Read Online The Blue Bottle Club by Penelope Stokes - Free Book Online

nevertheless—as if someone had discovered her diary and violated her privacy by divulging her deepest secrets. If Daddy did find the bottle, it could spell disaster for Adora—and probably for Ellie too.
    She had to check. Mother's pancakes and omelets could wait a couple of minutes. Daddy was probably at the table already, sneaking bacon from the platter and talking about how the market was going to bounce back any day now.
    Tish opened the door and crept up the stairs. Daylight came through the gable windows and illuminated the attic in shades of gray. She went immediately to the little alcove where she and her friends had gathered a week before, climbed up onto the trunk, and groped in the rafters.
    When her hand closed over the smooth cold glass, she heaved a sigh of relief. It was still there, right where they had hidden it, untouched.
    Letitia turned to step down, but her slipper caught in the hem of her robe, and she tumbled hard against a stack of boxes. She struggled to her knees, dirty but unhurt, and set about rearranging the boxes that had fallen. Why had they been piled up so high, anyway? They should be over against the wall, out of the way. . . .
    She felt it rather than saw it—a slight movement, a shifting shadow She looked up.
    Beyond the boxes, hanging from a rope tied around the rafters. A body.
    Her father's body.

7
    NIGHTMARE
    L etitia sat on the sofa in the front parlor, squeezed between her mother and Adora Archer. Everyone was there—Pastor Archer and his wife; both Eleanors, Big and Little; Philip and his parents; Mary Love Buchanan; even the Buncombe County sheriff. She had barely had time to dress, let alone tend to her hair. But this was not the time to be concerned about her appearance.
    Tish took in the activity around her as if she were peering through a thick fog. Mother rocked back and forth, her tears now dry, squeezing Letitia's fingers so tightly that Tish could see fingernail marks on the back of her hand. Philip sat to one side, flanked by Mr. and Mrs. Dorn— Stuart and Alice, Tish reminded herself. Adora patted her back and shook her head. Big Eleanor just sat in the chair and stared at the carpet; Little Eleanor held on to Mary Love for dear life, while Mary Love fingered a worn rosary. The sheriff paced back and forth across the parlor.
    "Mrs. Cameron"— he spoke as gently as he could, but it still came out gruff—"I'm sorry to question you at a time like this, but I do need to know everything that's happened here."
    "She's already told you everything," Pastor Archer interjected. "The daughter found her father in the attic."
    "Did he leave anything behind?" the sheriff persisted. "Any note, any word of explanation?"
    "He said things would get better," Big Eleanor moaned. "If only we would bide our time, wait this thing out—"
    "Hush, Mama," Ellie chided.
    "But he said—"
    "I know, Mama." Ellie let go of Mary Love long enough to pat her mother's hand. "We'll get through this, all of us." She fixed a look on Letitia that said she knew what it was like to lose a father. "The important thing right now is to support Tish and Mrs. Cameron."
    Tish watched it all as from a great distance. Odd, what you thought about at a time like this. The boxes, still scattered where they lay across the attic floor. Mother's omelet, blackened to oblivion, still sitting in its pan on the stove. The acrid odor of burned mushrooms that pervaded the house.
    Concentrate, she told herself. Her eyes fixed on Mary Love's pudgy fingers, moving deftly through the beads on the rosary. Think about the mushrooms, the bitter taste of the coffee. Even the blood drawn by her mothers fingernails digging into her hand was a welcome diversion—anything to keep her mind off the body in the attic.
    The Body. That's how she had to think of him now. Not Daddy, not the man who doted on her and adored her and treated her like his little princess. It wasn't Daddy who fell to the attic floor