Second Child Read Free

their way toward her room at the back of the house.
    Ten minutes later the fireman with the kind, gray eyes emerged from the front door and approached Teri, who stood waiting, her eyes fixed on him.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice made gruff by the memory of the charred remains of Tom MacIver, which he had found in front of the still-closed door to Teri’s bedroom at the back of the house. “He was trying to get you out. He didn’t know you’d already gotten away.” His large hand rested reassuringly on Teri’s shoulder for a moment, but then he turned away and began issuing the orders for Tom MacIver’s body to be removed from the ruins.
    Teri stood where she was for a few more seconds. Her eyes remained fixed on the house as if she were still uncertain of the truth of what she had just been told. Finally Lucy Barrow’s voice penetrated her thoughts.
    “We have to call someone for you,” Lucy said. “We have to call your family.”
    Teri turned away from the smoldering rubble. She stared blankly at Lucy. For a moment Lucy wasn’t certain Teri had heard her, but then Teri spoke.
    “My father,” she breathed. “Will someone please call my father?”
    Dear Lord, Lucy thought. She doesn’t understand. She hasn’t grasped what happened. She slipped her arms around Teri and held her close. “Oh, darling,” she whispered. “He didn’t get out. That’s what the fireman was telling you. I—I’m sorry,” she finished, wondering at the helpless inadequacy of the words. “I’m just so sorry.”
    Teri was motionless in her arms for a second, then pulled away, shaking her head.
    “N-Not him,” she said. “We need to call my real father.” She wrenched away from Lucy’s protective embrace,her gaze returning to the house, where three men were already working to retrieve Tom MacIver’s body. “He was my stepfather,” Teri said. “He adopted me when I was only four. Now we have to call my real father.”

CHAPTER 2
    Bright sunlight flooded the room. As Melissa Holloway’s eyes opened, she instantly felt a pang of guilt—she’d overslept yet again. She started to fling the thin sheet aside, then remembered. It was all right to oversleep today. Today, this and all the other tiny sins she fell victim to every day of her life would be forgiven.
    For today was her birthday.
    And not just any birthday, either. Today was her thirteenth birthday, the first day of a whole new era. Finally, the eternity of being a child was over. She was a teenager.
    She flopped back on the pillow, stretched luxuriantly, and tried to feel the difference between the Melissa who existed today and the Melissa who had endured all the other days of her life.
    She felt nothing. No different at all.
    Her feeling of well-being dimmed slightly, but then she decided it didn’t matter that she didn’t feel different. That would come later. The point was that she
was
different.
    She sat up and glanced around the big room in which she’d spent every summer of her life. It would have tochange now, she decided. It wasn’t a teenager’s room at all. It was a little girl’s room, the shelves that lined its walls overflowing with her collection of dolls and stuffed animals, and a few favorite toys from her toddler years still tucked away in the corners. Next to the fireplace was her enormous Victorian dollhouse, which would certainly have to go. After all, dollhouses were for babies.
    She frowned, already wondering if perhaps she should compromise on the dollhouse. After all, it wasn’t as if it was just
any
dollhouse. It was big—so big that when she was very small she’d actually been able to crawl inside it—and it was furnished with perfect miniatures of Victorian furniture.
    “What do you think, D’Arcy?” she asked out loud. “Don’t you think we should keep it at least for a while?” Suddenly she clamped her hands over her mouth, remembering her promise to her father. Only last week Melissa had vowed that she would give