Nine Steps to Sara Read online

  Immediately Sara felt heavy handed for upsetting their plans without notice. “I’m sorry, I know you’ve already done so much to get ready for our arrival and here I am changing things for you last minute. How about if I take care of dinner for tonight?”

  The offer sent a greenish cast to Mrs. Poole’s complexion, as if Sara had suggested they eat naked on the front steps of the mansion. “There’s no need for that, my Lady. I can manage well enough until we engage a cook.”

  “It’s only the three of us, we don’t need anything fancy.” Sara had already gone over that in exhaustive detail with her as to their likes and dislikes. Fancy meals were nice every now and then, but she couldn’t stand the idea of wasting so much food on a regular basis with the kinds of meals Mrs. Poole had in mind.

  “Would a shepherd’s pie suffice?”

  “That sounds fabulous,” Sara smiled, biting back the offer to help in the kitchen again, knowing it’d probably give the woman fits. “I’m sorry I’m being such a pain, I’m trying…”

  “Don’t give it another moment’s thought,” Mrs. Poole interrupted with a warm smile, losing the pinched look by her eyes. “None of us expect you to step into the role you weren’t raised to overnight. It must all seem very foreign to you, my Lady, but please believe me when I say we all have your best interests at heart.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Poole,” Sara smiled back. “I’ll try not to trample over any important traditions, but some things, like being able to have Jack with me at dinner and some of the modernization, they’ll make things better, I promise.” It had to be in the servants’ best interest to only have to serve one dinner instead of separate meals for Jack and to add a dishwasher to the kitchen.

  “If you say so, my Lady,” Mrs. Poole sighed, and Sara hoped she didn’t have to eat those words.

  *

  Sara spent the rest of the afternoon familiarizing herself with the common rooms and reorganizing the huge desk in the study for her own use. The adaptors she’d brought let her charge her phone and laptop just fine, but without internet and spotty cell service, they didn’t do her a whole lot of good. Still, she was able to upload some pictures she’d taken from the trip and she wanted to take a lot more of the house to help her decide where she wanted to focus the renovations to start with.

  Tea was served with little cucumber sandwiches and buttery cookies that were a hit with everyone, even Joanie, and Sara discovered that Jack would eat cucumbers if they were cut into little shapes. He even ate a heaping portion of “snake and pygmy pie” as Thomas called the dish served for dinner. All in all, Sara counted the day a success, and after taking her own relaxing bath, she headed up to tuck Jack into bed.

  Jack’s high laughter could be heard in the hallway as soon as she turned the corner, the door in plain sight. “That’s not what it’s for, it’s for playing games! Here I’ll show you.”

  Expecting to see Katie or even Will up there for a visit, Sara was surprised to find Jack alone, lying on his bed with his Nintendo DS in his hands. “Hey, kiddo. Who were you talking to?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Just the lady.”

  “Which lady?”

  “I dunno; she came to say goodnight. Everyone’s so polite here, and they talk so funny. Snake and pygmy pie…” he giggled, a sound that always made Sara’s heart feel lighter. They’d been through a tough year, she wasn’t sure she could have made it through to the other side without him. Sara dismissed his visitor; she must have left through the playroom door just before she entered.

  “But you do like it here, don’t you?”

  “Oh yeah, I like it way more than back home. No one was mean to me the whole day.”

  A pang went through Sara that something like that had such a big impact on him. She knew he’d had a tough time at school with bullies and his father hadn’t been much better, telling him to “suck it up and be a man”.

  “I hope not, you’re the big cheese around here you know,” she smiled, pushing his messy bangs away from his forehead. He needed a haircut soon. “If anyone here so much as looks at you cross-eyed, you tell me about it, okay?”

  “Okay,” he promised with a yawn.

  “Good, because I sorta made some big decisions today. One of them is that in order for us to keep the inheritance, we need to live here from now on.”

  “You mean we never have to go back again?”

  “We can go visit, but we would live here full time. Is that okay?”

  “Okay? That’s awesome!” he practically thrummed with excitement. “I get my own floor up here, and Will said he’d teach me how to fish, and the chocolatier said I could maybe learn how to make my own chocolates when I come back, and the lady said I was special; nobody ever called me special before unless they were joking that I belong in special ed.”

  Sara blinked at the rush of words, still trying to unravel how one idea fit into the next when the last bit tugged at her heart. “Aw, sweetie, you’re special to me.” Had she really never said that to him before?”

  “You have to say that, you’re my mom,” a roll of the eyes was given.

  “No I don’t, I think I’m legally obligated to say you’re my dependent, that’s about it; adjectives are completely up to me,” she teased. “So if I’ve never said it before, I’ve always thought you are very special, in a good way,” she added quickly.

  Jack smiled before another yawn stretched his face. “What about Dad? Isn’t he going to be mad about us living here?”

  “That’s not up to him, remember? I have full custody. He can visit anytime he likes. Besides, he’ll already be mad about something else. I forgot to tell you, we also had to change our name to Darling.”

  “Even me?” Jack’s face fell.

  “Yep, even you. You can’t be the Baronet of Darling Park if you’re not a Darling.”

  “But that’s a girl’s name,” his face scrunched with distaste, bringing another laugh to Sara’s lips.

  “I think the string of ancestors hanging in the hallway would disagree with you there, kiddo. It’s not a girly name; it’s an important name around here. Someday you’ll be an important man to the community too, that’s why we have to stay here and get to know them.”

  “I guess so.”

  “But if you want to butch it up a bit, we can always talk about changing your first name to something more masculine like Biff or Rocko,” she teased, glad to see the smile return to his face.

  “I’ll stick with Jack, thanks.”

  “Good, I like Jack too. Now give me a hug before I go into withdrawals.” It was a common theme between them. If she didn’t get her daily hugs, she really did feel like a part of her was missing. “Sleep in fifteen minutes, alright? We’re getting up early to go exploring tomorrow, right?”

  “Aw mom, can’t I stay up later? I’m almost to level twelve. What do we have to get up early for anyway?”

  “Oh alright, a half an hour. Just because you’re done with school for the summer doesn’t mean you get to sleep ‘til noon though. You have to get up at a decent hour,” she relented. From the droop of his eyelids, she knew he wouldn’t last much longer anyway. “G’nite Jack, I love you.”

  “Love you too, Mom,” Jack replied, already focusing on the handheld video game again.

  “What a weird day…” Sara sighed, shuffling down the hallway to her own room. Jack seemed to be happy and that was enough for her. Joanie might not stay for too much longer unless they got cable TV and the internet STAT, but that might not be such a horrible thing. It was too bad there weren’t more people in town her own age. That led her to thinking about a certain not-chauffeur… she might have to ask him about that. What had brought him back to Darling Park? And why had he given up his dreams of being an architect?

  She was still thinking about his easy smile and how great he was with Jack when feminine footsteps outside the door reminded her that she wanted to ask Katie a question about him. Not grill the poor girl exactly, but to get a littl
e more details on the man.

  “Hey, Katie, I…” Sara stopped mid sentence when the hallway outside her door was completely empty. “Weird,” she murmured, leaning out to look all the way down the hall, but there wasn’t a sign of anybody. Shutting the door, she crept into bed, getting the covers arranged just right before she heard the footsteps again. Moving fast so as not to lose her, Sara flung the door open, only to find the hallway still completely bare. “I am seriously losing it…” she murmured, shutting the door again.

  Sara paused outside the door for long seconds before climbing back into bed again, shaking her head over the imagined footsteps. It could wait until morning anyway; it wasn’t like she was in a particular rush.

  Lying in the dark, her mind started to drift when the squeak of the door’s hinges made her eyes snap open. Instead of the comforting hall light, the room was pitch black, the window coverings doing their duty after she’d made sure the windows were locked up tight to avoid a repeat of the freeze out that morning. The creak of floorboards told her someone was in the room, but she couldn’t so much as glimpse a hint of movement in the inky blackness.

  “Katie?” she whispered, thinking the maid might be sneaking in to leave or retrieve something, and the noise stopped. Long seconds passed, Sara’s heart pounding loudly in her ears as she waited for the intruder to identify itself, but the next sound that came was another footfall at the side of the bed. Quick like a fox, Sara reached over and snapped on the bedside lamp, squinting at the sudden burst of light, but there wasn’t anyone standing there. “Seriously losing my mind…” her head fell back against the pillow in disgust.

  That’s when she noticed the bedroom door stood a few inches open.

  “I know I shut that door,” Sara muttered, but now she wasn’t sure what to believe. There was no one in the room as far as she could see. Unless they were hiding under the bed…

  “Hello?” she tried, her voice sounding small in the stillness of the room. Deciding she was being an idiot, she jumped out of bed and ducked her head under it, prepared to spring away at the first sign of a murderous asylum escapee. “You’re the one who belongs in an asylum,” she sighed, not finding so much as a dust bunny under there. Grabbing a fireplace poker, she methodically checked the bathroom, and the dressing room, but she was completely alone. Deciding to chalk it up to an overzealous imagination, she shut the bedroom door again, turning the key in the lock; Katie could knock the next morning.

  “Seriously losing my mind…”

  Chapter Six

  Sounds of children playing carried on the breeze with the fluttering petals of spring blossoms, carpeting the ground with snowy lace. Elegant ladies in chiffon and wide brimmed hats sipped delicately from china cups like brilliant blooms against the verdant green of the formal English garden.

  The garden she’d seen from her window the first night, in full bloom.

  Looking down, Sara saw she was clothed like the other women in a dress of creamy lace over pale pink silk, a wide brimmed straw hat clutched in her gloved hands.

  “I have my floppy hat,” Sara murmured to herself with a faint smile.

  All she had to do was take her place at the party and she’d be welcomed into society; her past would become the dream and the dream the reality. Sara barely took a single step forward with her elegant open toed sandal when she was intercepted by a pale woman, pulling her behind a tall hedge. Her clothes were styled in 1920’s fashion, creamy beige trimmed in gold with a matching hat over the glossy waves of dark hair pinned beneath it. Dark eyes wide with fright, her voice was low and melodious though tinged with panic. “You must leave at once!”

  Sara stared back at her, at a loss for words. The woman seemed familiar somehow, but she didn’t remember ever meeting her. “But… this is my house, that’s my garden.”

  “Leave while you can. If they notice you it’ll be too late.” Turning Sara by the shoulders, the woman gave her a little push behind the corner of tall hedge, but when Sara turned and retraced her steps, there was no sign of the garden party or the woman. There was no sign of the garden at all, only wall after wall of tall hedges, forming a maze. Wandering the length of the long, leafy corridor, Sara could hear Jack laughing and playing in the distance, and she focused on trying to find her way through the maze by the sound of his voice. The warning forgotten, she was having a good time trying to unravel the maze, until his voice turned from laughter to a howl of pain.

  “Jack?” Sara called out, ears straining as she picked up the pace. “Jack, where are you?” Breaking into a run as he continued to make the most heart wrenching sounds of agony, Sara crashed into a hard stone wall as she turned the last corner, the rough surface scratching her hands.

  “Mom?” Jack cried piteously, sounding closer, but frighteningly weak, and Sara shoved at the stone with all her might.

  “I’m coming, Jack!” she shouted, encouraged when she felt the stone give way a fraction of an inch. Repositioning her hands, she cried out in dismay to find them smeared with blood. There were no cuts on her hands, but when she looked up, she saw the stone was covered in a sheen of blood that welled up through a series of cracks that formed a pattern too indistinct to make out.

  “It’s too late.”

  Sara heard the woman’s voice on the breeze, and Jack’s cries had gone still, the silence that followed eerie and lifeless. “No, no it’s not too late,” Sara cried, pounding on the stone, desperate to get to the other side so that her knuckles grew scraped and bruised. “Jack!”

  Sara awoke with a start, clutching the fireplace poker tightly in her hands. Bright sunlight streamed through the windows that she knew she’d shut the curtains to and the bedroom door stood open several inches. With slow care, she let go of the poker, her fingers sore and stiff from the action and upon inspection, her knuckles were red and sore. What had she done to them while in the throes of that nightmare? It was disquieting of course, but more disturbing was the sight of her bedroom all open, leaving her feeling vulnerable and confused.

  The explanation made itself known a moment later when Katie came out of the bathroom, a bundle of laundry in her hands. “Good morning, my Lady,” she smiled brightly. “I hope I didn’t wake you, I thought to get your laundry.”

  “How did you get in here?” Sara demanded, in no mood for pleasantries. “I locked the door.”

  “I-I used the key, my Lady,” Katie stammered. “Was that wrong? I didn’t want to disturb you while I tended to the fire and saw to my morning chores.”

  Sara pushed the hair away from her forehead, none too pleased to note her fingers trembled slightly. “Actually, I think I have a new rule. How about you knock first? If the door’s open, then come on in if you don’t hear anything, but if it’s locked, then come back later.” She said it a little harsher than she’d intended, and Katie blanched.

  “Yes, my Lady, I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” she mumbled, keeping her gaze on the ground.

  “No, it’s fine…” Sara felt immediate remorse for hurting the girl’s feelings. Damn, she’d have to work doubly hard to get her to lose the ‘my Lady’s’ now… “How many people have a key to my room?” she tried again in a softer tone.

  “Just the one you see there and I had to borrow the house key from Mrs. Poole to get in this morning.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, as far as I know.” The girl’s expression clouded as she noticed the fireplace poker in the bed. “Is everything alright, my Lady?”

  Sara looked down in dismay at the sooty mess the poker had made on the bed. Now she’d gone and made more work for Katie on top of everything. “I’m sorry, I heard some…” What? What could she possibly say to explain why she’d gone to bed with a poker and woke up on the wrong side of the bed? “Nevermind. Look, I’m sorry, Katie, I had a bad night. I didn’t mean to take it out on you,” she sighed, falling back against the pillows again.

  “It’s alright, you haven’t got near the bite in your bark as some, my Lady,”
Katie offered a faint smile. “Is there anything you’ll be needing from me this morning, or should I get on with my chores?”

  “No, I’m good, you go ahead,” Sara waved her off, pleased to hear the click of the door shutting seconds later. “Seriously losing my mind,” she breathed, looking at the scraped skin on her knuckles.

  *

  “I had the freakiest dream last night,” Joanie’s eyes were bright across the breakfast table and Sara leaned forward, wondering if it was as weird as hers had been.

  “Oh? Let’s hear it; it couldn’t have been stranger than mine.”

  “I was on Rodeo Drive…” Joanie went on to tell the story of her dream which centered around a limousine ride around the shopping district of Beverly Hills involving the cast of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Mike Tyson as the limo driver. Sara listened as she ate her breakfast, losing interest as the details got more and more farfetched.

  “That is pretty out there, Joan,” Sara admitted. “But I think I’ve got you beat.” Rushing through the set up, she shared the contents of her dream, eager to get it out before Jack came down for breakfast, not wanting to upset him. “So, what do you think? Pretty creepy, right?”

  “I guess,” Joanie shrugged, not all that impressed. “Big surprise you dreamt about Jack. You know you’re supposed to dream about things that don’t flood your day to day life. You should have been looking for Prince Charming at the center of that garden maze. Or even a certain chauffeur?” she raised a single brow at Sara who suddenly displayed a renewed interest in her plate. “This country life is nice and all, but it’ll be good to get back to the city. Did you talk to the lawyer guy about when you’re going to go home?”

  Sara looked up from her plate, “We are home. This is where we’re living now,” she explained. “It’s a stipulation for the inheritance.”

  “What, like forever?” Joanie blinked. “But I was all set to help you pick out your new house in Beverly Hills,” she pouted.