Free Acceptable Risk by Robin Cook Page B

exactly,” Edward said. Wetting the tip of his finger, he tried to smudge the outline. He couldn’t. “It must have hung there a good many years for the smoke to outline it like that.”
    Leaving the parlor, they mounted the stairs. At the head of the stairs was a small study built over the front hall. Above the parlor and the kitchen were bedrooms, each with its own fireplace. The only furniture was a few more beds and a spinning wheel.
    Returning to the kitchen on the first floor, Kim and Edward were both struck with the size of the fireplace. Edward guessed it was almost ten feet across. To the left was a lug pole, to the right a beehive oven. There were even some old pots, fry pans, and kettles.
    “Can you imagine cooking here?” Edward asked.
    “Not in a million years,” Kim said. “I have enough trouble in a modern kitchen.”
    “The colonial women must have been experts at tending a fire,” Edward said. He peered into the oven. “I wonder how they estimated the temperature. It’s fairly critical in bread making.”
    They passed through a door into the lean-to part of the house. Edward was surprised to find a second kitchen.
    “I think they used this during the summer,” Kim said. “It would have been too hot to fire up that massive fireplace for cooking during warm weather.”
    “Good point,” Edward said.
    Returning to the main part of the house, Edward stood in the center of the kitchen, chewing on his lower lip. Kim eyed him. She could tell he was thinking about something.
    “What’s going through your mind?” she asked.
    “Have you ever thought about living here?” he questioned.
    “No, I can’t say I have,” Kim said. “It would be like camping out.”
    “I don’t mean to live here the way it is,” Edward said. “But it wouldn’t take much to change it.”
    “You mean renovate it?” Kim questioned. “It would be a shame to destroy its historical value.”
    “I couldn’t agree more,” Edward said. “But you wouldn’t have to. You could make a modern kitchen and bath in the lean-to portion of the house, which was an add-on anyway. You wouldn’t have to disturb the integrity of the main part.”
    “You really think so?” Kim said. She looked around. There was no doubt it was a charming building, and it would be a fun challenge to decorate it.
    “Besides,” Edward said, “you’ve got to move out of your present apartment. It’s a shame to leave this whole place vacant. Sooner or later the vandals will get in here and possibly do some real damage.”
    Kim and Edward made another walk through the building with the idea in mind of making it habitable. Edward was progressively enthusiastic, and Kim found herself warming to the idea.
    “What an opportunity to connect with your heritage,” Edward said. “I’d do it in a flash.”
    “I’ll sleep on it,” Kim said finally. “It is an intriguing idea, but I’d have to run it by my brother. After all, we are co-owners.”
    “There’s one thing about this place that confuses me,” Edward said as he glanced around the kitchen for the third time. “I wonder where they stored their food.”
    “I imagine in the cellar,” Kim said.
    “I didn’t think there was one,” Edward said. “I specifically looked for an entrance when we walked around the house when we first arrived, but there wasn’t any. Nor are there any stairs leading down.”
    Kim stepped around the long trestle table and pulled aside a heavily worn sisal mat. “There’s access through this trapdoor,” she said. She bent down and put her finger through a hole in the floor and pulled the trapdoor open. She laid it back on the floor. A ladder led down into the darkness.
    “I remember this all too well,” Kim said. “Once, when we were kids, my brother threatened to close me in the cellar. He’d been enchanted with the trapdoor.”
    “Nice brother,” Edward said. “No wonder you had a fear of being cooped up. That would have terrified