Walking the Labyrinth Read Online Free PDF

Look, Aunt Fentrice—”
    “Did you go to see him? Andrew Dodd? Why?”
    “Because of all these—all these questions.” Molly spoke quickly. “He said you were wild, that you wore scanty clothes, that you and Thorne played tricks on him.”
    Fentrice laughed. “He must have confused us with some other act.” She turned the article over, saw Molly’s attempt at a family genealogy. “Well, if you’re interested in the family you should have asked me. Let me see …” She picked up a pencil. “Our parents were named Verey and Edwina Allalie. And our grandparents, Verey’s parents, were—let me think. Neesa and Harry.” She wrote those names on the page.
    “Allalie?” Molly asked.
    “What, dear?” Fentrice frowned and crossed out Thorne’s name, then looked up at Molly.
    “Were their names Allalie too? Neesa and Harry?”
    “I think so. They were my father’s parents, so—oh, I remember now. We changed our name when we came to the United States.”
    “Changed your name? Why?”
    “Everyone did it then. We were immigrants, starting a new life.”
    “Where did the family come from?”
    “Somewhere in England.”
    “What was the old name? Do you remember?”
    “No. In fact I think I had another name in England, not Fentrice.” She thought for a while, shook her head. “Well, it’s gone now. I was two years old when we got here, I think. That’s right—it was 1910. Callan hadn’t even been born yet.”
    “Really? You were born in England? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
    “There was nothing to tell, really. I certainly don’t remember it.”
    “Why did the family come here?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. A new life, a fresh beginning. A lot of people did it.”
    “When did you start touring?”
    “Our parents did it—it was in our blood, you might say. Callan took to magic right away, from when he was a small child.” Fentrice frowned again. “I used to wonder if that was healthy for him. Towards the end it sometimes seemed that he couldn’t tell truth from lies.”
    “The clipping said the family had been touring for centuries.”
    “Did it really? Oh, dear.”
    “Can I see the scrapbook?”
    “Of course. Finish your breakfast and we’ll have a look for it.”
    But though Fentrice searched in all her closets and even ventured down to the basement, she couldn’t find the scrapbook anywhere. And then it was time for lunch, and after lunch Fentrice went out to work in her garden. The housekeeper had the afternoon off.
    Molly wandered through the house, looking at the familiar paintings and vases, the spinet piano. On the piano was a black-and-white photograph of her aunt as a much younger woman, her light brown hair parted in the middle and drawn back in a bun. She had lifted her head and was smiling, eager, the gap between her teeth clearly visible. At her feet was the trunk Molly remembered.
    The trunk. What better place to keep a scrapbook, mementos from the past? Molly went upstairs to her aunt’s bedroom and found the trunk where she had seen it last, at the foot of the bed. She knelt and unlatched the large metal lock.
    The trunk smelled of cedar, though it was not made of wood. Molly lifted out carefully folded clothes, necklaces and bracelets wrapped in tissue paper. Something hard and flat lay at the bottom. She pushed the clothing aside quickly and looked inside.
    It was a small block of cedar. She took out the clothes and the block and felt around but could find nothing else. She sat back, disappointed.
    The trunk seemed larger on the outside than on the inside. Could there be a false bottom, a hidden drawer? But what would her aunt have to hide? Damn John Stow anyway, him and his suspicions.
    Almost without thinking she felt along the inside of the trunk. Her fingers found a hole at one of the corners. She pulled. The bottom lifted out.
    She looked inside eagerly, excited. There was nothing there. She nearly shouted aloud in frustration.
    She picked up the false bottom and