for a rectangle of beige carpet next to the bed. That bit of carpet, the mirror over the dresser and a small lamp on top of the bookcase were the room’s only decorative touches.
Hands clasped primly at her waist, Aunt Caroline watched as Norah’s eyes swept the room. “I am not used to children,” the woman said. “So we’ll just try to get along the best we can, shall we?”
“I’m not exactly a child,” Norah pointed out. She was trying to be polite, although her great-aunt’s words had stung. “I was thirteen on my last birthday.”
A smile flickered briefly over the colourless lips. “Supper is at six.” And with that she was gone, leaving Norah with only the sound of her sensible shoes descending the stairs.
Norah crossed the room to the window. She looked out at the muddy lane she had just travelled and an overgrown lawn, matted with soggy, brown leaves. She had not expected to be relegated to her room so soon. Shouldn’t there be a few little welcoming gestures first? Make yourself at home; have some milk and cookies? This was the person her mother thought would spoil her?
The big bed in the middle of the room was so high that Norah had to hop up to sit on it. From there she could reach the lamp on the bookcase. Norah switched it on. The yellow light it shed seemed to soften some of the sharp angles of the room.
She checked out the shelves of the bookcase and found them crammed with old books, their cloth spines faded to one monotonous shade of rust. Nothing interesting there.
Sliding off the bed, Norah closed the door to the hall and stood leaning against it, angry at her mother and even more angry at herself for going along with Ginny’s plan. She should have fought harder against it. She could have been on her way to Ashley’s right now.
Norah carried the suitcase to the wide sill of the window and unzipped it. She had already made up her mind that she would not unpack. Not yet, not if there was any chance of an early escape.
Looking at her familiar old clothes, the books she had tucked in along the edge of the suitcase, and remembering her mother carefully folding everything for her, filled her with a sudden ache of loneliness. How was she ever going to put in two whole days by herself in this awful place?
The drawers of the dresser, which Norah pulled open out of curiosity, were all lined with clean, white paper. She was relieved to discover in the bottom drawer a folded, woollen blanket. Maybe she could sleep the rest of this horrible afternoon away.
Three
Norah awoke to find the temperature of the room she had been assigned in Great-aunt Caroline’s house more frigid than ever. She slid off the bed, pulling the scratchy blanket around her. She dug her slippers out of a side pocket on the suitcase and shoved her feet into them.
Opening the door to the hall, Norah was surprised to discover it was much warmer than the bedroom. Along with the heat, the unexpected aroma of cooking food wafted up the stairs. There was something comforting about the smell of food cooking, and it cheered her a little. Or perhaps it was the nap that made her feel more optimistic. By now, Aunt Caroline might be used to the idea of having a teenaged houseguest. They just needed to give each other a second chance.
Every door along the hall, as well as the one to the right of the stairs, was closed. No wonder the hallway was so dark. A window at the far end looked down on a narrow sideyard, a wooden fence lined with the stalks of dead hollyhocks and beyond, a forest of naked trees. Creepy, Norah decided.
She exchanged the blanket for a towel from her room and found the bathroom behind one of the closed doors. Norah let the water run into the sink until it was finally warm. Holding her hands under it, she splashed a little over her face.
The fine braids that held the sides of her straight, brown hair back behind her ears had come undone, and she rebraided them in front of the mirror, clipping the ends together at the back of her head. She took a moment to stare in the glass at her pale face with its sharp features, the nose she thought too long, the brown eyes a little too close together.
“Well, here you are, Norah Bingham,” she said to her reflection. “Whether you like it or not.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this, Mom,” she had said earlier that afternoon, as she and Ginny stood in the lineup at gate seven in Union Station, waiting for the train to points east. “You don’t even know this woman, and now you’re sending your only child off to stay with her, all by herself!”
“Come on, Norah.” Ginny gave her a good-natured nudge. “This is your father’s aunt. I know enough about her that I’m confident you’ll be well looked after. I’m sure she’s a lovely person.”
“You think everybody’s a lovely person,” Norah muttered. “Even that guy in the next apartment, who looks to me like a hit man for the Mafia.”
Ginny smiled nervously at the woman sitting on her suitcase ahead of them in the line, listening to every word. “Oh, Norah, what an imagination! Try to make the best of this little setback, dear. We’re still going to have a holiday in the country.”
Leaving the door to the bathroom open, Norah descended the stairs to the ground floor. She peeked into the room to the right of the front entrance. It contained several pieces of leather furniture, looking creased and comfortable. There was even a television set in one corner. “Well, this is better,” she said, under her breath.
Across the hall was a formal living room, its windows covered with heavy draperies. The needlepoint seatcovers on several side chairs provided the only relief to the drab colour scheme.
An arch connected the living room to the dining room. Light leaked from under a door to the right. Norah knew by the smells coming from that room that it must be the kitchen. Her stomach rolled with hunger.
The dining room windows looked out over a backyard bordered by a hedge of overgrown cedar trees. Norah crossed the room to look outside.
In the far corner of the yard, and leaning slightly to one side, was a dilapidated gazebo. Halfway along the hedge, an opening had been left to the forest behind it.
Night was falling beyond the cedars, but the backyard itself was well lit. To Norah’s surprise, she saw that the yard was practically filled with birdfeeders. They hung from the branches of every tree, from the clothesline, the gazebo and from numerous hooks driven here and there into the ground. There were dozens of them, in every imaginable shape and size.
Moving closer to the window for a better look, Norah was startled to see that there was someone out there.
A figure was standing in the rain at the opening in the cedar hedge. A boy, she thought, by the size of him, and he was watching her.
Four
Norah took a quick step away from the window where she’d been surveying the yard and nearly collided with Aunt Caroline, who chose that exact moment to come though the swinging door from the kitchen.
“My goodness!” exclaimed the woman, irritably. “Don’t jump out at me like that!”
“Sorry,” said Norah. “I was just looking
