Free Regarding Anna by Florence Osmund Page B

five-foot artificial tree, which she dragged out of the way to reveal an enclosed staircase. I followed her up the stairs.
    “My guess is that my bedroom was originally the dining room when this house was first built, and they walled off the stairs when it was converted to a boardinghouse. That’s the only way this staircase makes any sense.”
    I followed her to the top of the stairs where it was so dark I could hardly see her. When she opened the door, light came through along with a good whiff of cold stale air.
    We entered a bedroom. She twirled around to face me. “So do you get the rumor now?”
    “I see two bedrooms connected by a staircase. Are you saying Anna and whoever was in this bedroom were having an affair?”
    “According to Mouse-face, they were.”
    “So who lived in this room?”
    “Don’t know. This room was empty when I bought it.”
    “Mouse-face, I mean Henry, didn’t divulge who he was?” I asked.
    “No. C’mon, I’ll show you the rest.”
    We walked across the hallway to a smaller room.
    “Henry lived in this one.”
    “Do you know anything about him? Where he went after he left here?”
    “No. He left right after Smith died, the same day, in fact. No goodbye. No forwarding address. Didn’t even ask for a refund on the unused rent money.”
    We went back into the hallway and into another small room.
    “Cross-dresser’s,” she said.
    The last room had belonged to Mark Smith, the elderly man who had died there.
    “That’s it. Have you seen enough?”
    “I guess so.”
    “I’ll show you the rest of the downstairs,” she said as we descended the staircase. “It’s not much, but it suits me well enough. After all, I’ve been here almost twenty-two years.”
    We entered the kitchen where I used her phone to call my mechanic, who said he’d drive to the car and try to get it started. He said he’d call me to let me know if he succeeded.
    “I haven’t done anything in here. It’s all original,” she told me.
    The kitchen was good-sized, but with the large counter-height island in the middle, we had to walk single file around it. It was an interesting piece of furniture with drawers and cupboard space underneath and a swing-out seat where one could sit and peel potatoes, shuck corn...or something. I had never seen anything like it.
    Minnie led me to a small room next to the kitchen where there were baskets of yarn, fabric, and ribbon everywhere. A treadle sewing machine was in the corner.
    “I use this as a sewing room, but I have a feeling it may have been a nursery at one time.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Because there was pink-and-white-flowered wallpaper in here when I bought it. Looked to me like a baby’s room. Took me weeks to peel the damn stuff off.”
    I was sure she didn’t realize how that sounded to me—that “damn stuff” might have been what I had viewed as my world back then.
    The closet door was ajar, and I peeked in. My heart raced.
    “You mean this wallpaper?”
    “Mm-hm. I forgot I didn’t take it down in the closet. Too damn hard to get off.”
    After my parents died, I went through all their things and took with me anything I thought was important or of any value. One of the things I threw away was a partial roll of pink-and-white-flowered wallpaper—just like in the closet. At least, I was pretty sure it was the same. I remember wondering why the heck it had been stuffed in the back of the closet my father used for his clothes. I wished I had been able to save everything from that house.
    “Are you all right, Gracie?”
    “I think I need to sit down.”
    We went back to the living room.
    “And it wasn’t wallpaper that was hung in any of the rooms in your house?”
    “No. I’m thinking it’s connected to the wallpaper here.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would your parents have some of the wallpaper Anna had in the nursery here?”
    “I don’t know. It’s one more puzzle piece.”
    “Has this been helpful,