Down a Dark Hall Read Online Free PDF

dresser drawers. In the second suitcase she had packed her photographs. One was of Tracy and herself, taken three
     years before at Tracy’s thirteenth birthday party. They were giggling and posing self-consciously with their arms around each
     other’s shoulders with a mammoth chocolate cake in front of them.
    The other picture was of her parents on their honeymoon. Her mother had had it enlarged and framed for her soon after her
     father’s death.
    “I want you to remember him,” she had said. As though I could ever not remember, Kit thought now, studying the picture. Her father’s clear eyes laughed out at her and the stubborn chin, so much like her
     own, gave a look of strength to a face still curved and boyish. The girl clinging to his arm was harder to remember. Had her
     mother ever really been that young and carefree, so radiant with joy?
    Be happy, Mom, Kit told her silently. Please, be happy with Dan . For no matter what companionship and security her mother found in her second marriage, Kit knew in her heart that she would
     never again be the girl in this picture.
    She set the photograph of her parents on the bureau and tucked the picture of herself and Tracy into the rim of the mirror.
     Something seemed to be missing. I should have brought some posters, or shots of cute boys from school, she realized, thinking of the standard decorations for dorm rooms. She had a ton of pictures at home, taken at parties.
    Then again, Kit thought resignedly, any specimens I could have come up with would look pretty unimpressive next to Jules Duret. I bet Blackwood turns out to have
     a lot of dedicated piano students.
    Yesterday’s doldrums were over. Today the world was bright and shining. When she left the room she found the hallway flooded
     with the same rainbow light she had seen the afternoon before. The figure approaching from the depths of the mirror did not
     startle her now; instead she looked like a friend. Kit waved and smiled at her, pleased with the neat, bright-faced image
     who waved back.
    There was no one in the downstairs hall, but a murmur of voices came from behind the closed door of Madame’s office. Kit swung
     on past it and into the dining room, and found it empty. The sound of running water came to her from the room beyond. Crossing
     through the dining room, Kit pushed open the swinging door and entered the kitchen.
    The thin girl who had served dinner the night before was standing at the sink, washing a frying pan. She glanced up and frowned
     as Kit came in.
    “Breakfast is over, miss, but the lady says I’m to fix you something if you want it. They had their breakfasts at eight o’clock.
     It’s past ten now.”
    “I slept late,” Kit said apologetically, “and then I unpacked. My name’s Kit Gordy. You’re Natalie, aren’t you?”
    The girl nodded. “Natalie Culler. What do you want to eat?”
    “Don’t worry about fixing me breakfast,” Kit said. “I’ll just make myself some toast if that’s okay.”
    The girl made a gesture to stop her.
    “That’s my job. I do the cooking.” She removed two slices of bread from a wrapped loaf and placed them in the toaster. “After
     all, it’s what I’m getting paid for.”
    “You wait tables and do the cooking too?” Kit exclaimed. “That’s an awfully big job for one person. Will there be somebody
     to help you when all the students get here?”
    “There won’t be that many,” Natalie said. “I’m eighteen now and I’ve done cooking off and on since I was twelve. A few extra
     don’t make much difference.”
    “But, god! A whole school full of girls!” Kit regarded her with awe. “Won’t that mean—”
    The girl interrupted. “Your toast’s up, miss. Here’s the butter, and there’s jam over there on the counter.” She paused and
     then added in an apologetic manner, “The lady—Madame Duret—she doesn’t want the village staff talking with the students. She
     told us that when she hired us. I can ask