“The midwife called it infant apoplexy. Your muscles seize up. Lots of children die from it. But it just twisted up my leg and weakened it. So I can’t complain.”

Franny struck Rose as having an unusually sunny disposition. She liked her a lot, but she could still not begin to understand what had happened and how she had arrived in this place, walking with this girl, Franny. One moment she had been looking at that horrible newspaper picture of her mother’s fatal car crash, and the next she was here in this new place. Hatfield, Franny had called it. And where was September?

“You know, Franny, I can carry both pails. It’s not a problem for me.”

“Oh, that would be very good, because then we could stop at the henhouse and I could collect some eggs for Cook. Saves me another walk.”

“I’m happy to help you.”

Rose paused a moment. “Have you seen a cat around here?”

“I thought I saw one the other day. And you know, it’s funny, but I think Princess Elizabeth saw the cat too. She sent out a guard looking for it.”

“Really? Was it by any chance orange?”

“Yes. Rather like a maple leaf. And thank you for helping with the pails.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

Franny stopped and looked at her. “But it is something, Rose. You’ll probably be a house servant. That’s way above me. I can’t think of one house servant, and there are almost fifty, who would pick up a milk pail, let alone go to the henhouse. You will go to the henhouse with me, won’t you?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. You’re a bit odd, Rose.”

Rose was tempted to say, “So are you,” but refrained. They continued on the path.

Rose scanned the countryside. If she just looked at the gently sloping hills, the grand old trees that swept green expanses, it might have been any fancy country estate in the America of her time, or like the country club where her mom often played golf with a friend of hers who belonged. But this was no country club. No golf courses visible. Rose knew she was not in her time. She was not going to come across a putting green or a reenactment of some episode in history where twenty-first-century people were dressed up in old-fashioned clothes to give a lesson on how life was in those olden times. This was the real deal!