The Girl in Blue by Barbara J. Hancock Read Free Book Online Page B

dignified and quietly dusty.
    It didn’t.
    It never had.
    Trinity’s father blamed mice behind the baseboards and spent years watching mostly empty traps and untouched baits. Her mother blamed other rodents in the attic, but there had only been one small confused brown bat fifteen years ago to justify the attribution.
    That night, Trinity listened and could only blame Creed every now and then for what she’d heard.
    If Clara Chadwick had manipulated the matches, could she have moved the much heavier ragdoll? And what of other things? Had the ghost she saw become as malevolent as the invisible threats that caused accidents in Scarlet Falls or, worse, had she been part of that phenomenon all along?
    Finally, Trinity changed into a sachet-scented nightgown she pulled from her old bureau drawer. Most of her clothes had been ruined in the Boston fire and the subsequent dousing of its flames, but she didn’t mind pulling the once familiar folds of satin over her head. Its loose soft sleeves left room for the light bandages on her arm and, as always, her petite height made its length warm against her legs.
    As it settled on her shoulders, she noted that she filled it out more than she had several years ago. The delicate pink material was made immediately more adult by her full breasts and defined hips and legs. When she’d been a teen, she’d been thin. Now, she was fit, but she didn’t diet away every ounce of softness. The nightgown seemed to approve of her fitness regime, sliding into place by hugging her curves.
    Okay. Maybe a little less chocolate before exams wouldn’t hurt.
    While she brushed her hair into calmer waves that wouldn’t try to take over her bed in her sleep, she heard another noise, a muffled thump and what sounded like a voice.
    She paused. Tendrils of hair clung to the brush as static held them out from her head and the whole room seemed to go electric as she waited for the laughter.
    And waited.
    She didn’t realize she held her breath until the high tinkling humor sounded and then hot air from her lungs left her in a rush.
    It would be dangerous to follow and find that laugh.
    Instinctively, she knew it.
    Though she had no proof Clara had caused the fire in Boston, the lifelong visitation had suddenly become more solid, more real.
    The electricity in the air had settled to sizzle in a warning wash of adrenaline beneath her skin. But she couldn’t ignore the laughter, could she? Not after the fire in Boston. Not after the matches and the long cemetery stare.
    Trinity lowered the brush to the table and turned to the door. She avoided meeting her eyes in the mirror. They would be wide and afraid. She could feel her lids straining as if she was terrified to blink because she might open her eyes to find The Girl in Blue hadn’t waited to be found, but rather had come looking for her instead.
    She went to her bedroom door and opened it with a click of the knob and her hand pressed against the wood. It swung inward ever so slowly as she tried to be quiet. And because her ears strained and her breath was light, she suddenly noticed that the never-silent Hillhaven had gone as deathly still as the grave.
    There were no creaking sighs. No rustlings. No mice. No bats. Samuel Creed might have left or been asleep, but wherever he was seemed absent, as if the house was completely vacant except for Trinity and…the laugh that came again down, down, down the dark hall and into the oldest wing of the house.
    Trinity had never liked the east wing and she certainly didn’t relish the idea of opening the double doors that led to it in the upper landing at night in search of ghostly laughter.
    She did it anyway.
    The tender flesh on her arm demanded that she be brave.
    She hurried across the cool moonlit floor of the landing, ignoring the flutter in her chestwhen she passed the long, dark stairway that disappeared into the empty lower reaches of the house.
    She was a child of Scarlet Falls. Of course she was afraid