Penny Dreadful (5 page)

A
fter she’d closed the door, Penelope stood in the cool foyer and quickly examined the object in her hands. Besides being a cheerful yellow, it appeared to be a normal enough envelope, made of thick paper. In its top left corner, in a funny old-fashioned font, the envelope read:

Delia’s sobs began to subside again as Penelope tried to make out the
, but the envelope had gotten badly smudged. She wondered why there was no zip code and puzzled over where Thrush Junction might be and who her mother might know there. She turned the envelope
over and noticed it was already mostly open. A pale piece of paper was winking at her. There was writing on it, and …

Could she? Did she dare?

Penelope held her breath, and with a fingernail she slit the flap of the envelope the rest of the way open. She peeked over her shoulder and glanced up the stairs, but her father was nowhere to be seen. Slowly, she began to slide the piece of paper out and—

A particularly awful sob filtered down from above. Penelope’s heart lurched. A long wail followed. Elsewhere in the house a door slammed shut and feet began to shuffle from somewhere to somewhere else.

Penelope slid the paper back into the envelope and raced up the stairs, her heart beating fast. With one hand she gripped the envelope, while she slid the other up the rich burnished wood of the banister. When she got to her mother’s door, she steeled herself for what she might find on the other side, and knocked lightly. It was funny how the envelope in her hand felt like a reason to enter, a ticket of sorts. “Mother?” she called out. “Hello?”

The weeping stopped. “Yes?” came a breathy voice from the other side of the door.

“Can I … come in?” asked Penelope.

For a moment there was silence. Then, “Yes, dear,” called her mother weakly. “Of course. Come in.”

Penelope turned the knob and peeked into the room. She cleared her throat. “There’s a telegram,” she said, holding the envelope out to her mother like a gift, with the open flap down. “A telegram came for you. Here.”

Delia lay in her big bed, looking very small. She wiped away her tears and replied, “A
telegram
? Really?”

“Yes,” said Penelope. “For Delia
Dewberry
. It’s yellow. It looks important. I didn’t read it. It was already open,” she said guiltily. “Mostly.” Her mother didn’t seem to care much about that.

Delia sat up and gathered a thick blue blanket around herself comfortingly.

“Who on earth would be sending a telegram?” Delia said with a sniffle. “I think the last time I saw one of these I was twelve!” She took the envelope and ran her hand over the thick paper with a fond smile. “My grampy sent me one every year on my birthday.”

“That’s nice,” said Penelope quickly. Under normal circumstances she’d have been happy to hear stories about Delia’s grampy, but right now she only wanted to know what the telegram said. She hoped that her mother would be distracted by its contents, but also, she was just plain curious.

Delia gave a little chuckle now, remembering. “My mother had a silly song she’d sing as I opened it each year—
Big shazam, thank you ma’am, happy birthday telegram!
I’d forgotten all about that. How funny!”

Penelope smiled. It had been a while since she’d heard her mother sing anything.

Delia looked closely at the envelope for the first time and read the return address. As Penelope watched, Delia’s eyes went wide, and her throat caught. She whispered to herself, “Well! Would you look at that—Thrush Junction!”

“Where’s
that
?” asked Penelope.

Dirk chose that very moment to bumble into the room, coffee cup in hand. He noticed Delia’s tear-streaked face and leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Sweetheart! You look like you’ve been crying. What could be the matter?”

Penelope thought this was a ridiculous question, and she found her father’s timing terrible. Couldn’t he have picked
any
other moment in the last few weeks—or even the last half hour—to pay attention?

Delia smiled weakly and kissed Dirk’s cheek. “I’ll be fine, dear. I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. Things we should talk about later. But look!” She held up the envelope brightly.

“Hey, what’s that you’ve got there?” he asked.

“It’s a
telegram
,” said Penelope impatiently. “Addressed to Delia
Dewberry
. Open it, Mother, please!”

“I am, dear. I am.” Delia lifted the flap of the envelope and carefully extracted a piece of paper, which she read to herself.

Penelope stood anxiously on her toes. She could tell from the way her mother’s eyes were moving up and down the page that she was reading its contents more than once, but from the astonished look on her mother’s face, Penelope couldn’t make out whether the news was very good or very bad. She waited, full of tingles.

At last Delia looked up and set down the telegram.

Dirk put down his coffee cup and sat on the bed beside his wife.

“What?” cried Penelope. “What?”

“Yes,
what
?” asked Dirk in much the same tone. He bounced slightly up and down on the bed. “Read it aloud, darling!”

So Delia cleared her throat and read these words:

“Great-great-aunt?” asked Penelope.

“Yes. Betty,” said Delia. “She was my grampy’s aunt, I think, though I never met her. Gosh, I can’t believe she’s been alive all this time and I didn’t know. We didn’t really keep in touch with that part of the family, and my parents always made her sound like a batty old bird, but it would have been nice if I’d known she was there, especially after Mom and Dad died.” Delia sighed and set the note back in her lap.

“A house! You’ve inherited a
house
?” asked Dirk. “Where
is
this house?”

“A house!” echoed Penelope in wonder.

“Thrush Junction,” said Delia. “East Tennessee.” Then she looked at Penelope wonderingly and said, “In the country, dear, probably quite a rambling house. Just like you were wishing for. Isn’t that funny!”

It
was
.

“East Tennessee?” said Dirk. “I don’t know much about Tennessee. There are mountains there, right?”

Delia nodded. “It’s not just
a
house. It’s the Whippoorwillows. Thrush Junction.” She sighed, with a funny, faraway look in her eyes. “My grampy used to talk about this place. He spent summers there when he was a boy, and he always made it sound—magical.”

Magical?
The hairs on Penelope’s arms suddenly stood on end.

Delia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and sat up straight. “I guess I need to make some phone calls. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do next, never having inherited a house before.”

“Well,” said Dirk in a knowing way, “you might not want to fuss around too much with it. You might think about putting the place straight on the market. Summer is the best season for real estate.”

“Sell it?” asked Delia, looking confused.

Penelope’s heart thumped. “No!” she cried.

Dirk shrugged. “I’m just saying, Tennessee is a long way away. Plus, the money might come in handy.”

“Yes, money
might
come in handy.” Delia frowned at her husband. She glanced around at the piles of laundry and dirty coffee cups on the bedside table. “Dirk,” said Delia, “I think we need to talk. I fear there are some things you don’t understand about our—erm—current situation.”

“Sure, of course,” said Dirk, scratching his stubble of a beard and pondering the situation. “Though maybe we shouldn’t sell after all. I suppose we could keep it to use as a summer house or something. Could be kind of nice. Do you think it has a veranda? Southern houses often have verandas.”

Delia cleared her throat and stared meaningfully at
Penelope. “Dirk, I mean we should talk
alone
. Right now. About
money.
”

Dirk looked over at his daughter. “Ah, I see what you mean. In that case, perhaps Penelope might run down and fetch me—oh, I don’t know—how about some juice? I’m absolutely parched.” He raised his eyebrows at Penelope.

“What a nice idea,” Delia chimed in with a pert nod. “Penelope, please fetch your father some juice.”

Penelope headed out the door grumbling. She remembered what the telegram boy had said about snooping and made certain to leave the door cracked behind her. As she started down to the kitchen, she overheard her mother saying, “About the money, Dirk—I don’t think you understand—”

At that, Penelope stopped grumbling and ran the rest of the way down.
It would be nice to be able to talk out loud about everything
, she thought. Maybe they could even open some more doors.

Behind her the voices faded, and Penelope dashed into the kitchen, where the only juice left in the fridge was some overly thick prune juice of a questionable vintage. She dripped it into a small glass and snuck back upstairs as quietly as she could.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she heard her mother saying, “But, Dirk, it’s my family land, and it says
we’ll forfeit the property if we don’t come down ourselves by August thirty-first. I think that’s what we have to do.”

Penelope charged into the room, nearly spilling the prune juice. “We’re moving to the country?” she cried, excited. This was
exactly
the kind of thing that happened in books.

Dirk dismissed Penelope’s outburst with a shake of the head. “Of course we aren’t
moving
there, Penelope,” he said. “Your mother was merely suggesting a visit before we sell the place,
maybe.
” He looked over at his wife curiously. “Though if, as your mother has also just suggested, we can’t afford Josie or a visit to the beach, I don’t see how we have the money for
this.
”