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k in this frigid prison. She had her GED—they all did—after years of stultifying home schooling by Catherine. Good God, her aunt was a woman of a billion facts and figures and nothing else. A hollow core. Consumed with rules and regulations, and there was simply no fire.

With her last thought, Ravinia turned toward the blaze that was currently crackling and spitting inside the cavernous mouth of the stone fireplace. The only heat this drafty lodge put out. Sure, the generator allowed for lights on the first floor, but that was it. Even now, standing near the hot flames, Ravinia felt cold to the bone, her hair still damp. She rubbed her arms as Isadora, as always, was going on and on, saying, “If she finds out you were in there alone, she’s not going to like it. And I don’t believe the door was unlocked. You had to have found a way—”

“Where the hell is she?” Ravinia cut her off. “Did she leave?”

“Lillibeth said she met with Earl earlier,” Ophelia put in hurriedly to avoid a further fight.

“Uncle Earl,” Ravinia said, baiting her sister, and was rewarded with Isadora’s tightened lips. No, he and Catherine weren’t lovers. Catherine was too shut down, and Earl was about as talkative as a corpse. Ravinia couldn’t picture them in bed together. Ugh. However, she had managed to learn that Earl actually had some family. He was a Foothiller, a member of one of the Native American tribes who had mixed with the locals and formed a community, which was up the road from Siren Song, in the foothills of the Coast Range. One of Earl’s relatives had gotten involved with someone from Ravinia’s own screwed-up family, and supposedly there were any number of “gifted” people among the Foothillers, as well.

As long as they weren’t as screwed up as Justice, it was fine with Ravinia. She just wanted to leave the lot of them behind with their whole stinking woo-woo nonsense. Was there any truth to it? Sure. Some. Had any good come from it? Not that she could tell.

“Did she leave with him?” Ravinia asked.

“In this weather?” Isadora shook her head. “She’s around here somewhere.”

“The attic?” Ravinia had done a pretty thorough search of the lodge, apart from the attic and her mother’s old bedroom, which was too creepy to go into. It was like walking inside a diorama of a 1960s bedroom, and though very little scared her, Ravinia had felt the echoes of something sick and noxious the few times she’d gone into her mother’s room.

“I’ll go find her,” Ophelia said, gathering her skirts and heading up the stairs.

That left Ravinia with Isadora. Never really a great plan.

Isadora seemed to think the same, so she tilted back her head, with its blond bun so much like Catherine’s, then folded her hands over her stomach, tucking each up the opposite sleeve of her dress as she walked toward the kitchen. Again, like Catherine.

“Puke,” Ravinia said loudly when she was alone.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Ophelia returned with a cobweb fluttering off the side of her hair. “She’s not in the attic.”

“How is it you have the keys?” Ravinia asked.

Ophelia eyed her steadily. “Ravinia, if you want Aunt Catherine to trust you, you need to stop going over the wall and doing God knows what.”

“I call it living.”

“Yes, well . . .”

“Did you go inside our mother’s bedroom?”

Ophelia gave a slight shake to her head. “No.”

“Well, you better do it. Here comes Isadora, and she looks . . . worried.”

Isadora hurried from the kitchen area. A bright flush tinged her cheeks, and her lips were a little blue from the cold. “I went in the backyard. She’s not there.” She was shaking her head, her tight bun threatening to unravel.

Ravinia immediately turned toward the downstairs hall.

“Where are you going?” Isadora demanded.

“To check with Lillibeth.”

“She’s sleeping!”

“BFD,” Ravinia muttered and kept on going. She gave a sharp rap on the door, then pushed it open. Lillibeth’s room was not locked. She had her own bathroom, which had been retro equipped with lowered counters and a handicapped toilet and a shower that was flush with the floor so she could roll in and move herself to a fixed chair that was in reach of the handheld showerhead.

Trying to adjust her eyes to the dim light, Ravinia saw Lillibeth was in her bed. She turned over to face the doorway. “Ravinia?” Lillibeth whispered, sounding confused.

Ravinia hit the light switch and flooded the room with illumination. Lillibeth shot bolt upright, pulling herself to a sitting position with the two bars screwed into the wall on either side of the headboard of her twin bed. Her blond hair was down and tousled, and her beautiful heart-shaped face was turned toward Ravinia in horror.

“What’re you doing? I was asleep!”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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