Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess #10 by Ann Hood Read Free Book Online Page A

without any information on exactly where that someone was.
    Outside the two big windows, the moon was a perfect sliver in the inky sky. Maisie wandered over to one of the windows and gazed out. She couldn’t remember seeing quite this many stars before. Or such bright ones. They twinkled down at her as if they were lighting a path upward.
    When she was little, her mother always reminded her to make a wish on a star.
    Maisie chose one that seemed to be the twinkliest.
    Star light, star bright
, she thought.
First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight
.
    Out loud she said, “I wish Felix changes his mind and comes in here and helps me find Great-Uncle Thorne and open the egg tonight.”
    She frowned.
    Would that count as four wishes?
    No, she decided. All those things together equaled her one wish.
    She squeezed her eyes shut, willing it to come true.
    A small explosion sounded from somewhere in the vicinity of her closet, followed by Great-Uncle Thorne booming: “It’s about time you rapscallions got home from that Fishbag’s house!”
    Startled and delighted at the same time, Maisie turned from the window just in time to see Great-Uncle Thorne emerge from . . . yes . . . her closet. In his arms he had a large pile of clothes. Dead animals appeared to be draped over his shoulder.
    â€œFish
baum
,” Maisie giggled.
    â€œDid you devour a big bloody American steak?” Great-Uncle Thorne said with disgust.
    Maisie giggled some more. “I did,” she admitted.
    â€œDisgusting,” Great-Uncle Thorne said as he dropped the clothes and dead animals on the bed.
    â€œBut what can one expect from a grown man wearing a belt with tiny whales on it?” Great-Uncle Thorne continued, more to himself, it seemed, than to Maisie.
    Still, Maisie agreed. “Ridiculous,” she said.
    The dead animals, she realized, were not, in fact, dead animals but the fur of animals. Piles of white fur and piles of brown fur.
    â€œHave you been skinning animals in my closet?” she asked Great-Uncle Thorne.
    â€œI’ve been preparing items for your imminent departure,” he said.
    With that he disappeared back into the closet.
    Maisie heard him grunt, then the sounds of something being dragged across the floor in there.
    Great-Uncle Thorne came back out, walking backward and bent.
    â€œWhat’s
that
?” Maisie asked.
    Great-Uncle Thorne didn’t need to answer.
    By the time the question was asked, he had fully exited the closet, and Maisie saw that he had dragged out with him a large black trunk with gold corners.
    She frowned at it, confused.
    This was, after all,
her
closet. And Maisie knew for certain that there was no large black trunk with gold corners in there.
    There used to be the small chest of old clothes, the one where she’d found the costume for Bitsy Beal’s March Madness party. Maisie shuddered remembering that terrible night. It had been so terrible that she’d thrown the clothes back inside and put the chest itself in one of the guest-room closets so she’d never have to see it again.
    Great-Uncle Thorne had opened this trunk with the gold corners and was busily digging through it. From time to time he lifted up a garment for inspection and either tossed it on top of the furs or back into the trunk. As he did this, he whistled softly, a tune Maisie didn’t recognize. He completely ignored her, so Maisie took a look in her closet.
    To her surprise, what she had always assumed was the back wall had disappeared. The closet stretched back into a second, smaller room. Maisie’s clothes had been pushed aside for easier access into the room, and she went in there now.
    The room was indeed small, but large enough for a coatrack, from which all kinds of coats hung: velvet, lace, embroidered. A hat rack held hats with feathers and veils and bunches of fruit and jewels. Maisie could see the