Hermione finished her cookie. "How about that house tour now."
Paulette hesitated, then stood and carried their cups to the sink without another word. Hermione suspected it cost the chatty woman quite a lot to hold back zillions of questions she probably wanted to fire at Hermione, and Hermione liked her all the more.
She followed Paulette out of the kitchen, pressing back the flash of -something -that assailed her as they moved into the front hallway and saw the stair case again. Recognition? The stairs looked like the ones she had run down in the dream when she saw the other girl's face in the ornate mirror. Surreptitiously she glanced at the wall, then gasped when she saw the brighter square on the faded old wall paper. Something had hung there once.
Probably only an old picture.
"Are you okay?" asked Paulette anxiously.
"Of Course!"
They walked past the stairs into a large, high-ceilinged room with long-windowed French doors at both ends and a fireplace with a carved oak mantel in the center of the far wall. "The living room," announced Paulette. "Or should I say the parlor?"
Hermione could imagine it had been a gracious room once, but now, uncarpeted and empty of furniture, it seemed to be waiting for someone to bring it back to life. Paulette bubbled with excitement as she told Hermione her plans for the house.
"We want to furnish it with antiques from the period when the house was first built. Mid-nineteenth century. Johnny and I have been combing the flea markets and auctions around here. Now that he's hurt his ankle, maybe you'll come with me."
"Sure." If she threw herself into the renovations, she wouldn't think about hallways or patches of wallpaper where maybe a mirror had hang.
From the living room they moved to a large, formal dinning room, also empty of furniture. A stepladder lay on its side on the plastic ground cloth specked with wall paper paste. An overturned bucket of paste had spilled onto the cloth and spattered on the floorboards as well. "The scene of the accident!" proclaimed Paulette. "This where your daddy was working when he fell-my poor darling. I didn't even have a chance to clean up."
"I'll help you." Hermione stepped carefully around the mess. "He's lucky he didn't break both ankles."
"We'll clean up tomorrow." Paulette sighed. 'I'm afraid I blame myself. I was holding the ladder, but then the phone rang and I went to get it-and that's when he fell."
"It wasn't your fault." Hermione said comfortingly.
Paulette led Hermione into the glass-walled room with five sides. "This is called the conservatory," she said , flicking on the lights. "Can you imagine how gorgeous it would be once we get some big plants in it? I want it really lush. It will be a great place to serve our guests their breakfasts."
In the daytime, Hermione supposed, there would be a panoramic view from this room over the entire headland. But now, in the dark, it was just an odd shaped, empty room with dirty glass walls.
Paulette led her through the butler's pantry. ("Too bad it didn't come equipped with a butler," Paulette giggled.) and into a small, bare room with wide wooden floorboards and build-in corner cupboards. "This is the servants' dining room. Can you imagine having so many maids that they had their own dining room? We'll probably turn this into a playroom for the baby. The guests' kids could use it, too. We want to cater to families, you know. Make them feel right at home- or even better then at home."
"Did you say 'Baby'?" asked Hermione.
"Ooh!" Paulette clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes twinkling. "I'm not supposed to say anything! Johnny wants to tell you himself."
"You and dad are having a baby?" A thrill of excitement banished the lingering fear.
"Yes! Isn't it super? But don't tell Johnny I told you, He'll tell you tomorrow. You've got to act surprised! I shouldn't have let it slip, and I'm not going toe tell you another thing until we're with Johnny."
They circled back through the kitchen into the front hallway, Hermione thoughts on the new sister or brother she'd be having. How soon would it be born? She scrutinized her skinny stepmother and thought maybe there was the slightest swell to her belly under the T-shirt. What great news!
Another door off the main hallway led to the dark-paneled room much like the parlor, with French doors leading out to a side porch. Built-in bookshelves lined all four walls, extending even around the fireplace. The shelves weren't completely empty- there were moving boxes pushed into the lower ones. Paint flaked off the high ceiling. Bits of it lay on the floorboards. "The library," announced Paulette. "Won't it be beautiful once we unpack our books? Not that we have enough to fill all the shelves, but we'll order some, or join a book club or something."
"Get a big library table for the alcove at the other end," suggested Hermione. She knew exactly the sort of table it should be: rectangular, made of oak, with carved legs. With a fire going and the window seat piled with cushions, the room would be really cozy. The cushions on the window seat would covered with a woven tapestry pattern of flowers and vines in pinks and blues and grays. She could just see it all right now, as if-she sucked in her breath-as if she remembered it from some where.
The children did their lessons by the window.
Paulette glanced at her curiously but crossed to the door in the wall next the fireplace. She flung open the door. "And here's where we've been living these past eight months since we moved in," she said, gesturing Hermione inside with a flourish. "The study. This room will be off limits to the quests. We're going to keep it as our private living room. What do you think?"
Hermione bit back a scream.
She backed away, tripping over Paulette, and ran through the library out into the hallway. The staircase loomed above her, and she moaned, turning wildly this way and that, not knowing which way to run. Then she saw the front door and reached for the handle. She flung the door open and ran out into the cool evening air. She sucked great mouthfuls of it into her lungs. Paulette was right behind her, arms outstretched, crying her name.
"Oh, Hermione." She wrapped her arms around Hermione when they reached the van. Hermione didn't have the will to resist. She stood in the circle of Paulette's arms and sobbed.
She found herself crying: "I know that room! I've been there before." She didn't know how it could be so, but she'd seen the same warm red of the oriental carpet, the same polished surface and the big desk before. She knew the gray stone fireplace, knew that same acrid smell of smoke.
She was babbling aloud, almost without knowing it, to Paulette, who stood holding her close. "It's the same room, all the same furniture- everything the same," she kept repeating, as Paulette rubbed her back soothingly.
Finally Hermione pulled away, exhausted and trembling. Paulette kept one hand on Hermione's arm. "Listen," Paulette said. "Come back in with me, Hermione. Come look at that room again. It's nothing like what you've described. There is no desk. There is no fireplace. I wish we had a oriental carpet-but we don't. Come look!"
Hermione hung back. "No, no, I can't go in there."
Paulette opened the van and reached for Hermione's suitcases. "You can just stand in the doorway, okay? Just take one look. It's the only room in the house besides the kitchen and two bedrooms that has any furniture in it at all. But it's not what you say, Hermione." Her voice was breathless and bewildered. "I don't know what you saw, but it wasn't our room."
The dark shapes of trees on the headland offered no sense of sanctuary. Hermione could hear the sound of the ocean hurling itself against the rocks. Where could she go, if not back to the house? She reached for one of the big suitcases, but Paulette shrugged her off and struggled with both of them herself. Hermione followed, holding her backpack in one trembling hand.
Paulette set the suitcases down at the foot of the big staircase. Then she and Hermione walked back into the library and through the room to the door at the back. "Just one peek," urged Paulette. "You'll recognize the furniture all right, but its not anything like what you described. It's the stuff from Johnny's old apartment. Look- on the wall, there's the picture of him that you drew when you were a little girl. He's had it framed. I think it ears stick out a little too much, don't you? But its so cute!"
Hermione forced herself to look around the study. Sure enough, it was just as Paulette aid and just, in fact, as she remembered from her father's living room. The same old plaid couch, covered with green afghan, The sagging green armchairs. The leaning bookshelves crammed to overflowing. A coffee table, cleared and polished in Hermione honor, no doubt, held a single vase with summer wildflowers. The was a television with a VCR in one corner and a shelf above the television holding stacks of videotapes. And there was, as Paulette had said, no fireplace at all.
"You're right," Hermione said, embarrassment flooding her where only minutes before there had been pure terror. "You must think I'm really bizarre. I probably woke up dad, too, when I yelled."
"I doubt it," said Paulette. "Those painkillers are pretty strong." She hesitated, then spoke again, her voice cautious. "Hermione, I don't understand. You seem afraid here. Want to talk about it-Whatever it is?" She regarded Hermione with wide eyes.
"No," Hermione whispered. "I'll be all right."
Paulette nodded. "Well, let's go upstairs now." Hermione followed her out of the study, through the library, and back into the hall. "Can you carry your small bag? I'll take the suitcases."
Hermione slung the carry-on bag over her shoulder and followed Paulette, who struggled under the weight of Hermione's heavy suitcases, up the stairs to the long hallway. She's pregnant, remembered Hermione. I shouldn't let her carry heavy things.
But she felt too weak to help, to speak, to do anything. I'm becoming a zombie, she thought. It sounded pathetic but seemed right on the mark. She kept her eyes down so she wouldn't see the long hall stretching before her.
Paulette open the first door along the hallway and flicked on the light. "Here you go, Hermione. Its pretty small, but this is the only bedroom besides ours that we've fixed up. I hope you like it."
Hermione stumbled in and dropped her carry-on bag on the floor. She saw through bleary eyes that, through not large, the room was high-ceilinged and freshly papered in white sprigs of daisies. The double bed had an ornate brass headboard, which gleamed in the soft over head glow. There was a mahogany dresser with a vase of the same wildflowers Hermione seen down in the study. A small roll top desk stood by the window. The floor was coved by a braided rag rug in many deep colors. "Its great," murmured Hermione. 'Thanks."
"The bathroom is right next door," continued Paulette. "But the shower doesn't work yet, so just use the bath." She hesitated. "Do you need anything else? Are you all right now?"
Hermione sank into the bed. "I'm fine. I'll be fine." She fingered the end of her braid and looked up at Paulette. Something more seemed to need saying. "I'm not always so weird," she offered. "Really."
Paulette smiled unconvincingly. "Well, sleep tight," she said. Then she closed the door. Hermione heard her footsteps darting down the hall to the room she shared with John. Hermione was so tired she couldn't even drag herself to the bathroom. She curled up right on top of the soft bedcover and fell immediately asleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night she awoke with a pressing need and left the room to sue the toilet next door. Groggily she made her way back to her bedroom and climbed into the bed. She pulled the cover over her this time and settled her head on the soft pillows. As she drifted again into sleep, she thought she heard the sound of children's voices somewhere. The singing was soft and distant but all too clear: "Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Clementine-
She sat bolt upright in bed, clutching the cover straining to hear. But there was only silence. She waited another few minutes, listening, hardly daring to breath, then at last lay down and pulled the pillow over her head. She must have been dreaming again.
Hermione slept heavily until a hand shook her shoulder. Paulette stood at the side of her bed, wearing an oversized T-shirt with a picture of a panda on it. Her uncombed carrot hair was messy.
"Good morning!" Paulette crossed to the window and pulled back the long curtains. Sunlight flooded the room. "Rise and shine! I'm indulging our favorite invalid with breakfast in bed, and I've set up trays for you and me, too. How do you want your egg?"
Hermione groggily and pushed her hair out of her face. It had fallen out of its braid, Her face was unwashed and her mouth felt fuzzy and horrible.
"Your dad's having a poached egg, but I'm having scrambled."
"I'll have scramble, too." She yawned widely, then tossed back the covers. "Is it all right if I shower first?"
"The showers aren't installed yet, remember? You can havea bath, but it takes a while for the water to warm up, I'm afraid."
Hermione followed Paulette out into the hall. In daylight the hallway seemed less forbidding, then like the one in her dreams. Sunlight from the tall window over the stairs made diamond patterns on the carpet.
In the bathroom Hermione shed her clothes, then started water flowing into the funny tub. The tub stood high on curved irons leg, its porcelain chipped in places, revealing rusted patches. When the water was warm enough, she stepped in gingerly and knelt on the bottom. She left the rubber plug for the drain hanging from its little chain so the water would rush out almost as fast as it poured in.
Leaning forward, she splashed water over herself with cupped hands. She grabbed a washcloth from the pile on the windowsill and washed her face. She ducked her head under the flow from the faucet and shampooed quickly, then turned off the water, expelling her pent up breath in a gasp of relief. In less then five minutes she was out of the tub, toweled dry, and dressed in jeans and a red tang top. She'd managed it-almost a bath. But she eyed the tub warily and wondered whether they sold shower attachments for the faucet in such a little town.
She toweled her wet hair, bending from the waist to shake out the tangles. Then she braided her hair into her customary long tail and walked barefoot down the hall to the master bedroom. The door was open. Hermione gave her father a hug. "How's your ankle?"
He was sitting up against several pillows, his brown hair tousled, blond stubble of a beard scratching her face when he squeezed back. "Oh, its there, I didn't sleep very well." He patted the bed and he sat on the edge.
"I didn't either, with this great lummox flailing around next to me, " said Paulette, reaching over to ruffle Johnny's thinning her. He grabbed her fingers and kissed them.
Paulette set their breakfast on tray tables near the bed. There was a stack of toast, little jars of jam, and an egg for each, orange juice, and three small bowls of blueberries. "The blueberries grow right here on the headland." she told Hermione. "I picked these this morning. They're great with milk and a little sugar."
"Thanks." Hermione drank her juice. Paulette poured them each a cup of mint tea. John stretched, shifting his ankle with a groan, then settled back on his pillows.
"So, Hermione, how did you sleep?" He asked. From the significant look he exchanged with Paulette, Hermione knew her stepmother told him all about Hermione's unusual reaction to the house the night before.