He turned around, walked back through the entryway, saw movement in the sitting room. It was afternoon outside, but little daylight penetrated into the house, and, nervously, his hand fumbled for a light switch. He found it, flipped it on.

The butler was standing just inside the doorway.

“Billingham,” Stormy said, not entirely surprised.

The butler smiled at him, bowed. “Stormy.”

FIFTEEN

Daniel

The summer stretched before them, new, ripe with the possibility of adventure, its inevitable end so far in the future that it was almost inconceivable. The days were long and hot, and he and his friends filled the hours with projects. Making sand candles: melting real candles they’d stolen from Jim’s house, letting the wax drip around slices of string into holes they’d dug in the dirt of the backyard. Selling Kool-Aid: using Paul’s dad’s folding card table, having Jim’s sister draw them a sign, sitting for hours in the burning sun, adding more and more ice to the pitcher until the Kool-Aid was so watered down even they couldn’t drink it. Egging mailboxes: stealing two eggs from each of their refrigerators, playing paper-scissors-rock to determine who would rush up to their neighbors’ mailboxes and slam the eggs in.

It was a perfect existence. Nothing had to be planned, nothing had to be completed, they did what they wanted when they wanted, following their whims through the free and open days.

But something was wrong at home. Daniel could feel it. His parents didn’t say anything, but he sensed a subtle difference in their relationship, perceived the loss of something he hadn’t even known existed. At night, at the dinner table, there was anger beneath his father’s surface pleasantry, sadness underlying his mother’s cheerfulness, and he was glad it was summer and he could stay out late and he didn’t have to spend as much time with his family as he ordinarily would.

As the days passed, however, as the memory of school receded and the rhythms of summer became less tentative, more reliable, he came to believe—no, to know—that it was neither his mother’s fault nor his father’s fault that things were falling apart between them. They were victims. They were like him, able to see what was happening but unable to do anything about it, forced to watch as it occurred.

It was the fault of their servant, Billingsly.

And his dirty little daughter.