Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy)

Ellen merely looked at him, for the lights of the farmhouse were mere twinkling pinpricks in the distance, up a long drive, the oaks flanking each side. Surely he wasn’t going to make her walk up all that way with her valise?

Muttering under his breath, Jed turned the wagon up the lane. The oak trees arched over the dirt track, making it seem as if they were going through a tunnel.

“Jasper Lane,” Jed told her after a moment. “The McCaffertys’ place.”

The wagon stopped before a large, rambling and rather ramshackle farmhouse in white clapboard, with a wide porch out front with a few rather broken-looking rocking chairs and a clutter of old boots. Although there were lights flickering in the front window, no one came out to greet them.

Ellen slid out of the wagon uncertainly while Jed went to get her valise.

“Should I...?” she began but Jed just shrugged indifferently.

Gritting her teeth, Ellen marched up the porch stairs and knocked on the weathered front door.

Inside the house she heard a high-pitched yelp, followed by laughter, and the scurrying of children’s feet. Then nothing.

Just who was in there, Ellen wondered, and did they even know she was coming? Where was Rose or Dyle?

“You could just go in,” Jed suggested, with the air of someone who wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Ellen threw him a dark look over her shoulder. “Well, then, you’re coming with me.”

“Me?” Jed looked horrified, and Ellen nodded grimly.

“You know these people. I don’t.” She beckoned with one hand, refusing to be cowed, and Jed climbed up the stairs with a decidedly martyred air.

Ellen turned the handle, and stepped into the front hall of the farmhouse. It was clean and shabby in a comfortable way, a house that seemed both much used and much loved. The threadbare carpet and clutter of shoes and shawls by the front door comforted Ellen; she preferred it to the spartan cleanness of Aunt Ruth’s house.

There was a second of silence before a bloodcurdling cry split the air, and a boy with a mop of chestnut hair and a ferocious expression came hurtling down the stairs.

Ellen instinctively stepped backwards, jostling into Jed, who put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.

The boy skidded to a halt in front of Ellen, a ferocious expression on his young and rather dirty face, a wooden spoon raised threateningly over his head.

“Surrender!”

“Ppp—pardon?”

A girl of about seven years old careened down the hallway. Her hair was also chestnut, a wild tangle around her face, and her wide hazel eyes were alight. She was carrying a makeshift bow and arrow.

“Got you!”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did!”

The boy made to swoop with his spoon, the girl screamed and ducked, and Jed’s hand came out quick as lightning and grabbed the spoon.

“I think that’s enough, Peter.” He took the spoon and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers.

“That’s my tomahawk,” Peter protested, looking mutinous.

“We’re playing Indians,” the girl explained, before her gaze fell on Ellen. “But who are you? Are you the girl who’s come to stay with us?”

Ellen found her voice at last. “I suppose I am. My name is Ellen Copley.”

The girl nodded. “Yes, Mama told us about you. She said we were to be awfully good so as not to scare you right off the island.”