Free Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin Page A

she came back in.
Zach pulled her against him. “Just my first idea. I have
plenty more. Is there something like catnip, only for
dogs?”
“Could we cage them side by side? To desensitize them?”
“While we read to them from The Little Prince.”
“Yes, good! The part about the rose.”
Fenella felt as if Lucy and Zach were talking in a foreign
language.
“I’m sorry,” Fenella said. “Pierre is the one who belongs
here in this house, not me or Ryland.” She swept her gaze
around the kitchen to include Soledad and Leo Markowitz.
“You’re all being so incredibly kind to a stranger. And her
smelly cat.”
I do not smell!
“You’re not a stranger,” Lucy said. “A couple of days away
won’t do Pierre any harm, and it’ll help you settle in. That’s
the most important thing.”
“Absolutely,” said Leo.

Chapter 10
    That night Fenella could not sleep, though she was
again exhausted. She put on the borrowed pajamas and
climbed into bed. As the rest of the household settled, she
kept a small bedside lamp burning against the darkness. Its
low electric light illumined not only her own face and hands
as she leaned her back against the headboard, but also the
second bed on the table’s other side. Twin beds, Lucy had
called them.
    Against the far wall was a bookcase that held great
meaning for Lucy. Lucy had demonstrated how the bottom shelf lifted out to reveal a hiding space. She had told
a long story—eyes welling up—of a shirt hidden in the
space, and a letter from Miranda describing the Scarborough Curse.
    Fenella had nodded, pretending attention. In truth, she
    had felt desperate to be alone. But now that she was, that too
was not much good.
    Ryland was sprawled out extravagantly in the center of
the second bed, his white fur rising and falling with his
breath, his black heart-shaped bib partially obscured by one
outflung leg.
    She was aware of her family also sleeping, trustfully, in
the other rooms of this house. She thought of Lucy’s face
when she’d said: We’d make room for all of them! Then, Soledad’s comment: I think we could manage.
    “Fools,” she muttered. What were they
thinking, accepting her—and the cat!—on faith? How did they manage in
the world? Weren’t there lots of people who would take advantage of them? They should be more careful! The world
might have changed a great deal in four hundred years, but
people surely had not. It would do them good when their
experience with Fenella taught them to be wary.
    From the house tour, Fenella knew where each one of
them lay in sleep.
At the farthest end of the upstairs hall, in the largest room,
in a bigger bed than Fenella had ever imagined might exist,
were Soledad and Leo. Soledad had been apologetic about
the room when she showed it to Fenella during the house
tour. “The chaos of twenty-five years.” She’d gestured at a chair
heaped with rumpled clothing, at a cabinet on top of which
dozens of family photographs seemed to fight each other
for space, and at the bed whose homey, faded coverings had
plainly seen better days. “I keep thinking I’m going to sort it all
out. Maybe we’ll paint the walls a more restful color.”
“Dark purple?” Lucy was leaning against the doorframe.
“Eggplant?”
“Cream,” said Soledad.
“Boring!”
“Yes, exactly.”
Fenella had dumped the cat on the floor, barely hearing
the muffled thump he made when he landed on his feet. She
felt Lucy’s eyes follow her as she picked up a photograph.
It showed Lucy tumbled carelessly on Zach’s lap with the
baby—tiny, bald, and wrapped in pink—cuddled up on her
shoulder. Zach grinned happily. The little family was crowded
into a big soft chair that Fenella recognized from downstairs.
Sitting awkwardly on the arm of the chair was a middle-aged
woman with long tangled hair as dark as Lucy’s. The woman’s
knees were so knobby that you could see their outlines protruding beneath the thin fabric of her skirt. She