“Trixie. Trixie! Slow down!” Helen Belden had thought she’d been frazzled keeping track of her two sons. She’d learned the true meaning of harried, however, with the birth of her energetic, endlessly curious daughter.

“Let her play,” Nell Frayne advised. “You know there’s nothing in the living room to hurt her.”

Helen opened her mouth to explain that she was far more concerned about the amount of damage her three-year-old could accomplish if left unattended, but the elderly woman patted her hand and led the way to the kitchen.

“Little Beatrix will be fine while I set out the tea.”

Helen cocked her head to the side and listened to Trixie chattering happily to herself. Surely she couldn’t wreak too much havoc in the five minutes it would take them to pour tea and slice Nell Frayne’s famous coffee cake.

“There,” Nell said, fussing with the cake. “And there’s plenty for you to take home to Peter and the boys.”

Helen smiled her gratitude. Peter and Brian would enjoy the cake, but Mart would be thrilled with his after-preschool treat.

“Now, that little lady of yours doesn’t drink tea yet, does she?” Without waiting for an answer, Nell brought a pitcher of orange juice to the table and set a small glass beside it.

Trixie’s high-pitched “Juice!” made both women smile. Helen expected the mention of a snack to bring her youngest child running into Ten Acres kitchen, and it wasn’t long before she was proved correct.

“Juice!” Trixie declared triumphantly, brandishing a heavy cup, liquid sloshing out the sides.

“Juice?” Helen questioned, frowning at the cup. “What is this?”

“What have you found?” Nell asked. She smiled indulgently at the curly-haired blonde, then stilled when she saw what the little girl held. “Careful, now,” she cautioned as she scooped up the little girl. “You don’t want to spill on your pretty outfit, do you?”

Trixie blinked blankly, and it was obvious that she couldn’t have cared less about the state of her clothes.

“This is a special cup,” Nell said as she settled on a sturdy chair, Trixie on her lap. “It belongs to a little boy only a few years older than you.”

Helen waited for Trixie to squirm her way off Nell’s lap, but Trixie sat almost completely still, her bright blue eyes fixed on the silver cup.

Silver.

Helen winced, realizing what must have happened and how special the cup was. “Nell, I’m so sorry.” She sighed as she studied the cherubic features of her daughter. It did no good to scold her. Trixie often caused chaos and left damage in her wake, but it was invariably due to overwhelming curiosity, and not an actual desire to disobey. For that, she was grateful. “Did you manage to pour the juice from your sipper cup into the christening cup?” Helen asked, but Trixie was focused on the cup’s engraving, her chubby finger tracing the fancy script.

“It says ‘James Winthrop Frayne II,” Nell said, her focus evenly divided between the child and the cup.

“Jim. Jim!” Trixie crowed, waving the cup in her excitement.

“James,” Nell corrected, pronouncing the name slowly and clearly, but Trixie merely wriggled off the elderly woman’s lap. Helen lurched, ready to stop her before she ran off with the christening cup full of apple juice. Instead, Trixie surprised her by grasping Nell’s hand and tugging her along as she led the way back to the living room.

“Oh, Trixie,” Helen sighed, her heart in her throat as she observed the antique straight-backed chair pushed up to the fireplace mantel. Where the christening cup had stood, artfully displayed between two silver candelabras, now sat a plastic yellow sipper cup. Rather than being annoyed by the three-year-old’s shenanigans, Nell Frayne laughed and picked up the plastic cup.

“I’ll tell you what,” Nell said. “If you’ll put the christening cup back on the mantle, you may play with it every time you visit.”

Helen opened her mouth to protest. Trixie had, after all, clearly taken and misused something she had no business touching. But Trixie had already sealed the deal by throwing her arms around Nell’s neck. Before Nell could return the embrace, Trixie scrambled away to clamber up the antique chair. She clutched her own cup, then reached imperiously for the christening cup. Nell handed it over and Trixie replaced on the mantle, watching avidly as teetered from side to side before settling into position.

“Next time,” Trixie agreed, hopping down from the chair, “I drink from Jim’s cup.”

Helen hastily returned the chair to its original conversation grouping. “No, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s a very special cup; not one that we drink from.”

“Nonsense,” Nell said. “It is a very special cup,” she agreed, meeting Helen’s eyes, “but I’d like to see someone enjoy it. Though perhaps you could wait for someone to reach it for you, Trixie.”

Helen softened, thinking of all the effort Nell had expended attempting to locate her grandnephew. His birth had occurred only a few weeks after poor James Frayne’s tragic death. And then only a few weeks after that, Winthrop Frayne had unexpectedly passed away. In her grief, Nell had retreated from society for a time. When she attempted to contact Katie Frayne, she’d discovered that the new mother and her son had moved without leaving a forwarding address. George Rainsford, the Fraynes’ family lawyer, had searched, but eventually Nell had been forced to come to terms with the fact that they might never be located.

“Now,” Nell said, holding Trixie’s hand. “Why don’t we see about that coffee cake?”

Trixie twisted free and bolted to the kitchen, the christening cup forgotten.

Three years later…

Trixie rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stumbled from the car, tugging her backpack with her. It felt like she’d only just gone to bed when Peter Belden had woken her, telling her it was time for their baby brother or sister to arrive and that the three older children must go to Mrs. Frayne’s house. Brian had come here when Mart was born, and both Brian and Mart had come when she’d been born, but this was her first time staying overnight.

“We could have stayed home,” Brian mumbled, reaching back to take Trixie’s hand and hurry her along. “I’m old enough to look after everyone.”

“Of course, you are,” Mrs. Frayne soothed, opening the front door and ushering them in. “But then you might miss out on waffles in the morning.”

“Brian knows how to make pancakes,” Trixie interrupted proudly. “He only burned them on one side!”

Nine-year-old Brian flushed. “They wouldn’t have burned if Mart hadn’t tried to take one from the frying pan before it was ready.”

“It looked ready,” Mart mumbled, sleepier than either of his siblings. “And it still tasted good.”

“Yes, yours did. The rest burned while I was tending to your burn,” Brian muttered.

“That’s enough,” Peter Belden said, sounding more distracted than stern. “You’ll be good for Mrs. Frayne,” he told them, “and I’ll call as soon as the baby is born.”

“Do you think it will be a girl?” Trixie asked, throwing her arms around her father’s waist and tilting her chin to look up at him. “It should be a girl. Two boys, two girls. Right?”

Peter patted her head. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” He knelt down and looked her in the eye. “Be good, please. No running off or exploring.”

Trixie shrugged. “Okay, Daddy.” She watched as he exchanged a few words with Mrs. Frayne, and then hurried back to the car where Helen Belden waited. Trixie stood in the doorway, watching as the taillights of the car disappeared down the winding drive.

“Come along, Trixie,” Nell cajoled. “Aren’t you sleepy?”

Trixie shook her head. “I’m wide awake,” she declared, her eyes now bright and focused.

“Well, let’s just get your brothers settled, then, shall we?”

Trixie followed Nell and her brothers up the stairs to the second floor of the house, sliding her hand along the smooth polished banister. Ten Acres wasn’t quite as old as Crabapple Farm, but it was substantially larger and fancier. Trixie lingered, tracing the ornamental newel post.

“There, now,” Nell dusted her hands. “The boys are in the green room. You’ll sleep in the blue room.”

Trixie’s eyes lit up at the mention of her favourite colour and she followed Nell into the room across the hall from where her brothers were already arguing over who would sleep on which side of the bed.

“You’ll like this room, I think,” Nell said, patting the hand-quilted bedspread on top of the high bed. “You used to take naps here.”

Trixie frowned. Even though her mother had tried valiantly, Trixie hadn’t napped for years. Especially not since she’d started first grade in the fall!

“I’m not sleepy,” Trixie insisted, but almost as soon as she said the words, she yawned widely enough to make her jaw crack.

“Perhaps you could just lie down for a while and close your eyes,” Nell suggested, turning back the covers. Since the Belden children hadn’t changed out of their pyjamas for the short drive to the Frayne estate, Trixie obediently, if reluctantly, climbed into the bed. When Mrs. Frayne pulled up the covers, she yawned again. She still wasn’t sleepy, but it wouldn’t hurt to close her eyes for a few minutes…

Hours later, a crack of thunder startled her awake. Trixie sat up in bed, her heart pounding and her breathing ragged. She wasn’t afraid of thunder. In fact, whenever a storm woke her up, she and her dad would sit in the big chair in his study and watch the lighting show.

But she wasn’t at Crabapple Farm.

And her dad wasn’t there to watch the lightning with her.

Trixie sniffled once before throwing off the covers and hopping down from the bed. She might not be at Crabapple Farm, but the living room had big windows, and she was sure Mrs. Frayne wouldn’t mind if she sat and watched the storm from there. She wouldn’t even know, Trixie reasoned, as she was certain that everyone else in the house was asleep. She tiptoed down the hall, pausing to listen at Brian and Mart’s door, snickering when she heard Brian’s heavy breathing that wasn’t quite snoring, and Mart’s babbling which couldn’t really be called talking, since none of the sounds he made were actual words.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the hall, followed almost immediately by a deafening clap of thunder. Thunder, she realized, sounded very different at Ten Acres than it did at Crabapple Farm. She considered climbing back into bed, but the heavy blind was pulled down on her window, and she didn’t want to hear the thunder without seeing the lightning.

She held her breath as the stairs creaked under her feet, but she didn’t hear anyone stir. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she traced her hand along the wall until she found the doorway to the living room. The curtains in the spacious room were open, but the night outside was dark as pitch. Trixie picked her way through the room, stopping at the fireplace. She ran her hand along the mantle, stopping when she encountered Jim’s cup.

Because no matter how many times Mrs. Frayne told her that the cup belonged to James Winthrop Frayne II, the red-haired boy only Trixie could see always referred to himself as Jim.

Stretching on tiptoes, Trixie grasped the silver cup and tugged it down from the mantle. Another flash of lightning guided her to the couch, where she curled up in the corner after only bouncing twice, very quietly. Well, mostly quietly. Mrs. Frayne’s furniture was old—antique, Moms told her—and the springs did creak a little more loudly than she’d expected. She pulled a crocheted afghan over her legs and faced the window, her eyes wide to catch every flash.

“It’s pretty much just static electricity.”

Trixie didn’t exactly jump at the voice, but her skin did tingle a little.

Just like it always did when she saw the red-haired boy.

“Static electricity?” she asked, squinting at the reflected face in the window. It looked as if he were sitting beside her on the couch, but she knew that if she turned to him, she wouldn’t see anything other than the boring old living room.

So, she kept her eyes fixed on the reflection of the serious boy in the window.

“I read about it for my science fair project,” he explained. “It has to do with positive and negative charges and hot air rising.”

Trixie frowned. “I thought you said it was like static electricity. Like when Moms takes my socks out of the dryer and they stick together.” She didn’t see how clingy underwear had anything to do with thunder and lightning, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

Jim opened his mouth to explain, but then laughed. “I don’t really understand it, either,” he admitted. “But it made a cool science fair project. I even won first prize.”

Trixie thought about her own science fair project and the poor little plant that she hadn’t been able to keep alive. How was she supposed to know that it wouldn’t enjoy a pail of water dumped on it? Didn’t that happen to plants outside when it rained? She shook her head. Science fairs were stupid. But both Brian and Mart had put a lot of time and effort into their projects, and neither of them had won first place. Jim didn’t look as if he were quite as old as Brian, but Trixie was willing to bet he was just as smart.

“Your parents must have been really proud of you,” Trixie said, remembering the special pie cake Moms had made to celebrate their projects. Trixie hadn’t understood why her dad laughed so much at the idea of a pie cake, but it had sure tasted delicious.

He looked away, all expression drained from his face. In profile, the rain-streaked window almost make it look like tears tracked down his face.

“My brothers like the science fair,” Trixie said, not sure what to do with the suddenly awkward silence. “Hey! I’m getting a new brother tonight! Or a sister.” She paused. “I’m really hoping for a sister, but I’m awfully afraid it’s going to be another brother.”

Jim whipped his head back to her, but if anything, he looked even more pale. His face faded until all she could make out was his shock of red hair.

“I hope she’s okay,” he said, his voice choked.

“Who? My baby sister?” Trixie asked, brightening. Moms said there was no way to know if the baby would be a boy or a girl, but Jim even knew how lightning worked. If Jim thought she was getting a sister, then it was practically a done deal!

“No,” he said, and even his red hair faded into the dark night, wiped away by the rain. “Your mother.”

Trixie shivered, feeling more alone than ever as his reflection in the window disappeared completely and only the black night looked back at her. As the storm rolled away, she carefully replaced the cup on the mantel and crept back up the stairs.

It was a long time before she fell asleep.

Three years later…

Trixie’s hand hovered over the cabinet door handle. “This one?” she asked, listening as the door she’d just checked slammed closed.

“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Frayne said, sounding only slightly frazzled.

Trixie stretched to reach the teacups, but even when she wiggled her fingers she could only graze them.

“There’s a step stool—” Mrs. Frayne began, but the agile nine-year-old had already scrambled up onto the countertop. She thrust her hand to the back of the cabinet, sending the hanging teacups tinkling.

“Perhaps we should use mugs today,” Mrs. Frayne suggested, her voice sounding a little strangled.

Trixie glanced back over her shoulder to see the elderly woman still seated calmly, but clutching the edge of the kitchen table.

“Moms said to make tea just like you always make for us,” she insisted, stubbornly reaching for the delicate china. “And you always say that tea doesn’t taste right if it isn’t served in a teacup.”

Mrs. Frayne nodded, resigned. With visible effort, she relaxed her one-handed gripped on the table and sat back, her other arm swinging gently in its sling. “You’re right, dear,” she agreed. “Why don’t you bring down the Wedgewood for me and cherry blossom for you?”

Trixie wasn’t a tea party sort of girl, but there was something special about using the delicate teacup that looked exactly like the cherry tree right outside her very own bedroom window. She carefully placed the teacups on the counter beside her, and then hopped down from the counter. Mrs. Frayne walked her through the process of brewing the perfect cup of tea and Trixie added liberal amounts of both cream and sugar to both their cups.

“Delightful,” Mrs. Frayne declared, and Trixie beamed with pleasure. She didn’t often enjoy domestic chores, but she always enjoyed spending time with Mrs. Frayne. And since the birth of her younger brother, Trixie had started visiting Mrs. Frayne on her own. Old Gallagher, Mrs. Frayne’s groundskeeper, kept the path between Ten Acres and Crabapple Farm well-maintained and safe from poison ivy and venomous snakes. Trixie sometimes felt a little guilty leaving her mother to deal with Bobby all on her own, but since Mrs. Belden was often the one to suggest the visits, she figured it was okay. And it was especially okay now that Mrs. Frayne was recovering from a fall. She’d been lucky that a broken arm was her only injury. A housekeeper from Sleepyside came out to tidy the house, and neighbours from all down Glen Road had taken turns dropping off easy to reheat meals, but Mrs. Frayne still appreciated a little extra company and Trixie was happy to oblige.

“Is your arm hurting?” Trixie asked, remembering the reason for her visit. “Can I get you anything? Or do anything? Moms said to tell you to put me to work—something about me not earning my keep.” She grinned cheekily and Mrs. Frayne laughed right along with her.

“No, dear. In fact, I think I’d like to have a short nap. If you wouldn’t mind doing up the tea dishes and maybe finding a home for the remainder of the banana bread, you’re welcome to go search the garden for the last of the strawberries.”

Trixie brightened. She knew that Mrs. Frayne intended the banana bread’s home to be Trixie’s stomach. And Mrs. Frayne had the best strawberry patch in the Sleepyside area. She licked her lips just thinking of the sweet fruit and all the jam that her mother could make with it.

An hour later Trixie’s stomach was full and her fingers were sticky. She’d filled two ice cream pails with strawberries, and even though she knew Mrs. Frayne would tell her to take both, she wanted to leave at least one pail at Ten Acres. She dutifully rinsed the fruit and dried it, leaving the pail on the counter where Mrs. Frayne would be sure to see it. And when Moms made jam, she’d bring a few jars of it, since she doubted Mrs. Frayne would be doing much canning this summer.

Tired from the sun and pleasantly full from banana bread and strawberries, Trixie paused as she passed the living room. The housekeeper from town was good, but she didn’t always put everything back in the right place after dusting. Not that Trixie really cared about any of the knick-knacks other than the cup that held the place of prominence on the mantle. Rolling her eyes, she traded the silver candelabra with the christening cup. It just looked wrong to have the cup anywhere other than the place of honour. She traced the engraved lettering, mouthing the familiar name.

James Winthrop Frayne II

She didn’t always feel the tingle of anticipation that precipitated an appearance of the red-haired boy, but the few times she’d encountered him had left an impression so deep that she felt as if she knew him better than her brothers or any of her friends from Sleepyside Elementary School. Not that she had many of those. Or rather, she had too many brothers, and not enough friends. Di Lynch was okay, she supposed. But Di was usually busy helping her mother with the two sets of twins she had for younger siblings. And even though she shuddered at the very idea of more than one younger sibling, she did feel a pang of loneliness that it was summer vacation and she couldn’t even pop into the Lynch’s tiny apartment with Di over the lunch hour and wolf down Mrs. Lynch’s amazing grilled cheese sandwiches.

As if in answer to her thoughts, Trixie caught a whiff of a familiar sandwich. It wasn’t grilled cheese, but peanut butter and jelly was almost as good. She whipped around in time to see Jim cram half of a sandwich in his mouth and hastily hide the other half behind his back. His eyes were wide with a terror that Trixie didn’t feel her presence could warrant.

“Oh,” he said, his shoulders sagging with relief. “It’s you.” He talked around the sandwich with difficulty, his words mushy and slurred. Trixie was neither shocked nor repulsed by his table manners—she saw worse from both Mart and Bobby on a daily basis.

With a furtive glance over his shoulder, Jim crammed the second half of the sandwich in his mouth. He ate as if he hadn’t seen food in months. Trixie frowned, disturbed that she could see his ribs outlined through the thin fabric of his too-small tee-shirt.

“Growth spurt,” he muttered, explaining both the food and ill-fitting clothes.

Trixie nodded. Last summer her brother Brian had shot up three inches, ensuring an all new wardrobe for school. He’d filled out more than Jim, however. Probably because Moms had kept Crabapple Farm’s kitchen fully stocked at all times and made countless amounts of… peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Jim flinched, hearing something that Trixie couldn’t. He froze for a moment, then relaxed enough to ask, “The old woman who lives there. Is she okay?”

Trixie nodded, wondering if he had somehow seen Mrs. Frayne’s accident. “She broke her arm,” Trixie explained. “She has to wear a cast for a few more weeks, but she’ll be fine.”

“Good thing it wasn’t her collarbone,” Jim said, rubbing his own. “That never really goes away.”

The strange tingle of excitement Trixie usually felt in Jim’s presence became a sick ache. “How did you break yours?” Trixie whispered, but Jim cocked his head to the side, listening intently. At first Trixie couldn’t hear anything other than the birds outside Ten Acres, but gradually, like tuning in to a radio show, she heard the ranting of an angry man.

“Boy, those beans best be picked by the time I get down to the field,” the voice warned. “You won’t be eating until it’s all in.”

Jim pressed his lips together tightly. His shoulders stiffened, pulling the threadbare material of his tee-shirt tight. “I have to go,” he said, grimly determined. “I hope her arm heals,” he said, and faded away.

Trixie shivered, cold in the wake of the man’s threatening manner and Jim’s despair. But, considering the red-haired boy was probably a figment of her overactive imagination, she had no idea how she could possibly help him.

Even her imagination had limits.

Four years later…

Trixie was not a happy camper.

Literally.

Her older brothers were at camp, and she was not. And she couldn’t even complain because she knew that her parents would have sent her if they could have afforded the fee. Worst of all, she’d accepted job offers not only from her parents but also from Mrs. Frayne.

And that wasn’t exactly the truth, either.

They were both good jobs. She looked after the chickens, the garden, and occasionally six-year-old Bobby when her mother had a Garden Club meeting. And helping Gallagher keep up the grounds at Ten Acres was actually a lot more fun than she had thought it would be. Gallagher was surprisingly knowledgeable for someone who resembled a peanut. She’d learned loads about all the flowers in Ten Acres’ show-worthy garden, and even the trees and shrubs further into the grounds. She hadn’t expected to actually enjoy keeping up the grounds, but under Gallagher’s tutelage she had discovered the chores to be the most peaceful part of her day.

Except for when her jobs overlapped.

It was Moms’ garden club meeting day, which was fine. But Gallagher was out sick with a summer cold in the middle of a heat wave, and some of the flowers wouldn’t recover if she didn’t give them a good drink.

So, here she was, trying to keep an eye on Bobby while she ran back and forth from the rain barrel to the plants with a watering can.

“Stay where I can see you, Bobby,” she warned, eyeing the browning leaves of one of the plants. She bit her lip, hoping that the plant would recover before Gallagher returned. He’d been a patient teacher, but she knew he’d be unhappy if his plants were ailing when he returned. She settled into the mundane rhythm of checking the plants, watering them, and refilling the watering can. The sun beat down, but the grounds had been arranged to provide a fair amount of shade and Trixie only felt as red as a mostly ripe tomato, not a totally ripe tomato. She dusted her hands on her shorts, and idly wondered when it would rain again. If anybody let a fire get out of control, any number of homes along Glen Road would go up in flames. Luckily, Brian and Mart were at camp and Bobby was too young to even ask to burn the garbage.

Bobby.

She whipped her head to look at Bobby’s favourite place to play with his clothespin firemen, but he wasn’t there.

“Bobby?” she called, trying not to sound panicked. When he didn’t answer she took a tentative step toward the thick trees and underbrush that bordered the well-manicured lawn. But where would the little imp go? Ever since he’d had a bad case of poison ivy, he’d avoided anything that even remotely resembled it, which meant that he didn’t wander out of yards. He hadn’t gone inside the house since Mrs. Frayne was at the Garden Club meeting with their mother, and he would have had to walk right past her if he’d gone back down the path to Crabapple Farm. That left… the summer house.

“Bobby,” she whispered, suddenly scared. “Bobby?”

The summer house was strictly off limits, and Bobby knew it. Old Mr. Frayne had died suddenly of a snake bite in the summer house, and Mrs. Frayne hadn’t been able to bring herself to return to it, or to have it maintained. The path was almost completely overgrown, and Trixie couldn’t see the structure until she was almost on top of it.

“Bobby!” she cried, bursting through the screened door. “Bobby, what are you—”

She froze, her eyes wide. Bobby sat on the floor, pale as a ghost, clutching the toes on one of his feet.

“There was a snake,” Bobby said, his high voice shaky. “I didn’t mean to kick it. I was just sitting on the bench because it’s too hot outside. And the snake must have been under the bench. And I said sorry for kicking it, but it was mad and bit me anyway. Hey! Is that what happened to Old Mr. Frayne? Did a copperhead bite him, too?”

Trixie raced forward to scoop the little imp in her arms. She had hoped that it was only a harmless brown snake, but all the Belden children knew how to identify the different snakes native to their area. If Bobby thought it had been a copperhead, it almost certainly was. She stumbled down the path, barely feeling Bobby’s weight. He wasn’t squirming as he usually did, and while Trixie was grateful, it reinforced her fear that he’d been bitten by a venomous snake. By the time she burst through Ten Acres’s front door and deposited Bobby on the couch, he’d started moaning, his tears falling in earnest.

“My toe feels like it’s on fire,” he complained, still clutching his foot.

Trixie raced to the bathroom on the second floor and found a sterile razor. It had probably belonged to old Mr. Frayne and was therefore ancient, but she didn’t think a razor could go bad…

She stopped at the phone sitting on a small table in the hall. She didn’t want to take the time to call Dr. Ferris, but if it really was a copperhead bite, she couldn’t afford not to. She explained the situation in a whisper, not wanting Bobby to pick up on her worry. Dr. Ferris’s nurse dutifully took a message and said the doctor would be there as soon as he could. In the meantime, though…

Trixie made quick incisions on Bobby’s toe and began the suck and spit technique that she had learned in a first aid class. Bobby, usually finicky about anything like the removal of a splinter, didn’t even flinch at the quick slices with the razor blade and Trixie’s impromptu impersonation of a vampire. She’d balked at learning the suck and spit method of extracting venom, but now that her little brother’s life was in danger, all she could feel was gratitude that there was something, anything, that she could do to help him.

Time grew hazy as Trixie’s world narrowed to Bobby’s foot and the rhythmic pattern of sucking the venom from the cut and spitting it out. When Dr. Ferris arrived and gently moved her aside, she found that she’d been kneeling in front of the couch for so long that her legs didn’t want to work. But then her mother and Mrs. Frayne arrived, hot on Dr. Ferris’ heels.

Mrs. Frayne stood frozen in the corner, her hand over her mouth, until Trixie took her hand.

“I’ve given him the antivenin,” Dr. Ferris said, gathering his medical bag. “Though I doubt that it was even necessary. Trixie, you did a fine job.” He took a quick look in her mouth, shining a light to ensure that she didn’t have any cuts or sores. “You kept a level head,” he praised. “If you want to consider a career in medicine, let me know.”

Trixie, barely able to process his words, nodded numbly and accepted the doctor’s dismissive pat on her shoulder.

“I’ve given instructions to your mother. She and Mrs. Frayne will watch Bobby as he rests here for the remainder of the day. I suggest that you rest as well, young lady. You’ve had a nasty shock.”

Trixie nodded numbly again. Her brain felt sluggish, taking far longer than normal to process the doctor’s words. By the time her brain fog cleared, the Ten Acres living room was deserted. She could hear quiet footsteps on the second floor and knew that her mother and Mrs. Frayne must be getting Bobby settled on one of the guest room beds.

Poor Mrs. Frayne, Trixie thought. It must have been an even worse shock for the elderly lady than it had been for her. She couldn’t imagine how awful it must have been for Mrs. Frayne to watch her husband die from a snake bite. Trixie shuddered, her knees suddenly weak again. She sat down hard on the sofa and clutched a pillow to her chest as tears began to trickle down her face. Before long she was heaving silent sobs, vacillating between guilt that Bobby had been bitten while she was supposed to be watching him, relief that he was going to be okay, and sympathy for Mrs. Frayne who hadn’t been as lucky.

Finally, exhausted, she curled into a tight ball still clutching the pillow. She fell into a restless sleep, her pulse fluctuating between moving sluggishly and racing from one horror to the next.

*crack*

“I told”

*crack*

“you not”

*crack*

“to lie to me”

*crack*

“boy”

*crack*

The rigidly precise words, resounding cracks, and muffled grunts melded into a disturbing sound track, growing louder and clearer as she fought her way through the haze of her dream. The whip cracked again and Trixie recoiled, finally recognizing the sound for what it was. Once she made the connection, the room snapped into focus and she watched, horrified, as another line of fire snaked a path down Jim’s back.

“You ain’t”

*crack*

“never”

*crack*

“going”

*crack*

“to college”

*crack*

“No one”

*crack*

“would give you”

*crack*

“a scholarship”

*crack*

Trixie lurched forward, knowing that she had to stop the abuse taking place in front of her. It was only a dream. She knew that. Jim couldn’t possibly be real. But she couldn’t allow even Dream Jim to be treated so cruelly.

“Stop it!” Trixie ordered, and placed herself between Jim and the horrible stoop-shouldered man. The whip cracked down and Trixie braced herself for the sting, but she felt nothing. She opened her eyes to see identical expressions of confusion on the two males’ faces.

The horrible man was staring at the whip in his hand, and Jim was staring at her.

Jim’s expression turned to horror. “Leave,” he croaked. “Get out of here!”

“Don’t you tell me what to do,” the man snarled, and both Trixie and Jim realized that he couldn’t see her.

He stretched his arm holding the whip, as if to figure out why his previous strike hadn’t connected. Emboldened by the man’s confusion, Trixie planted her hands on her hips and stared him down.

“You’re a bully,” she told him, eyes flashing. “A grown man whipping a teenage boy? You’re despicable.”

He flicked the whip experimentally, as if to check its action. And, then, so quickly that she didn’t even see it coming until it was right in front of her face, the whip racked down. Though she could feel the displacement of air as a whisper against her cheek, the whip failed to connect against either her or Jim. The man’s eyes bulged in fury even as Jim straightened and squared his shoulders. His jaw tightened and with a skill born of practice, he flicked the whip again. Trixie managed to stay between Jim and the man, shuffling clumsily as Jim lurched to his feet and faced the man at eye level. The man might be stoop-shouldered, but Trixie suspected his cruelty made him stronger than he looked.

“Enough, Jonesy,” Jim said, his green eyes turning flinty.

“Watch it, boy,” Jonesy warned.

Trixie could see that though Jonesy was unnerved by his failure in whipping Jim, he was recovering and was more determined than ever to hurt Jim.

“You won’t amount to nothin’, boy,” he said, his voice sinister. “Especially if you don’t stop lying.” He cracked the whip in the air. “You’re not smart enough for no scholarship, and you know it.” He cracked the whip again, this time closer. “Your mama ought to have died when you were born, instead of taking my son with her. The wrong boy lived, son ,” he sneered. And then, in a move so unexpected that she wasn’t even sure what she’d seen, Jonesy ignored the whip in his right hand and laid out Jim with a left hook and sent the young man reeling. She stared, horrified, as Jim sank to his knees, and then the floor, his eyes rolling back as he lost consciousness.

Jonesy’s anger, however, only grew. He raised the whip, intent on striking the prone body at his feet. Incensed, Trixie reached out and let the whip coil around her hand. It stung, but not nearly as much as it would have in real life, as opposed to the disturbing dream she was experiencing.

“That’s enough,” Trixie said sternly, echoing Jim’s previous words. She didn’t expect Jim’s tormentor to hear her, but he froze, staring in her general direction. He shook his head, as if trying to convince himself that his whip wasn’t suspended against gravity, and that he hadn’t heard a disembodied voice. He opened his mouth, but Trixie already knew that she wouldn’t like whatever he was about to say.

“No,” she told him, taking a step forward and giving the whip a firm tug. Jonesy lurched forward a good step before he regained his balance.

“Nobody deserves to be whipped.”

She gave another tug on the whip. Jonesy only stumbled half a step this time, but Trixie could see that he was rattled. Moms had told her that bullies usually backed down if someone stood up to them. She suspected that Jonesy might not have been intimidated by a thirteen-year-old girl in the flesh, but since he couldn’t seem to see her…

“You’ll leave him alone,” Trixie told him. “And you’ll let him go to college.”

His jaw clenched, but he nodded shakily.

“And if the scholarship doesn’t cover everything, you’ll make up the difference.”

She had no idea how scholarships worked, but she knew that Brian was saving all his camp money in case his scholarships didn’t cover everything. From the look of how Jim had filled out, Trixie had no doubt that the young man had contributed plenty of hours in Jonesy’s service and she was equally certain that he hadn’t been compensated. The least the horrid man could do was help pay for Jim’s education.

She could see Jonesy’s warring emotions. He was furious at being unable to beat Jim, and unnerved by what Trixie assumed was her spectral presence. She was worried that the anger was going to win out over the fear. It was time to make sure that he remembered the fear, she decided.

“I’ll be watching,” she warned, stepping closer. “You won’t see me, but I will always see you.”

His eyes tracked her as she took another step toward him and she wondered if she was becoming more visible and substantial to him. With unassailable dream logic, she knew that it would not go well for her if she became corporeal.

“And you’ll never, ever, lay a hand on him again. Do you understand?” She pressed forward when he didn’t answer. “Do you understand?”

“Now, see here,” he blustered, a vein in his forehead protruding. “That boy won’t ever amount to nothin’.”

“He will, too! In spite of you!” Incensed, Trixie jabbed her finger at his chest, for a brief moment her body almost solid. Her finger sank into his solar plexus, horrifying her with the sick sensation of sinking into quicksand.

She struggled, fighting the suction that tried to keep her in place.

Trixie broke free, stumbling a step backward from the force, but not before Jonesy gasped in shock and… pain?

Trixie took another step back, unsettled by the expression of panic and pain on the bully’s face. Jonesy staggered, clutching his chest. He gasped and dropped to one knee. Trixie felt an arm curl around her shoulders, and saw that Jim had regained consciousness and managed to find his feet. Jonesy’s face faded from mottled red to sickly grey. His eyes turned glassy and he listed to one side. Jim’s grip on her shoulders tightened, but Trixie could feel herself start to fade. She looked from Jonesy’s horror to Jim’s confusion, and then dawning relief.

“He’s gone,” Jim whispered, staring at the unmoving body on the floor.

She couldn’t feel him anymore.

“It’s going to be okay.” The words crackled, like a radio losing signal.

Trixie screamed, sickened by Jonesy’s death. Yes, he had been despicable, but she hadn’t intended to kill him.

“It’s okay. He’s going to be perfectly fine.”

Trixie caught her breath on a sob, knowing perfectly well that Jonesy would never be perfectly fine again.

“Bobby slept through the night and his fever broke this morning. Dr. Ferris says he needs to rest quietly today, but we can take him home to Crabapple Farm after supper.”

Trixie struggled to open her eyes, sticky from sleep. Her mother sat on the couch with her, tucking a blanket more firmly around her shoulders. Sunlight streamed in through the large living room window of Ten Acres and Trixie realized that she’d slept straight through the night. She hiccupped twice as she slowed her breathing.

“Bobby’s okay?” she questioned, the events of the previous day rushing back in a flood.

“Perfectly fine,” Moms assured her. “And your father and I are very proud of you.”

Trixie swallowed hard, feeling anything but proud. She’d lost track of her baby brother, allowed him to be bitten by a snake, and maybe murdered a man in her sleep.

She didn’t feel proud.

What she felt was overwhelmed.

The doorbell rang and Trixie heard Mrs. Frayne hurry to answer the front door. Trixie bolted to her feet at the sound of a familiar voice and the christening cup she didn’t realize she’d been sleeping with tumbled to the floor with a clatter.

“Great Aunt Nell? I’m Jim. James Frayne. Your great-nephew. My stepfather died unexpectedly of a heart attack last night, and well, I was hoping that maybe I could stay with you for a while.”

Trixie tripped over her blanket and lurched to the foyer. Over Mrs. Frayne’s shoulder, she saw a familiar shock of red hair and green eyes.

“Welcome to Ten Acres,” Mrs. Frayne said, her voice choked. “Welcome home.”