Free Pale Phoenix by Kathryn Reiss Page B

in?"
    "Thank you, my dear, but your dad's fetching it." Nonny sniffed the air appreciatively. "Smells good in here."
    "We were making a batch of brownies for our after-school snack," Susannah told her. "We didn't know you were coming home from the hospital today, or we'd have made them in your honor."
    "Well," declared Miranda, "as it is, we'll
eat
them in your honor. There's enough for everyone."
    Susannah's mother joined them, and they all sat at the table devouring the rich, fudgy brownies. The adults had cups of tea and the girls had milk, and Miranda felt light and easy and free. It was so nice to be celebrating something, so nice to sit with a family that was not full of tension. How sad, she reflected now, that her own house no longer afforded her peace and serenity. Since Abby had come to stay, everything was different.
    "How are your flute lessons coming along?" Nonny asked her great-granddaughter.
    "I'm as hopeless as ever." Susannah sighed. "Mandy might make the big time someday, but not me—at least not with a flute." Susannah wanted to be a doctor. "But look at this, Nonny." She opened the school newspaper and pointed to her picture. "If I can't make it into medical school, maybe I'll take up carpentry."
    The old woman adjusted her glasses and held the newspaper at arm's length in her good hand. "My goodness, Susie. You look just like a boy in those overalls and that cap! In my day I'd never have been allowed out to a public ceremony dressed like a ragamuffin." But she smiled.
    "Look, here's Mandy," said Susannah, tapping the photo of Mrs. Wainwright surrounded by students. "She's wearing overalls, too."
    Nonny shook the paper and held it up to see. "Ragamuffins, the pair of you. That's what I say." Then suddenly her smile turned into a look of surprise.
    "What is it?" asked Miranda. "Can you see me? I'm right here, in the front."
    "Oh, I see you, dear. It's this other girl I'm looking at. There's an astonishing resemblance to a child I had in one of my classes once—oh, years and years ago." At one time or another Nonny had probably taught most of the residents of Garnet until she retired about thirty years earlier. Her gnarled finger poked at the image of the pale girl with blond hair standing right beside Miranda. "Take her out of that sweater and jeans and put her in a dress, and she'd be a dead-ringer...."
    The girl standing next to Miranda in the photo was Abby. Miranda felt a leap of fear. Nonny shook her head and put down the paper. "I've seen so many kids in my time, it's hard to remember them, but that was one girl I'll always remember."
    "What happened?" asked Susannah. "Was she a troublemaker?"
    "It was a sad case. But sometimes you have to get involved, like it or not."
    Susannah's mother looked up from her brownie, interested. "Was it something at her home? Did you have to intervene?"
    Nonny shook her head. "Not exactly. The problem was, she didn't have a home. And when I found out, I reported her to the authorities, and they took her off to the orphanage." She tapped the paper again. "That was the old Prindle House, you know, in the 1930s. In one of its many incarnations." She sighed. "I thought I was doing the right thing, of course, but apparently the girl hated it there. She ran away and no one ever found her. I often wondered what became of Abby."
    Miranda spoke up excitedly. "That's her name, too! I mean, the girl in the picture is named Abby, too. And she doesn't have a home, either. She ran away from Baltimore when her grandfather died, and now she's living with us."
    Nonny laughed. "I love coincidences like this. Isn't it amazing?"
    Mrs. Johnston frowned. "I wonder if there's any connection. Don't see how there could be, really, but—"
    Miranda interrupted her. "Maybe the girl Nonny knew was Abby's mother! No, she'd be too old. Well, her grandmother, then. And maybe that's why Abby came to Garnet when she left Baltimore—to find out more about the other Abby."
    "How very