Read Online Pale Phoenix by Kathryn Reiss - Free Book Online Page A

journals to her office in town, and soon the room at the top of the stairs was referred to by all the Brownes as "Abby's room." The sofa bed remained unfolded during the day, and Helen gave Abby a quilt, brightly patterned with blue cornflowers, to cover it. Abby's schoolbooks lay on the desk by the window, and her two dresses and one blouse hung in the closet. She didn't have many personal belongings. Most of what she owned she carried around with her in the bulging beaded bag. Helen promised her a shopping expedition to Boston for some new clothes.
    But the hostility between Miranda and Abby grew thicker each day. Abby bristled at everything Miranda said to her, and Miranda counted up all the snide remarks, the insults, and sarcastic comments Abby flung her way, and brooded over them. Miranda spent a lot of time holed up in her bedroom, curled on her window seat, reading or staring out the window at the snow. She could not forget the vanishing footprints and the mysterious crying. She longed for spring. Spring sunshine would melt the snow, and maybe also the icy grip of unease she felt with Abby around.
    If only Abby were quieter. That might help Miranda pretend she wasn't really there. But Abby was loud. She had appropriated the old upright piano in the family room at the back of the house and played all the time. Or at least it seemed that way to Miranda, who used to practice her flute in the family room but shunned it now. Abby's music flooded the house.
    Helen and Philip were impressed. They urged her to see Mrs. Wainwright about playing in the spring concert. Miranda would be performing on her flute.
Yeah,
thought Miranda.
If I ever get a chance to practice around here.
Abby ducked her head and said she was too shy, but the big house rang with music that seemed anything but shy. Abby played Bach and Mozart and Beethoven with the touch of a master. She played folk songs and ballads, sometimes singing along in a thin, soft soprano. She hammered out boogie-woogie and wrenched out the blues, playing sometimes from memory and sometimes from one of the old, yellowed scores of music she pulled from her beaded satchel. Helen and Philip sang along and sometimes even danced when Abby played. One night Abby taught them the Charleston, and Miranda watched dourly from the doorway as they shimmied, laughing uproariously, across the family room. Another night Abby taught them the steps to a minuet. As the bell-like notes of the simple Bach tune rang out and Helen and Philip faced each other formally to begin, Abby glanced from the music over at Miranda in the doorway. Abby's smile was the quirky, crooked one that made Miranda shiver. She hurried away, back upstairs.
    One night after Abby had been with them about ten days, Miranda couldn't keep her anger inside anymore. She had promised her parents she would try to make Abby welcome, but enough was enough. Abby was banging out a fifties' tune, "At the Hop," down on the piano and the house reverberated with the beat. Miranda's head ached. She left her essay for English unfinished and crawled into bed, pulling the quilt over her head. Finally the music stopped. She waited until she heard her parents coming upstairs to go to bed, then left her warm quilt and stalked into their bedroom, plopping herself down into the middle of their big bed.
    Philip pulled his sweater over his head and dropped it onto a chair. "Insomnia, Mandy? You have school tomorrow."
    "Dad, I can't sleep because I'm going crazy." Tears pressed hotly behind her eyes.
    Helen sat down next to Miranda on the bed. "Mandy? You're crying! What is it, honey?"
    Miranda shook her head. "No, I'm not crying. I just have a headache. But, Mither—oh, how much longer does she have to stay? It feels like forever already. I can't stand it."
    Philip sank onto the bed, too. "I take it 'she' refers to our houseguest across the hall?"
    "I mean it. Having her here is making me sick. All her nasty little digs at me. And