Teaser Tuesday

Here's the promised excerpt from my WIP, a historical YA adventure tentatively titled The Escape. This is the opening to the first chapter, though there is a prologue which gives a little more setup to time and place. Without giving you any more info than what's here, I'd love some feedback on what you're getting out of this.

Danke schon, my lovelies.

A sharp, musty odor tickled Maggie's nose as she held the kohl stick over her candle. It was a comforting smell, soothing despite the stench. It reminded her of her mother.

With a curt shake of her head she removed the stick from the flame and blew on it lightly then bent her face close to the chipped and tarnished mirror. Her hand was steady, experienced as she drew a heavy line of black around the inner rim of her right eye, then with swift, calm strokes she coated her light eyelashes with the black paste.

Already her face was transformed. A heavy coating of chalk dust disguised her freckles and the red-tinted beeswax swiped across cheeks and lips gave her the appearance of a Covent Garden tart. She looked ten years older, a woman on the wrong side of five and twenty, the very image of an aging barmaid using every trick in the book to hang onto her youth.

Perfect.

Maggie removed the tattered black wig from its holder and pulled it over her skullcap. The transformation was complete. Well, almost complete. She recalled her father's favorite lecture.

"Remember the eyes, Pet," he would say again and again whether she was playing dress up in her mother's old costumes or sitting through a lesson. "They're the key. Used well, they can deceive the Devil himself, but they can also betray the depths of your soul to the worst of your enemies. Guard them, hide them, control them."

Maggie took a deep breath, closing her eyes with the exhale. She paused for a moment and reminded herself of who she was to be that night: the name, the history, the likes and dislikes of the barmaid at the Sergeant's Arms.

"Dolores!" a heavy voice called from downstairs. "Cust'mers!"

Maggie returned to the mirror. Staring back at her were the vapid, overtly flirtatious hazel eyes of her latest role.

Exit Maggie O'Neill, enter Dolores Crampton.