LITMIR.BIZ

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language.”

      “Sure, like you watch yours.”

      Tim let that pass. There was a certain amount of truth in it. Since Solange’s death he didn’t watch his language as much when the kids were around.

      This was what she had wanted. Maybe not to move to the middle of nowhere in West Tennessee, but to move out of Chicago, find someplace to live with open spaces, a bigger house in a small town. No crime. Kids free to ride their bicycles or skateboards without fear.

      Away from Solange’s mother.

      He hadn’t listened. And so she’d died.

      Now he was taking control of his family’s destiny. Time to haul on the reins and stop the runaway stagecoach before it turned over and killed everybody. He grinned. Even his clichés were turning country. “I’ve told you how great my summers were down here when I was a kid. You used to think they sounded pretty cool.”

      “I used to think storks brought babies,” Jason said.

      “You mean they don’t? Okay, I promise you there will be occasional access to malls and movies and maybe even pizza. But you’ll have to earn your privileges. Get an after-school job. Earn that VW. Pay for your own gas once you get it. Money’s going to be tight. And no more running wild because your grandmother can’t keep up with you.”

      Jason held out his wrists. “Yeah. Freedom, just like you said. Just put the cuffs on now, Mr. Policeman, sir.”

      “Jason, I’m tired, you’re tired, we’re all tired. It’s hot, we’ve driven all the way from Chicago, and I’ve had enough of the sarcasm.”

      “Shouldn’t you call that creative interaction, Mr. Vice Principal, sir?”

      “I’m just a lowly English teacher now, Jason.” He longed to stop the car, lean across the console separating them and slap the kid silly. He’d always believed in nonviolent alternatives to physical punishment for children and had never raised a hand to his three. He knew their grandmother did from time to time, and he suspected Solange had swatted a behind or two.

      Every day Tim worked with abusive parents and abused children. He knew the damage abuse caused both.

      Today, however, he was discovering how kids could drive a seemingly rational adult crazy. He took a deep breath. He needed to calm down and chill out before he started yelling. That never did any good and left him feeling guilty afterward.

      He took another deep breath, then several more before he said, “Granddad taught me to fish for crappie and catfish in the creek that runs through the farm, and during the summer we took picnics down to the pond and swam. He taught me to paddle a canoe. We can rebuild the dock, buy a new canoe—”

      “Skinny-dip with the local milkmaids.”

      Tim could hear the leer in Jason’s voice. Doggedly he kept going. “I had a great bag swing by the pond. You could swing way out over the water and drop. Can’t do that in a swimming pool.”

      “Who’d want to?”

      “I have to pee.” Angie had taken off the earphones and was leaning against the back of his seat. “Stop at a gas station.”

      “No gas stations between here and Williamston,” Tim said. He didn’t remember a gas station within twenty miles of Williamston. Better not tell Angie that. “If you’re in real trouble, we’ll pull off to the side of the road and you can go behind a tree.”

      “Eeeew! No way! Gross.”

      “Then hold on. We’re nearly there.” He checked her face in the mirror. It was powdered dead-white, made even more dramatic by her hair, dyed so black it looked like a wig. Unfortunately it wasn’t. She had bought the dye one afternoon after school, and greeted him looking like an underaged vampire when he got home from school.

      “Dad was just telling us about how great it’s going to be to swim in some scummy old pond,” Jason said. “Water moccasins love little girls. One bite and you swell up and turn green and die.”

      “Jason!” It was a wail. “Daddy, make him stop. I hate snakes. Are there really snakes?”

      Sure there were, but he wasn’t about to tell Angie about them right this minute. “Most snakes are harmless. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

      “Want to bet?” Jason breathed.

      “Don’t think about snakes. Think about how big the house is. After Chicago, it’s going to seem like a palace. You’ll have a big room all to yourself. And some of the people in the area have horses.”

      Magic word. Before she had been taken over by the Children of the Night, Angie’s one great desire had been for a horse of her own. Not possible in Chicago. Rich people who lived in the suburbs owned horses. Overworked vice principals of inner-city schools did not.

      In his new job as an English teacher in a small private school, Tim still wouldn’t be able to afford a horse for Angie, but he might be able to give her riding lessons. Maybe he’d offer her a trade. She could have riding lessons if she took off the clown makeup and went back to brown hair.

      In any case, the black hair and kohl eyeliner wouldn’t be any more acceptable at Maybree than Jason’s bald head. He’d have to find out how to remove the dye.

      Solange would have known all about that kind of thing. But then if his wife were still alive, Angie probably wouldn’t have turned Goth on him.

      The only one of his kids who looked halfway normal was Eddy, and he was the most screwed up of the bunch, at least to hear the psychologist tell it.

      How could Tim ever teach his children to love Williamston the way he did? He’d regaled them time after time with stories of the wonderful summers he’d spent there. Maybe now that they were here, the stories would take on new meaning for them. They’d never paid much attention before.

      The important thing was that he wouldn’t be working eighty hours a week as he had in Chicago. He could devote himself to their needs. He’d sacrificed his career, the potential of a principalship—all the additional money and prestige—for them. He owed them for the years he’d let Solange raise them practically on her own.

      He swung the SUV off the highway and onto a narrow lane lined with big old trees that transformed the road into a sun-dappled tunnel.

      He drove past the small rectangular common in the center of the village. The Bermuda grass lawn had turned brown in the heat, and the white fence needed a coat of paint.

      The only place to eat in Williamston was a log cabin on the corner of the green. Today a big sign outside read Closed. Tim hoped that meant for dinner and not for good.

      One more left, up a hill and past the big moving van. He pulled onto the grass verge at the far side of his grandfather’s house and cut the engine.

      “Home at last.”

      “No way,” said Jason.

      “Way.”

      “There’s supposed to be a town. Where is it?”

      “You just drove through it.”

      “A field and a log cabin?”

      “Yuck, some palace,” whined Angie, who leaned across Eddy to stare out the window. “No one could possibly expect a human being to live in that—that hovel.” She frequently vacillated between teenage colloquial and Victorian supercilious in the same sentence.

      Eddy had woken up and was rubbing his eyes.

      “Well, Eddy? Care to add your comments?”

      Eddy ignored him.

      “Gross, gross, gross!” Angie’s hands fluttered. “I’ll bet you can’t even buy a CD for a hundred miles.”

      “CD, huh! Try a loaf of bread. You said it was a town.”

      “Williamston

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