Sabbath's 2 Darlings- The 12: Book Two

24. A New Vantage Point

Ottaline put down one iron as it cooled and took the other off the stove in the linen room. Providence stood just behind her folding the bed sheet. She turned and looked over her shoulder. "Make sure you fold those flat or they won't all fit in the closet."

"Yes, Ottaline," Providence said smartly. "After all you are the lady of the house."

"Stop that!"

Providence laughed. "Mrs. Ottaline Jewel Heritage, lady of Heritage place." She swept her hand to her forward dramatically and danced around the linen table with an imaginary partner. "I bet you want to kiss him, don't you?"

"That's it!" Ottaline put down the iron and lunged for her sisters.

Providence spun out of the way and ran into the kitchen across the hall then outside where Ottaline tackled her and tickled her as punishment. They two rolled in the grass soiling their pinafores and making a mess of their hair.

"All right, all right!" Providence cried when she was sore from laughing. "I take it back."

Ottaline let her up and they sat in the grass. "So you're not cross with me anymore about that?"

Providence shook her head. "No." A frown slowly came to her face and she sniffed the air. "Is something burning?"

"The ironing!" Ottaline jumped up and ran back into the house with Providence right behind her. She snatched the iron off the sheet and put it back on the stove. When she lifted the sheet she could see Providence's face through the burnt hole.

"Well at least it was one of ours," Providence said. She finished folding the other sheet while Ottaline tossed the burned one aside. "Do you want to go look at the wreckage today?"

"It's going to rain," Ottaline reasoned. "But just let me leave a note and we can go."

Providence left the room. "I'll leave it," she said.

"Make sure it's where it can be seen!" Ottaline called after her. After shutting down the linen room she went into the kitchen and took two fish strips left over from breakfast and some bread then packed it in a basket. By then Providence was finished writing the letter which she brought to Ottaline to inspect. Finding it legible the girls left the house for the shore.

/

"Mr. Richmond left no time getting the ship tugged off the rocks," Providence said as she pulled the wagon up the beach. "Some of the other children were out here the very next day trying to find treasure in the debris. Silly isn't it? Mr. Idris says it wasn't that sort of ship."

Ottaline picked up a shell and put it in the wagon then looked out to sea. Now that the ship was gone she couldn't tell where the rocks were that it got hung up on, yet she knew from her own experience that they were there, waiting.

Providence pulled the wagon up beside the peak and waded into the surf, walking slowly along with a hermit crab until it became lost in the waves. "I don't see any debris," she called to Ottaline behind her. "It's erased like it never happened."

Ottaline looked up at False Light Peak as she walked backwards. "Let's climb it," she said.

"What?" Providence gasped. "You want to go up there?"

"You've always wanted to so why not?" Ottaline said. She tied her bonnet tighter under her chin and approached the base of the cliff. She had climbed trees before and knew it was all a matter of hand and foot placement. "Just follow my lead." She grabbed hold of a protruding rock and hoisted herself up. She grabbed another and up she went some more.