and opened it just enough to hear the even rhythm of her stepsister’s breathing as she slept.
The only other person in the house was Hannah.
So it had to be Hannah.
Hannah was in her grandmother’s room, going through her belongings, looking for things to steal.
Her grandmother had told her about servants, and how they always stole things. “You have to expect it,” her grandmother had explained to her. “Servants resent you for what you have, and they think they deserve it. So they simply take things, because they have no sense of right and wrong. You can’t stop it—it’s simply the price we pay for what we have.”
And now, with her grandmother barely dead, Hannah was in her room, using a flashlight to go through her things, looking for things to steal.
Tracy smiled in the darkness, congratulating herself for having already removed the jewelry box from its place in her grandmother’s vanity. She turned, and started back toward her own room.
But then she remembered how Hannah had always fawned over Beth, and how, for the last three days, she had refused to do even the simplest thing for Tracy herself. Slowly another idea came to her, and she knew exactly what she would do. She would catch Hannah in her grandmother’s room, and then make her father fire her. Hannah could even be blamed for the pieces missing from the jewelry box. Maybe she could even fix it so the old housekeeper would go to jail.
She moved quickly on down the hall, stopping outside the closed door to her grandmother’s room. Pressing her ear close, she listened, then stooped down to peer through the keyhole.
The room was dark now, and she could hear nothing.
Maybe Hannah had heard her.
Gingerly, Tracy turned the knob, and pushed the door slightly open. Then she reached in, and flipped the switch just inside the door. The chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling went on, and the room was flooded with bright light.
Tracy pushed the door open, and looked around.
The room was empty.
But there had been light under the door, she was certain of it. Her eyes scanned the room again, and fell on the door that led to her grandmother’s dressing room, and the bathroom beyond.
The dressing room, too, was empty, as was the bathroom. She paused on her way back to the bedroom, and put the jewelry box back in its accustomed place in the top drawer on the right side.
Finally, she returned to the bedroom, and looked around once more. She couldn’t have been wrong—she couldn’t.
And yet, nowhere was there any sign that anyone else had been in these rooms. All was exactly as it had been earlier when she had stolen in to take the jewelry box in the first place. All the clutter—the things her grandmother prized so much, and that Tracy regarded as just so much junk—was exactly as it had always been. The lights, all of them except the chandelier, were off, so that wouldn’t account for the strange light coming from beneath the door either.
She went to the window, and looked out into the darkness. In the village there were still a few lights on, and in the distance she could barely make out the shape of the mill. And then, as she watched, she saw the strange flickering light again.
This time, though, it was at the mill. It seemed to light up for just a moment, then disappear once more into the blackness of the night.
And then Tracy was sure she knew what it was. A car, winding along the road, its headlights flashing briefly on the mill as it rounded a bend.
The same thing must have happened when she’d been in the hall—it had been no more than a car coming up the hill, its lights flashing into the room for a few seconds.
Tracy turned away from the window, and started toward the closet that had been her grandfather’s.
Had she stayed at the window a few more seconds, she would have seen the strange light at the mill again. She would also have seen that there were no cars moving along River Road.
She found the box where it had sat for as long as she could remember, on the highest shelf of her grandfather’s closet. She had seen it often there, but whenever she’d asked her grandfather what was in it, he’d told her only that when the time came, she would know.
Now she stared at it for several moments. There didn’t seem to