The Path Through the Trees. Peggy Dymond Leavey

mind kept returning to the paintings in the spare room. If her aunt owned such beautiful things, why wouldn’t she hang them on the walls, instead of storing them away where they couldn’t be seen? What possible reason could she have for taking them down? So many things puzzled her about the woman.

      And then there was the boy in the yard. Who was he, and why was he watching the house?

      Knowing she would get no answers from Caroline Stoppard, Norah finally picked up one of her books and read it straight through to the end. Her mother would arrive tomorrow. Maybe Ginny would be able to thaw Aunt Caroline’s icy exterior.

      Six

      Unless he came up with a better plan to find out who she was and why she was here, Jody intended to catch the girl when she was alone sometime and ask her.

       He remembered from when he had been here before (not the first time, when he had come as a companion to Joseph, but later when Joseph had gone back to university) that Caroline Stoppard used to go out to work every day. But now she seemed never to leave the property. How was he going to meet the girl if the woman was always around?

      He wondered if something had happened to Caroline Stoppard’s beautiful car, if that was the reason she stayed home all the time. He would have to check the garage on his next visit to the house.

      In the years after Joseph had left, Jody used to watch Caroline Stoppard back the vehicle out of the garage every morning. She would secure the wooden doors, slide in again under the steering wheel and drive slowly down the lane, sunlight glinting on polished metal, the colour of midnight.