House of Reckoning by John Saul

to the black album pages and set it on her grandfather’s desk, next to the drawing by the young student.
    Sarah had even included the sapling.
    A chill ran up Bettina’s spine.
    Today, the enormous shutters that protected the fragile windows and occupants of the old stone house from the nor’easters that roared down the lake in the winter sagged on their hinges. But they were still operable, and Bettina occasionally employed them when the winds were bad enough.
    But in both the photograph and the drawing, the shutters were the same—square and even.
    New.
    The front doors in the drawing and the photograph were the same, and different from the current front doors, which Bettina’s mother had replaced before she had even been born.
    Somehow, Sarah Crane—new to Warwick—had plucked the image of her house out of thin air, and drawn it in her classroom not as it was now, but as it had been when it was new.
    Bettina unconsciously rubbed the goose bumps that rose on her arms and turned to look at Rocky, who now sat quietly at the doorway and gazed at her with calm brown eyes.
    “What do you think?” she asked him.
    The dog merely kept looking at her for another moment, then stood up and trotted away, probably in search of the cat who had been the only mother he’d ever known.
    “Spooks me, too,” Bettina said softly to the now empty room. As she leaned in to turn off the desk lamp, she looked one more time at both the photograph and the incomprehensible drawing.
    Sarah Crane would get an A for the assignment.
    And she would keep a close, watchful eye on the girl.
    Sarah waited until everyone was seated and everything was as perfect as she could make it at the Garveys’ dinner table before she slipped into her seat and put her napkin on her lap, then checked to make sure everyone else had already helped themselves to the tuna noodle casserole before putting a single small portion on her own plate.
    And she made sure there was plenty left for both Mitch and Zach to have second helpings, even though her own stomach was begging for more food. But already she’d learned that the more invisible she could make herself, the better off she’d be in the Garveys’ house.
    Almost as if she’d heard Sarah’s thoughts, Angie Garvey’s eyes fixed on her. “How was your first day at school, Sarah?”
    Now all four of the Garveys were looking at her, and Sarah sensed some kind of trap being set. But how could such a simple question—a question her own mother must have asked her thousands of times—be a trap?
    Maybe it wasn’t—maybe Angie really was wondering how she’d liked school. “Good,” she finally said.
    Everyone kept looking at her.
    “Fine, I mean,” she hurried on. “I liked it. School was really good.” Her eyes darted from Angie to Mitch, and she could see she still hadn’t said enough. “Lots of homework,” she ventured.
    Without taking his eyes off her, Mitch drained his beer and tipped the empty bottle toward Zach, who took it and immediately jumped up to get his father another one. “Homework’s good,” Mitch said. “Trouble with schools nowadays is not enough homework. When I was your age, we didn’t have time to hang out and get in trouble—we had work to do. Lots of it.” Then his eyes bored into her. “And when we were asked a question, we answered it. Didn’t make folks pull every word out one by one.”
    Sarah took a sip of water and sucked in her breath, thinking fast. What did her foster father want to hear? What was she supposed to say? “Well,” she finally began, “I found all my classrooms without too much trouble, and my locker is in a really good place, practically in the middle of the whole school.”
    Mitch went back to his meal, and as if they had been signaled, so did the rest of the family.
    Sarah relaxed slightly. “I really like my art teacher, Miss Philips.”
    All four heads snapped up, and once again the family was staring at her.
    “D-Did I say something