Falling For Henry Read Free

omelets, chocolate hazelnut crepes, berry salads, and his specialty coffee.
    In comparison, what Kate was eating in London was a disgrace. Willow should be hauled to prison for punishing her with this disgusting stuff. Or to the Tower. The Tower of London. Kate had gone by there on a sightseeing trip, but figured it wasn’t worth the twenty pounds to go inside. The old royal prison didn’t interest her at all, in spite of the sinister ravens flapping about. She sighed, her stomach growling, and wished that she’d just skipped school today, something she’d been doing with increasing regularity, unbeknownst to Willow, whose name she forged on the notes explaining various illnesses. Strep throat, bronchitis, pink eye. Kate had used stomach flu twice. She’d soon have to consult a medical dictionary, just to get some new ideas.
    Her father would have noticed her skipping school and wouldn’t have liked it. He had been the kind of person who paid attention. Busy with guests at the house, he’d always had time for Kate, and when she talked to him about anything, he listened. It was this, perhaps, that she missed most of all—just being listened to. Of course, you had to talk in order for someone to listen, but she didn’t want to think about that now.
    A sudden wind made the branches above her shake collected raindrops from their leaves, and then the sky disappeared in a hard rain that brought dirt splashing up onto Kate’s ankles. She rubbed her sleeve across her eyes, her sweater—jumper, as they called it here—already soaking, and then spotted the tunnel. In spite of her unease about small spaces, Kate ran toward it, grateful for shelter. Once inside, she stood looking at the storm, conscious of the need to block out the tunnel walls that seemed to press closer the longer she lingered here. An odd smell hung about, a warm animal scent that Kate couldn’t identify. She dizzily took another deep breath and then turned to face her fear as the wind pushed her deeper into the tunnel.
    Kate blinked at the greenish glow that seemed to emanate from the ground, and then stared ahead at the deep path into darkness. Her impulse was to run back into the rain, but conquering the underground path now would ensure she didn’t disgrace herself later in front of anyone. She could just hear the snide remarks from Tiffany Fielding, and that rat-faced Cynthia Abbott, if they discovered her terror, the reaction to small enclosed spaces that had been with her for as long as she could remember. She blinked again, glanced at her palm, and then concentrated on taking slow, careful breaths. That was how to avert a full-blown panic attack—just keep breathing.
    Kate wasn’t sure when she’d developed the claustrophobia that rose at the most awkward times. Her mother’s disappearance, when Kate was five, seemed to be the beginning of conscious memory, and this strange terror had been with her then. That was almost ten years ago. Could her mother have locked her up, kept her in a closet or some other small space, as punishment? Kate shivered. The idea was awful, but possible. Everything about her mother was such a mystery. Her father hadn’t liked speaking of Isobel Allen, and so Kate hadn’t asked the questions that plagued her. And now she couldn’t ask her father about anything.
    On the day her mother left, Kate had dropped a pitcher of juice on the kitchen floor. It slipped through her hands and smashed, the orange liquid streaming everywhere. Trying to sop it up with a towel, a shard of glass had pierced her palm, leaving a white scar that resembled the letter K. “K for Katherine,” she’d say to herself when she could feel an anxiety attack coming on. “K for Kate.” Somehow the reassurance of herself, her name, gave her strength.
    I hate the way I am , she thought, spiraling into panic as she stood alone in the confines of the tunnel. I hate