That’s exactly how long it takes to drive between the elementary school where Rowan Mundy teaches and the riverside home where she lives with her family.
The route meanders along the brick--paved streets of The Heights, a sloping residential neighborhood. Its landmarks include her childhood home, the little white clapboard church where she was baptized and married, and Holy Angels Cemetery where her parents and father--in--law are buried alongside generations of local citizens. Among them: the trio of unidentified young girls whose murders during the village’s sestercentennial celebration a century ago sealed Mundy’s Landing’s notoriety.
Most days, she drives on past all of those sites without taking note, her mind on whatever happened during the past few hours or on whatever needs to get done in the next few.
Once in a while, though, she allows herself to get caught up in nostalgia for long--gone loved ones and places that will never be the same.
Today is one of those days. Christmas music plays on the car stereo, and the business district is decked out in wreaths and garlands that seem to have materialized overnight. She wistfully remembers cozy holidays when her parents were alive and her brothers and sister weren’t scattered from East Coast to West.
Now her two oldest children are gone as well. Braden is a junior at Dartmouth; Katie a freshman at Cornell. Both were here for the long Thanksgiving weekend that just passed, but it was all too fleeting. They headed back yesterday in opposite directions.
“I hate this letting go thing,” she told Jake, wiping tears as they stood on the front porch watching taillights disappear.
“They’ll be home on break for a whole month before you know it, and you’ll be counting down the days until they go back to school in January.”
“No I won’t.”
“Oh, right. I’m the one who does that.” Jake flashed his good--natured grin and went back to eating a leftover turkey drumstick and watching the Giants win in overtime.
Passing the Mundy’s Landing Historical Society, which occupies a grand turreted mansion facing the Village Common, Rowan is reminded of an unpleasant phone call she received this morning from the mother of one of her fourth--grade students.
Bari Hicks moved to town from New York City over the summer, and has proven to be one of those -people who always manages to find something to complain about. This week, she was calling to once again express her displeasure with the upcoming class field trip to see the Colonial Christmas exhibit.
The annual excursion has been a well--loved school tradition since Rowan herself was in fourth grade. Back then, this turreted mansion was still a private residence and the historical society was housed in the basement of the local library.
“I just don’t think a trip like this sounds appropriate for children this age,” Bari insisted back on curriculum night in September. Appropriate seems to be her favorite word. Rather, inappropriate. “My Amanda still isn’t used to her new bedroom and she has enough problems falling asleep at night without being dragged through a gory chamber of horrors that’s going to give her nightmares for years.”
Although Rowan immediately grasped what she was referring to, she couldn’t resist feigning ignorance.
“Oh, you must have this mixed up with the high school’s haunted hallway fund--raiser, Mrs. Hicks. That’s on Halloween, and I wouldn’t dream of exposing my class to—-”
“No, I’m talking about the historical society. The murders.”
“Which murders?” That time, Rowan wasn’t playing dumb. Mundy’s Landing is famous for not one, but two notorious murder cases.