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She was supposed to be above all the petty emotions that plagued those less fortunate than she.
    When bright and shiny Jewel Fairchild came into her home, Gwen Wright was not supposed to feel insecure because the girl was so amazingly beautiful. Gwen was not supposed to envy that warm and easy smile that said Jewel was one of those who never met a stranger while it took Gwen months and sometimes years to decide she’d made a friend.
    Enough!
said a voice inside Gwen’s head.
If you keep on like
this you’ll think yourself into one of those gray fogs that take days to
climb out of. Go out into the fresh air. Get away from yourself.
    She left the bedroom, walked quickly down the long hallway to the wide curving staircase. At the bottom of the stairs she was met by undulating fur as Missy and Hank surrounded her. She let them out, then brought them back to the kitchen for their breakfast. They polished off the contents of their bowls, and then, having recognized her outfit as the one she wore when she was going outdoors, tried to follow her through the back door. But Gwen held them back.
    “Not this time, babies,” she said. “Now, Hank, don’t look at me like that. I’d take you with me in a minute, but I’m going up the hill and you know what you did the last time you came with me. I won’t have you bothering my little guys, you know.”
    So she left the dogs, barking canine pleas and indignation behind her, and walked outside.

Chapter Six

    T he land on which Cassandra’s home sat was well maintained but not manicured. There was a long lawn in the front of the house, a row of red maples that protected it from the road, and flower beds lining the front path in which daffodils, iris, and peonies bloomed in the spring to be followed by zinnias, daisies, daylilies, hollyhocks, and phlox in summer. In back of the house itself was another lawn that gave way to the surrounding forest of the area. In the spring violets and lilies of the valley carpeted the ground under a canopy of branches. In the autumn that same ground was carpeted again with the gold, red, and orange of the fallen leaves. The trees were pruned for safety’s sake but otherwise they were left to grow freely.
    The house itself was the kind of structure that would have been called a stately home if it had been listed in a guidebook. The artwork and priceless antiques inside it were the results of collecting done by four generations of a family with impeccable taste and the wealth to indulge that taste. Quite simply, when you were in that home, you were seeing civilization at its best. But once you went outdoors you felt you were in the woods—with all the beauty and simplicity that nature had to offer. Cassandra and her family had the best of both worlds.
    Behind the back lawn there was a hill. Halfway up it, beneath the oaks, the pines, and the thread of sunshine that seeped through a thickness of the undergrowth, there was a flat stump that provided a seat where one could comfortably settle down. This was Gwen’s destination—her special place where, as everyone in the house knew, she was not to be disturbed. She’d been coming here since she was a child. Sometimes she came to read, usually classics that required concentration and peace, like books written by Dickens or Dostoyevsky. Sometimes she merely sat quietly, and watched the small creatures who lived there: the squirrels who barely disturbed the silence when they buried nuts, which they would find under the snow in winter. Or the chipmunks, who scurried in and out of their three-room apartments—one room for their babies, one for food storage, and the third one for what? Gwen had forgotten. It was because of these little creatures that she would not take Missy and Hank with her to her retreat on the hill; the dogs frightened them away.
    Gwen sat on the stump and prepared to enjoy the silence and the air and the companionship of the squirrels. Instead, another memory flooded back. But this was