The Treasure of Maria Mamoun Read Online Free PDF Page A

we won’t live in the main house. There’s a guesthouse.”
    After a few more minutes, the taxi pulled off the main driveway onto a little side path and stopped in front of a small cottage.
    â€œWe’re here,” the cabbie said.
    In the taxi’s headlights, the little house looked like a gingerbread cottage from a fairy tale. A glittering white footpath led to the red door. Evergreen shrubs squatted like gumdrops on either side. White trim frosted the dark windows and dripped from under the overhanging eaves. The lemon-yellow window boxes were empty of all but dirt, but Maria could easily imagine them filled with colorful flowers. She wondered what would grow.
    The cabbie shone his headlights while Celeste hunted for the key under the licorice-colored mat. Maria stood beside her, waiting. The cool night air had that same salty tang she’d smelled on the ferry. She could breathe it forever.
    Finally Celeste shoved against the door with her shoulder, and they stumbled into a cold, dark room. She wrestled their duffel bags inside. Already the cab was pulling away. Celeste turned her cell phone on and shone a pale blue glow around the walls.
    â€œI can’t find the switch to open the light,” Celeste said.
    â€œ Turn on the light, Mama,” Maria said.
    â€œ Maalish . Whatever. Maybe I will find some candles.”
    Maria had never been anywhere so quiet. In the city, there had always been noise. Kids like the Barbies roaming around the building, shouting and laughing no matter what hour. The elevated subway trains ran all night, rumbling and screeching past their living room windows. And she was often woken by the loud thumping bass from the stereo of a passing car, or a honking horn, or a siren.
    Celeste lit the stump of candle she’d found in a drawer. The small flame revealed a main room with a kitchen area to the left and a living room of sorts to the right. In the middle of the main room squatted a weird black metal cube, like an old-fashioned bank safe, the kind Maria had seen in old cartoons. A pipe stretched out of the top, took a sharp turn, and exited out the wall over the fireplace.
    â€œIt’s a woodstove,” Celeste told her. “I don’t want to burn this place down our first night, so let us leave it be. But I would guess that’s our only heat, so we’re just going to be cold tonight.”
    It was surprisingly chilly. Maria hadn’t realized how far north they’d traveled. Back in the city it was already hot enough to sleep with the windows open.
    â€œYou want to snuggle in with me?” Celeste bustled about as she spoke, unfolding the sofa into a bed and spreading a fresh-smelling quilt on the creaky mattress. The pillowcases smelled fresh, too, as if someone had just laundered them.
    â€œThe housekeeper said there was a loft upstairs that could be your room,” Celeste told her, “but I think it’s too dark, late, and cold to deal with that now, no?”
    Maria would have loved to see the loft. But her mother sounded tired and Maria didn’t want to make things difficult for her, so she nodded.
    â€œI think this will be okay,” Celeste murmured, as if she wasn’t sure that it would be okay at all.

 
    6
    C APTAIN M URDERER
    The next morning, Maria woke to her mother clattering around the kitchen. The cottage felt deliciously warm.
    â€œDid you find the radiator?” Maria asked.
    â€œNo. No radiator. But there was a note explaining the woodstove. I must have been too tired last night to notice.” Celeste grinned proudly at Maria. “Who would’ve thought a city girl like me could make a fire?”
    Golden sunlight streamed through the windows, and the aroma of cinnamon and buttery sugar filled the air. Maria burrowed under the colorful quilt and squinched up her toes with glee. She felt supremely happy. She couldn’t remember the last time her mom had made a hot breakfast.
    â€œThe