The Ghost in the Glass House Read Online Free PDF

already shoved the remains of the bouquet face-down into the starched white case that lined the wicker wastebasket. Gray-green stains spread into the crisp fabric like watercolor blooming on rag paper. Foul water poured from the lip of the vase into the sink in a steady stream.
    Then, as the stream subsided, something clinked inside the amber glass.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Clare asked.
    Clare’s mother turned the faucet on, ran clean water into the vase, and swirled it around. Then she turned the entire vase upside down.
    A small key fell out, bleeding rust into the white sink.
    â€œWhat do you suppose this is for?” Clare’s mother asked, and retrieved it.
    Clare knew instantly. The handle of the key was a filigree leaf, its veins described by mottled green metal. The oxidized copper matched the bones of the glass house, and the veins of the leaf followed the same weird patterns as the etching on its door. She didn’t answer.
    Downstairs at breakfast, Clare’s mother laid the key beside her plate as Tilda set a glass of orange juice down at her place.
    â€œWhere did you get that?” Tilda asked, her voice sharp with surprise.
    â€œWe found it,” Clare’s mother said. “At the bottom of a vase.”
    Her satisfaction at having rattled Tilda was cut short by Tilda’s confiscation of the key. One moment it lay on the table. The next it had disappeared into one of the capacious pockets of Tilda’s apron.
    Now it was Clare’s mother’s voice that rose in surprise. “Does it go to something, then?” she asked.
    â€œThe glass house,” Tilda told her.
    â€œThe glass house?” Clare’s mother repeated. “Is it locked?”
    Tilda gave a resolute nod.
    Clare’s mother held her hand out, palm up. “Well, I’m sure we’d love to have the key to it. It looks like a perfect little jewel.”
    â€œWe don’t use the glass house,” Tilda told her. “Not for years.”
    Clare’s mother lifted her hand higher. “I’m sure we would.”
    In answer, Tilda walked to a drawer in the far corner of the kitchen, opened it, and dropped the key in.
    Before lunch, Clare had stolen it.

Six
    S TEALING THE KEY WAS child’s play.
    Every morning after breakfast, Tilda made her rounds of the house with a bark basket of cleaning supplies: lemon oil, bleached rags, and a duster that appeared to be handmade from the green and black feathers of several fancy local chickens.
    After Clare’s mother retreated to her own room, where she usually spent the morning with some book, Clare took up a sentry position at the top of the stairs. She waited until Tilda crossed the dining room below and listened as her footsteps faded into the far reaches of the house. Then Clare slipped down to the kitchen. The key was just where Tilda had left it, nestled on a pile of striped dishtowels. An instant later, Clare had hidden it snugly in the sash of her dress.
    The whole operation had gone so fast and been so simple that she actually felt a little disappointed. But to get to the glass house without attracting attention was a different challenge.
    Clare surveyed the yard through the windows over the garden. The glade of maples around the glass house and the vines that grew over it made the interior invisible from the big house. Once she reached it, she’d be hidden. But if she approached it directly, down the slope of the back lawn, anybody could see her from any of the back windows. The only concealed approach was through the forest that bounded the backyard and made a sloppy triangle with the road that ran away from the property. The glass house sat in the crook of this triangle. If she cut through the woods, they would screen her until she reached it.
    Clare slipped out the kitchen door onto the pebble drive. She loitered along it, feigning interest in the cracked shells among the small gray stones, until it brought her within a