Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“Do you promise?” Amy said.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Zoë said, making the gesture.

Amy looked at Faith.

“I promise,” Faith said. “If you go back in time, Zoë and I will go with you.”

“All right,” Amy said as she moved down into the bed. “I feel better now. The three of us will go back and save him. We’ll find out who hates him and we’ll stop them. I think I’ll turn that knife on the killer and jab him in the heart with it.”

Zoë stood up, turned out the bedside light, and she and Faith left the room.

As she closed the door, Faith said, “What in the world have you done? I don’t want to go to some two-bit psychic and have her tell me my fortune.”

“Me neither,” Zoë said as she walked into the living room. “My real fear is that she’ll tell me what happened in my life.”

Faith looked at her. “Did you really see a man kill himself?”

“I don’t know, but I dreamed it often enough. I figure that I saw it as much as Amy saw an eighteenth-century man lying on his bed dead.”

“Did you tell Jeanne about your dreams? Not the ones you made up, but the real ones?”

“Not a word,” Zoë said.

“I see,” Faith said.

“Don’t start sounding like Jeanne. And what do you mean by ‘I see’?”

Faith smiled. “I think you and I have some things in common. I never told her my dreams either.”

Zoë smiled back. “I’m beginning to see why Jeanne sent us up here together. I guess she knows that I have a few things I refuse to tell her and so do you.”

“More than a few,” Faith said, and her smile widened.

“Isn’t it odd that even though Amy is the one with the cute little life, she’s the one having the bad dreams?” Zoë said.

“Until tonight, I thought they were good dreams.”

“Me too,” Zoë said as she picked up her sketch pad off the couch.

“You don’t think there’s any truth to what Amy seems to believe, do you?” Faith asked.

“You mean about going back in time?” Zoë smiled. “Not in the least. None whatsoever.”

“That’s what I think too,” Faith said as she looked about the room. It was tidy, nothing left out. She turned out the light as she and Zoë went to their bedrooms.

The next morning, Amy was the only one who was chipper. She’d had a good night’s sleep after her bad dream, and she felt good. She’d even braided a few strands of her hair, intertwining it with a narrow ribbon her oldest son had painted for her. “I think we should go the first thing this morning,” she said as she flipped pancakes on the grill.

Zoë was huddled over her sketch pad and Faith was looking at her plate.

“Come on, you two,” Amy said as she put a tall stack of pancakes on the table. “This will be fun.”

“I don’t think so,” Faith said.

Amy sat down beside her. “What is it that you two are so afraid of? Being trapped in the eighteenth century? I told you that Primrose said we’d only be there for three weeks.”

Zoë looked at her. “I think I can speak for Faith when I say that, no, we’re not afraid of being trapped in the eighteenth century.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

Amy ignored her tone. “Then why are you two so glum?”