Time Windows (4 page)

"Honey, what are you doing?"

Miranda leaped to her feet and stared over the house. Helen walked across the attic, picking up the paper balls and the pail of ammonia water. "My, you're jumpy."

"I—I was just ... thinking."

"Daydreaming," said her mother. "You've been up here all afternoon! Dad and I are going for a walk-try to rustle up some neighbors around here. I'm not used to things being so quiet. Come with us?"

"Mither?"

"Hmm?"

"Come here for a second. Look through these windows. Okay? Tell me what you see."

Helen crowded back into the corner obligingly. "Look through which window? Oh—well, I see the attic, of course."

Miranda walked around to stand in front of the house. "And can you see me now?"

Helen's face peered curiously through the windows. "Of course I can see you! Is something wrong, Mandy?"

Miranda crossed her arms, suddenly chilled in the stuffy attic. "I just wondered..." Her voice trailed away, and she shrugged. She followed her mother toward the stairs, turning around once to look back at the dollhouse.

Its blank windows seemed to wink back at her.

By the end of their first week in the new house, their mail started arriving. Miranda had two letters from Nicole, who claimed to be miserable without her. Helen began moving things into her new office in the center of town and spent afternoons interviewing nurses and receptionists. The weather stayed muggy, and Philip usually emerged from the overgrown garden at dinnertime, dripping wet and covered with scratches from the briars. Miranda stayed inside, finding her large corner room cooler than the front porch during the day. She helped her mother sew a cover for the large pillow they'd purchased as a cushion for her window seat. After that, she sat in her window seat for hours at a time, staring out at the magnolia tree and, through its leaves, the roof of the big house across the road. She wasn't really seeing them, though. She was thinking about the dollhouse.

From time to time her parents would peek into the room and urge her to get busy doing something, but they didn't pester her much; they both thought she needed time alone to get used to the new house and the move.

"The family across the street has two boys," Helen informed Miranda. "I think one of them's your age. But they're all on vacation now." Miranda tried to look interested. She knew she should be interested. In New York she would have been.

Her parents went on long bike rides around town and on walks to explore the woods across the road from their house. They always asked Miranda to come with them, but she simply didn't want to go. She was running out of excuses: She'd told them she needed to stay inside to get used to the new house. She'd said she enjoyed the peace and quiet after the noise of New York.

All this was true, but there was more, and this was what she did not tell them. Her growing interest in the dollhouse had become almost an obsession—feeling the way she imagined her father's former cigarette addiction must have felt. She needed her "fix" at least once a day. The nicotine might stain her father's fingers and burn his throat, but he didn't care as long as he could pull that soothing, dangerous smoke into his lungs and relax. The dollhouse frightened her, but Miranda didn't care as long as she could lean into its little rooms and lose herself in its mysteries of the past.

While her parents were out meeting new neighbors and exploring Garnet's narrow side streets, Miranda would mount the steps to the attic and settle herself behind the dollhouse. She was learning how the magic worked.

In the different attics she could see through the little windows, the weather varied. And the seasons. Sometimes the windows in the attics she saw were bright and clean, and other times they were dull and grimy or covered with the black curtains. The attic the little girl played in had clean windows. The attic with the dirty windows seemed to be the same playroom—abandoned and older. The attic the family had broken into had black curtains now, but no one ever came up there. Miranda wondered if she had found a time machine. But she knew it couldn't be, because she only
watched
through the windows; she did not travel anywhere. She had to laugh at herself for feeling disappointed.
Idiot! Things like that don't happen in real life.

But what
was
happening, she couldn't say.

When she looked through the windows of the dollhouse kitchen, she could see into the kitchen of her own house as it had looked in other times. And not only the kitchen windows possessed this magic; she could monitor every part of their house by moving around to peer out of different little windows. When she settled herself in the corner behind the dollhouse and rested her arms on the dollhouse attic floor, she had only to keep her eyes trained through its windows, and the whole house's past became her present.

Because she sometimes had to wait quite a while for anything to happen, she made the corner behind the house cozy with red cushions to sit or kneel on, a box of cookies, and even a book—so she could read while she waited for the house's occupants to return. She had borrowed the cushions from an old couch her father had put in the ancient stable they used as a garage, and she hoped her parents wouldn't notice. She had a strong sense that the dollhouse must be kept private. It would reveal its secrets to her, but it didn't want outsiders around.

The people she watched seemed quite real, almost familiar. They were at home in the house, as if they belonged there as much as she did. As if they, too, lived in the house. They went about their fairly normal lives, doing chores, having conversations. Everything they did, no matter how ordinary, fascinated Miranda.

Although the little girl's time did not appear often, Miranda learned—from hearing the name yelled angrily up the attic steps to the playroom—that the child was named Dorothy. Usually Miranda found Dorothy only in the playroom, although she searched for the child in all the other rooms. Once little Dorothy was being bathed in the big claw-footed bathtub when Miranda peered into the bathroom. A friendly-looking uniformed maid held the wriggling child tightly and laughed. "No squirming away from me this time, Miss Dorothy Arabella! Those golden locks are in dire need of a good wash!"

"No, Hannah! You'll get soap in my eyes!"

The other people in the house, the people Miranda had seen break into the attic, were relative newcomers to Garnet. The tall, thin man was named Andrew Kramer. He had inherited the old house from a recluse uncle and brought his wife, Iris, and their two sons, Timmy and Jeff, to Garnet from Boston. Andrew took the train to Boston every morning and did not return home until dark. Iris took care of the two little boys. She was a gentle, quiet woman, and Miranda felt drawn to her.

The problem with the dollhouse magic was that the time sequences were not chronological. Time didn't seem to have any proper order at all. One minute Miranda could be watching Jeff and Timmy build a castle out of blocks, and the next minute could find her peeking through the same windows at little Dorothy swinging her bat at the red-and-blue ball. It happened more than once already that Miranda would be listening to an exciting conversation between Iris and Andrew, only to have them leave the room. She would rush to the next little room to look out those windows, trying to follow them through the house. But if she did manage to find them again, they would be having a totally different conversation on another day—perhaps a month after the first conversation, perhaps a month before. And yet at other times the sequence moved logically, and Miranda was able to follow the family from room to room, never losing the drift of things.

 

On a Sunday morning during their second week in the new house, Helen and Philip went for a bike ride. Miranda begged off with the excuse that her nose was stuffy and she thought she had allergies. Her father raised his eyebrows, and her mother lowered hers in a frown.

"It's probably house dust up your nose," Helen said. "What you need is fresh air."

"I'll go out this afternoon. Promise!"

"We'll hold you to it, Mandy," said Philip. And then they were out the door, and Miranda was clattering up to the attic to see what the dollhouse people were doing.

She settled herself on the cushions, adjusted the fan, and gazed out through the kitchen window. No one was in the room, but it was not the Kramers' brightly painted kitchen Miranda had come to know. This was an older kitchen without a refrigerator, and a pump stood in one corner near a funny wooden sink. The smell of fresh hot bread hung in the air, and through the small window in the back door Miranda could see flakes of snow drifting lazily.

She looked around the room with interest, taking in the old-fashioned telephone hanging on the wall and the red-checked oilcloth covering the table. The orange glow from a fat black iron stove reflected warmly off the whitewashed walls and the polished oak floorboards. Finally she noticed a calendar on the far wall: January 1904.

January 1904! The reality of the time difference hit Miranda full force. While watching Iris and Andrew, she hadn't thought about it much. They wore the styles she'd seen in movies set during World War II, and once she heard Iris complaining to a neighbor lady about sugar rationing, but Miranda had never pinned the family down to a specific year.

Yet here it was. January 1904, and not Iris's kitchen. The same kitchen, yet perhaps another generation earlier. She felt the trickle of perspiration under her arms even as she stared at snowflakes outside the kitchen window. From somewhere in the house Miranda heard piano music, tinny sounding. At the back door window a face appeared in the frosty pane, and the door chimes rang, clear and melodic. The piano stopped and the dining room door swung open. A woman swept in on a wave of magnolia perfume, and Miranda's heart leaped in her throat. Terror poured into her stomach. She was going to be sick. She was going to die.
Helpmehelpmehelpmehelpme!
a voice screamed in her head.

She gripped the sides of the dollhouse and willed herself not to throw up and not to turn away. She knew if she did, she could lose this scene forever—and somehow she knew she must see it. This was important. She fought back the panic and whispered urgently to herself:
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right.

The panic throbbed dully in the pit of her stomach. Miranda moved closer to the little kitchen windows. She had never seen anyone so beautiful in her life. The woman was tall and willowy, with a face like those on Greek statues: a straight nose, a noble mouth, regal eyes. She wore a deep violet dress, with black lace frothing across her bosom and fringing her wrists. The long skirt swished across the floor as she walked to the door. Her auburn hair rose high, piled and twisted elaborately. She answered the door.

A man dressed in gray entered the kitchen, brushing snow off his shoulder and beard. "Lucinda, beloved!" He pulled off his gloves, tossing them onto the checkered oilcloth. He reached out to embrace her, but she held him at arm's length.

"You're wet, Donald. And cold." Her voice was low, husky. She took him by the hand and led him to a kitchen chair. "Wait here. I'll only be a moment." She swept from the room.

Donald tapped his fingers restlessly and removed his scarf. He opened his overcoat and fumbled inside his suit pocket, bringing out a watch on a gold chain. He looked at the watch, shook it, looked at it again and, frowning, replaced it. The smell of something burning wafted through the room.

Lucinda whirled back into the kitchen wrapped in a long fur cloak. "Oh, the bread! I forgot—" She reached for a towel and, covering her hand, opened the oven door. Smoke billowed out in a thick blanket "Damnation!" She shrugged off her cloak, dropping it unceremoniously onto a chair. Miranda heard a tiny
ping
as if something had fallen out of the pocket. But no, nothing lay on the floor; it must have been the clink of the metal tongs against the oven as Lucinda drew out the charred loaves.

"Ruined." She flipped the bread into the sink and glared at the stove. "You black monster!"

"My dear, calm yourself. It doesn't matter." Donald hovered at her side and checked his watch again.

"Of all the rotten luck." Lucinda scowled. "I'll
never
learn to cook. Stupid Hannah! Why did she have to quit today of all days?"

Donald laughed, handing her the fur. "Darling Lucinda. A housewife you aren't! But where we're going, you won't need to be. You'll have everything I can give you! Ah, you don't know how much it means to me that we can finally get away. It's what I've always dreamed of." He embraced her and nuzzled her cheek.

She smiled at him. "Let's leave, then. We don't want to miss the train."

"But what about the kid? Where's Dorothy?"

 

"Mandy? We're home! What are you doing up there?"

At the sound of Philip's voice, Miranda tore her eyes away from the kitchen scene. "Coming!" she called. She peeked back into the kitchen for one last look. But instead of the beautiful Lucinda and handsome Donald in their traveling outfits, Iris and Andrew lounged at the table in their bathrobes, the early morning sun pouring in through the small window in the back door. They drank coffee from flowered china cups. Swing music with a strong downbeat resounded loudly from another room.

"I just don't like this house anymore," Iris was saying. "That's all there is to it. I hate it here!"

"There you go again," muttered Andrew. He sounded exasperated. "I'm sick of it. Can't you give me a rational explanation, for once?" He poured his coffee into the sink. "This stuff is terrible. I'm going to get dressed." He stomped out of the kitchen, shouting, "You kids turn off that radio! How many times have I told you not to touch it?"

Iris sighed and rested her head in her hands for a moment. Then she went to the sink and rinsed her cup. "I can't stand much more of this," she said softly.

 

At lunch Helen and Philip were full of news. "We've met the people across the road at last," Helen said. "The ones in that beautiful house. It's the oldest one in town, and they've turned it into the Garnet Museum. We've been invited over for dessert tonight."