Mr. Conner knocked on the door until a voice called “Enter!”
It was a girls voice, not a woman’s voice, and suggested her age to be early teen, unlike me at freshly 18.
Mr. Conner opened the door a bit and peered in. “Mistress Sally? There’s a visitor here! Visitor!”
“A visitor? For me?” The excitement in her voice nearly surpassed Mr. Conner’s. “Send them in!”
Mr. Conner beamed at me. “You may enter. Enter!”
I nodded and slipped through the opening, with Mr. Conner right behind me.
The door opened into a small, circular room, perhaps even mustier than the rest of the rest of the house. There were no windows, just glowworms and flickering candles. Mistress Sally sat in a throne of beanbag chairs and pillows, a paper crown askew on her head. She looked 13 or 14, and beige hair fell in gentle curls around a pale, soft-featured face. She was petite, and wearing a dress with a brown cotton bust and a swirly patchwork skirt that reminded me of a rag doll. She grinned at me when I entered.