Read Daughter of Light for Free Online

girl my age who arrived anywhere without a stitch of clothing or any possessions would surely attract more attention, I thought, recalling that it alreadyhad, so I then went into a department store and bought socks, undergarments, some pants and shirts, and a few simple dresses. I even bought myself a cap. After I had those things and some basic toiletries, I felt more confident about traveling alone.
    I discovered that Quincy was connected to the regional subway system and was the fourth stop. At the station in the city, I found a magazine advertising hotels and apartments. One in particular caught my attention because it looked so historic and yet unpretentious. It was the Winston Rooming House. I went to a pay phone and called to see if I could make a reservation. The woman who answered sounded old, maybe as old as Thaddeus Bogosian. Mrs. Winston seemed very suspicious. I was tempted to ask her if I was the first person ever to inquire about available space.
    “Where did you get my number?” she asked with a tone of suspicion.
    “You have an advertisement in the Daily Tripper, ” I said.
    “I do? Well, it was probably something my nephew, Ken, did without telling me. He thinks I need looking after, but I’ve been running this rooming house for close to thirty-five years, thank you. I always believed the right sort of people would find their way here without me doing a song and dance about how nice and clean my place is.” She paused as though she wasn’t going to say any more, but before I could speak, she asked, “How long do you plan on staying?”
    “I’m thinking about looking for a job in Quincy,” I said. “At least a few weeks, if not longer.”
    “Um. You sound very young. I should warn you that this is a very quiet place. I have some long-term regulars who demand it as much as I do.”
    “That’s exactly what I’m looking for, Mrs. Winston, a very quiet place.”
    “Um,” she said skeptically. She still hadn’t told me whether she had space available. “Well, you stop in, and we’ll see what we see,” she said, clearly sounding like someone who wouldn’t take just anyone into her rooming house.
    “Okay.” I nearly laughed at her obvious New England independence, but then I thought that she and her place might be exactly what I needed in order to keep a low profile. Besides, from what I could see, there were quite a few other possibilities if that one didn’t work out. I headed for the subway train to Quincy. When I arrived, I looked for a taxi to take me to the Winston Rooming House. The driver not only knew it well, but he also knew Mrs. Winston, who was apparently quite a local character.
    “Her family line here goes back to the mid-eighteenth century,” he said, “and she’ll let you know it every chance she gets. There are lots of people around here who are that way. They aren’t unpleasant or anything, but they’ll let you know they have a special claim on Quincy, a claim even on the air you breathe. Where you from?”
    “Out west,” I said. The less anyone knew about me, even a taxi driver I might never see again, the better it was, I thought.
    “Yeah, well, wherever that is, it’s different here,” hesaid. He glanced at me in the rearview mirror but then stopped talking, as if he was used to people who didn’t care to talk about themselves with strangers. I could see in his face that he was full of questions for a young girl like me arriving in Quincy and heading for a rooming house, but I turned my attention to the city.
    There was a calmness in the way people moved about. The late-spring sunshine seemed already to be a great contrast with the darkness I had traveled through to get here. Everything had a lazy, laid-back atmosphere. We had been living in Los Angeles long enough for me to feel at home there, but it was so much larger and so much more populated that even though I was still in a city with close to a hundred thousand people, I felt as if I had stepped into