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.But while they still needed to eke whatever living they could out of the boardinghouse, she had begun to doubt that it was worth the danger of providing a room to the salesman.As soon as she finished her task, she was going to march into her mother’s room, demand that Jonathan Moseley be thrown out on his ear, and then…The sudden slamming of the boardinghouse’s rear door startled her.She turned quickly, expecting to see Jonathan coming toward her, a ridiculous smile plastered across his thin face, eager to resume their earlier discussion, but instead it was Charlotte.She was in a hurry, running down the short steps before jumping off the last one into the yard and beginning to dash toward the alley.Her dark skirt billowed out behind her skinny legs and her thick blonde braids bounced with every step.Rachel could see that she was awkwardly carrying something in the makeshift pouch she had made out of the front of her blouse.As always, Jasper ran playfully along beside his constant companion.“Charlotte!” Rachel shouted.“Charlotte, wait!”Charlotte skidded to a stop, every bit as startled as Rachel had been at the slamming of the door.For a long moment, it looked as if she was torn between resuming her mad run and actually listening to her aunt.She stood teetering, an unsure look on her face.“Come here for a moment,” Rachel said.Still uncertain, Charlotte looked back over her shoulder to the alleyway beyond.Jasper stood with his two back legs in a mud puddle and gave an insistent bark; it was as if he was trying to cajole her into joining him, into a return to whatever fun they had planned.“We were just gonna go and play,” the girl complained.“We weren’t doin’ nothin’ wrong…”“Don’t make me come over there,” Rachel warned.Reluctantly, Charlotte did as she was told and trudged over to where her aunt stood; Jasper gave a short whine before joining the girl.As Charlotte walked, she kept her face toward the ground, her small shoulders slumped, but the contents of her blouse remained out of sight.“What are you hiding in your blouse?”Charlotte shrugged.“Nothin’.”“Then why do you have your hands bunched up like that?”There was no answer.Exasperated, Rachel reached down and tugged one of Charlotte’s hands away, revealing a strange treasure: the leftover biscuits from that morning’s breakfast, one of which fell to the ground.Hurriedly, the girl snatched the morsel from the ground and put it back with the others.“What are you doing with these?” Rachel asked.“I was… I was just a bit hungry,” Charlotte mumbled, her eyes never rising.“Didn’t you get enough to eat this morning?”“It… it isn’t that…”“Why can’t you eat them here?”“We just want to go play,” Charlotte said, finally looking up into her aunt’s face as her eyes began to grow wet with tears.“Jasper and me were gonna go explorin’ and I wanted to make sure we had somethin’ to eat.That’s all it is, honest!”Rachel stood with her hands on her hips and weighed the meaning of Charlotte’s words carefully.While much of what the young girl said made sense, and it was possible she was telling the truth, Rachel couldn’t help but hear her mother’s words from that morning, a worry that Charlotte was behaving strangely.Though prone to senseless fretting, her mother may have been right, but then there was only one way to learn the truth…“All right, Charlotte,” she said.“Then you can go.”The last word was barely out of Rachel’s mouth before Charlotte was off like a shot, Jasper at her heels.But instead of returning to her chores, Rachel waited until Charlotte had just passed beyond the end of the alley.With more than half of her wash still waiting to be hung, she hastened off to follow.Chapter TwelveHURRYING AFTER CHARLOTTE, Rachel did her best to keep the child in sight.Cautious lest she get too close to the running girl and accidentally be seen, she waited behind the depot, darting her head around the corner.The October day had grown colder and she wrapped her shawl closer around her shoulders before once again stepping out and continuing her pursuit.Charlotte ran swiftly while holding tightly to her bundle of biscuits.Rachel found herself breathing heavily as she struggled to keep up.If worse came to worst, she thought, she would be able to follow the sound of Jasper’s barking.After rounding the corner of the depot, Charlotte plunged down a well-worn path at the edge of the woods; Rachel recognized it as a trail that hunters traveled in search of wild game.Tall oak, poplar, and pine trees crowded out the sky, their branches swaying in the gentle breeze.Thimbleberry, sweet fern, and honeysuckle bushes were bunched together on the forest floor, their leaf cover already browned in the face of the coming winter.Rachel moved carefully, more than a bit worried that she would stumble upon a snake among the twists and turns of the path.Where could the child be going?All around, birds chirped and squawked, calling out from high in the forest canopy.Squirrels ran furiously about, frantically burying nuts and assorted other tidbits for the winter and spring.Rounding a corner in the path, she startled a pair of rabbits who darted from her into the safety of the underbrush, a rustle of fallen leaves the only sound to mark their passing.So far, she’d been lucky enough to encounter only the most harmless of creatures, but what if she met a rabid skunk or wild dog?Circling around a solitary boulder wedged into a low gulley, Rachel followed the path as it neared the lake.The surface of Lake Carlson was as undisturbed as glass, save for the gentlest of ripples caused by the autumn breeze.It reflected the orange, red, and purple leaves from the trees on the opposite side.Straining her neck, Rachel caught sight of Charlotte farther ahead, with Jasper frolicking around her.It had been a long time since Rachel last ventured into these woods.When she and Alice were young girls, surely not much older than Charlotte was now, they had spent hours running about between the trees, playing hide-and-seek with other children.In those days, she remembered being immune to the unseen dangers lurking in every shadow, the pain of a scrape against a tree’s rough bark, or the worry of encountering a pack of snarling wolves.Now she nervously looked about, her heart hammering, ready to bolt at the slightest hint of trouble.Maybe my mother isn’t so paranoid after all…Recklessly hurrying so that she wouldn’t fall any farther behind, Rachel caught her foot on an uncovered tree root and came crashing down painfully onto the rocky path.Somehow she managed to use her hands to keep from going facedown, but her body landed hard.Wincing as a burning ache flared up the length of her leg, she rubbed at her knee, aware the skin was scraped and bleeding.“Damn it all,” she cursed through clenched teeth.Gingerly rising back to her feet, she felt woozy with pain.Steadying herself against a maple sapling, she tried to focus on the path, to find some sign of Charlotte, but she couldn’t see anything of the girl through the thick foliage of tree and bush branches.She heard the sound of Jasper’s barking, but it was more distant than she would have expected, as if she’d fallen to the ground for minutes instead of seconds.“Oh, Charlotte, you little dickens,” she muttered to herself.Moving as gamely as her tender knee would allow, Rachel plowed through the underbrush of the trail, parting the remaining leaves of an elderberry bush.Sweat glistened on her brow and plastered her blouse to her skin.She hurried, concerned she might have fallen too far behind to know where Charlotte was headed.Rachel’s bruised knee would only permit her to go so far before she had to stop to rest [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]