Free Dreadful Sorry by Kathryn Reiss Page A

on to boil. "Can you believe the size of this kitchen? Of course, there must have been servants once. It's a challenge to make a meal here, with the fridge over in one corner and this big old stove over here, and the sink over there by the windows! They sure didn't know about efficient meal-making then, did they? Then again, you had to keep the servants busy, I guess. After we finish papering the downstairs, we're going to start remodeling this kitchen. I like old things, if they're usable. But I don't really go for vintage just
because.
You know?"
    Molly nodded, hardly listening. She was looking around the kitchen, shivering a little despite the warm night air breezing in through the screened window over the sink.
    The children hung their coats on hooks by the back door.
    This knowledge came to her, unbidden. But—what in the world?
What
children?
    Paulette held up a china mug patterned with roses. "Like this? I found it in one of the cupboards. It was probably there for years. This house was empty for a long time before we moved in."
    Molly sat still, feeling lumpish and numb while Paulette flitted on fairy feet around the big room. She tried to force some of the tension out of her muscles by taking slow breaths. She thought of Jen, at home now, probably watching a video. Maybe Ben was there, too. For an instant she longed to be with them.
    She'd been desperate to get away from home, desperate to come to this safe haven. And yet, one glance down that hallway had told her this was no haven at all.
    Finally the tea was brewed to Paulette's satisfaction. She carried the small teapot to the table. Then she opened a tin canister and arranged some cookies on a plate. She set it in front of Molly. "There. Mint tea from the mint growing right in our own garden. And homemade oatmeal raisin cookies—specially made with love for my only stepdaughter in the world!"
    Paulette pulled out a chair and sat at the table across from Molly. She poured them cups of tea and watched intently until Molly took a cookie and bit into it. "It's good? You like it?" Her voice was eager, her green eyes sparkling.
    Molly nodded.
    "And do you like the house?" She frowned. "What did you mean about a dream you had?"
    Molly hesitated. No sense letting this nice woman decide on the very first night that she had a neurotic stepdaughter. "I like the house," she said. "It's just that it was a shock, at first, because I've had dreams about a long hallway—sort of like the one upstairs." She reached for another cookie, half-convinced now that the hallway was only similar to the one in the dreams. Not identical. A lot of big houses have long hallways.
    "Were they good dreams?" Paulette studied her. "Or bad?"
    Molly finished her cookie. "How about that house tour now?"
    Paulette hesitated, then stood and carried their cups to the sink without another word. Molly suspected it cost the chatty woman quite a lot to hold back the zillions of questions she probably wanted to fire at Molly, and Molly 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 she saw the staircase 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 wallpaper. 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?"
    Molly 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.