The Shadow in the Glass JJA Harwood (book recommendations for young adults txt) 📖

her, but instead of leaving she crept towards the window. Heavy brocade curtains swept the floor, the embroidery glinting in the moonlight.

The library was at the front of the house, two storeys over the entrance hall. From the window she could see the empty street, all its colour stolen by the darkness. The moon gleamed against the velvet sky like a new shilling, shifting under a veil of smoke. Under its light Eleanor’s raw, red hands looked pale and clean, her hair turned to pale gold. If anyone should pass along the street, Eleanor thought, they would see her shining at the window, like a girl made of precious stones. But there was no one outside – only a solitary cat, prowling from shadow to shadow along the street.

From somewhere deep in Granborough House, a clock chimed midnight.

Under the silver light, Eleanor could see the library as it had once been. In daylight, the carpet looked faded and cobwebs gathered in corners too high for the maids to reach, but the light of the moon brushed those details aside. The colours were softened, the cracks in the leather armchairs were hidden, the slight charring where the poker rested against the fireplace was merely a shadow. The moon showed the room as it ought to be, and it did the same for her. There was nothing weighing her down. Her hands looked clean and smooth. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the vast mirror that hung over the fireplace and was startled by the blue of her own eyes, gleaming in the pale light. She looked like she could do anything.

She looked like a girl whose wishes might be granted.

Eleanor licked her lips.

She tried to tell herself that it was a bad idea. It had been a dream, after all. Making a wish would only get her hopes up for nothing. And if it hadn’t been a dream – which, of course, it had – then she’d sold her soul. She remembered her fairy tales; a deal like that could not be broken lightly. But, an insinuating voice at the back of her mind whispered, weren’t there also stories of people clever enough to cheat the Devil? Wasn’t she as sharp and quick as they were? All she needed was to stop herself from making the last wish. Surely she had sense enough for that.

Eleanor drifted away from the window. She’d spent so long reading, dreaming of magic. She’d imagined herself floating above every dirty, common thing, safely wrapped in clouds or starlight. She’d never imagined herself too afraid to soar. Perhaps she was still dreaming. It might be easier if she were. But if she was, what reason did she have to fear?

She stretched out her hands in front of her, like a stage magician about to cast a spell. For a split second, she saw her mother’s hands in hers – she’d had the same strong, quick fingers, the same oval-shaped nails. Eleanor screwed her eyes tight shut and shook the thought away before she could remember the iron bedstead pressing into her back. She had nothing to fear.

She would make herself a fairy tale. She would craft something precious and wonderful out of thin air – something small, to start with. And when she could conjure beauty and hope with only a word, she would paint her life in bright and brilliant colours, and she would never even have to think about who she had been and what she had left behind.

A silence settled on the library. It was not the quiet of a city asleep, punctuated by distant sounds from music halls and hansom cabs rattling over cobblestones. This was true silence, and something in it seemed to be waiting.

Eleanor cleared her throat and closed her eyes.

‘I wish,’ she said, her voice sounding far too small in the quiet, ‘for a pair of shoes the same colour as moonlight.’

Something changed. A moment of absolute stillness descended on Eleanor like a shroud. Dust motes hung in the air. She felt her own breath in her throat. Then a strange prickling sensation swept through her, leaving her feeling magnetic.

She opened her eyes and looked down. There were no shoes.

Eleanor held in a sigh, all her hopes curdling.

The next morning, Eleanor woke up feeling as though she had barely slept at all. There was a crick in her neck and everything ached. A slice of dark blue sky was just visible through her faded red curtains.

Eleanor groaned. Why was she so sore? She couldn’t remember going back to bed; had she tripped up the servants’ staircase? The steps were steep and uneven, it would have been an easy mistake to make. Or perhaps she’d sat up mending her torn things and hit the floor when she fell asleep. Her right side hurt the most. Perhaps that had been where she’d landed. Eleanor sat up, wincing as she stretched, and rubbed her eyes. If only she could—

She stopped. Something was glinting on the floor.

Eleanor peered over the edge of the bed and her mouth fell open. Her breath caught in her throat. Dancing slippers made of a lustrous silver satin, trimmed with blue silk so pale it might have been ice, sat neatly on her rough wood floor.

Eleanor stared. She had to be dreaming. Surely this wasn’t real. Making a wish in a moonlit library was one thing, but surely her little room, with its bare floorboards and creeping damp, was far too ordinary for magic.

She stretched out a trembling hand. Her fingers were going to pass right through the shoes, or stick to them, and then she would know that she was dreaming. The shoes were not really there. She was still asleep, of course she was still asleep …

Her fingers met satin, soft and inviting.

Eleanor clapped a hand over her mouth. A peal of giddy laughter was rising in her chest.

The wishes were real.

Her hands were shaking. A grin split her face in two. Everything the black-eyed