to go into the building?
Other memories! There must be other memories, too horrible for him to face!
Suddenly unwilling to delve any deeper into the files, Oliver replaced them carefully in the crate. As he did so, he spotted the handkerchief again and picked it up, marveling anew at the perfection of the work, and wondering who had sewn it. Most likely not a patient—such delicate work required skill and concentration hard to imagine in someone mentally disturbed.
Surely, he thought, it must have been made by one of the staff members, filling the endless empty hours of the night shifts.
He held its soft fabric in his fingers, and once more his eye fell on the double-sided R that had been worked so cleverly into one corner.
Instantly he knew what he would do with the handkerchief.
As he found some paper with which to wrap his gift, Oliver imagined the look of delight on the recipient’s face as she opened it.
Even if old Edna Burnham was right, he thought, and the gifts that had apparently come from nowhere to the homes of Elizabeth McGuire and Jules Hartwick and Martha Ward had brought with them some kind of evil, there could be no doubt where this gift had come from.
It had come from his own attic, where it had been stored for more years than he could remember.
And Rebecca would love it.
Chapter 2
“Rebecca? Rebecca! I want you!”
Rebecca Morrison cringed as the querulous voice ricocheted from the floor above, immediately followed by the hollow thumping of a rubber-tipped cane pounding against bare hardwood planks. She had come home from the library early today, sent by Germaine to clean out the cupboards under the sink. She wasn’t certain exactly why this chore had to be accomplished today, since it didn’t look to her as if anyone had cleaned anything out from under the kitchen sink for at least twenty years, but it was what Germaine wanted her to do, and she knew she owed Germaine a very great deal. Germaine, after all, had explained it to her the day after the fire that had destroyed her aunt’s home.
“I hope you understand what a sacrifice Mother and I are making,” Germaine had said. She was perched on the edge of the single straight-backed chair that, save for the bed, was the only place to sit in the small attic room that Rebecca had been given. “Except for the cleaning girl, Mother isn’t used to having anyone but me in the house. However, if you’re very quiet, she might get used to you. We’ll have to let the cleaning girl go, of course, but with your extra hands to help us out, I don’t think we’ll miss her too much, will we?”
Rebecca shook her head, as she knew she was expected to do, and when she spoke, it was in the hushed tone she’d learned to use in the library. “I’ll be careful not to disturb Mrs. Wagner at all,” she said.
“You mustn’t call Mother ‘Mrs. Wagner,’ ” Germaine had instructed her. “After all, you’re not the cleaning girl, are you? I think if you call her Miss Clara, that will be fine.” Rebecca thought calling a widow who was nearly eighty “Miss” was a little strange, but after having worked for Germaine at the library, she knew better than to argue with her. “We’ll be just like a little family, taking care of each other,” Germaine said with a sigh of satisfaction, and for a moment Rebecca thought the woman might just reach out and pat her on the knee. Instead, she rose from the chair and, in the tone of a grande dame, added, “It isn’t everyone who would have taken you in, Rebecca. You should be very grateful to Mother for allowing you to live here.”
“Oh, I am,” Rebecca quickly assured her. “And I really like this room, Germaine. I mean, what would I put in the dressers and closets in all the big bedrooms downstairs?”
For some reason, her words seemed to make Germaine angry; Rebecca saw her lips tighten into the thin line she used to silence rowdy children in the library, but then she’d turned and left.
Left alone, Rebecca had unpacked her few belongings. All her clothes and possessions had perished in the fire, but she’d purchased some necessary items, and Bonnie Becker, Ed’s wife, had brought over some clothing that morning. (“I won’t hear of your refusing me,” Bonnie had said to her. “These things are almost brand new and they just