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“Oh, Charles is in class. I haven’t seen him since seven when he left the house. He said something about meeting his new history tutor, so he’ll be late. I’m sure if he wasn’t struggling in his class he’d be here,” was the first thing Mary said as soon as she opened the door.
“It’s fine,” Anne grunted as she tugged a suitcase through the doorway. “I do have three more suitcases and a trash bag with my bedding in the car...”
Before she could finish, Henry Walter let out a cry and Mary disappeared into the living room where she had him set up.
“...and if you could help me get some of it, that would be great,” she finished, more for herself than for anybody else.
“I’m surprised you didn’t arrive last week,” Mary returned, carrying Baby Walter in her arms.
“I had a ton of stuff to do,” Anne answered, pulling her suitcase into the house and lining it up against the wall. Maybe she could get her things inside before it rained. “I had to pack up my clothes, sorting them by season as I packed. Then there was my shower supplies and makeup, my books, my art journals, my...”
“I get it, I get it,” Mary dismissed her sister with a wave of her free hand.
“I still have to go back and get my books!” she exclaimed, remembering the boxes she had stacked in her bedroom floor.
“Your room isn’t that big, you know.”
“It’s the attic. It runs the entire length of the house,” Anne laughed, loving the privacy the converted room afforded. “I have some nice thick rugs at the house that I’m bringing over to help buffer the sound of me walking across the floor, and Mr. Musgraves said he was bringing me a desk for in front of one of the windows.”
She’d hoped that there would be a bookcase or two included in the things he was bringing by. He frequently told her that he considered her to be one of the daughters he never had, despite having at least three girls and three boys that she was aware of. Two of them were still in middle school and one in high school.
The elder girls – Henrietta and Louisa – were, respectfully, a sophomore and freshman in college. Louisa would be starting her first year soon and both girls had insisted on giving dorm life a chance.
Anne suspected they wanted to try life without the Musgraves aware of their comings and goings at night.
After dragging her things up to her room while Mary rocked a sleeping Baby Walter, Anne left once again to grab the two boxes of books she had left behind.
Less than an hour later, she looked up at the house. Even as she snapped the trunk of her car closed, she felt as if she was missing something else besides these two boxes of books.
On the drive home, she mentally acknowledged that the Crofts would be moving in soon and she’d have no more claim to entering the house without ringing the doorbell. No more indoor pool to occasionally work off some of her stress. No more massive library to find new worlds to lose herself in.
Soon Kellynch Place would not be her home. Just one more week.
And then less than one month before school started at the end of August. If she didn’t get charged with killing Mary first.
But first things first, she recalled. After lugging her things up two flights of stairs, she started looking around the room, she wondered where she could hide the shoe box she had once carefully hidden in the top of her closet in a corner where her curious sisters would not try to look.
Releasing a deep breath, she removed the lid and lifted up the last picture she had of her and Derek together. “It seems as if you just won’t go away,” she whispered to the frozen image. Putting it back in the box, she closed the lid on her past.
Too bad actually putting the past in the past was a lot easier said than done.
Scanning the room, she knew that under the bed was the first place Mary was likely to look if she got bored and decided to snoop. Then she remembered Mr. Musgraves’ warning that not all of the floorboards had been nailed down yet, especially in the corner of the attic where few people ever went thanks to a draft. Anne planned on plugging it with one of those giant pillows that also served as a seat.
Careful to step in the middle of the boards, Anne noted that she should get some nails and hammer down the floorboards in order to maximize her usable space. However, for now, she would use these loose boards to her advantage. Lifting up one of them, she slipped the box into the insulation foam carefully, before dropping the board back into place.
Hopefully, she would remember where she had stashed that box later and not nail down that particular board.
