The Art of Inheriting Secrets(88)

I made my way over to the other wing, and on this side of the house the voices of the construction crew were muted. This hallway contained the worst damage on this floor—the bedroom that had been on fire and the bathroom with a collapsed ceiling. I headed to the room at the back and opened the door, noticing anew that it was very plain in comparison to some of the others.

But of course my mother had taken her things with her, or at least some of them. I opened the wardrobe doors, which were less complaining now that we’d had a few dry days in a row. The tatters of rotted clothing still hung there, and I found moth-eaten handkerchiefs when I opened a drawer. I opened all the drawers, methodically, looking for anything she might have left for me. The bureau had been impossible to open the last time I was here, but when I tried it this time, the drawers were sticky but actually did open. Nothing.

Damn. I looked round the room. The bed was neatly made, and I suddenly realized that it was not a tattered bit of fabric, as it should have been. It was old but not rotted. Crossing the room, I tugged the coverlet back. Placed precisely in the middle was a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge shimmering beneath a rainbow.

My heart squeezed, hard. With a hand that trembled, I picked it up and turned it over.

On the back, my mother had written in her spidery hand, “Brava, darling! Never forget that there is gold at the end of the rainbow.”

I scowled. Did she mean there was gold in the West Menlo Park house? Had she hidden something there too?

“Gah!” I cried aloud, and the cat jumped off the bed and ran away. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Carrying the postcard with me, I followed him out. “Kitty, kitty! Come on. Where’d you go?”

But he was nowhere to be seen. Feeling guilty, I turned back to the room and looked around carefully. Was there something I was missing? Could she have hidden something somewhere else in here?

I suddenly thought of Samir knocking the back of the wardrobe to check for a passage to Narnia. Maybe there was a false back or I’d missed something in there. I opened the wardrobe again and tried to shove the clothes aside. When I couldn’t really get to the back, I grabbed a big armload of clothes and deposited them on the bed. For one moment, I stared at the skirts, the beading, the rotted silk, and imagined my mother wearing them. One red evening gown peeked out of the pile, and I pulled it out. The neckline was plunging, cut close, and it would have been magnificent on her.

It also didn’t appear to be ruined. I set it aside for the moment. Maybe I needed to check the clothes from Violet’s room too. Maybe not all of them were rotten. I had no hope whatsoever of wearing my mother’s clothes, but everyone said my grandmother had been built more like me. That would be a strange thrill. Smoothing a palm over the red dress, I wondered about Pavi, who was built delicately. Maybe she’d be able to fit into some of these vintage pieces. This dress would look amazing on her.

I headed back to the wardrobe and shoved the rest of the clothing aside so that I could see the back and the floor. Both appeared to be utterly without feature, but I knocked on them anyway, feeling a bit foolish.

Until the back gave way, just slightly. Startled, I pushed it, but it stuck partway, and I couldn’t get a grip on the edge to pull it toward me. Stymied, I looked around for a tool. If anyone had used wire coat hangers, I could have taken one apart, but they would probably all have fainted over the idea.

This room was bare, but maybe something had been left behind in Violet’s room. Leaving my bag, I crossed the hallway, circled behind the landing, and made my way back to Violet’s room. As I opened the door, a gust of cold, rain-soaked air blew through the window, and the curtains fluttered up in their tatters.

I froze for a moment. If anyone would haunt the place, Violet would be a candidate. Maybe she had liked her things where they were—

Don’t be absurd. I heard the words in my mother’s no-nonsense voice. The window was broken. And, anyway, ghosts didn’t exist.

I entered the room and looked around, poking through the debris on the floor for anything I might be able to use to pry away the back of the wardrobe. Amid the scraps of paper and dust and unrecognizable junk, I found a thumbtack. Perfect.

On my way out, I kicked the rest of the debris, just looking for anything that might be better, and my toe sent something sailing across the room to ping off the edge of the door. I picked it up—a single, delicate silver circlet, carved lightly and set with tiny red stones I thought might be garnets.

Nandini. She, too, probably haunted the place. Or maybe she haunted the town itself, looking for her lost daughter. The idea gave me a shiver. What a lot of sad stories had played out here.

Maybe in this generation, I could change that. I slipped the bracelet over my hand as a promise to myself and went back to my mother’s room.

But when I pried open the back of the wardrobe, nothing was there. Deflated, I closed the door, and only then did I become aware of the sound of rain pattering against the windows. Time for me to get back, then. Maybe I could hitch a ride with one of the construction crew.

Pondering the puzzle of the key and how to find the answer my mother meant me to find, I walked down the passageway and suddenly saw the cat at the other end, poking his head around the door. “Meow!” he said and dashed away from the door, deeper into the room.

“You stinker,” I said and hurried down the hall. “Are you playing chase with me?”

I pushed open the door—and halted as a wave of foul air slammed into me, so noxious I reared back and covered my nose. The floor was rotted here and burned in places, and the cat perched on the end of the bed, which had also been burned.