The Shells Of Chanticleer by Maura Patrick Read Free Book Online Page A

a narrow cobblestone street lined with quirky shops and boutiques, until we arrived at a quiet lane lined with white row houses separated from the sidewalk by black iron fences. The buildings were grand and clean, embellished with friezes and ornate moldings, just the kind of place I imagined a prime minister would live.
    We stopped in front of a gate marked No. 18 and Bing pressed a black button attached to the stone gatepost. After a minute the gate swung open and I followed Bing up the high concrete steps to a black double door. My heart was beating fast but I decided I should not act afraid. That was what this was all about. I was to be reinvented.
    An elderly wisp of a woman opened the door. Her wavy grey hair fell loose to her shoulders and she wore a standard large white apron over a full black skirt. She looked like she might have been a flower child in another life, strumming her guitar and sitting cross-legged and barefoot in a meadow, except now she wore black shoes that were thick soled and sturdy. She ushered us into a dark vestibule that had walls painted deep purple like an eggplant. The floor was made up of black and white squares of marble and a heavy, tiered Victorian table took up all of the space.
    “This is Macy,” Bing said. “I understand you are expecting her.” Turning to me, he smiled with encouragement. “Do your best,” he said, scooting out the door.
    I went to grab his arm but he was gone before I even had a chance to react. Wait, I wanted to cry out. Why was he leaving me there? I thought he was going to stay with me. I thought that was the whole point of him? Instead he seemed relieved to drop me off. Maybe it was my fault, maybe I should have been friendlier to him?
    “Well now, don’t stand there staring, come in,” the elderly lady instructed.
    I looked at her face: no lightness or joy shining from it, and my body literally froze. I wanted to move but I couldn’t. Oh no. Was I already hardening inside from fear like Miss Clarice predicted? I forced myself to shake off the feeling.
    The lady led me into a main living room stuffed with heavy Victorian furniture, the shutters closed to block out the daylight. It smelled like furniture polish. She didn’t talk and I silently followed her.
    We walked through dark public rooms, past glass cabinets housing a collection of wasp’s nests, beetles pressed between glass, stuffed white mice trapped in glass domes and a collection of replica skulls – at least I hoped they weren’t real
    We went up a wide mahogany staircase to a spacious second floor landing. Off to the left was a door and she opened it to reveal an enormous vault of a room with floor to ceiling shelves brimming with leather bound books. A matching mahogany library ladder was attached to tubular brass rails that encircled the entire room. There were no windows.
    “Wait here,” she instructed, flipping on the lights and closing the door behind her.
    I stood silently and observed my surroundings. A stained glass dome topped off the ceiling, the morning sun illuminating a celestial scene of winged angels hovering in a cloudless pink sky. In the scene an innocent herd of baby lambs were about to topple over a cliff and plunge to their deaths in a foaming ocean below. I supposed the angels would step in at the last moment and pull them back from the edge but for the moment they were only watching. I never quite knew if I was reading artwork correctly. Was the scene symbolic? Was I one of those lambs?
    Well-worn leather armchairs faced each other in a conversational circle in the middle of the room. A large fireplace broke up the shelves on one wall but its marble mantle was old and cracked and a pair of antique bellows gave the fireplace a creepy, haunted-house appearance.
    After a minute, the door opened. A white-haired man stepped in. His hair stood up in unruly tufts, but he was tanned and sharply dressed in a white business shirt and an expensive tailored suit with gold C