Read Online Angel of the Battlefield by Ann Hood - Free Book Online Page B

his faded madras shorts under his bed and the yellow T-shirt thrown over a chair. After Felix went down in the dumbwaiter, Maisie waited the exact amount of time she’d waited the other night, then she got in the dumbwaiter herself.
    As the dumbwaiter made its way down slowly, Maisie’s stomach flitted with excitement. When she was younger, she always threw up before her birthday party or right when she had to give a class presentation. “You’re ruled by your gut,” her father liked to say. Thinking of him made her sad. She tried to picture him in Doha, a city she’d only seen on Google Earth, with its crescent-shaped bay and tall skyscrapers. But she couldn’t imagine him so far away in such an exotic place. To Maisie, he was always walking across Bleecker Street toward home.
    The dumbwaiter reached the bottom, and Maisie climbed out.
    â€œYou lead the way,” Felix said softly. “Like last time.”
    By the slump of his sister’s shoulders, he could tell she was feeling sad.
    â€œI miss him, too,” Felix called after her.
    She turned around. “I know,” she said.
    She started to walk again but stopped. “Sometimes I pretend he’s just out for the day, you know. That any minute he’ll walk in the door . . .”
    Felix, choked up at the idea of seeing their father like that, could only nod.
    Maisie squeezed her brother’s hand. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe you go in that room and make a wish, and it comes true.”
    â€œThat would be nice,” Felix said, even though he knew better.
    This time, he followed her across the marble floor of the Grand Ballroom and up the Grand Staircase, letting Maisie have the lead like she had that first time. He paused at that photograph of Great-Aunt Maisie as a little girl. Then he called Maisie’s name, just like he did that night, and she called back, “In here.”
    Felix climbed the hidden stairway, and when he got to The Treasure Chest, Maisie had the list in her hand. So far, they had recreated everything perfectly.
    He walked into the room. “What is that?” he asked, pleased that he’d written out a script and made them each memorize it. He couldn’t remember exactly how everything had happened that night, but he thought he was pretty close.
    â€œA list of some kind,” Maisie said.
    â€œLike a shopping list?”
    She didn’t answer him, and he smiled.
Perfect
, he thought.
    Maisie handed him the list. Her stomach was churning so much that she thought she really might throw up.
    Felix took the list and held his breath.
    Nothing.
    They waited for a long time.
    â€œWhat are we forgetting?” Felix finally said.
    Maisie tried to remember. She’d had the list in her hands, and she was reading it, wondering who all the people on it were. And Felix asked her if it was a shopping list. They’d talked about the fact that the names were arranged by state, too. Or was that after they heard their mother drive up?
    â€œI don’t know,” she said.
    â€œMaybe it was something special about that night,” Felix said. “Like maybe it was a full moon or an eclipse or something like that.”
    Maisie sighed. That sounded like a real possibility. Full moons made all sorts of things happen.
    â€œThat means we’d have to wait a whole month before we can come back,” she said.
    â€œOr longer if it’s a lunar eclipse or planets lining up a certain way,” Felix added, trying not to sound relieved.
    Maisie looked so upset that he added, “But it’s probably the moon. I mean, that even affects tides and stuff, right?”
    â€œWe finally have something to look forward to again,” Maisie said, trying not to cry, “and it gets snatched away, just like everything else.”
    â€œNo, Maisie,” Felix said, putting his arm around her, “we’ll figure it out. I mean, you will, anyway. You’re