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    The Wright Way to Begin: World Wrights
    The Wright Way to Begin: World Wrights
    The Wright Way to Begin: World Wrights
    Ebook67 pages51 minutes

    The Wright Way to Begin: World Wrights

    By Maria Grace

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    Controlling Fire, Water, Earth and Air Would be more impressive if it paid the bills.

     

    Journeyman Wright Rebecca Fuller has two problems, paying the bills and convincing the Wright Guild to take her seriously. Both of which are far more difficult with the recent death of her Master Full Wright father.

     

    Despite having taught Rebecca mastery of all the Elements: Fire, Water, Earth and Air, Morris Fuller did not tell her everything. And now the secrets he kept threaten to shake her world apart.

     

    The Guild is no help, but maybe, just maybe, they aren't the only recourse for a resourceful and determined wright.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRBF Books
    Release dateSep 4, 2024
    ISBN9798227813732
    The Wright Way to Begin: World Wrights
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    Author

    Maria Grace

    Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful. After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate in Educational Psychology. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.   She has one husband, two graduate degrees and two black belts, three sons, four undergraduate majors, five nieces, six more novels in draft form, waiting for editing, seven published novels, sewn eight Regency era costumes, shared her life with nine cats through the years and tries to run at least ten miles a week.    

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      The Wright Way to Begin - Maria Grace

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      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

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