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  She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “About what?”

  “About—all of this,” he said. “About not being to be able to take care of you both. About letting things get to the point where we had to come back here. I was so busy making my own life that I didn’t have a contingency plan. I’ve been beating myself up about it since we arrived here. I’m so sorry.”

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Shut up. OK? It wasn’t your job to take care of us. Jack didn’t expect it from you, and neither did I. All three of us moved away from here to get on with our lives, and to get away from all the . . . the bad shit here.” Christina propped herself on one elbow and looked Jeremy in the eye. “Jack always took care of everything. I guess, in a way, we were still kids in our own minds. Not smart of us, I know. But he would have hated to hear you blame yourself for this. If he were around, he’d be busy blaming himself for not taking out insurance because somewhere in the back of his mind he still thought of himself as a rich boy. And I’d be busy blaming myself for not making it a priority myself, and for not reminding him that he lost that ‘rich boy’ status when he married me.” Jeremy said dryly, “You two were always ideally matched.”

  “You know what? There’s no one to blame, and it’s a waste of time.

  It’s nobody’s fault. We couldn’t have predicted what happened. And,” she added, “nothing would have stopped Adeline from simply offering to help me out when I called to tell her about Jack’s accident. All she had to do was say, ‘What do you need, Christina? What does my granddaughter need? It’s yours.’ But she didn’t. She let me beg, like some sort of sharecropper instead of the mother of her son’s only child. Then she condescended that I could come back here with Morgan and live off her charity. “You on the other hand,” she said, squeezing his hand, “offered to come back here to this place in spite of all the terrible memories it holds for you. You did it for Morgan and me. Which makes you the one person in this whole sad story who offered to step up to the plate. We’ll never forget it, either of us. So let’s not hear any more about blame, OK?”

  Jeremy squeezed back. “OK,” he said. “Thanks, love.”

  “Now, what are you going to do about Elliot McKitrick? You’re going to meet up with him sooner or later. It’s a matter of time. How’s that going to be for you?”

  Jeremy was silent for a moment. The he spoke. “It’s going to hurt like hell,” he said. “One way or another, it’s going to be a killer.”

  Morgan’s new homeroom at Matthew Browning Memorial High School smelled like chalk, wet wool, some sort of disinfectant, and old wood to her. It didn’t smell like Jarvis Collegiate back home. It wasn’t that it smelled bad, it just smelled foreign and fundamentally inhospitable. It wasn’t just that the ceilings seemed too high, or that the architecture of the place made her think of the 1950s—an era she didn’t know, but had read about in magazines, and could picture. It wasn’t that the contrast between the wild autumn northern light coming through the arched windows contrasted sharply with the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling threw an industrial pall over the scene.

  It wasn’t just that everything looked even older than it was, or that the Queen looked preternaturally girlish in the yellowed picture hanging in the wooden frame on the wall adjacent to the blackboard (as opposed to the more matronly representation of Her Majesty on the wall of her homeroom at Jarvis), or that in the brand new black-and-white picture next to it, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau looked like a French movie star.

  It was all of these things and none of them, rolled into a tight ball of dislocation. She was an alien in an alien place, where none of her markers of familiarity lined up.

  Being an intelligent girl, Morgan was able to recognize that her response was an emotional one. Being a confident girl, it didn’t throw her as much as it might have thrown someone less sure of herself. Her mother would have been surprised at just how much of her father’s daughter Morgan Parr actually was.

  Some of the boys had looked at her with frank interest. A smaller number of the girls had assessed her as a sexual threat, and she felt a chill drift of hostility coming from them. But the majority of the students, both male and female, regarded her with the curiosity reserved for the interjection of something brand new, even foreign, into their social ecosystem.

  When the teacher, Mr. Churchill, had introduced her as “Morgan Parr who has transferred to our school from far-away Toronto,” she wasn’t sure what had caused them to raise their eyebrows more—the fact that she was from someplace as far away as Toronto and therefore, by definition, exotic, or her last name, which was as familiar to them as their own.

  But if she’d had any real doubts or fears about fitting into a new school, they’d been dramatically allayed by her visit to the principal’s office when she had arrived at the school that morning before the start of classes. She’d opened the door to the outer office and found that she was expected. The sixtyish woman with a mauve-rinsed marcel wave and the kindly face sitting at the desk had smiled warmly at Morgan.

  “Welcome to Matthew Browning Memorial, dear,” she’d said. “We’re so glad you’ve made it here safely. Your grandma told us you were coming. We’ve been expecting you. We’ve all been looking forward to it.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Morgan said shyly. Privately she tried to picture the adamantine Adeline Parr as anyone’s “grandma,” least of all her, and suppressed a fit of spontaneous giggling with effort.

  “My name is Miss Quinn. I’m the secretary,” the older woman said, beaming. “Why, you look just like your father, dear. He was one of my favourite students. He was always so polite, with a smile for everybody. I knew him ever since he was a little boy.” A pained look crossed her face. “We were all so sorry to hear that he’d passed. So very sad.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Morgan said again, charmed by the older woman’s familiar and loving evocation of her father. She was unused to the feeling. Usually, mentions of her father by strangers distressed her. But there was something soothing and motherly about Miss Quinn, and Morgan was surprised at the sense of comfort she experienced in hearing her father mentioned by the older woman. She caught a whiff of Evening in Paris as Miss Quinn crossed the floor to knock on the door marked Mr. R. Murphy, Principal.

  “I’ll just let Mr. Murphy know that you’re here,” Miss Quinn said.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. A few minutes later she came out and said, “Go on in, dear. Mr. Murphy wants a few words with you. I’ll get your papers all filled out for you in the meantime.”

  Morgan stepped into the office. The principal rose from his chair when she entered. He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Hello, Morgan, I’m Mr. Murphy, the principal. Please sit down. We’re all very glad to have you joining us here at Matthew Browning, even this late in the season. We all wish it could have been under different circumstances, of course. But still, we’re delighted to have you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied.

  She waited for Mr. Murphy to continue. “I don’t need to tell you that I don’t usually invite the new students in here for a chat before they start school. Heck,” he added with a good natured, avuncular chuckle. “I’ve known most of them, one way or another, since they were boys and girls. But your grandmother, Mrs. Parr, met with me and discussed your . . . ah . . . specific circumstances.”

  “You mean the fact that my dad is dead?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That, in addition to the fact that you’ve come to us from Toronto, although both your parents were originally from here. Your father was one of the star pupils of this school, in addition to being from our finest family—your family, now.”

  “Yes,” Morgan said sweetly. “Mine and my mother’s. My mother drove us here. She and my Uncle Jeremy, of course. We all came back to town together. Well, they ‘came back.’ I’ve never lived here. Did you know my mom when she lived here? Her last name used to be Monroe. Christina Monroe. Before she married my father and be
came Christina Parr.”

  Mr. Murphy flushed deep scarlet. “Yes, of course, your mother is also from here,” he said. “I remember her well. Your grandmother told me that she was coming back. I’m sorry about her loss, as well.” Morgan waited silently for Mr. Murphy to get to the point, which he promptly did. “Morgan, your grandmother wanted me to make sure that you understand that whatever . . . uh . . . choices your parents made sixteen years ago about how to . . . uh . . . comport themselves . . .”

  “Sir,” Morgan said, politely. “If you mean that my parents were in love and ran off to Toronto to have me, they both told me the story. I grew up knowing it.”

  “Well, you’re a very self-possessed and liberal-minded young lady, Morgan, aren’t you?” He chuckled again. “You sounded just like your father there, for a minute. That’s the sort of thing he would have said, and he would have said it just like that, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anyway, to get to the point, Morgan, you grandmother wanted me to make sure that you felt welcome here at Matthew Browning, and that you knew that we were behind you one hundred percent. If you have any problems with any of the kids, you just come and let me know.”

  “What sort of problems, sir?”

  “Well,” he said. “Some of them are . . . well, not as liberal-minded or as modern as you and your mother. And your father, obviously. They might . . . say things. Things that aren’t necessarily very nice.”

  This time Morgan’s puzzlement was genuine. “Things like what?”

  “There are some . . . unfortunate names for children whose parents haven’t gone the conventional route to . . . uh, matrimony. Names that aren’t used by polite people, and while we’re very proud of our student body, occasionally, in the heat of the moment, people say things they . . . ah, regret later. Parr’s Landing can be conservative in some ways. You do know what ‘conservative’ means, don’t you?”

  The flush had returned to Mr. Murphy’s face, and now Morgan felt sorry for him. She had a vague idea that he was trying to allude to illegitimacy, but since he wouldn’t come out and say it, there was no way for her to address it directly. The notion caused her no particular distress. There had been children of hippies at Jarvis, and some of their parents weren’t formally married. As non-churchgoers and de facto nonconformists in their own right, Jack and Christina Parr had been very careful when it came to inculcating their daughter with the sort of prejudices that would be taken for granted in a town like Parr’s Landing. Also, growing up with Uncle Jeremy, those prejudices would have been hard for her parents to reinforce, even if they’d wanted to.

  “Mr. Murphy,” she said, gently, “my parents were married before they had me. My mother was pregnant when she was married, but she was married when I was born. They’ve talked about this with me since I was a little girl. I don’t know what my grandmother told you, but we were a pretty normal family. My mom and dad loved each other very much. And names aren’t going to bother me, anyway. I’ve been called names before. But thanks for worrying about it. It’s nice of you.”

  Mr. Murphy sighed with obvious relief. “Well, that’s good,” he said. “But, as I said, your grandmother asked me to speak with you, and to make sure you understood that she . . . that is to say Matthew Browning Memorial won’t tolerate any shenanigans from other students when it comes to you. Mrs. Parr is a very valuable member of our school board, and her . . . your family has very deep, very valuable roots in our community. We want you to feel welcome here. And,” he added, almost hesitantly, “I’d very much appreciate it if you’d share with your grandmother that we had this little chat, and that you understand that my door will always be open if you have any problems at all. Anything. Just let her know I said that.”

  My God, Morgan marvelled. He’s afraid of me. He’s afraid of my grandmother, so he’s afraid of me, too. He wants me to make sure she knows he did what she wanted him to do. He wants her to know he did her bidding.

  What sort of family is this that I’m a part of? What, am I royalty all of a sudden?

  “Yes, sir,” she said aloud. “I’ll make sure to tell Grandmother we talked, and how nice and helpful you were about all of this. I’m sure everything’s going to be just fine.”

  “Well,” he said, puffing up his chest. “Good, good. Very fine indeed. All right, Morgan, Miss Quinn will give you your class schedule and show you where to go. And you have a good day, Morgan!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Murphy.” She stood up and shook his hand. This time, he did not rise in his chair, and Morgan was relieved to have the balance of power restored to a more traditional paradigm, with the principal acting like a principal again instead of acting like her grandmother’s lackey. In the same way Morgan was fascinated by her apparent newfound—and entirely alien—importance by virtue of her last name, it also disoriented her and made her uncomfortable.

  She thought briefly of taking it up with her mother later tonight when she got home, but instinctively understood that it would only cause more tension. Her grandmother, she already knew, would be the wrong person to speak to about this for reasons she couldn’t articulate, but understood clearly nonetheless. Maybe Uncle Jeremy would be able to shed some light on it, Morgan thought. Uncle Jeremy always seemed to know what was going on, even when no one else did. She realized suddenly that Uncle Jeremy was, like Morgan herself, a Parr by blood. It was something that had never occurred to her at home in Toronto, but out here in this wilderness, it seemed to count for something. What, exactly, it counted for, she wasn’t sure. But she was sure she would find out sooner or later.

  She left the principal’s office. Miss Quinn handed her a sheaf of papers, including her class list.

  “Follow me, dear,” she said. “I’ll show you where your homeroom is.” When they got to the classroom door, Miss Quinn offered to introduce her to her homeroom teacher, Mr. Churchill, but Morgan politely declined. She already felt like she was dancing on the surface of Saturn and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Miss Quinn patted her hand, understanding that Morgan had already had enough of standing out. The first bell of the day rang. She took a deep breath and walked into the classroom, smelling chalk, wet wool, disinfectant, and old wood.

  At lunchtime, playing truant from the grounds of Parr’s Landing Public School with his dog-eared copy of Tomb of Dracula issue #3 placed carefully in his durable orange canvas book bag, Finn caught sight of the girl with the long dark hair sitting by herself under the elm tree in front of the high school down the street. He promptly fell in love the way that only a twelve-year-old boy can.

  Not since Finn laid his eyes on Tomb of Dracula issue #1 had he seen anything as beautiful as Morgan Parr—whose name was still a mystery, and would remain so for a time yet.

  She ate alone, which puzzled him. How could admirers not surround anyone that beautiful? Parr’s Landing’s population was 1,528 (give or take) so new faces were easy to spot, and he’d never seen this girl before. His eyes reverenced the way the sunlight brought out the bands of honey and cinnamon-red in her dark hair. She ate her sandwich with a lack of self-consciousness that he’d never seen before in a girl of her age.

  His short life to date had been spent entirely within the precincts of his hometown. While he’d dreamed of what life must be like outside of its boundaries, certainly he’d never seen any evidence of it other than what he’d gleaned from television, magazines, movies, or, of course, his beloved comic books. The girl across the street was clearly not a local, so she became the screen upon which he projected his vision.

  She looked up suddenly, as though she realized he was watching her. Her eyes scanned the street across from the school where he was standing. Instinctively, he ducked behind another elm tree and prayed she hadn’t spotted him and found him creepy.

  He didn’t care a whit about being caught off the school grounds— he never had been caught before. Finn had learned to close his eyes and pretend to transform into mist, like Dracula did when Rachel Van Helsing, the gla
mourous blonde vampire huntress from The Tomb of Dracula, shot an arrow at the Lord of the Undead with her crossbow. Finn wasn’t crazy; he knew he didn’t turn into mist. But he also knew that whenever he pretended he turned into mist, he was somehow never caught doing anything he didn’t want to be caught doing. And right now, what he wanted was for the girl not to catch him staring at her. He closed his eyes and . . . transformed into mist.

  Her eyes passed over where he stood behind the tree without registering him at all, as far as he could tell.

  He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back out from behind the tree. He took one more longing look at her eating her sandwich. He imprinted the image on his memory like a photograph, promising himself he’d see her again—soon.

  Then he turned and jogged back to school, all thoughts of both lunch and his comic book momentarily forgotten, as old loves so often are when a rival first appears.

  At two in the afternoon, Elliot McKitrick realized that he needed desperately to be alone to think, so he told Thomson that he was going to take the cruiser and do a loop of the town and the area around Bradley Lake. He told the sergeant that he’d be on radio if he needed him and that he wouldn’t go far, but he wanted to patrol the town line in light of what had happened in Gyles Point the previous night.

  “Good idea,” Thomson said without looking up. “I think the tank is a bit low, so fill her up on the way back, would you, McKitrick? I’m going to stay here and make some calls. I want to check out a couple of points of Dr. Lightning’s story.”

  “Sounded fishy to you, too, Sarge?”

  “Not necessarily,” Thomson said, not looking at the younger man. “Just . . . well, there are some things I want to check out.”

  Elliot stood in the doorway for another moment, waiting for more. When it was not forthcoming, he opened the door and went to where the cruiser was parked. He turned the key in the ignition and headed towards the road that led out of town.