Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman (best books for 20 year olds txt) 📗

back, as horse people would say—there were miles of woodland trails to explore.

“Look what you started,” she said out loud to Con and Caro. “Four generations of pack rats.”

She wound her way through the piles to the staircase at the rear, glancing in the open crates as she went. Flipped the switch. Nothing happened. She aimed the flashlight beam upward, where thick cobwebs ran from the milk glass light fixture to the ceiling. A burned-out bulb. Finally, something she could fix.

Thick dust coated the steps. The floor creaked as she stepped onto the landing. This had been the caretaker’s apartment, furnished but unoccupied when she was a kid. Being allowed to play out here had been a treat, and she’d felt so grown up when her grandmother had finally deemed her old enough, and responsible enough.

The oak door was heavy and paneled, twin to the doors in the lodge. The brass knob—oval, with a domed top—fit neatly in her hand, despite the dampness in her palm. She turned it, but it didn’t budge. Rattled it back and forth and finally heard a slow groan as the bolt moved and the door opened.

She stepped across the threshold, head cocked. Quiet, the air stale. The living room was crammed with furniture, some upended, much of it draped with sheets. The beds and dressers from the boys’ bunk room, no doubt, and the ballroom couches. The kitchen was compact and efficient, meant for someone who took most of their meals in the lodge. Dust covered every surface. The mullioned window panes were caked with grime. She rubbed at one with the ball of her hand, creating a sticky swirl.

“Well, I didn’t come up here to clean,” she said out loud. “Just checking out the job.”

Where was the dollhouse? When she and Holly were children, it had sat on a low oval coffee table in front of the sofa. One summer visit, Jeremy and JP had carried it, oh so tenderly, into the lodge and set it up for Abby in a corner of the living room. She’d begged to take it home, but it never would have fit in their car, so they’d bought her one of her own. Sure enough, she’d outgrown dolls, dollhouses, and princess dresses not long after. Who’d built the replica of the Victorian, Sarah had no idea. A gift for Sarah Beth, Grandpa Tom’s little sister, it had been tucked away when she died, until the next Sarah Elizabeth McCaskill came along. Though she’d been both thrilled and terrified to share a name with a girl who’d died, playing with her namesake’s dollhouse had been pure joy.

When friends saw Peggy’s paintings of the lodge and the Victorian that hung in Sarah’s entry, they assumed those houses had sparked her love of decorating. But she traced her passion to the dollhouse. To the hours she’d sat on the floor here in the apartment, moving furniture around in the tiny rooms or cutting tiny pictures from magazines to tuck into the tiny frames that fit in slots on the walls. She’d been given a box of tiny plastic dolls, but they’d never appealed to her.

People. Too much trouble, then and now. Digging up old conflicts, getting themselves killed.

Moving all this furniture out here had been a major chore. Many pieces were genuine antiques. Should she hire a crew and move them back?

Don’t be ridiculous. You’re here to help your mother make decisions, not redecorate. When they finished cleaning the lodge, she’d tackle this place—she couldn’t work in all this dust. Then she’d make a list and start figuring out what it all might be worth—the green Roseville pottery and pink Depression glass visible through the windows of the mahogany breakfront, the calendar art, the tools downstairs.

Between the bathroom and bedroom stood a bird’s-eye maple armoire, the inset oval mirrors on the doors almost as grimy as the windows. The doors opened at the touch of her hand on the glass knobs, the scent from the cedar shelves mingling with lavender from the tiny sachets her grandmother had tucked in every drawer and closet to keep bugs away. One good whiff and it was as if Mary Mac were standing next to her.

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Could. Not. Breathe.

Then her grandmother’s words filled her ears, consoling her after some girlhood slight or an argument with her sister. It will be all right, Sally. I know you can’t imagine that now, but I promise, it will be all right.

A sense of calm overtook her. Maybe it was the lavender. Maybe she was going crazy. She sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anyone about the voices, or the dreams. But they were soothing, reassuring, in a way, even if they were weird-ass crazy.

Quilts filled the wardrobe shelves. Though she’d given away dozens in her lifetime, Mary Mac had left almost as many behind. Sarah ran her fingers down the stack, naming the patterns. Irish Chain. Double Wedding Ring. Bear Paw and Dresden Plate. A colorful Spider Web like the one Abby had taken to college. Noah’s pick had been a flannel Log Cabin.

She could stand here and admire these quilts for hours, but that wasn’t getting anything done.

Did her mother really want to clean out the lodge and all the buildings? To scatter and sell the family history?

Once again, she felt irritated by her mother’s absence. Peggy had practically insisted Sarah come to the lodge, then all but disappeared.

She closed the wardrobe doors. In the bedroom, she flicked the switch. The overhead light came on, dimmed by the dust in the etched glass fixture.

Stacks of cardboard boxes and wooden crates filled the room. The linens and lamps and knickknacks from the upper floor? The dishes and stemware she couldn’t find last night?

Time for that search later. Her attention was drawn, like a magnet to the North Pole, to the top of the cabinet Victrola. There stood her quarry: the dollhouse. The sense of magic it had given her forty years