“But how am I supposed to get any work done if I’m constantly being interrupted by people with lost bracelets and sick chickens?”
“That’s nothing. Wait until the love-sick ones start coming to you. Rattle on for hours, they will, and not a word of sense to be found in any of it.”
The way she said it left Wiz with a sinking feeling she was speaking from experience.
There was a knock at the door. Wiz whirled and jerked it open.
“I told you I can’t do anything about your damned . . . chickens,” he finished weakly.
There was an angel on the doorstep. An angel in a drab brown dress.
“I beg your pardon, My Lord,” the angel said in an angelic but timid voice. “I, I heard you are looking for a housekeeper.”
Wiz realized his angel was actually a girl, perhaps eighteen years old. The plain brown homespun dress concealed a trim figure. Her skin was creamy white with just the right touches of pink. A fringe of wheat-gold curls peeked out from her bonnet. Her eyes were wide and blue as Wedgewood saucers.
Wiz finally managed to get the circuit from his brain to his mouth working again and closed his jaw. “Uh, well, yes,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Anna, My Lord.”
“Well, I’m Wiz. Wiz Zumwalt. Come in, won’t you?” He stepped aside and managed to keep from bowing as the girl ventured over the threshold.
Wiz suddenly realized he had never interviewed anyone for a job other than a programming position and he wasn’t quite sure what the etiquette of hiring servants was.
“Ah, nice day isn’t it?”
Anna gave him a wide-eyed stare. “Of course, My Lord.” The way she said it made him look a little closer. Not only were those eyes as blue as a Wedgewood china plate, Wiz realized, the owner possessed about as much intelligence as a china plate.
“My Lord . . .” Anna ventured tremulously. Then she stopped and gathered her courage. “My Lord, I know I am not very clever, but I will work hard.”
“Oh, let her stay,” Widder Hackett’s voice grated in his ear. “She can’t make more of a mess than the pair of you.”
Wiz looked at the forlorn beauty and sighed. The first rule of successful housekeeping is you’ve got to be smarter than the dirt. Looking at her, Wiz figured Anna was probably brighter than the average dust bunny. They’d just have to live with the intellectually superior dust bunnies.
Besides, there weren’t any other applicants, and Wiz wasn’t going to get anything done with Widder Hackett complaining in his ear.
“All right,” he sighed. “You’ve got the job.”
“Oh thank you, My Lord!” Anna’s smile made her even more angelically beautiful. “You will not be sorry, I promise you.”
“Uh, you’re not afraid working for a wizard?”
“Oh no, My Lord,” Anna said innocently. “My granny was a witch. I’ve grown up around the craft, you see.”
“That was Old Lady Fressen,” Widder Hackett informed Wiz. “Child’s her only grandchild and she tried to teach her the Craft.” Widder Hackett snorted. “And her with not the sense to come in out of the rain. Not that Old Lady Fressen was any great shakes when it came to brains, mind you.” With that the ghost was off on a long, rambling, and none-too-favorable reminiscence about a dead former colleague.
In their own ways and in their own times all of the occupants of the house settled in. Even Widder Hackett complained less once Anna set to work.
As if by magic the dirt and dust disappeared from the house. The sheets came off the furniture in the front rooms and light streamed through the newly washed windows. The wooden floors developed a mellow glow and the odors of dust and age were replaced by the scents of furniture oil and sweet herbs that hung in bunches in all the rooms. The beds were less lumpy and the bedding fresher.
Wiz knew it wasn’t magic, of course. The girl worked from morning until night with a fierce concentration and a single-mindedness that he found a little awe-inspiring. If Anna was no mental giant, she knew how to keep house and she had the energy of a dynamo to boot.