Lucinda sat down on one of the sofas, the better to examine the pictures on the coffee table, but the cushions were thick with cobwebs and dust. She jumped up, brushing herself off with little squeals of disgust, and decided she could look at things just as well standing up.
In some of the photos the woman was with other people-one looked like a picnic beside a lake, where she sat smiling on a blanket with half a dozen other people in old-fashioned clothes-but in most she was alone, smiling or laughing or sometimes just looking at the camera with calm attention. Some were black-and-white, some were in color, although none of the color photos looked quite realistic. The woman was very pretty, with a long-legged figure and the kind of long, dark brown curls Lucinda had only seen before on women in old paintings.
At last, Lucinda turned to examine the rest of the room. It felt like a place no one had visited for years-faintly creepy, maybe even haunted, she thought-but strangely she wasn’t at all frightened; in fact, she almost felt like she was dreaming. In one corner a tailor’s dummy stood like a headless scarecrow. Lucinda walked over to the shadows where it stood and put her hands on the dummy’s waist. It was slender, but the hips and breasts were full. Their mother’s friend Mrs. Peirho made clothes sometimes, and she had a tailor’s dummy too. She had told Lucinda that they could be adjusted to your own exact size. Had this one belonged to the woman in the pictures? Whoever she was, Lucinda thought, she must have been very small…
“Wasn’t she lovely?” said a voice. “Her name was Grace.”
Lucinda let out a little scream and whirled around. Patience Needle was standing right behind her, as if she had suddenly risen up from the floor. Lucinda stumbled and put out a hand to steady herself on the tabletop. One of the framed pictures teetered and then fell. Lucinda did her best to catch it, but it tumbled to the floor and the glass broke, making a noise almost as loud as her scream. When Lucinda picked it up, feeling both ashamed and angry, she cut her fingers on a jagged edge.
“I’m sorry I startled you, dear,” said Mrs. Needle, and held out a hand to Lucinda, who shrank from her. “And I’m sorry things have been so strange for you children since you’ve arrived. You’re lost, aren’t you? Oh, look, you’ve hurt your hand. Really, you must let me help you.”
Lucinda’s fingers were really starting to ache now. The blood was making a little pool in her palm, and looking at it suddenly made her feel dizzy.
“Poor you!” said Mrs. Needle. “That’s a nasty gash there. Don’t worry about the broken glass, I’ll clean it up later.” Mrs. Needle took a clean white handkerchief out of the pocket of her skirt and wrapped it around Lucinda’s injured fingers. “You must let me help you-I insist.”
Standing this close to Mrs. Needle, Lucinda could smell the faint but lovely scent of lilies, rich and sweet. “Who is that woman in all the pictures?”
“Her name was Grace Tinker-well, Grace Goldring after her marriage. She was Gideon’s wife. He lost her many years ago but he loved her very, very much. I don’t think you should mention her in front of him.” Mrs. Needle put a hand on Lucinda’s shoulder. “Look at this place! I’m ashamed to see how long it’s been since we’ve dusted in here-what must you think of us? Now come and let me take care of you.”
Relief that she was no longer lost suddenly flooded through her. Lucinda let herself be steered out of the old parlor and taken down some stairs, then gently coaxed this way and that, as if she was a boat drifting down a river. “Here,” said Mrs. Needle at last, ushering Lucinda into a room unlike anything she had yet seen in this strange, strange house.
It was very large, but at Ordinary Farm that wasn’t unusual. One wall was a giant filing cabinet with what seemed like hundreds of little drawers in rows reaching up to the ceiling, like the cells of a wooden beehive, each perhaps the width of a hand. A rolling ladder stood to one side and a long desk stretched along another wall. Part of the desk was covered with stacks of books, but it also held a microscope and a computer, although the latter seemed weirdly out of place in the otherwise old-fashioned room.
At the far end of the room stood several open doors, and Lucinda caught glimpses of two bedrooms and a bathroom as Mrs. Needle led her to one of the chairs. She made Lucinda sit down, then vanished into yet another room. “I’ll just make some tea!” she called.
Lucinda heard a kettle moan, then whistle, then shriek as she stared around the room, still feeling groggy. High windows rose along the wall across from the desk, but although the light of late afternoon was still in the sky there didn’t seem to be much to see outside but another section of the house’s crazy-colored outside walls. Below these windows stood dozens of potted plants that filled the room with the smell of live greenery and damp soil and something else less pleasant-something that was like meat, or blood.
Mrs. Needle came back bearing a steaming mug in one hand and a small bottle in the other. She set down the mug, then unwound the handkerchief from Lucinda’s fingers.
Something cold splashed on Lucinda’s cuts, something that stung like Mrs. Needle had dabbed them with acid. Lucinda gasped, but the pain dissolved swiftly, leaving her trembling. A moment later a delicious coolness had settled over her hand and the throbbing had melted away.
“Oh! What was that?”
“Now drink this,” commanded Mrs. Needle, handing her the cup of tea.
Lucinda stared at the creamy brown liquid inside the china mug. The smell of the tea-a fragrant, black-leaf smell-washed over her. She lifted it to her lips. She had not known tea could be anything as intense as this, as dizzying and delightful.
“There,” said Mrs. Needle, taking the mug away from her, “you’ll feel much better now.”
The room wavered like a mirage. Lucinda’s heart was pounding, she suddenly realized. There was a vase overfilled with white lilies nearby, and their scent was carried to Lucinda by a breeze from the window. She was drowning in it. Her throat felt squeezed, and she saw her own hand like a claw pulling on the neckband of her T-shirt. Mrs. Needle was very pretty, but she seemed to be a long distance away, like an empress on a high throne. An empress of lilies.
“Hush, dear, hush,” said Mrs. Needle, patting Lucinda’s hand.
Lucinda blinked. She hadn’t been saying anything, had she?
“Are you feeling better, Lucinda? How are your cuts?”
“Much better, thank you.”
“Good.” Mrs. Needle held out her hand, revealing the bloodstained handkerchief she had taken off Lucinda’s wounded fingers. “Do you see this?” she said. “People in this modern age of machines and invisible electricity talk so much about their new ideas, but really nothing is new.”
Lucinda stared. How beautiful Mrs. Needle’s mouth was as it formed the words she spoke-and how beautiful the words, pronounced in that perfect English accent.
“Take blood, for instance,” Mrs. Needle continued. “Long before there was any talk of… genes or the DNA, people knew that blood and hair and spittle contained the magical essences of things.” She nodded her head slowly, then looked up at Lucinda and smiled. “Would you like to see a little trick?”
Lucinda could only nod. She had suddenly noticed that at some point Mrs. Needle had let down her black hair. It was much longer than Lucinda had guessed-halfway down her back or more. Letting your hair down. She understood the expression now. It meant being friends, feeling comfortable. Right now, she felt very comfortable.