Chapter 7: Snowed In With a Sorrell

By ten that night the snow had closed the road, and Eleanor Sorrell announced that nobody was leaving.

She put me in the blue guest room on the second floor, with a fire laid and a pair of her own flannel pajamas on the bed.

She put Ethan in the pool house.

"The pool house is cold," he said.

"Then it will be educational," said Eleanor, and went up to bed.

The doctor had taken the swabs after dinner.

He did Ethan first, in the library, with the door open.

Then he knelt in front of Maisie and told her it was a very small tickle for her cheek.

She turned in her chair and looked for me, and I crossed the room and held her hand.

Becca stood against the wall with her arms wrapped around her ribs.

She did not look at me once.

At one in the morning I was still awake.

I went downstairs in the flannel pajamas and a borrowed cardigan, looking for tea, and found the library door half open and the fire still going.

Samson sat in the armchair beside it with his sleeves rolled to the elbow and a glass in his hand.

He didn't look surprised.

"The kitchen is two doors down, past the portrait of my great-grandfather. His eyes follow you."

"I'll risk it."

"Sit first." He nodded at the other chair. "You've had a long day."

"It's been a long week."

I sat.

The room smelled of wood smoke and old leather, and snow fell past the tall windows.

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