I paused to prepare myself—took a deep breath—then opened the door and stepped inside.
The blood had been cleaned up—I saw that at once. The floor was newly scrubbed and the sharp clean smell of Sunlight soap still hung in the air.
It wasn’t dark inside the caravan, but neither was it light. I took a step towards the rear and froze in my tracks.
Someone was lying on the bed!
Suddenly my heart was pounding in a frenzy, and my eyes felt as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. I hardly dared breathe.
In the gloom of the drawn curtains I could see that it was a woman—no, not a woman—a girl. A few years older than me, perhaps. Her hair was raven black, her complexion tawny, and she was wrapped in a shapeless garment of black crepe.
As I stood motionless, staring at her face, her dark eyes opened slowly—and met mine.
With a quick, powerful spring she leapt from the bed, snatching something from a shelf, and I suddenly found myself wedged sharply against the wall, my arm twisted behind my back and a knife at my throat.
“Let go! You’re hurting me!” I managed to squeeze the words out through the pain.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” she hissed. “Tell me before I slit your gullet.”
I could feel the knife’s blade against my windpipe.
“Flavia de Luce,” I gasped.
Damn it all! I was beginning to cry.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: her arm beneath my chin … my bulging eyes … the knife—the knife!
“That’s a butter knife,” I croaked in desperation.
It was one of those moments that might later seem amusing, but it wasn’t now. I was trembling with fear and anger.
I felt my head jerk as she pulled back to look at the blade, and then I was being pushed away.
“Get out of here,” she said roughly. “Get away—now—before I take the razor to you.”
I didn’t need a second invitation. The girl was obviously mad.
I stumbled towards the door and jumped to the ground. I grabbed Gladys and was halfway to the trees when —
“Wait!”
Her voice echoed in the glade.
“Did you say your name was Flavia? Flavia de Luce?”
I did not reply, but stopped at the edge of the grove, making sure that I kept Gry between us as a makeshift barrier.
“Please,” she said. “Wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t know who you were. They told me you saved Fenella’s life.”
“Fenella?” I managed, my voice shaking, still hollowed out by fear.
“Fenella Faa. You brought the doctor to her … here … last night.”
I must have looked a perfect fool as I stood there with my mouth open like a goldfish. My brain needed time to catch up as the girl flip-flopped suddenly from holding a blade at my throat to being sorry. I was not accustomed to apologies, and this one—probably the first I had ever received in my life—caught me off guard.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Porcelain,” she said, jumping down from the caravan. “Porcelain Lee—Fenella’s my gram.”
She was coming towards me through the grass, her arms extended in biblical forgiveness.
“Let me hug you,” she said. “I need to thank you.”
I’m afraid I shrank back a little.
“Don’t worry, I won’t bite,” she said, and suddenly she was upon me, her arms enfolding me in a tight embrace, her chin resting sharply on my shoulder.
“Thank you, Flavia de Luce,” she whispered in my ear, as if we had been friends forever. “Thank you.”
Since I was still half expecting a dagger to be plunged between my shoulder blades, I’m afraid I did not return her hug, which I received in stiff silence, rather like one of the sentries at Buckingham Palace pretending he doesn’t notice the liberties being taken by an excessively affectionate tourist.
“You’re welcome,” I managed. “How is she? Fenella, I mean.”
Using the Gypsy’s first name did not come easily to me. In spite of the fact that Daffy and I have always referred to our own mother as Harriet (only Feely, who is older, seems to have the right to call her Mummy), it still felt excessively saucy to call a stranger’s grandmother by her given name.
“She’ll be all right, they think. Too early to tell. But if it hadn’t been for you—”
Tears were beginning to well up in her dark eyes.
“It was nothing,” I said uncomfortably. “She needed help. I was there.”
