agreed with the rat. “We have all seen her flamer’s temper. She is quite like her equally aberrant mother. We cannot risk allowing such a … person …to be unguided.”

  “That may well be, but are there not human considerations as well?” Allbright liked to be seen as the voice of reason, compassion, and sound judgement. Some even believed it was true. Mostly those who had never disagreed with him. “She has no family and must support herself. The shop legally belongs to her and the legal machinations to wrestle it back into Guild hands would draw a great deal of unwanted attention to us. That is far more dangerous than designating Fuller’s Fix-All a journeyman’s shop allowing us to control the prices she can charge for her efforts. Let her try her hand at running the place herself. A woman is not suited to the work. She will give up, sell us the place, and we will achieve that goal without putting the Guild at risk.”

  Exactly as she’d suspected, but never spoken the words. Evil, devious wizard indeed. She gritted her teeth. No matter what happened, the shop would not fall into Guild hands. She would burn it down herself first.

  “And what of her Mastery application? Morris filed it before he died. It is in the files for consideration for our winter Assembly,” Cinderford said.

  “She is in mourning. It would not be appropriate for her to expect consideration this season. We will worry about the next season as it comes.” The wise and compassionate wizard had spoken.

  At least he did not deny her outright. That was something. A very little something. And now she knew what to expect of this season’s Guild Assembly.

  One more reason to hate winter.

  But it could be far worse. Focus on that. Remember that.

  “I don’t like it. We should make quick work of the problem and be done with it. Allowing such things to linger, to fester is a bad precedent.” Fitzsimons grumbled under his breath. That tactic often worked to get his complaints heard. Why was hard to tell, but, according to Father, when Fitzsimons grumbled, Wrights listened.

  “Nor do I. But we should respect the guidance of our Guild Master. Especially since we all agree on the desired ends.” Cinderford sounded smug.

  Was that snort from Allbright? What did it mean? Clearly, he was no ally to her, but was he an enemy? The difference was subtle, but important.

  “We can discuss goals at another time. Master Ames has invited us to take tea with him and discuss improvements to the Guild Hall. You may stay and debate as you wish. I am for Guild Hall and the lovely spread that Ames always provides.” Footsteps, probably Allbright’s, crunched over dried leaves.

  Rebecca kept to her hiding place until the voices faded into the wind and a quick peek ensured her, she was now alone with Father.

  Chapter 2

  Rebecca set her wicker basket beside the modest granite gravestone and spread a blanket to sit in the grass beside it. Even in the late autumn chill, the smell of what grass was left and the rich soil insisted spring would come once again. Exactly the reminder she needed.

  “So, Father, it has been an entire month now since you left us. I promised you, though you may not remember, that I would return in a month to tell you how the shop faired.” She lifted the basket’s wooden lid and removed Mother’s favorite teapot. The one with bright—garish was what Father called them—flowers covering nearly every inch of it, wrapped in a tea towel. She spread the towel out on the grass.

  “I thought you might want to share some tea. Don’t worry, though, there is no one here to observe what I am doing, with my own Element, or the others. You did not like to watch me work outside my own Element. But now that I cannot see you, I have to assume that you cannot watch me work, either, and I will not offend you.”

  She opened the teapot and place it on the plain beige cotton towel before her. “It seems we should begin with some water.” She held her hands over the open teapot and gathered Air from the breeze into her palms. Slippery and fickle, it tried to slip away, running through her fingers, trying to snatch her breath from her lips. Fickle, ridiculous Element—fitting it should be Allbright’s native Element. It was the Element that had turned on Joseph, stealing her careless brother from them too soon.

  Once she gathered a roiling mass of Air, she rolled it in her hands like a ball of dough, squeezing, compressing, feeling for the Water carried on the unruly Air. There, in the cool tickle across her fingertips. She squeezed, gently at first, lest it all slide away, but growing steadily firmer. A trickle fell from her fingers into the teapot, increasing to a soft steady flow that filled the pot. Some day she would like to dare Fitzsimons, the native Water Wright, to duplicate that feat—given that he had once declared it impossible. “I have mastered this trick. Even though you did not want me to practice my Skill with such mundane tasks, it can be a rather useful ability.”

  She shook the final droplets from her hands. “Now I suppose water for tea should be hot.” She picked up the delicate china teapot and cradled it in her palms. Mother’s admonitions to be careful with her teapot rang in her ears. Heavens, it had been a long time since she had heard Mother’s voice.

  Fire was Rebecca’s native Element. Finding it, touching it, manipulating it came as natural as breathing. No pleading for obedience required. Not like the others that could become stubborn and fickle under her fingers. Fire usually longed to follow her commands.

  She edged into a faint sunbeam, one that struggled to seek her out through the canopy of branches, touching her with its warmth. Not necessary, for her purposes, but a nice boon nonetheless. She pulled the warmth into her hands, encouraged it to expand and blossom, pouring it into the teapot, into the water within. Soon, the water bubbled and boiled in the pot. She put the lid on and set it aside. A smile, a smug one that Father would have rebuked her for, played along her lips.

  “I should like it, if, someday, I might make tea for someone like this. Someone I did not have to hide myself from, who would understand and embrace my wrighting as a thrill, a joy, not the embarrassment you declared it to be. But for now, Father, you and I alone will share this. Let me add the tea.” She removed a sachet of tea leaves from her basket and sprinkled them gently into the pot, watching them as they floated and swirled, and eventually sank into the hot water.

  “Now, while we wait for it to steep, there is one more thing you shall want, a cup for your tea.” She removed another tea towel and unwrapped the fragments of a broken teacup and saucer and ran her finger along a sharp-edged shard. Somber brown, with a gilded edge. It had been Father’s favorite. Now, the bright white exposed edges ached like open wounds against the polished dark glaze. “Do you remember this one, Father? It’s the teacup you broke the morning you left us. You were so angry that morning. Swept it right off the table in your final, memorable, a fit of pique. But I will fix it for you so you can enjoy your tea in it once again.”

  That morning, she had picked up the pieces of the broken cup and saucer and set them aside to repair them, but forgot them in the unforgettable events that followed, the ones that turned her into a business owner and a woman on her own in the world. It was just two days ago that she came across them again, their discovery cementing her desire for this cemetery tea party.

  She held two largest fragments, one in each hand, reaching her senses deep into the porcelain to find, to feel, the minute movements, the rhythms within. Each piece moved differently, the result of the violent fall that shattered them. But if she listened carefully enough, yes, there. That was the common tempo. Carefully, carefully, massage them and coax them into the same pattern. There.

 

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