The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe

Author:Katherine Howe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2019-06-24T23:00:00+00:00

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The Volvo rolled to a stop outside the hedge that hid the Milk Street house and Arlo and Connie tumbled out in a tangle of legs and feet and tail and bookbag and dashed for the gate. Connie didn’t stop to observe the state of the garden as it moved and parted to make way for her, pulling its springtime shoots out of the way of her running feet. She sprinted unseeing down the flagstone path to the front door, grabbed the handle, and pushed.

Locked. Connie swore under her breath and started digging through her bag for her keychain. She hoped Zazi could find the house. It had taken Connie and Liz forever to find it the first time. And it wasn’t as if Grace had trimmed the hedges since then.

“Gah,” she said, finally finding the keys. She fit the key in the lock and turned it and leaned her shoulder into the door to open it.

It was stuck.

“Oh, come on!” Connie wailed at the overcast April sky.

When she did so, she noticed the rusted horseshoe nailed over the door. She remembered Grace kissing her fingers and touching them to the horseshoe. Connie looked left, and looked right, knowing there was no one nearby to observe her, but feeling self-conscious anyway. She kissed the tips of the fingers on her right hand and touched them softly to the horseshoe.

When her fingertips made contact, a warm living spark traveled between her body and the metal, like a shock of static electricity. Connie said, “Ow,” and pulled her fingers away, kissing them again to soothe away the hurt. A fleet blue sheen traveled over the horseshoe while her attention was on her fingertips.

When she closed her hand over the door handle and pushed, the door opened without protest.

Inside, Connie tossed off her boots and headed straight for the dining room. She planted her hands on her hips and stared at the portrait of Temperance Hobbs.

The portrait smiled placidly back at her.

Connie rummaged on the mantel for the kitchen matches, flaming up two at a time and touching them to the half-melted red candles on the dining room table, gradually lightening the room until Temperance stood illuminated by a warm orange glow.

“All right, you,” Connie said. “Tell me where you put it.”

Temperance looked as though she had been painted in what the English would call the Regency period, though of course in North America there was no regent anymore, and so the period was usually called Jacksonian. Connie took one of the brass candleholders and held the flame up to the painting to get a better look.

The varnish had yellowed in two hundred years, making the background of the painting dim and hard to make out. Underneath the thick residue of time and smoke stains, Connie saw that Temperance was seated at a trestle-style dining table. At one time the tabletop in the painting must have looked soft and gleaming, as tactile in its polished shine as a John Singleton Copley

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