Katie looked around the large room, filled with shelves of books. Several expensive-looking paintings hung on the walls. The furniture was elegant, old world plush. In the center of the room, Blake and Delia sat at a large oak table, playing games on their iPads.

"Wow." She turned in place, taking it all in. She felt like Belle at the castle of the Beast. "This is an impressive room."

Blake mumbled, "It's boring."

"Boring?" She laughed. "It's wonderful! So many books!"

"That's what makes it so boring." He didn't even look up from his game.

"I love it." She challenged him. "I would spend my whole day here."

Blake laughed wryly. "That's what makes you so boring."

Delia closed the cover on her tablet. She was more willing to engage with Katie than her brother. "Most of these books are very old. Arabella says some of them came from Europe with the first Barringtons. She says I'm lucky that I can read. Back in her day, girls were supposed to just sew and cook. Arabella says she didn't even go to school. She says her father wouldn't allow it."

"You mentioned her before." Katie stepped close to the little girl and smiled. "Is Arabella one of your friends from town?"

Delia laughed, genuinely amused. "No, Miss Gallagher. Arabella lives here."

The sound of a video character crashing made Blake close the cover on his iPad, too. "Arabella is Dumb Delia's imaginary friend."

Delia stood and stomped her foot on the plush carpeting. "I'm not dumb! And Arabella is real!"

"Blake, that is not a nice way to talk about someone." Katie intervened. "How do you think that makes your sister feel?"

He shrugged. "Bad, I guess."

"And sad." Delia sat down, dejected.

"How would you feel if someone else said that about your little sister?" Katie said.

Blake's face reddened with anger and he pounded the table with a fist. "I would punch him in the face!"

"Well, maybe not that." Katie used her tone to calm Blake. "But don't you think you should tell Delia something?"

He looked at his sister and his expression softened. "I'm sorry, Delia."

"It's okay, Blake." Delia forgave him instantly. She looked up at Katie. "But Arabella is real, Miss Gallagher. She's the one who told me you were coming."

"And how did she know that?" Katie laughed. "Apparently no one else did."

Delia shrugged. "I don't know. Arabella just knows things. She says you're good and that you will help us all be happy together. Not like Miss Bonham. Arabella didn't like her at all. She said Miss Bonham wanted to steal us and never come back."

Katie frowned, remembered what Walter had said about the governess wanting to take the children away.

Blake laughed. "Miss Bonham. Coo-coo! Coo-coo!"

"Not nice, Blake." Katie warned. "We've discussed that."

Blake laughed. "I know. Sorry."

"Well, let's get started on lessons, shall we?" Katie looked around the room. "Where is Clarissa?"

Blake opened up his tablet and loaded the game again. "She's probably sleeping."

Delia nodded somberly. "She sleeps a lot."

"Hm. Well we saw her this morning at breakfast. She couldn't have gone to sleep so quickly." Katie said. "Why don't we get started here and I'll see if I can find her after that?"

Blake shook his head but didn't look up from the game. "No way. I'm not doing school stuff if Clarissa doesn't have to."

Katie sighed. "Don't worry, Blake. No one's getting out of schoolwork."

**

Katie knocked firmly on Clarissa's door. She could hear music playing from the room beyond. But no one answered. She knocked again.

Clarissa's voice was the tone of a bored, annoyed teenager. "Go away. Nobody's home."

Katie frowned and opened the door. Clarissa was on the floor, leaning back against the bed, watching a video on her phone.

"Clarissa," She said firmly, "I need you downstairs in the library for lessons."

"Yeah." Clarissa didn't look up. "I'm not going."

Katie stood for a moment, waiting. When Clarissa didn't move, she sighed. "Clarissa, it's time for schoolwork. Your father has hired me to teach and care for you and your brother and sister. And that's what I'm trying to do. The lessons are part of it."

"I don't believe Walter hired you." She gave Katie a withering gaze. "Walter doesn't care whether we go to school or not. When we went to school in town, I skipped every day. Every. Single. Day. He didn't even notice until he got a call from the principal. I don't know why you're here, but I know it's not because of Walter's fatherly love."

"Of course your father loves you." Katie was a little surprised at what Clarissa had said. Could that be true? Walter didn't notice? "I'm sure he's just really—"

"Busy. Yeah. That's what he says." Clarissa finished. The anger in her voice did nothing to cover the hurt, though. "Too busy to notice when his daughter skips school 10 days in a month? Too busy to notice his son is on the edge of a nervous breakdown? Too busy to notice his youngest child talks to ghosts more than her own family? And don't get me started on you governesses. Miss Bonham and her crazy ghost séances or whatever... That just made things worse. It's no wonder mom left us. I'd run away from here, too."

Run away? Katie was confused by that phrase. Why would Clarissa say run away?

She said gently, "Clarissa, I—"

"Save it." She waved a dismissive hand at Katie. "You don't care either."

"Of course I do! I care about all of you!" Katie knelt next to Clarissa on the floor. "I know you don't know me yet, but I'm a good person. I really am. And I really want to take care of you and Blake and Delia. I want you to know how special you are and I'm going to make sure you don't ever feel neglected again."

"Oh, please. You don't care." Clarissa looked away from her, but Katie could hear the sadness catch in her throat. "It's just your job. You get paid to act like you care."

"You're wrong, Clarissa. I just need to find a way to prove it to you. I hope you'll start to think of me as one of the family and not just an employee." Katie stood and held out her hand to Clarissa. "You know what? I suspect you haven't enjoyed school up until now because you haven't been intellectually stimulated. But we'll fix that. Now let's go down to the library and see if we can find something you like."

Clarissa grudgingly got to her feet, but she ignored Katie's offered hand as she stood. "Whatever."

**

Downstairs, Bill was just about to head up the staircase.

"There you are, Clarissa. You're supposed to be in the library." He said. "I've been looking all over for you."

Clarissa crossed her arms. "Did you look in the bottom of a whiskey bottle, Bill?"

"Clarissa!" Katie was shocked by her rudeness. "That's no way to talk to anyone. Please apologize to Mr. Allen."

"Sure." She shrugged. "If he apologizes for being drunk all the time. And trying to sneak back into the house in nothing but his underwear."

"Clarissa." Katie warned.

"Well, he didn't look very hard." Clarissa frowned. "I was in my room."

"You little..." Bill shook his head. "That was the first place I checked. You weren't there."

Clarissa laughed. "Imagine that. Maybe I went for a walk?"

Bill crossed his arms, too, now. "Maybe you were out in the gardens, smoking again?"

"Maybe." She shrugged. "What are you going to do? Tell Walter on me again? You know he doesn't care."

"Maybe." Bill countered. "I could tell him you're giving Miss Gallagher trouble about going to school."

"Fine." Clarissa countered. "And I'll just tell him about your  little extracurricular activities."

"You don't scare me." Bill said, although it seemed like he was a little nervous about what she might say.

Katie intervened. "Clarissa, that's not what I asked you to do."

"Fine. I apologize." She said with an exaggerated sigh.

"Thank you." Katie said. "And thank you Bill for your help."

Bill looked very upset. "No problem, Miss Gallagher."

Katie mentally shook her head. There were so many things going on in this household. It was going to be a monumental task just to wrap her head around it. First things first, though. She looked at the girl sternly. "Now Clarissa, we'd better get to the library and get started."

"Hold up a sec, would you, Katie?" Bill seemed a little uneasy.

"Sure." She motioned to Clarissa toward the library. "Go on ahead, please. I'll be right there."

Clarissa looked at Katie, then Bill. The she rolled her eyes as she walked away. "Whatever."

Katie turned to Bill. "What is it? I thought you were driving Mr. Barrington this morning?"

"He rode with Adrian." Bill shook his head. Then he looked down at the floor. "Listen, about all that stuff... You should watch her pretty carefully. There's something off about her."

Katie laughed knowingly. "Well, she's 15, so she's got a lot of emotions right now. Anger tends to be one of the most dominant feelings in teens, unfortunately."

"Yeah." Bill frowned. He shuffled his feet a little. "It's not just that."

Katie nodded. "And she is still dealing with the loss of her mother."

"Look, Katie, she's not wrong. Last week she caught me trying to sneak back into the house." Bill looked up at her. He looked miserable at his admission. "I... had been out drinking all night."

Katie sighed sadly. "Oh Bill."

"And I was in my underwear." He said, ashamed. Then he looked up, quickly. "But she only knows this because she was trying to sneak back into the house, too."

Katie was a little shocked. "Didn't you tell Mr. Barrington?"

"No. Again, she's not wrong." He frowned. "I've told Walter about some of the stuff she tries to pull off. Like the time he was out of town and she took his Porsche for a joyride. Or the times I caught her smoking in the family cemetery."

"Hm." Acting out was usually a cry for attention. Coupled with Clarissa's assertations, it was clear there was a disconnect between Walter and his children. "What does he do about it?"

"Poor Walter. He gets so much hate from the townies... and the police..." Bill shrugged. "I think he just wants to avoid the drama at home."

She frowned, a little disappointed. "So he does nothing?"

Bill nodded and shrugged. "Basically."

"Well, that's going to stop." Katie said firmly. "Children need boundaries. That's how we, as adults, provide them with a safe environment to learn."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Katie." Bill seemed to struggle with finding the words for what he had to say next. "There's something else... Have you noticed the marks on her neck?"

"What?" She hadn't. "What marks?"

"I saw them last week when she was sneaking into the house." He indicated his neck with two fingers. "On the side of her neck, red and bruised."

"Hickies?" Katie shook her head. Clarissa was only 15. "Do you think she's meeting a boy when she sneaks out?"

Bill shrugged uncomfortably. "If they're hickies, they're like none I've ever seen. They were bleeding."

She frowned. "Then what?"

Bill's silence was awkward.

"You can say it." She assured him. It as obvious there was an adversarial relationship between Bill and Clarissa. "I won't let anyone know it came from you."

"Do you believe there are supernatural things in the world?" He blurted.

"What? Like ghosts and goblins?" Katie frowned. She wanted to hear more. She wanted to tell Bill about the voice at night. But she didn't want to become a Miss Bonham. She heard her mother's words come out of her mouth. "No, of course not. I'm not a child Bill."

"Look, if you stay around here, you're gonna hear stories." He said, as if he were giving her valuable information. "You're gonna see stuff that will make you believe the stories."

She narrowed her eyes. She'd already heard enough innuendo and half-stories to get her interest up. "What kind of stories?"

"Stories." Bill nodded knowingly. "Like, about how this house is haunted."

Katie held her tongue. Did Bill know? Had he heard the woman's voice? She said softly, "Those are just stories, right? It's like you said, people gossip. They make things up."

"Well, there have been stories about this place as long as it's been here." Bill agreed. "I remember my Grandpa Bob telling me about one of the old-time Barringtons. Went crazy and tried to drown her kids."

"That's awful!" Katie said. Then she smiled knowingly. "But you know he probably told you that so you didn't play near the pond."

"Maybe. There seems to be an accident every generation." Bill shrugged. "Walter's little sister drowned in that same pond."

Katie was uncomfortable thinking that the voice she heard at night in her room could be that of a child killer. "You really think this house is haunted by a murderous ghost?"

Bill looked like he was going to say something else. Then he just shrugged. "Listen, Katie. I've seen so much around here. I really wouldn't doubt any of it."

She shook her head. So, was Bill saying there was a ghost? Or that there wasn't? "What do you mean?"

Bill shook his head and started down the hall toward the door. "Nothing. You'd better get to your lessons before those kids wreck the place."

"Bill wait!" She said, but he didn't turn.

What could he have meant by that?