For example, the professors would come downstairs to the smell of burning. It might be the breakfast rolls singeing in the oven, or the soup boiling dry on the stove, but it was such an unusual thing to happen that they found it hard to believe their noses. Ellie had not burned anything since she had first gone to work as a kitchen maid twenty years ago, but she burned them now. Then Sigrid broke a plate. It was not a particularly valuable plate but it was a nice one, with a pattern of golden stars and blue flowers. It lived on the dresser, and when Sigrid picked it up to dust it, it slipped from her hand to the floor. Just as Ellie had not burned anything since she was fourteen years old, so Sigrid did not let things fall from her hand. The professors trusted her with their mother’s precious crystal glasses and they were right to do so. Her large, square-tipped hands picked up objects as if they were eggshells. All the same, after Annika went she broke a plate.
