Girl of Vengeance by Charles Sheehan-Miles Read Free Book Online Page B

turning it down, she turned it up. It did sound like frogs croaking, with a haunting violin in the background.
    “Julia,” she said again.
    No answer.
    “Julia!” she said sharply.
    Julia glared at her, then said, “Leave me alone,” and whipped her face away from Adelina, her brown hair flying everywhere. She curled up, leaning against the window and staring out.
Andrea. May 5 .
    Why had Abuelita never told her?
    The phone George-Phillip had indicated was visible through the doorway. It was an oddity, an antique, a rotary phone with an ivory handle and gold inlay. It was highly polished, and she was almost afraid to touch it. The phone sat on a fine looking table with a marble top and mahogany legs. Two luxurious high-backed chairs upholstered in sapphire brocade flanked the table.
    She’d never used a rotary phone before, but she understood the principal of the thing. She sank into one of the chairs, much more comfortable than it looked, and awkwardly picked the handset up out of the cradle. She reached out and began dialing.
    011 … The first number took forever, the dial cranked around all the way, then circling back, odd clicking sounds coming from the headset as the dial turned. It was difficult to imagine how people could have used these things regularly without wanting to smash their head into the phone. As she watched it turn, she felt her anxiety increase, her stomach tensing.
    34 … The country code for Spain. She’d known how to make a direct dial international call since she was ten years old. She wasn’t sure that was knowledge any ten-year-old needed.
    937 … She continued dialing the nine digits of her grandmother’s phone number. And as she did so her jaw hardened, her hand squeezing the grip of the phone hard enough her knuckles were white.
    As she finished dialing, she heard silence for a moment, then a series of clicks and hisses. She didn’t use landlines generally, and certainly not antique phones. But a moment later the phone at the other end began ringing, a shrill burst of two tones, pause, two tones, pause.
    “ Diga. ” Speak. It was Abuelita’s voice.
    Andrea couldn’t breathe for a moment. She sniffed, horrified at herself, then said, “ Abuelita, it’s Andrea.”
    “ ¡ Gracias a Dios ! Thank God you called, I’ve been so worried about you!” Her grandmother paused for a moment—as Andrea knew she would—then launched into a tirade. “Why have you not called me? It’s been a week, and all I see is headlines that you’ve been attacked and kidnapped and running for your life. Have you lost your mind? Andrea, I want you on a plane home today! Today, do you hear me?”
    Andrea heard the phone thump, and then her grandmother shouted, “Luis! Luis! Come here now! Andrea is on the phone, tell her she must come home now.”
    Luis was there? It was Monday morning; he should be working in Barcelona.
    “Luis!” her grandmother screamed.
    “ ¡Abuelita!” Andrea shouted into the phone. Unconsciously she stood up and began pacing, forgetting that the phone was wired to the wall . The pretty gold telephone base fell off the table, stretched out the cord and tugged Andrea toward the floor. Awkwardly, she fell to her knees and grabbed at the base with her free hand, trying to keep it from landing on the cradle and hanging up the phone. Her grandmother was still shouting in the background, so Andrea had an opportunity to right the phone and get it back on the table, then sit on the edge of the chair again.
    A moment later, a harried sounding Luis came on the line. “ ¡Muñequita! I’m so glad you’re okay, we were terrified.”
    “Thank you, tío,” she replied. “I need to speak with Abuelita. ”
    “What? You don’t even ask how your poor uncle is doing?”
    “I’ll ask in a minute,” Andrea said, her voice cold. “I have other questions to ask right now.”
    “I don’t like the sound of your voice, Muñequita . Tell me what is going on. Madre has a weak