Secret Whispers (Heavenstone 2)

“Yes, I heard him ask you on our way back from New York. I guess he really meant it. Well,” she said pausing at the bottom of the stairway, “there is no reason for you to rush into anything. Why not just enjoy the summer first and wait to see what you want to do? I’d hate to see you buried in some back room with department-store employees and not having the opportunity to meet people your own age. Maybe you should think about a group trip to Europe or reconsider your decision not to attend college. You know we could get you into any school you wanted to attend, especially here in Kentucky. I certainly wouldn’t be in any rush to do anything uninteresting.” She started up the stairway before I could respond.

“Uncle Perry’s work is interesting,” I called up to her.

She turned, shrugged, and shook her head. “Whatever, Semantha. All I’m saying is, don’t do what got you into unhappiness before, make impulsive decisions. Let everything ruminate . . . as with any life-changing decision. Nothing is too small when it comes to our happiness.” She laughed and looked out at our property. “Speaking of happiness, isn’t this paradise? Look at where we live and what we have. Aren’t we the luckiest people in the world?” Before I could respond, she added, “I’ve got to change, stop being a wide-eyed teenage girl, and start on some important phone calls.”

“Well, she made your precious uncle Perry sound like a stick-in-the-mud, offering you a job in a closet. Still think she’s so wonderful?” I heard Cassie whisper. I spun around but didn’t see her.

Then I started up the stairway to go to my room. I was a little more than halfway up when I heard Lucille scream. It was such a piercing screech my heart did flip-flops, and Mrs. Dobson, who was just coming out of the den where she and Doris had done some furniture polishing, paused as though she had been instantly frozen.

“What was that?” she asked me.

I shook my head.

A moment later, Lucille appeared at the top of the stairway.

“Who was in our bedroom and at my vanity table?” she demanded.

Neither Mrs. Dobson nor I spoke. Doris came out and looked up, too.

“Well?”

“Doris made the bed and cleaned the bathroom this morning as usual,” Mrs. Dobson said. “We had no other reason t

o go into your room. Laundry and dry cleaning don’t get done and put back until tomorrow, as you know, according to the schedule, and . . .”

“Don’t lecture me about the house! Someone was in my room!” Lucille shouted, her words falling like thunder over us.

Mrs. Dobson turned to Doris, who, despite her diminutive size, a little more than five foot three, was a tireless worker, unafraid of any chore, no matter what she had to lift or do. She wasn’t easily intimidated.

“I never touch anything on your vanity table, Mrs. Bennet,” Doris said firmly. “There’s no reason to shout at us.”

Lucille relaxed her shoulders and quickly seized control of herself to speak in a calmer but still coldly measured tone.

“Well, someone did. I get this special facial cream from France,” she said, holding up a piece of glass. “It comes from a very special small organic factory. Each four-ounce jar costs seven hundred and fifty dollars! I just found it on the floor, the jar broken, the cream spilled out and useless. I’d never put anything that could have pieces of glass in it on my face. This jar is lost, seven hundred and fifty dollars lost.”

“I assure you that I didn’t touch anything, Mrs. Bennet,” Doris said.

“Well, what did it do, jump off the table? I’m very disappointed, Mrs. Dobson. Very disappointed,” she said, and spun on her heels.

For a moment, no one spoke, and then Mrs. Dobson asked Doris if she might have accidentally brushed against the table or something on it.

“Absolutely not,” Doris said. “You know I don’t rush my work.”

“Well, perhaps she knocked it off the table herself just now. She’s always in something of a rush, but far be it from the likes of me to accuse her,” Mrs. Dobson said. She looked up at me and then followed Doris into the kitchen.

I turned to start up again and saw Cassie smiling at me. A moment later, she was gone, but when I turned into my room, she was there standing by the window, looking down at the entrance to our property.

“You did that, didn’t you?” I asked.

She didn’t move and didn’t answer for a long moment. Finally, she turned, a dark, angry smirk on her face, that same look of rage that used to send me off crying for Mother.

“You don’t have the courage to do anything, Semantha. You never did. I want you to know that although you didn’t see me there, I heard all that garbage Uncle Perry told you, by the way. I’m not surprised, and I’m not surprised that he thinks Daddy is better because of Lucille. She’s killing the Heaven-stone in him. Soon, he and Perry will be indistinguishable, two lapdogs cowering under Lucille’s shadow.”

I started to shake my head.

“That is, if I let it happen,” she added, and slipped away in the whispering breeze that came through an open window.

Maybe it was time I should tell Daddy about Cassie, I thought. Maybe he should know she was still there.