Taking Wing

Table of Contents

• A Kindred Spirit
• “Lullay My Liking”
• Sabine’s Secret
• Isabel Steals a Boat
• Banished!
• Brigands on the Road
• A Voice in the Dark
• An Actor Born
• A Merlin for a Lady
• The Plague Mask
• City of Ghosts
• The Limitless Sky
• Then and Now: England

A Kindred Spirit

Isabel wakes up on Christmas Eve morning to a layer of frost covering each window pane. Sabine, her older sister, is already awake and is working on preparing the house for Christmas. Isabel hears her baby sister, Hope, coughing next to her in bed. Oh, Isabel wishes her mother was there. Isabel’s mother died of childbed fever the spring before, leaving her, Sabine, Hope, and Robert, Isabel’s older brother, motherless.

Isabel crawls out of bed and dresses herself as Meg, their new maid, comes in to dress baby Hope. Isabel suspects Meg is about her age, but it seems Meg intentionally avoids Isabel. This time, Isabel tries to get a conversation going between them. Meg politely dodges answering all of Isabel’s questions, but Isabel is determined to find a kindred spirit her own age.

Isabel follows Meg down to the kitchen, where she’s preparing a bath for Hope. Isabel comes in to help. Even with Joan, their cook, hovering, Isabel manages to catch Meg’s smile and ask if she’d like to join Isabel for a walk someday. Meg agrees she’d like that. But then as soon as they finish with Hope’s bath, Isabel’s Aunt Elinor comes in and pulls Isabel out of the kitchen.