Excerpt from The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt by Andrea Bobotis, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Olva," I said, looking over at her. She had closed her eyes, as if trying to gain ground on a nap. "Olva," I said, louder this time. "Invitations to this house were hard to come by, weren't they? Back then, I mean."

Her eyes opened softly. "Yes," she said before closing them again.

Olva was right. Invitations were in limited supply. That is, unless you had some standing in town, or unless my father, Daddy Kratt, requested your presence. His requests, hard and brusque, arrived at the arches of people's ears like orders. Any invitation to our home was pretense for an interview, in which Daddy Kratt would appraise how much you might help him build his empire in Bound. Lurking outside the study, I sometimes eavesdropped on these interviews, feeling relief, a gentle uncoiling in my chest, that I was not on the receiving end of Daddy Kratt's abrupt questions. You never knew when he might choose to speak. Words dropped from his economical mouth with no warning, and if people made the mistake of attempting small talk, they were always taken aback by his reply, even if they anticipated it.

My father might have been frugal with his words, but he spared no expense for this grand house. Built from sand-yellow brick, it was like the sun itself, or so Daddy Kratt made it feel, with the whole of Bound orbiting around it. He modeled much of the house on the famous Biltmore mansion, right down to the copper showerhead in the upper bathroom. So you see, when I am long gone from this earth, I will not be dissatisfied if my name invokes little more than the plumbing. Yet I suspect I'll be remembered for more, starting with the other handsome items that populate the Kratt family home: the mahogany secretary in the hallway, the peach R. S. Prussia vase on the mantel, my grandmother's pie safe in the kitchen. I could go on and on.

The furniture was practically begging me to share my news.

"Olva," I said, and I didn't have to look over, because I knew she was listening. "I am planning to write an inventory of the items in this house."

I waited for Olva's reply, which didn't come. The silence held a faint whistling.

"Olva, I am planning to write an inventory of the items in this house."

"A fine idea."

How right she was! It makes good sense to put down a record of the things in this house, seeing as Olva and I are its last human fixtures. Such evaluations require a long perspective. Having been on this earth seventy-five years, I stand that test.

I turned to her. "I can anticipate the question in your head."

"Can you."

"You are wondering for whose eyes this inventory is intended. Seeing as I have no heirs. A reasonable question."

"I imagine so."

I sat up taller as I came around to my point. "By virtue of my inheritance, I am"—I searched for the word—"I am the keeper. Not just of the Kratt family's valuables but of its stories, too. I tell you, Olva, I woke up seized by the idea. Given its intensity, I was half-surprised not to find a hole burned through my pillow."

"May I ask what the urgency is?"

It was not a question I had anticipated. I thought about the piece of mail I had hidden from her earlier in the week.

"The timing is right. That is all."

As I set out to write this inventory, I am amused by the thoughts that take residence in my mind. The distant train, for instance, with its whale call, fills the house so resonantly in certain moments that it feels nearly like a thing, and I would not be surprised to glance up and discover the sound sitting in the corner, having materialized into a noble mahogany armoire.

Years ago, the train's arrival was the highlight of the day. When it signaled its approach, boys out hunting would hotfoot it back from the fields. Shops would shutter, and mothers could be seen ferrying picnic baskets to the depot with their young ones in tow. The turnout was a more accurate measure of our town's population than any census could pinpoint. Men, women, and children would gather to watch on the depot platform or the wide knoll facing it, and most likely, not one had any real reason to be there other than to marvel at how the train, one moment hammering toward town, could in the next be easing into the station, as if the weight of their scrutiny alone had subdued it.

Excerpted from The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt Kratt by Andrea Bobotis. © 2019 by Andrea Bobotis. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks. All rights reserved.