Chapter 1

THE JERSEY SHORE

MAY 21,1929

     The weather turned dirty that first day, the day the cousins arrived in Hendin, back when the whole business was just at a beginning. A yellow taxicab rolled along under a canopy of dark clouds that blew in off the sea, and soon heavy drops began hammering the windshield, falling from a tombstone sky with such intense I'll will it was hard to imagine that the sun could ever shine in this particular corner of the world.

     The cab drove on, and the rain fell, and the miles slid past, until at last the car came to a stop, and a young girl no older than thirteen stepped out, ankle~deep, into a puddle. She pulled her suitcase from the back and paid the driver, who left her alone at the bottom of a hill.

     Her gaze moved upward, past a formidable flight of steps, to a house atop a grassy perch that met her stare with a humorless frown, looking more like a fortress then a house, really-smooth stone; high, peaked roofs; and gables and towers beyond number. All something less than delightful, to her way of thinking. Not a flower to be seen, no cheerful curtains framing the dark windows, just a great gray edifice against a gray May sky.

     She started up the hill, her suitcase bumping along behind her as she climbed the steps. Halfway to the top, she stopped and pushed the wet brown hair from her eyes.

     "Just like Anne Boleyn climbing Tower Hill," she said under her breath, "right before she lost her head."

     The image was tragically romantic, and she raised her chin with an air of somber dignity. Her suitcase had begun to feel like a load of wet sand, and for a moment she contemplated abandoning it there on the steps before finally resigning herself to her plight. Groaning wearily, she hefted the bag and pressed on.

     By the time she reached the top of the stairs, she was soaked through. She looked back to the winding road that had brought her here. The taxicab was far away now, a yellow smudge in the distance.

     She laid the back of her hand to her forehead and let out a mournful sigh, wondering how she looked.

     Like a queen, she hoped. A desolate queen. Desolate but proud. And beautiful. Desolate and proud and beautiful. Watching the car vanish over the horizon, she drew a finger across her throat.

     The rain was stinging now, but she no longer made any effort to cover her head. She took one last look up at the house and back down the long staircase, then turned to the great doorway before her, eyeing the bronze plate above the bell.

     BATTERSEA MANOR, it read, and below that was a strange medallion figured with a single numeral-an elegantly  engraved zero.

     "What a strange address," she muttered to herself. "Welcome to the old family castle, Maxine. Such a lovely place to spend the summer."

     She rang the bell and for a long time stood waiting on the doorstep. There was no answer or footfall within, so she rang again. Then, not knowing what else to do, she tried the knob. The door opened with a heavy groan, and she leaned through the crack, the end of her nose slicing a steady stream of water onto the black~and~white tiles inside.

     "Hello?" called Maxine. "Anybody?"

     There was no reply.

     The dry entry hall of a house, even a dark and cheerless one, struck Maxine as a vast improvement over a soggy front porch, and since the door was already open, she stepped across the threshold and glanced about.

     "Grandpa?" she called. Then, as an afterthought, "Colonel Battersea?"

     Her voice echoed down the dim hallway and died somewhere in the distant corners of the manor. The house seemed to be asleep, or perhaps lying in wait. Caesar's bust started at her mutely from a pedestal beside the front staircase, and Maxine shivered as the puddle beneath her feet spread slowly across the tiled floor.

     On the wall facing her was a tall blue mosaic framed by a pointed stone arch. Judging by the carved basin set at the foot, it must have been       a fountain once upon a time, set into a wall along a dusty street in some far~off place like Cairo or Algiers. The basin was dry now, and the exotic blue mosaic work had been fitted with brass hooks for jackets and hats. Maxine peeled off her wool coat and hung it there, where it dripped mournfully into the stone bath, and she decided she might as well have a look around.

     The mansion was a labyrinth of winding corridors, and Maxine managed to lose herself several times without even leaving the first floor. She roamed the kitchen and the music room, the billiard room and the parlor, but all were empty and silent. The whole house, in fact, was as quiet as a tomb. The only sound at all came from an enormous grandfather clock in the entry hall-an ominous tick~tock that seemed to follow her from room to room and only served to heighten the stillness. She found herself tiptoeing, afraid to disturb the silence.

     At length she came to a pair of double doors. Maxine paused for a moment, then grasped the handles and threw them wide, revealing a long, dark~paneled room inhabited by a great many books. A whole wall of them, in fact, on shelves the length of a train car, the highest of which could be reached only with the help of a wheeled ladder that rolled along on a track.

     For some thirteen~year~olds, an afternoon in the library would have been more or less on par with a visit to the tailor's shop or an hour in the dentist's chair. Maxine, however, felt her spirits lift for the first time since she arrived.

     Her fingers brushed the spines as she walked the breadth of the room. The titles on the lower shelves were not entirely encouraging.  . . Ovid's Metamorphoses, in fifteen volumes, sandwiched between Disraeli and Milton. Latin dictionaries and German medical books, encyclopedias and botanical folios. She wrinkled her nose at them, as if the pages harbored a colony of creeping parasites. Still, she felt sure there had to be something of interest here, and indeed, as her gaze drifted upward she began to take heart. Huck and Tom, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Long John Silver, the good~natured Mr. Toad----her old friends all regarded her from the upper shelves with silent goodwill.

     The enormity of the collection presented certain difficulties, however. Maxine considered for a moment the proposition of trying to select a single book from such a broad assortment, then grabbed hold of the wheeled ladder with both hands and dashed madly across the room, trundling it in front of her. When the ladder reached top speed, she promptly jumped aboard and began climbing. Her plan was to wait until she had come to a stop, whereupon she would simply pick the first book she saw in front of her. It was a good plan, and would have worked well, too, if the ladder had not hit a sticky spot just as it was slowing down, catching her in an awkward position and depositing her unceremoniously on the hardwood floor.

     When Maxine opened her eyes, she found herself staring up at the ceiling, stunned but unhurt. She turned her head a bit and saw the she had dislodged a single volume, which was lying now in front of her nose. Kipling's plain Tails from the Hills. She dusted herself off and collected the old book, retreating from the shelves to find a spot where she could curl up to read.

     The far side of the library was all windows, which would have made it a cheerful room if the rain had not still been pelting down steadily outside. A leather chair was turned toward a cold hearth and grate, and Maxine flopped down here with her legs slung over one arm and her head on the other. For a while she labored over her book, but it had already been too long a day for stories of British soldiering.  Her thoughts drifted of----back to her little black terrier, Baron, who would have been on the chair beside her if she were home; back to her mother's face, pale and gaunt the morning Maxine had boarded the train out of Chicago.

     She turned to the window and watched the raindrops, beading and running, wandering aimlessly down the glass like the drowsy visions in her head.