Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore

Author:Kristin Cashore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2017-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

A bell rings somewhere in the depths of the house,

sweet and clear, like a wind chime.

Mrs. Vanders, the little girl, Kiran, Ravi, or Jasper?

Aunt Magnolia? Jane thinks. Where should I go?

In Which Someone Loses a Soul and Charlotte Finds One

Jane decides.

What if Charlotte’s disappearance is the puzzle piece that will make sense of everything else?

“Okay,” Jane says to Kiran, starting down the stairs. “I’ll walk with you, and you can tell me about Charlotte.”

But Kiran doesn’t respond right away. She’s cupping her ear and frowning as if she’s trying to hear something. “Did you hear that?”

“I can’t hear anything but the world’s most anxious dog,” says Jane, who’s reached Jasper’s landing. Jasper’s now butting his head against her boots, whimpering. She reaches down and rubs his neck in a spot he can’t reach with his short legs. He tries to climb into her lap, which nearly topples her.

“Come with us, Jasper,” Jane says, disentangling herself. Still whimpering, he follows her down the steps, crowding her feet.

* * *

Kiran walks Jane through the Venetian courtyard and the east arcade. “These rooms are all relevant to Charlotte’s story,” she says. “We’ll end up in the winter garden, where we can play chess if we like.”

Next she leads Jane into a green room with floral wallpaper, brocaded settees, and a fussy green carpet. “May I present the green parlor,” Kiran says. “Charlotte redesigned it in the style of Regency England. Like, Jane Austen,” she adds, when Jane crinkles her forehead.

“Ah,” says Jane, understanding. Linked arm-in-arm with Kiran, taking a turn about the room, she feels like they could be Elizabeth Bennet and Caroline Bingley. If Mr. Darcy were composing a letter at the elegant writing desk, he’d be aghast at her striped jeans and sea-dragon top. “My favorite parts of the house are the parts where everything seems to fit together,” says Jane. “Like this room, or like the Venetian courtyard with its matching tile and marble. You can imagine a whole story here. In the hallways where nothing matches, I just get kind of confused.”

“Yeah,” says Kiran, pulling Jane across the room toward a door. “The matching parts, that’s all Charlotte’s doing. She had weird theories that the house is suffering, because it was built from pieces that were torn from other houses.”

“What do you mean, suffering?”

“Oh, you know,” Kiran says. “From its troubled origin.”

“Charlotte thought houses suffer?”

“Charlotte always talked like houses were people,” says Kiran. “As if they have souls, or at least, as if they should have souls.”

“That’s kind of nice,” Jane says. “But, as an idea. Are you saying she actually believed it?”

Kiran shrugs. “She thought that Tu Reviens had been deprived of a soul because of its origin story. ‘Its parts are bleeding,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see them bleeding?’”

“Um,” Jane says, then pauses. “Can you see them bleeding?”

Kiran smiles. “I know how it sounds. But that’s just how she talked. You know, I realize I’m not supposed to like the lady who takes my mother’s place,

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