Chapter 24: Thanksgiving, A Year Later

A year later, on Thanksgiving Eve, I carried a pie up the drive of the main house.

I had baked it myself, at four that morning, in a kitchen that smelled of cinnamon and burned toast.

Torsten walked beside me with the box under his arm, because he had told me I'd drop it.

I hadn't.

The gate was shut, and I stopped at the post.

The thumb scanner glowed on its pole.

"Do you have to?" Torsten said.

"I like to."

I put my thumb on the glass.

The reader flashed green, and then the name came up in white letters, the way he had typed it.

Kerensa Thaxton.

The gate swung wide.

Torsten was head of security again, on my payroll, in a plain dark suit.

He had his own print in the system now, under his own name.

He had asked for it himself, and I had watched him type it.

The four guards who had said my name at the gate that November morning worked for him.

All four had asked to come back.

The cook met us at the front door in a clean apron.

"Miss Kerensa," she said.

"Your aunt's already in the kitchen telling me my gravy's too thin."

"Is it?"

"Never," the cook said.

On Thursday morning, the table in the long dining room was set for fourteen.

I had cut the place cards myself.

The cook had the head of the table, and the gardener was beside her.

The housekeepers sat together by the window, with two new girls from the village.

The guards sat in a row, with their ties loosened.

My aunt had the seat on my right, in a new dress, bought in a store with a mirror.

She had sold the laundromat's lease in September and moved into the guest wing, and she was learning to drive on the estate roads.

Torsten sat on my left.

At eleven, the house phone rang.

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