“Chloe,” Eleanor whispered. “Wake up, baby. It’s Christmas morning.”
Chloe’s eyelids fluttered. She stretched her small arms above her head, her fingers catching in the down pillows, before her hazel eyes snapped wide open.
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She looked at the cherry canopy. She looked at the wallpaper printed with wild meadowsweet and fern fronds. She looked at her mother standing in the warm green robe.
“Mommy…” Chloe gasped, sitting bolt upright, throwing the duvet off her chest. “The camp… we didn’t go back to the dumpster, did we?”
“No, baby,” Eleanor smiled, tears glistening in her eyes as she lifted her daughter into her arms, feeling the clean, warm flannel of Chloe’s new pajamas against her chest. “We are in Mr. Vance’s house. Come on. Let’s go see if Santa found the road.”
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They walked hand-in-hand down the wide, sunlit hallway of the east wing.
The great hall was bathed in blinding shafts of golden light pouring through thirty-foot Palladian windows.
