Outside, the brown front lawn stretched out for what seemed like forever toward a line of towering oak trees, a white plank fence, and the one-lane road that led into town in one direction and the Adirondack foothills in the other. A band of black starlings filled the swaying tree branches and a gray pickup truck lumbered along the way, its exhaust like swirling ice in the air. Even in the sunshine, everything looked lonely and cold.
After she got the fireplace going again, she went into the kitchen and turned on the teakettle. The first thing on her to-do list was to figure out how to turn the furnace up. Then she could start exploring. She opened the drawer beside the stove and stared at one of the great mysteries of her childhood—Mother’s keys. She could still picture the key ring hanging from Mother’s apron, brass and iron clinking as she strode up and down the stairs, through the rooms and halls like a cat with a bell on its collar. While growing up, Julia had often wondered why were there so many keys on the ring, and where Mother kept them at night. Could it be they were in this drawer all along? No, it was impossible. Mother never let them out of her sight. How many times had she seen Mother reading or knitting, one hand checking to make sure the keys were still tied to her apron? A hundred? A thousand?
Julia took a deep breath and touched the keys, half expecting to hear Mother’s chiding voice warning her to leave them alone. But there was no voice, no electric shock, no scolding slap of an invisible, cold ghost hand. She picked up the ring and was surprised to find it weighed more than expected. There were seventeen keys, each one unique—short and long, brass and iron, thick and thin, ornate and plain. And now, like everything else in Blackwood Manor, they belonged to her. She took the keys, grabbed her suitcase from the foyer, and went up to her old room.
The second floor featured a long center hallway, with two hallways leading off each side. Julia’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs, the first door on the left. As she suspected, it was locked. She tried five different keys before finding the right one, then finally turned the lock and opened the door, thinking briefly how odd it was that she didn’t know which key belonged to her old room. The bedroom was freezing and looked exactly the same as it did the night she left, except for the cobwebs hanging from the stuffed calico elephant on the shelf above her headboard, and the dust graying every surface, including the pictures of dogs and cats taped to her dresser mirror.
She entered and stood in the middle of the room, shivering and still holding her suitcase, a thousand memories flooding her mind. This was where she had spent countless lonely hours—banished for the smallest violation of Mother’s rules. Or doing homework, wishing she had a brother or sister, sobbing into her pillow after being picked on in school. After a long minute, she turned around and walked out. She didn’t have to stay in her old bedroom. She could stay in a different one. After all, there were six on this floor alone.
She closed the door, put the key in the lock, and started to turn it, then changed her mind. There was no longer any reason to keep her old bedroom locked. Not that there ever was, except for Mother’s insistence it be that way. She carried her suitcase toward the end of the hall, Mother’s keys jangling against her hip. The sound reminded her of lying in bed every night, the clinking of keys outside her bedroom as Mother checked the doors up and down the hall. For what, Julia had no idea.
She stopped in front of the room opposite her parents’ bedroom, what Mother called “the playroom,” the only other bedroom she was allowed in while growing up. As usual, the playroom was unlocked. Inside, gray light filtered in around the curtains, and a mint green rug embroidered with roses and leaves covered the plank floor like a thick layer of lime sherbet. A brass daybed with ruffled pillows and a white comforter sat against one wall, opposite a blue painted armoire between two tall windows. Unlike Julia’s bedroom, this one had been kept free of dust and cobwebs.
As a child, she had spent hours in the playroom, combing her dolls’ hair, feeding them bottles, rocking them to sleep, kissing their foreheads. Thinking about it now gave her heart a strange twist. Mother was the one who taught her how to cuddle babies and lay them gently into their beds. She was the one who told her to pat the dolls’ backs and sing them to sleep. Now, Julia couldn’t imagine it. She pushed the image of Mother from her mind and concentrated on the here and now. Trying to figure out the woman who had brought her into this world at an age when most mothers were watching their children get married or sending them off to college wouldn’t change anything. Mother was who she was, and now she was gone.
She set her suitcase next to the armoire, pushed open the drapes, and looked out a window. The playroom overlooked part of the side yard, where six gnarled apple trees ringed a small lawn. Whenever she was being too loud or trying Mother’s patience during summer vacation, she was sent there to play while the grown-ups drank iced tea and whiskey at a wicker table on the terrace. Over the tops of the apple trees, the butter-colored horse barn and white paddocks sat surrounded by brown fields. Three horses grazed in a round pen while two men looked on. One stood with his hands on his hips, the other had his foot on the bottom fence plank, his arms crossed and resting over the top. The man with his hands on his hips looked like Claude, but she had no idea who the other one was. Then she noticed the gray pickup truck she had seen on the road earlier sitting in the barn driveway. Maybe the other man was the veterinarian.
She opened her suitcase, found a thicker sweater, and put it on, wondering if Claude knew how to turn up the furnace. She had no idea if the house was heated with wood or coal, or where the thermostat was located. After all, she was only a teenager when she left, and she had never been interested in those things anyway. Not that anyone would have explained them to her if she’d asked. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered her father going into the basement to “adjust the valves,” but she wasn’t sure what that meant. If Claude didn’t know what to do, she’d have to figure it out herself, or hire someone. She brushed her hair in the mirror, pulled it into a ponytail, and went back downstairs. In the kitchen, the teakettle was screaming. Hot water boiled from its spout and sizzled on the flame beneath it. She turned off the burner and, without thinking, grabbed the teakettle handle.
“Shit!”
She dropped the teakettle on the stove and went over to the sink to run her red, tender palm under the faucet. How was she ever going to take care of this place if she couldn’t even make tea without messing it up? She stared at the running water, wondering if she should quit while she was ahead. Someone knocked on the mudroom door and she jumped.
“Shit,” she said again. She shut off the water, wiped her hands on her pants, and went into the mudroom. Maybe it was Claude and she could ask him about the furnace. She opened the door. It wasn’t Claude.
A man in rubber boots, a black toque, and a green barn jacket stood on the steps with his back to her, watching the horses in the round pen.