Page 32 of The Seven Rings
“Good deal.”
They continued up.
“If you don’t count the wolf, she’s been pretty quiet. And that was a quick, if intense, scare.”
“You said it poofed when Yoda and the cat went at it.”
She nodded at Trey. “That’s right.”
“That tells me the illusion can’t stand up to a fight.”
“Yet,” Owen added.
“Yet.”
They all paused on the third floor, and the sound of a staticky hum.
“No, you don’t.” Owen bent down and picked up the cat as shestarted down the hall. “Almira Gulch is in there, brooding and plotting.”
“Almira who?”
Owen glanced at Sonya. “Wizard of Oz. Margaret Hamilton rocked the old Kansas biddy and the Wicked Witch of the West.”
He carried the cat up the steps and made the turn into the attic, then set her down.
“That chifforobe? She’s a monster, and a beauty. Cherrywood,” he told Sonya. “Probably late eighteen hundreds.”
“Needs a big room.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“That’s the desk?” Trey pointed. “And the chair. That’s burl wood, right, Owen?”
His eyes landed on it with admiration. “Burr walnut, and talk about a beauty. It’s a kidney desk.”
“Because it’s curved,” Sonya realized. “I see that. And that was the chair she sat in.”
“Same wood, same era. Victorian. And if you hadn’t changed your mind about using this for a desktop, I’d’ve changed it for you. The style’s too delicate. It’s plenty sturdy, but you want something that looks sturdy.”
“More businesslike,” Trey agreed. “No putting a desktop on something like this.”
“I can’t argue that. It was in front of the window in her room so she could look out while she wrote her letters. This stationery, this pen. She was using both, writing to someone named Dina. Miss Dina Triburn, in New York.”
“Triburn?” Owen glanced back at her. “We’ve got Triburn relatives—distant cousins. My brother Hugh’s connected with a couple in New York.”
“She saved some theater tickets, some playbills. A few are from New York. So she visited there. And these photos. I’m thinking the one of her and Edward might be from the engagement party she wrote Dina about. It wasn’t on her desk when I saw her.”
“He’s wearing a tux,” Trey observed. “And that looks like an evening gown, so you’re likely right.”
“The mirror was right there. It hadn’t been, but I felt it, and I turned, and it was right there.”
She picked up one of Cleo’s boxes and began to put Lissy’s things inside.
“I think at some point they just moved this up here. After she died. They couldn’t box up her things inside it. So they left them and brought the desk up.”
“The family bedrooms would’ve been on the second floor.”
“True, but, Trey, the wallpaper’s changed. I’ve been in all of those rooms, multiple times. I’ve never seen that wallpaper.”
