Wild Embrace

Elizabeth turned a warm smile to Frannie and lay her hairbrush on the nightstand beside the bed. “Frannie, it’s still early,” she said, securing her hair back from her face with a pale green satin ribbon. “What did you do? Get up at the crack of dawn?”

“Earlier than that,” Frannie said, giving Elizabeth a frown. “The noises in this place kept my eyes wide open mos’ the night. I’m sure the house is haunted, Elizabeth. You watch yo’self. Somethin’ might grab you as you go explorin’ from room to room.”

Elizabeth giggled as she swung away from the window and began walking toward the door. “Frannie, you seem to have survived the morning without being assaulted by ghosts,” she teased. “And I would wager that you have already been in all of the rooms, cleaning. It’s not like you to let anything go long without a thorough dusting.”

Frannie pulled the last of the blankets up over the plumped-up pillows. Then she went to Elizabeth and gave her a soft swat on her behind just as Elizabeth started to step out into the corridor.

“Get on with you,” Frannie said, chuckling. “And I must admit, honey chil’, you’ll soon see that things don’t look all that bad. Now that I’ve seen the rooms in the daylight, with the sunshine comin’ in at all of the windows, and with the dustcovers removed from the furniture, I think we can be comfortable enough here. The furniture is plush and the hardwood floors will be beautiful once they get a good polishing.” She clasped her hands. “And the rooms is grand.”

Frannie then thrust her hands inside her apron pockets. “But it’s still too cold for my liking,” she said, giving a glance toward the marble-faced fireplace in the room. “But once we get all of the fireplaces goin’ with a fire, I’m sure it’ll soon be warm enough.”

Elizabeth gave Frannie a hug. “Frannie, you know that you’d be happy anywhere as long as you had a roof over your head and me to spoil,” she said, laughing softly. “I love you, Frannie. I don’t know what I would have done without you after . . . after Mother left.”

Frannie patted Elizabeth’s back. “Now, now,” she murmured. “Let’s not get to talkin’ about your mother. She’s a part of your past. Let it go, honey. Let it go.”

Elizabeth stepped away from Frannie. She nervously ran her hands down the skirt of her dress. “Just when I think I have forgotten her, she’s back on my mind again,” she said cheerlessly. “I have never given up hope that Mother would return and my life would be normal again. But that is such a hopeless thought—I must stop thinking it.”

“Yes’m, you must,” Frannie said, then placed her chubby hands at Elizabeth’s tiny waist and led her into the corridor. “Now you go on and eat some breakfast. There are plenty of eggs, bacon, and biscuits. And I unpacked a jar of honey just for you. That’ll sweeten your thoughts if nothin’ else will.”

Elizabeth turned and planted a quick kiss on Frannie’s cheek. “You’re such a dear,” she said, then bounced down the staircase.

When she reached the first floor, she was amazed at how much of the mustiness of the house had already cleared. The house now smelled of clean linens and furniture polish.

Before going to the kitchen to eat, Elizabeth went from room to room, smiling when she saw how Frannie had already made them presentable, even inviting. Even the shadows seemed to be lifting.

And Frannie had been right. The furniture was plush. And someone had paid a lot of money for the fancy tapestries that hung along the walls with the many gilt-framed portraits.

Elizabeth then went to the library and stopped short, appalled by the array of horns bristling on the far wall, overwhelming the rows of books that lined the room on three sides.

As Elizabeth looked slowly from horn to horn, she recognized those of the deer, antelope, and longhorn steer. Then she paled and placed a hand to her throat when her gaze found a perfect specimen of a bobcat. It was perched on a stand, as if ready to pounce on her.

She grimaced, thinking that the taxidermist who had prepared this animal for viewing had been quite skilled and exact. The eyes of the animal were gleaming into hers, and its sharp teeth were glisteningly white and bared.

She could not help but feel threatened by this room that reeked of death and danger, so she fled to the parlor and felt no less unnerved. No matter how much Frannie had tried, this room retained its mustiness, the sweet fragrance of the furniture polish unable to overcome the stale aroma of cigar smoke and smell of mildew that hung heavily in the air.

“This won’t do,” Elizabeth said. “This won’t do at all.”

She walked briskly to first one window, and then the next, lifting them open so that the room could have an airing.

A brisk, chilly breeze blew in, ruffling her dress and the bow in her hair. She hugged herself, shivering.

Yet she did not want to close the windows until the room smelled better. So she turned and eyed the fireplace. Wood was stacked neatly on its grate, old and yellowed newspapers wadded between the logs, to be used to help start the fire.

“That’s what I’ll do. I’ll build a fire,” she whispered to herself. “That might also help lift the rank odor from the room.”

Spying matches on a table, Elizabeth picked up a few and took them to the fireplace. She knelt down before the hearth and struck a match and held the flickering flame to the newspapers until several of them caught fire. Then she stood, patiently waiting for the flames to ignite the logs.

Once they did, she turned to go get the breakfast that awaited her.

But she didn’t get far. She was stopped by billows of smoke quickly filling the room. The smoke from the fire wasn’t drawing up the chimney. Instead, it was escaping into the room in great puffs of black.

Elizabeth realized that the chimney must be clogged with something, more than likely a bird’s nest. Her eyes burned from the smoke. Her throat was closing up with it.

Coughing and choking, she tried to feel her way to the door that led to the corridor, to escape to the outside. But before she reached the door, her hand touched something—someone.

Startled, she looked up and peered through the screen of smoke and found herself face-to-face with an Indian. And it was not just any Indian. Nor was it the elderly Indian that she had seen the previous night.

This Indian was handsome. His piercing steel-gray eyes mesmerized her as he stared back at her with what seemed as much surprise at seeing her, as she had at seeing him.