Once Was a Time Read Online Free Page A

with me looking at the cards and trying to send the images to Kitty, when we heard a knocking sound.
    â€œDaddy?” I called.
    No reply.
    It must have been the dying embers of our fire. I glanced at the windows to make sure the blackout curtains were drawn, so nobody outside would be able to see any light left from our hearth or the one lit lamp. That was a rule that Mum had been very strict about: If the Luftwaffe could see light, they would know where the cities were, and then they would know where to bomb. She’d put Thomas in charge of drawing the curtains half an hour after sunset every evening, and he took this wartime responsibility very seriously. If the air raid wardens could see light coming through the windows at night, they would yell and even fine you.
    Of course the curtains were drawn tightly, like every night. Kitty and I went back to our cards.
    â€œSquiggles,” Kitty said.
    It was a square.
    â€œSquare,” Kitty said.
    It was a circle.
    â€œStar,” Kitty said.
    This one was a star. I smiled to myself and marked her answer on my score sheet.
    Then the knocking sound came again, louder.
    â€œI think there’s someone at the door,” Kitty said.
    â€œWho would be knocking on the door this late at night?” But I was already on my feet and walking into the front hallway, Kitty right behind me.
    I have a quick imagination. That’s what my schoolteacher last year had told my parents, like she wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or a bad thing: Charlotte has a quick imagination . That meant that, in the few steps between the living room and the front door, I had already come up with a dozen possible explanations for the knocking—the odd knocking, which was not slow. Slow. Fast-fast-fast-fast-fast.
    Maybe our neighbors had locked themselves out of their house again and needed to come in from the rain.
    Maybe Justine had arranged a late-night rendezvous with one of her beaux.
    Maybe Mum had realized her mistake in leaving us and had journeyed all through the day and into the night so she could come home. And had been gone so long that she’d forgotten the right way to knock.
    But when I opened the door, the person standing there was not a neighbor, or a teenage boy, or my mum. It was a tall, slender stranger in a dark gray raincoat with a smart hat angled over her face. She looked like a film star. Not a Film Star, a real one.
    â€œHello, girls,” she said, her voice calm but serious. “Which one of you is Charlotte?”
    â€œI am.” I raised my hand.
    â€œAh, so this must be your sister,” the lady said, her eyes flickering over Kitty.
    â€œOh, yes,” I said innocently. “That’s why our eyes are the same color, you see?” We widened our matching hazel eyes up at her.
    She gave a tense smile. “I do see. I’m afraid I need to discuss something serious with you, however. I have some news to share with you about your father.”
    â€œMy father?” I repeated, and that was the moment when it occurred to me to wonder how long it had been since I’d last seen him. Today was Friday. I was certain I’d seen him on Tuesday. Hadn’t I? Or had it been Monday?
    â€œYes,” the film star woman said. “It’s quite important. Would you come out to the car with me?”
    Kitty and I peered past her, but in the rain and the dark, it was impossible to make out a car on the street. I ate a lot of carrots these days, even though I thought they tasted like medicine and dirt, because Mum said they would help us see better in the nighttime, but they didn’t do anything for my vision right now. Every house on my street had its blackout curtains drawn, of course no streetlamps were lit, and any cars that might have been on the road were required to cover their headlights and taillights. Driving on a night like this seemed to be madness—how would you avoid running straight into a tree?