She stumbled across a large, leatherbound book. Cinnamon ran her hand gently across it, then wrapped her fingers about it to open it to a random spot, and blew dust off the pages. It was a photograph album.
“God, what a beautiful woman.” Cinnamon thought, looking down at the young lady smiling up at her from the old book.
The photographs eyes seemed to hold her, pull her in. Cinnamon could see that the paste holding the picture into the album was old, and cracking. Gently, she inserted her finger just between picture and the page, and carefully pried the picture up. It had to be her. Cinnamon flipped the picture over, but there was no inscription on the back. It had to be Alyce.
Cinnamon shook her head and stuffed the photo back into the album, and shut it with a thud. She grabbed up a nearby sheet and tore a strip from it, wrapping it around the album and tying it with a knot. She took the album the crook of her elbow down the hall and up the musty stairs toward the attic and the maid’s quarters. When she’d reached the attic, she looked around her for a moment, until she spotted a dusty, heavy-looking chest. With a grunt, she opened the lid, and dumped the album into the darkness of the chest, then let the lid fall with a clank, and a swirl of dust.
“That’s the end of that. Get out of there, Alyce Rassmussen.” Cinnamon thought, turning back down the stairs to return to cleaning.
She scrubbed and washed, swept and mopped all day, until the sun just started to get low, casting it’s long, languid shadows, and she realized that she was hungry but there wasn’t anything to eat...
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