of a fun little hike, you can get somebody else to go next time.”
Phillip’s brows arched, and he winked at Beth. “Obviously she’s feeling better. All of a sudden it’s your fault.”
Carolyn twisted her face into a grimace of comic indignation. “Well, you don’t expect me to take the blame, do you? I’m the one who wound up in the hospital. The least the two of you can do is make sympathetic noises and tell me it wasn’t my fault. Right?” she added, turning to her daughter.
“Oh, absolutely,” Beth replied, nodding solemnly. “You were just standing there yelling at me, and pointing, so I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to make Mother faint? And you fell right over.”
“See?” Carolyn asked Phillip. “That’s the kind of child every mother dreams of having.” Then her expression turned serious. “Beth, did you see anything? Just before I fainted, did you see anything happening down in the village?”
Beth frowned uncertainly. “Like what?”
“Well, it was strange,” Carolyn said. “I could have sworn that I saw the mill burning. You didn’t see anything like that?”
Beth shook her head, then suddenly remembered what had happened up at the mausoleum before her mother had arrived. For a minute, while she’d been sitting in the marble chair, she had seen something like that. But before she could tell them about it, the door opened, and a doctor entered the room.
Phillip immediately rose to his feet, but the doctor waved him back into his chair, turning to Carolyn with a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
“Mrs. Sturgess,” he asked, “you and your daughter wouldn’t by any chance have been rabbit hunting this morning, would you?”
Carolyn blinked. Rabbit hunting? What on earth was he talking about?
“Because if you were, the hunt was a success. You’ve killed a rabbit. Or, if you haven’t yet, I’m prepared to guarantee that you will.”
Carolyn stared at the doctor, and slowly the light began to dawn. “You mean—I’m pregnant?”
“Congratulations. And to you too, Mr. Sturgess.”
Phillip’s eyes fixed on the doctor, then slowly shifted to his wife. “A baby?” he asked. “You and I are going to have a baby?”
Carolyn nodded, suddenly feeling almost stupidly happy. “That’s what the man says,” she said, grinning foolishly. “You know—little tiny critters, with ten little fingers, and ten little toes? Keep you up late at night? That’s what he’s talking about.” Phillip looked dazed, and Carolyn’s surge of happiness was suddenly tinged with fear. What if he—
But then his arms were around her, and he was hugging her close. “Who ever thought—I mean I just didn’t think—we never even talked about it!” Suddenly he drew away, and his forehead creased with worry. “Honey, is it all right with you?”
Carolyn squeezed him hard. “Of course it’s all right with me. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”
As Carolyn and Phillip gazed happily at each other, neither of them saw Beth slip quietly out of the room.
* * *
A baby.
The idea of her mother and Uncle Phillip having a baby had never occurred to her before, and as Beth left the little Westover hospital, walking slowly along Prospect Street, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk in front of her, she wasn’t at all sure how she felt about it.
It was bad enough living at Hilltop already. What would happen when there was a baby there, too?
Her mother would spend all her time with the baby, and not have any time for her.
Which wasn’t fair, and Beth knew it.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she knew that she’d always wanted to have a baby brother. Or a sister—it hadn’t really mattered. But after her parents had gotten the divorce, she’d just sort of given up the idea.
And then, when Carolyn had married Phillip Sturgess, it had just never entered her head that her mother might have another baby.
Which was kind of a dumb thing to have thought, really. After all, lots of the kids in Westover had half-brothers and half-sisters. Why shouldn’t she?
The more she thought about it, the more she liked the whole idea of it.
Suddenly she felt better, and looked up to see that she’d walked almost four blocks. In the next block, the mill stood, looking dark and threatening even in the noontime sun.
Beth stared at it for a few minutes, wondering what it was about the big old building that had always made her friends, especially the boys, talk about what might be inside it, and wonder what had really happened to the