The Summerhouse Read online

  Futures, Inc.

  “Have you ever wanted to rewrite your past?”

  Madame Zoya can help

  333 Everlasting Street

  Leslie read the card, frowned, then handed it to Madison. “I have no idea what it is. I didn’t notice it when I was reading the book.”

  Madison looked at the card for a moment, then put it down on the table. Opening her handbag, she withdrew another card and placed it beside Leslie’s. They were identical.

  “That’s odd that we both have the same card,” Leslie said, “but then I guess the lady is just trying to drum up business. It must be difficult to earn a living in a small town like this. Maybe—”

  She broke off because Ellie had rummaged inside her shopping bags and had placed a third identical card on the table by the other two.

  Seventeen

  “Palm reader,” Madison said as she ate another piece of fried food.

  “Tarot,” Ellie said. “Or, actually, she could be regressionist.”

  “Past lives?” Madison asked, eyebrows raised. “Gee, I’d sure love to find out that I’ve done stupid things for centuries.”

  “You were probably a great beauty then too. Maybe you were some king’s favorite courtesan,” Ellie said.

  “So why do I get courtesan and not queen?” Madison asked. “Why do I have to be illegal as well as immoral?”

  “In real life queens are never actually beautiful. They’re chosen for their lineage, not their looks.”

  “Does this include Princess Diana?” Madison shot back.

  “She didn’t make it to queen, did she?” Ellie said, one eyebrow raised.

  “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “Let’s go,” Leslie said, and, without waiting for a reply, she began to gather her things.

  “Back to the house?” Ellie asked, puzzled by Leslie’s abruptness.

  Madison leaned over. “I think she means for us to go to Madame Zoya.”

  “You’re kidding,” Ellie said as the waitress came up to their table.

  “Is there anything else I can get for you ladies?” she said, but she looked directly at Ellie.

  Before Ellie could make a reply to the skinny waitress’s look, Leslie said, “Do you know where Everlasting Street is?”

  The girl began to clear the containers from the table. “I don’t get out of here very often, but they sell maps at the bookstore.”

  For a moment all three women looked at the girl in puzzlement.

  “How long have you lived here?” Leslie asked quietly.

  “All my life,” the girl answered. “You sure you don’t want dessert?” She looked at Ellie. “We have chocolate cake.”

  Madison put out her arm to prevent Ellie from physically attacking the girl, but the waitress just smiled and turned away, leaving the check on the table.

  “Anyone leaves her a tip over five cents and she’s dead meat,” Ellie muttered, but the girl had brought her back to reality. Being with Leslie and Madison for these last two days had made her forget why she’d been hiding for the last three years.

  Leslie was standing on the opposite side of the table, her cardigan and her handbag over her arm, the book in one hand and the card in the other. She was looking at it in concentration.

  Reaching across the table, Ellie took the card from her. “Rewrite the past,” she said. “I’d like to go back to the time before I was fat,” she said with vehemence; then she handed the card back to Leslie. “Let’s find this place.”

  The two women looked at Madison.

  “You two don’t believe this thing, do you? This has to be a hoax. If anyone could send anyone back to the past, she would have been on 60 Minutes, and since I rarely miss an episode . . .” She trailed off, hoping to elicit a smile from Leslie and Ellie. She didn’t like fortune-tellers. When she was a teenager, one of them had read her palm and told her of the wonderful future in store for her, complete with four children. Since her divorce, she’d thought of that charlatan several times.

  “Why don’t you two go, and I’ll . . .” Madison began, but the looks on the faces of Leslie and Ellie made her retreat. “All right. What do I have to lose? My future couldn’t be much worse than my past.”

  “Sure it could,” Ellie said. “You could become rich and famous and have every person you’ve ever known drop you because they’ve decided that you’re now a snob.”

  “Or you could be elected chairman of your town’s Winter Carnival and be expected to raise the money as well as spend it,” Leslie said.

  “Or—” Ellie began.

  Madison put up her hand. “I give up. You win. So how do we find Everlasting Street?”

  “I think I saw a newspaper office somewhere,” Leslie said.

  “It’s over the drugstore. I wonder what their subscriber rate is.”

  “At least twenty-five,” Madison said, smiling. “Which is about two more than the Erskine paper has.”

  “Shall we go?” Leslie asked, and there was impatience in her voice.

  “Let me take care of the check,” Ellie said with a malicious little smile on her face. Five minutes later the three of them were walking down the main street of the tiny town on their way to the newspaper office. But they hadn’t gone four blocks when they saw a street sign that said, “Everlasting Street.” It was true that the sign was smaller than the others, and it was almost hidden behind the leaves of a magnificent copper beech tree, but, still, it was there.

  “Lived here all her life and she’s never heard of the street,” Ellie muttered, looking up at the sign.

  “Well, ladies,” Leslie said, “shall we?”

  Leslie didn’t wait for an answer as she trudged ahead, Ellie behind her, a reluctant Madison trailing in the rear.

  “This really is absurd,” Madison said. “I don’t know what you two hope to find out. Fortune-tellers are out to get what they can. I saw a special once on TLC that showed how they see clues about your life from your clothes, your jewelry, even the way you carry yourself. Then, no matter how little you tell them, they pick up these clues. It was all just an act. The commentator took a couple of lessons, and at the end he told someone’s fortune. He did quite well at guessing, but—”

  All the time Madison had been talking they had been walking. As far as they could see, the narrow road was deserted. There were no houses on either side, just what looked to be virgin forest right up to the edges of the road. But then the road turned to the right, and they were suddenly staring at a big Victorian house, and the sight of it made Madison halt her speech.

  The house wasn’t huge, but it was exquisite. It had been painted in an intricate manner that one usually saw only on brochures put out by paint companies. This one was done in a sort of taupe green, with accents of dark brown and dark green. There were spindles on a little balcony, and they had been meticulously painted in all three shades.

  “I wish Alan could see this,” Leslie said under her breath. “He loves Victorian houses.”

  “Probably fake,” Madison muttered.

  “No,” Leslie said. “I know something about building, and this one is old. See the way the windows are uneven? It takes years for a house to settle that way.”

  “Look at her lilacs,” Ellie said, nodding toward a ten-foot-tall hedge along the right side of the house.

  Leslie turned to Ellie. “Don’t lilacs bloom in the spring? This is October.”

  For a moment, the two women looked at each other with wide eyes.

  “Are you two going to go into some sort of supernatural trance? They’re plants. Plants bloom at different times. So what? She has October-blooming purple flowers, and you two have May-blooming purple flowers. Snap out of it!”

  When neither Leslie nor Ellie moved, Madison grabbed their arms and pulled them toward the perfect little white picket fence that surrounded the house. “Really, you two! You dragged me here, now you’re the ones chickening out.”

  There was no answer from either Ellie or Leslie as Madiso