“Your aunts want
to see you in the dining room,” was all Miss Edna said when she met Bella at
the door. Miss Edna’s voice was
strangely urgent, though there was no panic in it, and her face was carefully
devoid of expressing any opinions. Bella
gave one last glance at it as Miss Edna pushed her into the dining room, but
she could not figure it out at all.
***
“She belongs with me,” Gerard responded. His eyebrows puckered together as though he could not quite understand why his sisters were being difficult. “Her mother gave me guardianship.”
***
Something
rustled beneath her window. Bella held
her breath and listened. There it was
again! Something was moving in the
trellis that led up to her window. A
cat, perhaps?
No, it wasn’t a
cat. A hand reached through the open
window. Bella clutched her bedpost in
fear and tried to scream but no sound came out.
A man’s body appeared, silhouetted against the night sky, and crawled
across the windowsill.
Thump! He landed on the floor. He held very still for a moment. There was no other sound in the house. Bella’s heart was pounding. She opened her mouth to scream.
“Bella,” the intruder
whispered. “Bella?”
***
“Isn’t the night
air bad for you?” she asked Gerard, staring with all her might into the dark
and not seeing anything.
“Not at all,” Gerard
answered, and Bella could detect a hint of annoyance in his voice. She silently wondered if the aunts had told
him about the night air when he lived at home.
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