The Time-Space Door, Part One: Birthday Surprise

Elisabeth felt her eyes drooping, but she didn’t want to sleep. Not that she had nightmares anymore, like she had so often when she was younger. Nightmares about fires. Always about fires. The only thing that made it remarkable was, she had never even seen a real fire apart from winter blazes in the fireplace, much less been in a real fire. Except the fear of fire had always been real. The nightmares had always seemed real. She knew instinctively what the heat of a roaring flame around her would feel like, what the acrid vapors of smoke would smell like. No one in her life had ever known why, and after a while, she pretended that the nightmares of fire had never really bothered her, and that she never had them anymore. She buried them in the past and accepted it, like everything else.

Lizzie had skipped dinner, but Aunt Judith's lawyer, Mr. Holcombe had stayed for dinner, and now Lizzie heard them talking through the vent. She didn’t want to listen, and usually closed the vent tightly to drown out Aunt Judith’s invading voice. Except she was too tired to be bothered now. She needed a distraction from her thoughts, and lingered on the conversation, half-wishing she would be invited into the action and discussions that always seemed to be conducted without her.

"Would you care for a cup of tea, Mr. Holcombe?" Aunt Judith asked. She had an amazing knack for sounding like a paragon of politeness among strangers, while reserving her sarcasm and venomous barbs privately for Elisabeth.

"No, thank you, Miss Spencer." Mr. Holcombe wheezed. "This is quite a detailed account of your mother's estate."

"Yes, it is." Aunt Judith agreed, song-like.

"The will is explicit." Holcombe was brief.

"Yes, Mr. Holcombe. But understand my position." What was this? Now Aunt Judith sounded persuasive, with just the slightest hint of a whine in her voice.

"It is a difficult business to contest a will, Miss Spencer." Holcombe sensed Aunt Judith’s appeal and became brusque in order to gather his immunity against her feminine wiles.

"But that money, what little there is, belongs to me. Who took care of her all those years?"

"I understand how you feel, but the will is clear. And you would be administrator of the inheritance as long as the girl is under your care."

"Yes, but what can I do with her?" Aunt Judith asked, trying to be charming and playing damsel in distress. "I can’t afford her, or take care of her with my failing health."

"You have been named the girl's legal guardian. You’ll have to do your best."

"I never asked to be her guardian."

"Be that as it may, you know you still have a responsibility to take care of her."

"Isn't there some way to get around it?"

"You can give her up to the state, but she'll still own half of the house."

"About that. I was hoping we could find another arrangement. I can compensate her for her half of the estate. A young lady with some means wouldn't find it very difficult to find adoptive parents."

Lizzie backed away from the duct on her hands and knees and returned to the window ledge.

Could it be? Grandmother Spenser had left her most of the money, not Aunt Judith! But what did that matter, now that her grandmother was gone? Lizzie would have rather had her grandmother’s love than the money. No, it wasn’t a good thing at all that Grandmother Spenser had left her the money, she reconsidered.