Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
After pulling on a coat, I take one of the recipe books outside and make myself comfortable on a chair in a secluded corner of the veranda from where I have a view of the kitchen window on the side as well as the front of the house.
It doesn’t take long before I spot movement in the bushes. A scrawny boy appears from the shrubs, looking left and right before cutting barefoot across the yard. His clothes are tattered, and his small face is dirty. In one hand, he clutches what looks like a makeshift doll with twig arms and rope hair. In the other, he holds a walking stick. He plants the stick in the gravel and creeps to the corner of the house.
At the edge of the veranda, he stretches his neck to look through the lounge window. Then he hops up the steps, surprisingly lithe and quiet on his feet, crosses the veranda, and presses a small hand on the glass as he peers through the kitchen window. He turns his head far to the side, no doubt checking if someone is inside. He’s sticking his arm through the window, reaching for the cake, when I speak.
“Would you like a slice?”
He jolts, yanking his hand away and jumping back. He stares at me with wide brown eyes, fear etched on his delicate features.
Not wanting to scare and chase him off with an abrupt movement, I straighten slowly. “Do you like chocolate cake?”
His little chest heaves with breaths as he watches me quietly, frozen to the spot.
“You know what I think? I think it can do with frosting.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as I go closer.
“What do you think? Would you like to try a slice of cake with chocolate frosting?”
He brings the doll to his mouth and whispers something. The head is made from a wine cork stuck on a stick. Pieces of rope tied around the top of the cork form the hair. Round eyes and a crooked smile drawn with a black felt pen complete the face.
Lifting the doll to his ear, he listens. After a moment, he says with mistrust sparking in his eyes, “Beatrice says maybe.”
His high, musical voice catches me by surprise. I study him closer, taking in his dainty bone structure and his short, unevenly cropped auburn hair. Knock me over with a feather. The he-child is a she-child.
“I’m Sabella.” I point at the house. “I live here. What’s your name?”
“Sophie,” she says before whispering to the doll, “It’s all right. It can’t hurt telling her our names.”
“Where do you and Beatrice live, Sophie?”
“By the river.”
I glance toward the village. “Down there?”
“Not far from here.”
“With your parents?”
“My parents are gone. We lived with my grandfather, but he went back to the camp.”
“Is the camp far?”
“It’s too far to walk. Grandpa went by truck. A friend came to fetch him.”
Dear God. I hope this doesn’t mean what I think it does. “Did you stay behind with Beatrice?”
“I don’t want to go back to the camp.” She clutches the doll in her arms, cradling it against her chest. “I came here to play in the house. Beatrice and I had tea in the garden before they took our teacups away. Beatrice liked it here.” Addressing the doll, she says, “Didn’t you?”
I remember the broken crockery in the mud, the cracked saucers and teacups without ears. Sweet Jesus.
“Who takes care of you if your grandfather moved back to the camp?” I ask.
She swings from side to side. “My brothers.”
“Do they live by the river too?”
She lifts the doll to her ear and listens. “Shh, Beatrice. She’s a nice lady. She won’t tell the angry man.”
I go down on my haunches. “Is Beatrice scared of an angry man?”
“The man who made us move here. He came to see us at the camp. Beatrice says he’s scary.”
“Do you mean Mr. Russo?”
She only stares at me with a blank expression.
Straightening, I say, “I tell you what. Why don’t I help you wash up, and then you and Beatrice can help me make frosting for the cake?”
She shakes her head. “Beatrice doesn’t want to wash up. She’s scared of water.”
“She has nothing to be afraid of, sweetheart. I won’t let anything happen to her. But she has to wash up if she wants to help in the kitchen. We can’t cook or eat with dirty hands, can we?”
She holds the doll next to her ear. “Beatrice says no.”
“How about we find Beatrice a new dress to wear? Will she like that?”
Sophie glances at the dirty piece of cloth that’s knotted around the stick.
“I bet her hair is shiny when it’s clean,” I say. “It looks as if she can do with a good shampoo. Why don’t you wash her hair? Won’t she like that?”
After a moment of conferring with Beatrice, Sophie says, “All right, but Beatrice doesn’t like sticking her head under the water.”