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The clock showed their time was up.

  “So we are going to meet again and learn some ways to make reading easier. Same time day after tomorrow.” She handed him a scheduling slip. “Give this to your teacher.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Let justice prevail,” she said, quoting the first half of Arrowman’s catch phrase.

  “Around the world,” Luther finished, and he left the room smiling.

  Laura had a burst of fresh energy. She was ashamed to realize she’d agreed to the reading teacher position out of pride and a bit of spite. But she could, and would, help these kids who needed help the most. The underdogs would get their chance.

  “Let justice prevail,” she whispered to herself.

  Laura went straight home after school. As soon as she set foot in her apartment, the melancholy she’d been able to keep at bay all day rolled in hard and fast. The small, empty space felt especially claustrophobic. The unpacked boxes that cluttered the rooms did not help, but she hadn’t the energy or determination to unpack them yet. She’d unpacked clothes and the basic kitchen necessities, but the rest of her stuff were reminders of a life she currently was not living.

  She missed Theresa and she missed Dustin. That sense of family certainly had helped offset the losses she’d endured, though how much she really hadn’t appreciated until now. If she thought that Theresa would answer the phone, she’d call in a heartbeat.

  Laura pulled a frozen dinner from the freezer. She tore open the box and popped the meal in the microwave. The box joined two others in the otherwise pristine plastic trash can under the sink. The clock said it was only 4:30.

  Tomorrow was homeschool evaluation day. Hurray. Laura sighed. It was going to be another long night.

  Chapter Ten

  The next day, Laura was ready to classify homeschooling as an oxymoron.

  Her first stop of today’s six had been a promising start. A college-educated mother of two was schooling her two sons in a program that managed to emphasize art and science in an intertwined way she thought was brilliant. The two boys passed their tests above grade level and she guessed would have been certified as gifted. Laura would have hired the mother on as a teacher if she ran her own school.

  The next stop hit the opposite end of the spectrum, a Bible-belt mother using a set of old religion-based textbooks where math problems read like “Joshua sold half his flock to Ishmael for twelve shekels each”. Like that was a relatable word problem for an elementary school kid. Social contact was limited to the other kids at their church and education was limited by the mother’s GED. The son and daughter tested just below grade level, but not enough to flag the system. Next year the oldest would outrun her mother’s meager mastery of math.

  “All the kids at our church are homeschooled,” the mother had said.

  Laura couldn’t wait to visit them all. Happy trails.

  The broader socialization these kids were missing made her cringe. But there was no assessment block to check for that, and she moved on to her next appointment depressed.

  Her third visit was well out of town, along Pear Tree Lane, a cracked serpentine blacktop with frequent patches of loose gravel. She left US 41 and then drove past miles of woods that had reclaimed fallow fields. After a few minutes without even seeing a mailbox, she wondered if she had missed the address.

  The twin ruts of a driveway ran off to one side. She slowed the car. A black mailbox at the street had 214 painted on it.

  She turned in. The driveway ran straight as an arrow back for over a thousand feet. Her car’s floorboard scraped the raised grass between the ruts as she crept down between the stands of tall oaks. At the end she pulled up before an old farmhouse.

  The house was quite inviting, given the foreboding route in. The two-story box was painted robin’s-egg blue with dark blue trim. Tall windows hinted at the high ceilings favored after the turn of the twentieth century. The metal roof had a fresh coat of silver paint and the sun lit it like a halo. Potted flowers adorned the corners of the front porch.

  Laura shut off the car and reviewed the file the county had given her. Aileen Petty. Homeschooling two foster children, brother and sister, ages ten and nine. Laura’s, admittedly dark snap judgment when she had first read the file had been parenting for hire. Economies of scale with multiple children gave some people the idea they could skim off some of the monthly state stipend for themselves. She’d expected a home with a bit more Dickensian feel.

  She mounted the steps and searched in vain for the doorbell. The door opened before she could knock. The tall, severe older woman who answered had eyes black as coal and graying brown hair cut unattractively short. She most decidedly did not look pleased.

  “You the teacher?” she said.

  “Ms. Petty? I’m Ms. Locke, here to check up on…” she glanced at the tab on the file folder, “…Caroline and Bo.”

  Laura extended her hand. Aileen stepped back instead and opened the door a bit wider.

  “I suppose you need to come in.”

  The old house’s good vibes dissipated. Laura gritted her teeth. Her last frustrating evaluation had burned off most of her limited tolerance for rudeness.

  “Telepathy isn’t my strong suit,” Laura said. “So that sounds great.”

  Aileen left just enough room for Laura to slip past her and into what the original owners had no doubt called the parlor. The room was furnished simply with modern versions of the basics that would have been period correct: solid-wood tables, an uncomfortable-looking couch. On a table under an antique coatrack, incense burned in a small conical pine container.

  The smoke from the tiny top vent filled the hall with a spiced scent, with a hint of sandalwood. A relaxing kind of smell. Laura shook it off to keep her focus on her mission, the children.

  The front room had a large stone fireplace, but no television. In fact, there weren’t even any lamps in the room. Or, she noticed, electrical sockets.

  “Does this house have electricity?”

  “Are you with Social Services or the schools? I don’t have to—”

  “Laura?” cut in a voice from the hallway.

  A petite blonde with a blazing-white smile charged forward, hand extended. “Tammy Lawson. So nice to meet you. I’m teaching Caroline and Bo.” She practically brushed Aileen aside. “Come back to the classroom.”

  She took Laura in tow down the hallway. Aileen’s eyes never left the two of them.

  The classroom was in the rear of the house, with large windows that faced the spacious backyard. Posters and maps covered the other walls. This room had bright ceiling lights and two desktop computers off to the side.

  Caroline and Bo sat at two small desks. Their sibling similarities were striking; same fair skin and brown hair, same slightly upturned nose, same thin build. Laura would have assumed they were fraternal twins if her paperwork had not stated they were a year apart. They penciled answers into math problems in workbooks that were well past fourth grade level.

  “This is Ms. Locke,” Tammy announced.

  To Laura’s profound amazement, the two children stood and said, “Good morning,” then returned to their work.

  “Ms. Locke and I are going to talk a bit and then she will be talking with you. Keep at your work.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” both children said.

  Tammy led Laura back into the hallway. After a clearing glance, she spoke in a hushed tone. “First, let me apologize for Aileen. She is incredibly protective of the world we have built here. She comes across harsh, but it’s all surface stuff.”

  “Tammy, I don’t even have you listed here…”

  “Everything is in Aileen’s name. She brought Caroline and Bo in last year after their parents died in a car accident. I moved in a month later to do the teaching. The kids thought Aileen was a bit…overwhelming.”

  “Really!” Laura bit her lip in embarrassment at her unprofessional, sarcastic quip and redirected the conversation. “The classroom has electricity?”

>   “We talked Aileen into it for the kids,” Tammy said. “Aileen had lived here forever without electricity, a whole back-to-basics, self-sufficiency thing. We convinced her that the children’s education would suffer compared to their peers’ without access to the Internet and the rest of the world.” She pointed out the window in the back door. “We compromised with solar panels to power the room and a refrigerator.”

  Several large mirrors redirected sunlight to a bank of shining solar panels in a sunny section of the backyard. A late model black minivan was parked next to a locked metal toolshed on the yard’s far side. A spacious garden spread out next to it, plants in ripe, harvest mode. A stout woman in jeans and an oversized T-shirt ran a hoe between the rows.

  “That’s Janice,” Tammy said. “She lives here too.”

  Janice’s hair was shaved chemo-victim close. A red scar ran down the side of her head, past her right ear and across her neck.

  “The three of us raise the children and keep the household running.”

  Laura had a half-dozen questions that were none of her business, not being Social Services, as she had been reminded.

  “Why don’t I spend some time with the children now?” she said.

  An hour later, the assessment was complete. The children were well above grade level. They were polite. To a fault. Tammy’s lesson plans were perfect. The classroom environment was better than what she gave up at Moultrie Elementary.

  And her student sixth sense screamed that something in this house was seriously wrong.

  “So, the kids were what, too polite for you?” Principal Wheedle asked.

  Laura leaned back against the wall in Principal Wheedle’s office the next morning. She was beginning to feel foolish for asking him to meet her before school started.

  “No,” she said. “They were just too…programmed. They had all the right answers, all the right respect.”

  “Yeah, that’s definitely one for Child Services,” he deadpanned. Then he added in his best Rhett Butler drawl. “Have you considered that your many years up north made you unaccustomed to our genteel southern spirit?”

  “Hey, I know children,” Laura said. She checked her desire to explain her Triple S. “And there was something off about these two kids.”

  “They are brother and sister, right? They would look out for each other if something was wrong out there. And they’ve only been there a year. They couldn’t be brainwashed in that short a period of time. If bad things were happening to them, they would have run out the front door and into your car as soon as you arrived.”

  “Who are those women out there?”

  “Well, Aileen’s lived out there since she was a girl. Inherited the place from her mother. She was married once to a real derelict when she was young.” Principal Wheedle paused. “I hate to pass on gossip, but this is a small town. Rumor was he ran off with a stripper. When he abandoned her, she moved back out to what was left of the family farm.”

  “And I’m the only one who gets an Addams Family vibe off her?”

  “She’s a strange loner, but she’s harmless. She’s taken in these foster kids and Child Services has no complaints about the job she’s doing.”

  “She’s got some help there, good help. What’s the story on Tammy and Janice?”

  “They moved in a while ago. It’s like a commune, I think. Other than some shopping, they don’t come into town much. Janice practically never.”

  Laura contemplated the scarred woman with the shaved head and could understand why. Nosy as these townspeople were, she would be pummeled by questions from strangers as soon as she stepped out of her car. Laura could only guess that whatever event gave birth to her scars was as painful as they looked.

  “Tammy seems trustworthy,” Laura said. “That’s all that keeps me from calling the state.”

  “And reporting two well-behaved children? Good luck with getting action on that.”

  Laura exhaled in frustration.

  “Laura, you have a tremendous sense of dedication,” Principal Wheedle said. “And I appreciate that you are putting so much into a job you didn’t sign up for. But you’re inferring a lot that just doesn’t seem to be there.”

  This conversation wasn’t going the way Laura had expected at all. Principal Wheedle had always been so supportive. She hadn’t anticipated such a dismissive response.

  “Why don’t you give it a few more visits,” he continued. “I’m sure that the kids and the ladies of the house will warm up to you and you’ll see the whole situation there is normal.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that,” Laura said.

  But there was no way she could. Her Triple S never misfired when it came to children. She resolved to get to the bottom of what was going on at what everyone called the Petty place.

  Chapter Eleven

  That afternoon, Laura pulled her lunch from her book bag and set it on the table in the remedial reading room. She wasn’t at all up for another forty minutes of the cold shoulder from the other teachers in the break room. Even the teachers she’d had civil acquaintances with last year, at best, ignored her this time around. An occasional apologetic glance from some told the story of small-town peer pressure coming to bear. But most of the looks were of barely masked hatred. Those made her long for last year when she was just flat ignored.

  One bite into her tuna sandwich and a knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in,” she managed before swallowing.

  A man in a dark-blue suit with a bright-red tie stepped in. His sandy hair was parted to one side and his cheeks had a ruddy, outdoorsman air about them. It seemed like she hadn’t seen a man in a suit since she’d left New York. He smiled at her, the first one she’d seen from an adult at school in a while.

  “Ms. Locke? I’m Luther Gowan’s father, Dalton.” He held out his hand. “I’m so happy to meet you.”

  Then you’re one of the few, Laura thought.

  “Great to meet you too,” she said instead. She stood and took his hand. It was warm, powerful.

  “I checked the report you sent home on Luther.” Another anomaly presented. Most parents didn’t read anything teachers sent home but report cards. “Finally, someone got it right. The last two schools just said it was our fault, and that it was all about discipline.”

  Laura cleared her lunch to the table’s corner and offered Dalton an undersized seat. “No, Luther has a disability, dyslexia. I’m sure of it. His actions were from frustration. I can help him here, as long as you will help him at home.”

  “Absolutely. This would have made his mother so happy.”

  “Would have?”

  Dalton rubbed his palms against the legs of his pants. “Yes, it’s just the two of us. She died last year. It was sudden, very hard on Luther. I used the opportunity to transfer here to manage our bank branch over in Waltersboro. Fresh start and all. I thought that you should know, in case it makes any difference in working with Luther.”

  “Thank you. That might make a difference.”

  Dalton checked his watch. “Well, I’m on my lunch break and it’s twenty minutes back to Waltersboro. I’m going to run, but I wanted to see you in person, to thank you, and let you know you can count on me to do my part at home.”

  He passed her his business card and smiled again. Laura felt herself returning not her usual platitudinous school grin but a refreshingly genuine smile.

  “We’ll stay in touch,” Laura said.

  Dalton closed the door behind him and Laura wished there were more parents who appreciated what she was doing. And more that looked that good in a suit wouldn’t hurt either.

  She gave her head a short shake and wondered where that last thought had come from.

  The Petty place wasn’t even close to being on Laura’s way home, but Tammy and the others wouldn’t know that. Laura’s cover story would help make her nonchalant little drop-in look as casual as possible. She wanted the women’s guard down as she tried for a bit more information about these children.
/>   She rolled up the long, straight driveway. The afternoon sun dappled the gravel ruts with patches of white light through gaps in the trees’ canopy. With the windows down, the car’s wheel wells seemed to amplify the gravel’s crunch loud enough to announce her arrival across the county. But when she pulled up to the house, no one was on the porch to welcome her.

  In fact, the house looked empty. The black minivan was gone and all the windows were closed. Laura sighed. She’d have a hard time ingratiating herself with no one here. Weren’t these three off-the-grid women stay-at-home loners?

  Laura grabbed the pile of paperback excuses-to-visit from the passenger seat and cradled them in her arm. When she reached the house’s front door, she paused. One deep breath and she knocked.

  No answer. A second, louder attempt did no better. From inside the old house came nothing but silence.

  The van was gone, so perhaps she’d arrived during their weekly sojourn into town for supplies. She would have to give her ruse another try tomorrow.

  As she turned back to her car, her student sixth sense sent her a tingle. It never did that without a child present. Maybe the children were still here, though she could not imagine all three women leaving them unattended.

  She left the porch and circled around the rear of the house. The big steel padlock hung on the closed shed door. Thick, withered stalks, harvested of their corn, fluttered at the edge of the garden, tended by a scarecrow in a checked, red-flannel shirt with a burlap bag for a face.

  Something was off in this scene. At first she couldn’t put her finger on it. Then it came to her. She’d lived out in the country for a while at Galaxy Farm. Birds twittered in the trees, insects buzzed in the fields, some small mammal always rustled unseen through the forest leaves. This yard was cemetery silent.

  The classroom windows looked out the back of the house. If the kids were home, that would be the place to look. She walked over to the window. She raised the workbooks to her brow as a shield and peered inside. Neat. Clean. Quiet. Empty. The same way the rest of the house seemed. But not how the house felt.