Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles by Joanna Campbell Slan Page B

answer.
    Desperate for shelter, I gave the door a push. When it refused to yield, I set my shoulder to it.
    The door swung open with a loud groan. Hanging firmly on the handle, I spun about, making a tight half circle. Thus, I staggered inside, backside first.
    “About time you arrived,” said a voice behind me.
    I completed another half turn and used my back to slam the door.
    “Aye, and don’t that just cap the globe?”
    A woman stared boldly at me. She wore a cook’s apron, and a trace of flour smudged her broad forehead. She squinted and stepped closer to examine me. “What a sight! Ain’t only the rain that’s been beating on ye! Someone has been giving ye a good what for!”
    A low snicker drew my attention to a young girl chopping vegetables.
    “That will be enough, Emma,” said Cook.
    Resting my back against the door, I caught my breath. The short walk in the elements—and the disturbing glimpse I’d had of a dead girl—had drained my reserves of energy. My compelling desire to see Adèle was all that fueled me.
    “Wouldn’t send me worst dog out in this weather, I wouldn’t. Go on and get over by the fire.”
    Following her directives, I stepped nearer to the wide brick hearth, where yellow, orange, and red coals glowed brightly. There I proceeded to shake the rain from my garments. As I moved, my bonnet tilted. More water dripped down, splashing a wooden box lined with rags. One of these shifted, revealing a large, lugubrious black cat. He hunched his spine in a stretch before settling into a seated position, where he regarded me haughtily.
    I stared back.
    He didn’t blink. His gaze suggested he felt quite my superior.
    But then,
he
was dry, and I was not.
    “Hope ye ain’t superstitious. That there is Mephisto, and he is the very devil. Ain’t got a spot of white nowhere. Mean, but a good mouser. Got a soft spot for the girls, he does. He’ll scratch you and me till we bleed like we been stuck with knives”—Cook pulled up a sleeve to show me the proof—“but he don’t never hurt the students. Never.”
    Mephisto twitched his nose at me, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
    “Ah,” was all I could manage. I unpeeled my wet shawl from my aching shoulders. With effort, I wrung it out on the floor. Water ran in rivers.
    Cook kept up a rhythmic turning and slapping of dough against a flour-dusted tabletop. Small clouds of flour flew around and resettled. Emma chopped her vegetables in a stately cadence.
    “Emma, put that down. Run tell Miss Miller that herGerman teacher has finally arrived. All the way from Hamburg, she has come to us.”
    A correction formed in my mind as a wave of tiredness and hunger nearly bowled me over. One hand on a nearby counter steadied me, temporarily.
    Emma took her time untying her apron, clearly using Cook’s instructions as an excuse to examine me at length. “That is quite the black eye,” the girl said.
    “Aye, it is. Now run along.” Cook left the dough and slid a long-handled wooden paddle under three fresh loaves in the oven. My stomach growled at the aroma of baking bread and caraway seeds.
    I wasn’t alone. Emma cast a rueful glance at the fresh-baked bread before aligning her knife with the pile of half-peeled turnips. “Aye.”
    “Mind, she might be too busy. What with what has happened and all. If she is, ask her what to do with this one.” Cook spoke in an undertone, but I could still hear. “I cannot have her hanging around my kitchen, not with those beggar eyes. Well, one beggar eye. The other is all swelled shut.”
    I edged nearer to a shiny copper pot hanging from the ceiling. There I caught my reflection. The right side of my face resembled an angry purple pansy. My mouth was double its normal size. A bright red slash divided my lower lip in two.
    I was glad I hadn’t examined my injuries more carefully back at Lucy Brayton’s house. They were horrible!
    Suddenly, the purpose that kept me rigid, the force that had compelled me