“I’ll get the rest of my supplies from the car tomorrow. Right now, I’d like to go to my quarters. I understand they’re close by.”
Prudence P drops her arms to her side, turns, and walks toward the door. I follow, thinking we’re going to my house. Instead, she says over her shoulder, “Teacher’s cottage got burnt down. Your place is up the creek.”
“Will you ride with me?”
“No road where you go. Gotta walk the creek. Pass a trailer. You’re next.”
I dampen the panic in my voice. “I know I made you wait,” I say, “but will you walk with me or give me better instructions?”
She won’t turn around. She simply jerks her thumb toward the woods behind the schoolhouse. “Thataway. Mile or so. Thirty, forty minutes. All depends,” she says and walks across the clearing.
“Depends on what?” I bark to her back in fear.
Prudence P adds, “Watch out for them dogs,” then steps down the bank into the mist.
My feet don’t move. My mouth is dry. What an awful introduction to my new life. Fear lines my stomach like sour milk and vinegar. It squeezes my lungs. I struggle to breathe. I close my eyes to center myself. My headache is a steel vise.
You can do this, Kate Shaw. No one said teachers got killed up here. Mr. Poore would have happily told you if it was true.
I have no choice but to move. I go to the trunk of the car and fill my backpack and satchel with items I’ll need tonight: a change of clothes, raincoat, tea, crackers and cheese, and a flashlight. Last, I grab my walking stick, which feels inadequate for the mountain I’m to climb.
I feel the urge to rush to safety, to a cabin I hope will have a door to bolt against dangers that slither in the underbrush. Or a place to ward off wild dogs that wait to tear me to pieces.
Stop! I order my imagination, and hold tight to the trunk lid for support.
I lock the car, sad to leave its safety, and walk across the clearing, past a store with the name The Rusty Nickel painted crudely over the front door. It’s a lopsided building with sooty windows. I peer inside and see cans lined up neatly on a shelf, bags of corn or rice stacked on the floor, glass jars of beans, and tools hanging on the walls. Taped to the inside of the window, a scrap of cardboard reads Open Somtime.
On one hillside I see the charred remains of a cottage. This must be where the other teachers stayed who came before me, living no more than two hundred paces from school. The sight of its remains chills me even more than Prudence’s reception. A scrap of a red curtain flutters in one window like a bloodied flag.
Further up the opposite hillside, a whitewashed church sits with a wooden cross nailed above the door. Likely Eli Perkins’s church. Two small homes on each side of the school are dark, with feed-sack curtains closed. I haven’t seen anyone except Prudence P, but that doesn’t mean I’m alone.
For the first time in my life, I wish I had a loaded gun. Not the wimpy, pearl-handled pistol my mother kept in her bedside table, but something intimidating. Knowing how to use it would be a plus as well.
I chuckle weakly. Would Rachel even recognize me if she saw me now, cowering?
She’d expect more.
I follow the sound of rushing water that takes me beyond the schoolhouse to a worn path that heads up into the hills. I trust this is where Prudence P wants me to go. I note the time on my watch and start my trek, not sure how far a mile is. The bottoms of my trousers brush wet foliage. When the wind stirs, rain drips from leaves. I whistle weakly. Papa taught me to whistle when I’m nervous. He said relaxed lips help stress dissipate. Today it only helps marginally.
Soaring trees blot out the afternoon so I climb the mountain in twilight. I have to stop often to catch my breath, leaning over, hands on my knees, gulping thin air. I come to a rusting trailer on cinder blocks set back from the creek and see an old, stubby woman wearing layers of dresses, puffing on a pipe, standing in the doorway, watching me.
I stop, curiously comforted by her oddness, and call out, “Hello. I’m Kate Shaw. Is this the way to the teacher’s cabin?”
The woman holds me in her gaze. Though ten yards separate us, I see wisdom, not resistance or rebuke, in those squinty eyes wrapped in wrinkles. She nods and points up the path with her pipe. I’m flooded with relief that she understands and answers me.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say and continue, on the alert for wild dogs. Plodding slowly, it takes another fifteen minutes before a cabin comes into view. It’s planted firmly in the woods, bearing the scars of time, with moss on the shake roof. I knock at the door and peek through glass at simple furniture. I turn the knob. It’s unlocked.
“Hello. Anyone here?” I call out, to be on the safe side.
I drop my backpack and satchel on the table. The cabin is one room with a loft, and already night shadows crowd in. There’s the strong smell of mildew, a few puddles of water on the plank floor from a leaky roof, and a clammy chill. A sofa the color of dirt sags in the middle and sits under a large window. A field mouse scurries across the plywood counter, looks back at me, then slips through a crack in the corner.
I light a lamp against the gloom, and it throws shadows on log walls. I eat crackers and cheese and lean against the counter, then collect water from the spring to wash up and make a trip by flashlight to the gloomy privy, using my walking stick to knock down spiderwebs. Then I climb to the loft, grateful the mattress is dry, and collapse on my stomach with my boots hanging over the edge.
The next morning, I find I didn’t bolt the door against my slithering fears.
The door doesn’t even have a lock.
? ? ?
Today, the sun is out and the world is washed clean. I raise windows to a breeze carrying remnants of summer and start a fire with the kindling stacked beside the stove. Soon, water boils for a proper cup of tea, and with mug in hand, I open the door.
That’s when I see it.
An indigo bunting. A blue bird almost too vivid to be real.
In a wooden matchbox. Chest plump, wings folded in prayer.
Missing its head.
I look around for someone who watches my reaction but don’t see anyone. I think about the old woman I passed yesterday on the trek up the hill and instinctively know this isn’t her doing. I’m more angry and sad than frightened. This lovely creature didn’t have a thing to do with me coming to this place that doesn’t want a teacher. He should have soared for years, eating bugs and bits and feeding generations of babies.
But I came. And now this. A small life has been sacrificed, and I haven’t been here a day.