Long Lost, стр. 26
E.C.
E.C.?
Putting the handkerchief back, Fiona hurried to the closet. The stuffy smells of old fabric and cedar poured out as she opened the door. The closet was filled with hanging dresses. Antique dresses, trimmed with lace and ruffles. Dresses with pleats and pearl buttons. Dresses just about the right size for someone Fiona’s age.
The curly brown dog, which had been circling the room, darted into the open closet. It nosed at the clothes, snuffling loudly. The dresses swung on their hangers like dancing ghosts.
Fiona turned from the closet to the chest of drawers. On its top were more scattered objects. Fiona noticed a butterfly net, a sewing box, a few hairpins. And, behind them all, a photograph.
It was set in a little cardboard folder, the kind that you could close like an envelope or fold backward into a stand, the way it was folded now.
She picked it up.
In the grainy gray image, two girls stood side by side. They wore matching pleated dresses, matching buttoned boots, and matching floppy bows in their long hair. The face of the taller one was sharper, with a hint of a smile around the mouth. The shorter one’s eyes were wider, dreamier, like she’d been looking past the photographer at something else.
Fiona turned the photo over. On the back of the folder, in ink, someone had written Evelyn and Margaret, 1913.
Evelyn. And Margaret.
Fiona’s brain whirred through memories and names and years.
These two were sisters. Just as obviously as she and Arden were sisters. Evelyn and Margaret had lived in this place, back when it had been a grand old mansion, not a library. Then, many years later, Margaret had died, leaving her house to the town and her portrait hanging above its staircase, overseeing it all.
Evelyn and Margaret Chisholm.
Fiona set the photo back on the dresser. Her fingers felt numb. So did her legs. Maybe she was thinking so hard that her body had sent all its blood to her brain, leaving everything else to turn to rubber. She let her gaze drift along the wall until her eyes snagged on something else.
Beside the dresser hung a painting of a vase of roses. And just past the corner of its gilded frame, drilled into the wall, was a small, round hole.
Fiona bent closer.
Through the hole, dimly lit by daylight, was an empty room. But once there had been another girl’s bedroom there. And there had been another girl in it. A girl who might have put her face to the hole and whispered—
“What are you doing in here?”
Fiona jumped back.
A woman stood in the bedroom doorway. She was tall and broad, wearing a long black dress and a stern expression. Fiona didn’t recognize her, but from the authoritative way she moved and spoke, it was clear that she worked here. Maybe she had an office behind one of the nearest closed doors.
“No one is supposed to use this room,” said the woman.
“Sorry,” said Fiona, tottering forward on rubbery legs. “I was just following that dog. . . .”
The woman eyed the open closet, where the dog was still huffing at the hanging clothes. “Yes, that dog,” she said dryly. She snapped her fingers. “Come here, troublemaker.”
The dog trotted reluctantly to her side.
“This room is to remain closed,” the woman said as Fiona scurried out into the hall. “Undisturbed. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Fiona backed away. “I just . . . sorry.”
The woman gave a brusque nod. She stood protectively before the bedroom door, the curly brown dog beside her, as Fiona hurried off.
Fiona started down the steps. The old wood creaked beneath her. The creaks were too loud for her to be sure, but she thought she heard the woman’s distant voice say, “Come along, Pixie.”
Pixie.
Fiona almost tripped down the rest of the staircase. She grabbed the railing.
Pixie? No. No way. She must have misheard.
Heart thundering in her ribs, Fiona inched back up the staircase.
The upper hallway was deserted.
The woman and the dog might never have been there at all.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time Fiona reached home, she was starving. She’d run through the woods and biked across town and back, and the one thing she hadn’t stuffed into her backpack was a snack. But while her stomach was empty, her head was crammed full of shadowy forests, shaggy brown dogs, stolen books, and sisters whispering through bedroom walls. She was so preoccupied, she nearly forgot to put her bike away in the garage so her parents wouldn’t know she’d ridden it.
She didn’t even notice the car that was parked in the garage too.
Fiona stepped through the kitchen door.
“Fiona?”
Her mom’s voice was like a dodgeball in the face.
Fiona reeled back.
Caitlin Murphy-Crane strode into the kitchen, cell phone in one hand, receiver of the landline in the other. “Where have you been?”
Fiona’s thoughts blew apart. All that remained were several of her own questions, like: what time was it? How had her mom beaten her home? What could Fiona say that wouldn’t result in very bad things?
“Um . . . ,” Fiona stalled. “I rode my bike to the library.”
“To the library? When you were told not to leave the house?” The fuzzy elephants dangling from her mom’s earlobes jiggled with her words. “You went without leaving a note, and you didn’t even answer your phone when I called over and over?”
“My phone?” Fiona reached into her backpack pocket. Three texts. Six missed calls. “Oh. I must have had it on silent.”
“I can’t believe you would do this. I was so worried, I got out of work early and rushed home. And you just—hold on, your dad is calling me back. Steven?” she said into the cell phone. “No, she’s here now. She just came in. Yes, she’s all right. . . . the library. I know.”
Fiona sidled toward