Chapter 16

Even though I was tired from travel and the stress of discovering that my pseudo parents from the future were visiting my biological parents in the past, sleep eluded me.  I was haunted by the way my parents and uncle reacted to Sophie’s mentioning of Elsbeth.  My gut told me that there was a family secret concerning my aunt that they didn’t want me to know.  What could it be?

Easing my body out of bed, I lit the lantern on the small nearby table.  It provided lighting for only a fraction of my surroundings. I wanted more lighting.  Heaving a sigh and longing for electricity, I lowered the chandelier in the center of the room.  Wrinkling my nose at the smell that the many candles that the chandelier held gave off, I took shallow breaths as I carefully lit them. My parents used a more modern paraffin candle in the public rooms,  but since tallow was easier to come by and, therefore, less costly, the private family rooms were stock