To the Manor Dead Read Online Free PDF

would make her my sister. The mind boggles. Speaking of minds, if I stay here a day longer than I have to, I’ll lose mine.” She blew out air, and gave me an abashed smile. “I’m sorry to unload on you.”
    “Hey, we all need to vent sometimes.”
    “Thanks. You’re the first rational person I’ve met in this house. I’ve just had it up to here, and I’m too embarrassed to discuss this with any of my colleagues at Bard. So, how do you know Aunt Daf?”
    “I have a small shop, antiques and whatnot, over in Sawyerville. Your aunt came in. She wants me to help her sell some of her things.”
    Something flashed across Claire’s face—surprise, annoyance, rage? But she quickly recovered.
    “Well, she certainly has a lot of things to sell. My father’s Livingston bounty is pretty much long gone,” she said with a bitter edge.
    There was the sound of footfalls bounding down a back staircase that opened into the kitchen.
    “Ah, here comes paterfamilias now,” Claire said.
    Godfrey blew into the kitchen—tall, lean, bursting with energy. The guy was a pretty amazing specimen—a full head of thick black hair pulled into a ponytail, glowing skin, clear blue eyes, a taut, toned body. He was wearing khaki shorts, a loose oxford shirt, and looked about twenty years younger than the sixty-something he had to be.
    “ Goooood morning!” he said cheerily.
    “Hi, Dad,” Claire managed. “This is Janet.”
    He fixed those limpid blue eyes on me. “ God frey Livingston, what a pleasure,” he said, smiling. He was missing a tooth on the upper left.
    Then Godfrey beelined over to the health-food counter and started to spoon odd-colored powders and potions into that infamous blender. This was a serious ritual and he went about it with religious concentration.
    “Janet is a friend of Aunt Daf’s,” Claire said.
    Godfrey’s lithe body tensed momentarily, and then he turned to me and asked, “How’s my sister doing?”
    “I’m not sure. I can’t find her.”
    “She often goes for long walks, especially in this weather. She’s always loved rainy days, since we were children.” He sliced a banana into the blender. “I love Daphne. What’s happened to her fills me with a sadness that is cosmic, almost too much to bear.” He went to the fridge and got out organic eggs and soymilk. He cracked an egg into the blender. “I’ve tried to reach out to her, to meditate with her, stretch with her, sit with her, be with her. But she won’t open up to me. She won’t let me in.”
    Claire handed me a mug of coffee—it came with a little roll of her eyes.
    “Her rejection has been very painful. She won’t acknowledge my essential self. She won’t even look at my Map of the Unknown World.”
    Claire grimaced.
    “Your map of what?” I asked.
    “The Unknown World.”
    Godfrey turned on the blender, and as it whirled he did a yoga-pretzel thing—one leg up in back, arm back to grab it, opposite arm out. All he needed was a little salt. He closed his eyes, got all ethereal—probably communicating with the unknown world.
    “Dad’s been working on his map since I was seven,” Claire explained. “He started it, coincidently, the summer my mother left him and moved to the Australian outback.”
    Godfrey released the pretzel and turned off the blender. “Claire thinks her father is a kook,” he said, pouring his greenish concoction into a large glass. “In fact, my Map of the Unknown World is going to make me famous and rich and restore the Livingston name to the glory it once knew. Not that I care about fame or any other material manifestations.” He took a big sip and when he put down the glass he was sporting a fat green moustache. Cute look. “Now, I must get to work. When you find my sister, please tell her that my door is always open … my soul is always open.”
    Godfrey bounded back up from whence he had come.
    “I never should have come back here,” Claire said, her jaw tense. “My mother knew what