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louder. It seemed to be coming from somewhere above me. Rough and mocking — it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Instinct told me to walk away from it, to go back in the direction from which I had come. I rounded the corner and almost bumped into Lucia.
    “Slow down,” she chided. “You almost knocked me over.”
    “Sorry. Maddy called me on the intercom, and I got a little lost and…” My voice trailed off. “Did you hear someone laughing?”
    “Laughing?” Lucia asked, hands on her hips. “No, I don’t think so.”
    “It was pretty loud. It seemed to be coming from the third floor.”
    “Must have been Brenda,” Lucia said briskly. “Her room is up there.” A few times since my arrival at Thornfield Park I had passed a broad-shouldered, mannish woman, older than the rest of the housekeeping staff. That must have been Brenda. But hadn’t I been told the third floor was unsafe and off-limits?
    Anticipating my question, Lucia said, “I know, I said it wasn’t safe up there. Brenda’s room is the only structurally sound bit — the turret’s a death trap.”
    “I’d better get to Maddy.” I excused myself.
    By the time I reached her room, she was calling out my name. When I opened the door, she ran to me. “I was calling you,” she said. “Why did you take so long?”
    “I got a little lost. I came as fast as I could.” I put my arms around her and held her, and she didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry, Maddy, I really, truly am.”

CHAPTER 4
    Five weeks passed without incident, and it had begun to feel as though Nico Rathburn might never show up. My days with Maddy and Lucia had fallen into a peaceful rhythm, but instead of being relieved by the calm, I found myself feeling restless. On one of my days off, cold rain kept me in my room until late afternoon, when the sun finally broke through. I pulled on my rain boots, grabbed my raincoat and my tackle box full of art supplies, and hurried out the door. It felt so good to be outside that for once I didn’t stop at the high iron fence surrounding Thornfield Park. The guard on duty was a young, open-faced man with long blond hair. He waved me through the gate, smiling, and looked for a moment as though he wanted to speak to me. I considered stopping to introduce myself, but the very thought brought a flush to my cheeks. I lookeddown at my feet, letting my hair fall forward to curtain my face, and kept hurrying along.
    “Smile at the other children,” I remember my mother telling me at the little playground near our house. “Don’t cling to me. Go over to the monkey bars and say hello.”
    I followed her instructions and walked over to the monkey bars. I even tried to say hello to the laughing girls hanging upside down from the topmost bars, but they were so happy and familiar with each other, their long hair sweeping from side to side like banners, that I felt the words die in my mouth. I stood frozen a long time until, still laughing and chattering, the girls unfurled down to the ground and ran off to the swings.
    My mother’s anxiety about my social skills grew more acute the older I got. “By the time she was your age, Jenna had three boys fighting over her,” she would say. “Why don’t you ever go on dates?” Usually I would brush the question off and retreat to my room, but once I made the mistake of answering.
    “I’m not as pretty as Jenna,” I said, as though it needed saying.
    “If you smiled you’d be more approachable.” She put a hand on my arm. “Isn’t there a boy you like?”
    There was: Michael, a popular boy with creamy skin, roses in his cheeks, and dark brown eyes, a basketball player. I’d liked him since fourth grade. Unlike the other popular boys, he wasn’t unkind to girls like me. Once in junior high when the bell rang, I left my pencil case on my desk, and he ran after me, shouting my name.
    “You forgot this.” He pressed the case into my hands. “It’s nice. You wouldn’t want to lose it.” He was gone