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  “No, I’m the ‘help’ and not allowed,” she replied.

  “Well, you’re allowed now. You can take riding lessons with me.”

  “Your parents will never allow that.” She quickly dismissed the idea without even considering it.

  “I’m pretty sure they’ll do anything to make me happy right now. They have a bunch of years to make up for.” I smiled. “Just leave it all up to me.” I left to go find Sarah and Adam.

  I found them in the library. They spent a lot of time in there, I realized. It made sense to me. It was one of my favorite rooms in the house too.

  “I want Annabelle to take riding lessons with me,” I blurted out.

  “Absolutely not,” was Sarah’s response, without even considering it. She then turned back to whatever she and Adam were doing. I think that in her mind that was the end of the conversation.

  Nope, not even close.

  “That’s not acceptable. She is the only one around here that is close to my age, and she is really nice to me. I’m not taking lessons unless she can too.”

  “Really, Madison, we can’t have the employees taking riding lessons along with you. How would that look?” Sarah responded. Adam hadn’t said a word.

  “She’s my friend and that’s all that matters. To hell with anyone and what they think.” I wasn’t backing down.

  I think I saw Sarah flinch, but she didn’t say anything about my language.

  “Madison,” Adam finally jumped in, “I agree with Sarah. This is a bad idea. It’s important that we maintain some distance between us and the employees.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that is how it’s done,” Sarah replied.

  “I don’t care. Annabelle is taking lessons with me.” I turned and left. I knew I would get my way.

  We had a great time and both learned to be pretty good riders over the next few weeks. We also became good friends. I still missed Charlie, but it was nice having someone my age to talk to. Annabelle told me all about growing up without a father. Her parents had divorced, then he died when she was very young. Then when she was 8 years old her mother got the housekeeping job at the ranch, so they moved in. She said it was very strange at first, going from having almost nothing, to living in such a large mansion. I knew exactly how she felt. Even though it wasn’t her house, it was her home, and she had come to love it. I wasn’t quite there yet, but I was getting closer.

  Adam and Sarah didn’t really like my friendship with Annabelle, but I think they finally figured out that there was nothing they could do about it. We would be friends whether they liked it or not. I talked to my grandparents and Charlie occasionally, using Annabelle’s phone. But, they had to be quick calls and they started slowing down. I got to where I was so busy with horse riding lessons and shopping and things around the ranch, that I just didn’t call much.

  Adam was great. I was really starting to care for him. But, I really didn’t feel much of a connection with Sarah. Maybe it was because I had always thought of Abbey as my mother and that was hard to change.

  Chapter 7

  Summer was coming to an end and no one had mentioned school at all to me. I was starting to wonder why. I had always liked school, because I was good at it, I guess. It just came naturally to me. I even had a teacher, Mr. Reynolds, mention to me that maybe I should skip a grade, or even two. He said I was wasting my time with school work that came so easy to me. ‘You need to be challenged,’ I think is what he said. I was only in the fourth grade at the time and the thought of skipping to sixth, or even seventh grade, terrified me. I never even mentioned it to my grandparents because I was afraid they would want me to do it. So, I told Mr. Reynolds that my grandparents were not interested in moving me up a grade. It was just a little white lie. Luckily he never brought it up again.

  One evening Sarah came into my room, which surprised me. She rarely did that. I always dreamed of a mom that would come into my room for heart to heart talks. I never had that growing up, but thought maybe I could have it now.

  “Madison, I need to talk to you,” she just blurted out. She didn’t even wait for me to acknowledge her presence.

  “Okay,” I said as I looked up from the romance novel I was reading. It was called Love’s Tender Fury and I was mesmerized by it. Maybe it was not really written for someone my age, but I didn’t care. I loved it.

  She walked over and sat on the edge of my bed. I scooted over to make room for her.

  “We have decided not to put you in school. We’ve hired a private tutor,” she informed me.

  I was really surprised by that. “What? Why? I want to go to school. I’m stuck here 24 hours a day. Besides, I don’t know anybody but you guys.” I really meant it. I wanted to go to school and meet kids my own age. I wanted to make some nice friends and maybe go to dances. I kind of sheltered myself back home. I hung out with others occasionally, but for the most part Charlie was my only real friend. I wanted, I needed, more than that now. Annabelle was the only one I knew at the ranch, and that just wasn’t enough anymore.

  “You are not stuck here 24 hours a day. Don’t exaggerate. I take you shopping and out to lunch. And, you have met most of my friends,” She said, with a tone in her voice. For some strange reason she thought that would be enough for a 15 year old girl.

  “It’s not the same thing, you must understand that. I want friends my age. I want to go to school. Please.” I was whining. I folded my arms and stared at her with a pleading look on my face. I knew it was immature, but it was very important to me. It could determine my future. I might meet some really great kids there and I wanted the chance to do that. Heck, I might meet the love of my life at school, you never know. Lots of people do. I certainly wasn’t going to meet him hanging around the estate.

  “Where is Adam? I want to talk to him.”

  I saw an exasperated look on her face. It was very slight, but unmistakable. It was painfully obvious that she was annoyed with me.

  “The decision has already been made. Your tutor will be here promptly at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. Be dressed and ready in the library when he arrives.” Yep, she was angry. She got up and stormed out.

  “I hate it here!” I screamed as she passed through the doorway. I even went so far as to throw my paperback at her. Not really at her. More like in her direction. I didn’t want to hit her, I just wanted to get my point across, and it hit the wall next to the door. She hesitated for just the slightest moment, then continued on her way. She didn’t even flinch or look back at me. I could almost see the look of disappointment on her face, right through the back of her head.

  I spent the next hour pouting. Then I decided that if they were going to make decisions regarding my life without even consulting me about it, then I was not going to cooperate. They had upturned my entire life without even asking me how I felt about it. I could be pretty stubborn when I wanted to and they were about to find that out.

  The next morning at 7:30 I slipped into the kitchen, grabbed a couple of blueberry muffins and a bottle of water and left the house. It was a gorgeous, sunny day. I walked to the stables and saddled up Jett. Then we went for a really long ride. Let’s see how they like me now, I thought. We goofed off, wandering the woods and such. I was in no hurry at all. It was really beautiful in the area and I thoroughly enjoyed my leisurely ride. The ranch was so massive, that you could ride for hours and never leave the grounds. There were several small houses on it that no one lived in and I spent some time exploring them. Adam had told me that they are used from time to time to house some of the ranch hands and even weekend guests. Apparently they sat empty most of the time.

  When I figured it had been a sufficient amount of time, I returned to the stables and handed Jett off to Walter, one of the workers, and went to the house. As I walked in, all hell broke loose.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?” shouted Sarah, who seemed to be waiting for me by the front door. The way she came at me actually made me jump. But, I had to keep calm if I
wanted to get my point across.

  “Not really, no,” I said nonchalantly.

  “It’s after 11 o’clock. You were supposed to meet with the tutor at eight. We were looking all over for you”.

  “Oh, was that today?” I said, acting innocent. I knew it wouldn’t fool anyone.

  “Very amusing. You’re lucky that Walter told us that you had ridden off on that horse. Otherwise, we would have had the police out looking for you.” She was very angry. I didn’t see Adam anywhere. It was just Sarah that was all over me. My lucky day.

  I ran up both flights of stairs to my room and slammed my door. Sarah didn’t follow me and I spent all day sulking. I stayed in my room till 6 o’clock, which was dinner time. I decided I couldn’t hide out there forever. Besides, I was starving. I hadn’t had anything to eat all day, except the muffins I took early that morning. Hopefully I had made my point. When I walked into the dining room, Sarah and Adam both turned to look at me.

  “Well, finally,” Sarah said, obviously still angry. She then looked back at her plate, as if looking at me disgusted her.

  “Madison, come sit down. We need to talk,” Adam said softly, trying to diffuse the situation.

  I walked over to my usual seat and sat down without saying a word. One of the kitchen staff was just coming in to serve dinner. So, we all sat there in silence until she left. Then I dug in before they started speaking again.

  “Madison, we would like you to use a tutor,” Adam said. “I know you would rather go to school. But with everything that has happened, you being kidnapped and all, we want you to be where we can keep an eye on you.”

  “What, am I a prisoner now?” I said with a mouth full of food. I thought I was going to get yelled at for talking with a full mouth, but neither one of them said a word.

  “No, of course not. But we are the wealthiest family in the area and we are worried about you. We offered a substantial reward for you when Abbey took you years ago and we’re worried that someone will try to cash in on that now.” Adam really looked worried.

  “Has someone threatened to kidnap me?” I asked, starting to get scared.

  They must have seen the look on my face and realized what I was thinking.

  “No. No, sweetheart.” Adam tried to sound calm. “No one has threatened anything. We are just trying to be careful. We are worried about you, that’s all. Can you understand that?” He sounded really sincere. “I’m sorry if we frightened you.”

  I thought about it for a minute. I could kind of understand where they were coming from. Getting kidnapped again had never even crossed my mind. Now that it had, I had to relent.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll stay here and be tutored. For now. But, I can’t promise forever.” I wanted to appease them, a little bit anyway. I knew I couldn’t play the “poor little Madison was kidnapped’ card forever, but it was still working for the time being.

  They both smiled. “Thank you, that’s all we ask. Now, can you be ready in the morning at eight?” Adam asked, sincerely.

  “Yes. Maybe next time you could just ask me instead of telling me how things are going to be done." No response, which is exactly what I expected. My grandparents let me make a lot of my own decisions, within reason I guess, and it made me a stronger, more self reliable person for it. I wasn’t used to being told what to do all the time and I didn’t like it. I ate my dinner quickly and went up to my room. I was still somewhat irritated at the whole thing and wanted to be left alone.

  The next morning I showered and dressed and went downstairs early. I went to the kitchen and grabbed some fruit and yogurt to eat quickly before the tutor showed up. When he arrived I was sitting and waiting for him in the library, as promised.

  My new tutor was a big, burly man, probably in his sixties. Not at all what I expected. I thought, or hoped at least, that I was going to get some really cute teenage boy that needed the extra money for college. Nope. He was friendly enough, I guess. Tutoring went just as I had expected. I was always a good student and found his lessons fairly easy. He wasn’t really challenging me academically, but that was fine. I just wanted to get through it for a few months, then maybe I could talk the parents into letting me go to a real school. That was going to be a tough sell though and I knew it.

  I started spending a lot of time on school work, which I actually liked. I still rode as much as I could, but that seemed to be tapering off. Luckily one of the stable hands spent time riding Jett when I couldn’t. It kept the horse exercised and used to having a rider. I would have to try to spend more time riding. I didn’t want Jett to forget who I was.

  Summer meandered into Fall, which was my favorite season of the year. I loved the slight nip in the air, and the fall colors were so beautiful in the northeast that it was hard to stay indoors. I wandered the estate when I had the time, taking Annabelle with me, whenever she could sneak away for a couple of hours. I was really happy to have her around. Without her I would have been so lonely.

  Chapter 8

  One morning I woke up earlier than usual, and decided I had time for a ride before my tutor arrived. I was pretty self sufficient and rarely needed to ask my parents permission to do anything. I did what I wanted, for the most part, and they let me. They finally realized that bossing me around all the time was getting them nowhere.

  I got up and washed my face and brushed my hair. I went to my closet to grab a red sweatshirt which was hanging in the back, so I walked all the way in. I think I mentioned before that the closet was huge. The night before, I had kicked off my sneakers into the closet. I actually stood in the middle of my bedroom and kicked them as hard as I could toward the closet. Pretty lazy of me, I guess. But, I did manage to make it all the way in with both shoes.

  As I reached for the hanger, I tripped on those same sneakers from the night before. I wasn’t expecting that and I went down. Hard. I had no time at all to think about putting my hands out to stop my fall, when my head hit the back wall of the closet. Damn, that hurt a lot. I lay there on the floor of my closet holding the top of my head because it hurt so much. I could actually see stars floating around and felt light headed. I was afraid that if I got up too fast I would pass out, so I just lay there. After a minute or so I sat up and felt around on my head to see if I was bleeding. Luckily I wasn’t. Boy did I feel foolish. Glad no one saw that.

  As I started to get up, something caught the corner of my eye. It was a dark area on the back wall. “Oh no, did I punch a hole in the closet wall?” I said out loud. Was my head that hard?

  I was still on the floor, so I crawled the couple of feet over to the spot I saw. It wasn’t a hole at all. It was a doorway that I had managed to knock open. That’s weird, I thought. Why would there be a doorway here? I hesitated a moment, but decided to check it out anyway. I had some time before my tutor arrived. I figured it was probably just a dusty old crawlspace that the electrician or plumber used to do whatever it is they do.

  I stood up but had to bend down to enter. The doorway was about four feet tall. As I passed the threshold, I walked right into a spider web. “Yuck,” I said as I wiped it away from my face and out of my hair. “Maybe this was a bad idea after all.” I started to back out, then changed my mind. Well, the spider web was gone by then, so I figured I might as well go on in. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

  I headed back in. There was a string just inside the door for the light, I guessed. I pulled on it and was surprised when the room lit up. Well, sort of lit up anyway. It had no windows, so was still kind of dark and shadowy in there. Very creepy. It was some sort of storage room. It was probably about twenty feet by twenty feet, so it was kind of a large room. It had a lot of old furniture in it. I found a crib, which I figured was mine way back when. Some old tables, chairs, etc. It was really dusty in there, but most everything was covered with sheets. I had only socks on my feet and tried to walk carefully through the room, when I stubbed my toe on something.

  “Damn!” I said, as I lifted my foot. “What is that?
” I was talking to myself again.

  I lifted the sheet, but it was too dark to really see what it was. I could see that it was probably three or four feet wide and three feet tall. I grabbed the edges and turned it toward the dim light bulb hanging by the door. I could see that it was a painting of a village. It had very bright colors and lots of triangles. Everything seemed out of proportion. I loved it immediately.

  “I wonder why this is in here?” Still talking to myself.

  I looked at it for several minutes, just admiring the painting. It looked oddly familiar. Not like I had seen that particular painting before, but something like it. I had no idea where. I thought about it for a couple of minutes, but nothing jogged my memory, so I gently covered it up and started exploring some more. I found another door at the opposite end of the room from my closet. I tried opening it, but it wouldn’t budge. I wonder where this goes?

  Just then I realized I had been in there for quite some time and needed to go. I pulled the light switch again and it went dark, except for the little bit of light coming in from my room. I ducked through the doorway into my closet and closed the door behind me. I grabbed my sweatshirt and shoes as I walked out of the closet. My head started aching again, so I went to my bathroom to get some aspirin. I had a nasty lump on my head, I noticed, as I got dressed and went downstairs.

  I didn’t realize that I had been in that room so long. Breakfast was ready when I reached the dining room. I decided not to say anything about the room or the painting for the time being. It just didn’t seem like the right time.

  Sarah, Adam and I ate breakfast together almost every day. They insisted on it. Occasionally Adam was away for a few days on ranch business, so Sarah and I ate alone. We would usually chit chat about things going on around the ranch. Nothing that interesting, really.

  I was busy all week with school and such, so I didn’t get a chance again to explore the closet some more until Saturday. After breakfast, I figured I would first go see if I could find the other side of that door I couldn’t open. I stood in the hallway for several minutes just staring at my room as I tried to figure out the layout of the house. Where would that door be? One of the housekeepers walked by me and I didn’t even realize she was there.