I was about to accuse her—in a friendly way—of being coldblooded, cowardly, and disgracefully rational when the telephone rang. I threw Emma a disgusted look as I got up to answer it, but all thoughts of her perfidy were driven from my mind when I heard the terrible voice on the other end.
“Yes,” I said into the phone. “Yes, I understand. . . . Ten o’clock tomorrow morning? . . . Yes, we’ll both be there. Goodbye.”
My hand trembled as I hung up the telephone, but a wave of protectiveness steadied me as I glanced at a framed photograph on the kitchen wall. It was a photograph of my sons.
Will and Rob were identical twins, blessed with their father’s velvety dark brown eyes as well as his sweet nature. When asked their age, they proudly replied that they were “five-and-a-half-nearlysix,” but they were so tall and strong that most strangers thought they were older. To me they were still babes in arms, far too young to face the rigors of the cold, uncaring world beyond the cottage.
We never should have let them start school, I thought bitterly, scowling at my reflection in the photograph. We should have tutored them at home.
Home was a honey-colored stone cottage near the tiny village
4 Nancy Atherton
of Finch, in the Cotswolds, a region of rolling hills and patchwork fields in England’s West Midlands. Although Bill and I were Americans, we’d lived in England long enough to feel like honorary natives.
Bill ran the European branch of his family’s illustrious law firm from a high-tech office in Finch, I played an active role in village affairs, and we both believed firmly that we’d found the perfect place to raise our children. Finch was small, safe, and familiar. I couldn’t for the life of me remember why we’d sent the twins farther afield, but I knew exactly how to rectify our mistake.
“Lori?” said Emma, looking up at me with concern. “What is it?”
I brushed my fingertips across the photograph, returned to my seat at the kitchen table, and announced solemnly, “It’s the twins.
Bill and I have to withdraw them from Morningside.”
Emma didn’t seem to be shaken by the news. She paused to sip her tea before asking, “Why do you have to withdraw the boys from Morningside?”
“Because I can’t allow our sons to attend a school run by such a creepy woman,” I replied.
“Miss Archer isn’t creepy,” Emma said.
“Yes, she is,” I insisted. “The pale skin, the slick red hair, the way she stares at you over those half-glasses . . . She looks as though she rolls out of her coffin every morning, looking for fresh blood to drink. She’s scary. ”
Emma nibbled delicately at the edge of a macaroon. “Remind me, Lori,” she said. “Why did you and Bill enroll your five-year-old sons in a school run by a creepy, scary woman who looks like she drinks blood and sleeps in a coffi n?”
“Because we were distracted,” I answered firmly. “We were so impressed by Morningside’s friendly teachers and cheerful classrooms that we forgot about its creepy headmistress.” I drummed my fingers nervously on the table. “I bet she comes from Transylvania.”
“Of course she does,” Emma said dryly. “Penelope Elizabeth Archer is clearly an old Transylvanian name.”
Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
5
“She could have changed her name,” I pointed out.
“As well as everything else in her CV?” Emma’s nostrils flared— a sure sign that she was losing patience—but her voice remained calm. “I give riding lessons to a half dozen Morningside students, Lori. Their parents talk about Miss Archer all the time. She was born in Warwickshire, she has multiple degrees from Oxford, and everyone agrees that she’s a marvelous headmistress—a highly intelligent woman who’s devoted her life to children.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “The children of the night.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Emma said, her patience snapping. “Will you please stop tapping the table? I can’t talk to you when you’re fi dgeting.”
I folded my arms and eyed her pugnaciously.
“You’ve been trying to withdraw the boys from Morningside ever since you and Bill enrolled them there,” she went on. “First you were afraid that they’d catch the flu from their classmates, then the measles, then head lice, then fleas. Last week you were worried about them running out of the school yard and being hit by a car.
The week before that, you were afraid that a train carrying chlorine gas would derail in Upper Deeping and poison all the children. Now you tell me that your sons’ headmistress is a bloodsucking fiend!
What’s next? Aliens? Leprosy? Unprovoked rhinoceros attacks?”
“Is it wrong for a mother to worry about her children?” I asked.
“You’re not worried,” said Emma. “You’re hysterical. You’re so obsessed with worst-case scenarios that you’re neglecting your volunteer activities. You haven’t been to the hospital in Oxford once since the boys started school. Why?”
“It’s too far away,” I said. “If something happened at the school—”
“You see?” said Emma. “You’re out of control. You’re also missing a very important point: The boys are fl ourishing at Morningside.