The garden looked rather bleak and bare as Caroline pushed open the front gate and walked up the path between rose beds that were now just stumps of twig, having been pruned back for the winter. She took a deep breath before she knocked. She didn’t want to cry in front of Granny. When her grandmother opened the door, she looked as if she might have been crying, too.

“Oh, my darling,” she said in a hushed voice. “It’s good of you to have come so quickly.”

“Is she still alive?” Caroline’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

“Oh yes. Hanging on until you got here, I think. She asked for you again.”

Caroline took off her coat in Granny’s warm front hall, and the two women hugged silently. The thought crossed Caroline’s mind that Granny was the only person who had ever hugged her, apart from her husband and son. She couldn’t recall her mother ever doing so. Her mother was never touchy-feely. And Great-Aunt Lettie had not been the sort of person you hugged. She had been kind, caring, but she kept her distance, as if she were a remnant of a bygone age of propriety.

Caroline went forward and opened her aunt’s bedroom door cautiously, with a glance back at her grandmother. Great-Aunt Lettie lay amid white sheets, her eyes closed, her face peaceful, seemingly asleep. Caroline wondered if she was already dead, but she noticed a slight rise and fall of the sheet. She bent over and kissed her cheek. It was cold.

“Aunt Lettie,” she whispered. “It’s Caroline. I came as quickly as I could.”

The sightless eyes fluttered open. “Cara . . . ?” The word came out with difficulty. A worried look crossed her face. “Need to tell you,” she forced out the words, her mouth drooping on one side. “For you. Need it now.”

“Need what, darling?” Caroline perched on the bed beside her and took her cold hand.

Her great-aunt’s old face was crinkled into a frown. Then she muttered, “Sketches. Still there.”

“Still where?” Caroline looked around the room, wondering if she had heard right and where there might be sketches.

Great-Aunt Lettie gripped Caroline’s hand with surprising ferocity. “Up there. Show you.”

“Up where?”

She hoped her aunt’s blind gaze might direct her, but her aunt was just shaking her head angrily.

“That thing!” she said, fluttering a hand as she sought a word that wouldn’t come. “You know.” Then, with great difficulty, she stammered out the word “box.”

“You want me to find a box?” Caroline asked, sensing her great-aunt’s agitation.

Aunt Lettie took a big breath. “You go.”

Now Caroline was confused. Did her great-aunt want her to go now, so that she could be alone? She attempted to stand up, but the grip on her hand was still vice-like.

She looked down at the old woman, and her eyes were now closed again, but her face was strained, worried.

“Auntie, do you want me to do something for you?” she asked. “Something with sketches?”