“I expect so. What do you intend to do?”

Hawthorne continued to look out at the snow. “I don’t want the school to close.”

“And what if it gets more violent?”

“Then I’ll have to deal with it. I like that policeman in Brewster who’s investigating the vandalism. Perhaps I can count on him if things get bad.”

“I still think you should leave.”

Hawthorne turned around. “I can’t.”

“If you fail, will you take responsibility for that as well? Because, believe me, you’re setting yourself up to fail. Will you go to some new place to seek a new punishment?”

Hawthorne had thought of nothing past Bishop’s Hill. “I don’t know.”

Krueger cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. “I’ve got a pistol. I wish you’d take it.”

The thought of packing a gun struck Hawthorne as immensely funny. He began to laugh. “The only guns I’ve ever fired have been in penny arcades.”

“I’m serious. I’ll show you how it works.”

“I’m not that kind of person. I’m a talker. What would I do with a gun?” He paused, then asked, “Do you think a specific company is interested in Bishop’s Hill?”

They went on to discuss possible interested parties. Krueger didn’t mention Wyndham and Hawthorne didn’t bring it up again. Nor did Krueger say anything else about Hawthorne’s need for punishment. But Hawthorne felt better for having told his friend about Bishop’s Hill. Krueger now knew what Hawthorne knew. He had become a witness and it made Hawthorne feel less isolated.

Around noon Krueger’s wife had knocked on the door of the sun porch and brought in a plate of turkey sandwiches. The rest of the day was relaxed. They helped the kids with their snow fort, read, and went for a walk. At times Krueger would ask a question about one or another of the faculty—Herb Frankfurter, Ted Wrigley, Fritz Skander. Hawthorne talked somewhat vaguely about his friendship with Kate. That Friday evening they went to a movie. It was about a couple, each with their own children, trying to begin a romance. Hawthorne thought of Kate and tried not to think of Meg and Lily. He and Krueger were comfortable with each other, almost as they had been years before. Saturday morning they went to the YMCA and shot baskets for several hours. After lunch Hawthorne had driven back up to Bishop’s Hill. The closer he had gotten, the more he had felt the old chill settling around him. Where things had seemed clear, they now began to seem confused again.

It was nearly dark when Hawthorne got back to his quarters in Adams Hall. The lights were out. He paused to stamp the snow from his feet and suddenly, inexplicably, he heard the frantic flapping of wings. Turning on the light, he saw that two birds had gotten into his living room: a mourning dove and a chickadee. The rug was spotted with feathers and bird droppings. At first he wondered how they had gotten in. All the windows were closed. Perhaps they had come down the chimney. Then he realized how unlikely that was. Someone had put them there.

Moving slowly, Hawthorne crossed the room and opened the French windows. The birds flew back and forth, frightened and unaware of the open door. The chickadee settled on a curtain rod. It was cold and the wind blew snow into the room. Hawthorne crossed to the door and tried to drive the birds toward the terrace. What was the point? What was he meant to think? Hawthorne felt only anger.

After a few minutes the chickadee found its way out into the snowy evening. The dove took longer and Hawthorne had to pursue it with a towel as the bird flew from one side of the room to the other and small gray feathers floated down to the rug. But at last it flew out through the French windows as well. Hawthorne closed them and put several sheets of newspaper over the snow that had blown onto the rug. He had just begun to clean up the bird droppings when Floyd Purvis had appeared, hammering on his door. He had found a boy drowned in the swimming pool and Hawthorne had to come right away.

—

Sunday morning, shortly after breakfast, Jessica walked over to the kitchen to talk to LeBrun. The day was sunny and the snow was beginning to melt, even though it was cold. As she walked along the path from her dormitory cottage to Emerson Hall, Jessica kept her eyes squinched against the glare. The mountains seemed to shine and the trees were all snow-covered, although now and then the pines on campus would shed their mantle of snow with a rush. The paths had been plowed and made curving black lines across the whiteness. Jessica wore a red down parka and her boots were bright purple.

She didn’t want to see LeBrun, she was growing increasingly afraid of him, but that morning when she woke there had been a note under her door. She had thought they were about to go down to Exeter and rescue her brother. She had even begun to pack some of her clothes. But the note said it couldn’t be Monday after all. It would have to be Friday. Jessica didn’t like that and she wanted LeBrun to reconsider. If they changed the date, she’d have to call Jason. There wouldn’t be time to write him. And if she called, there was the danger of reaching Tremblay or even her mother, though her mother wouldn’t be so bad because she’d probably be drunk, and it was easy to put Dolly off if she was drunk.

But there was another matter bothering Jessica and that was her kitten, Lucky, which had recovered from its experience in the pool. What worried her was how Lucky had gotten into the water in the first place. She knew that LeBrun disliked cats and she knew he had a passkey, so he could easily have taken the kitten from her room. The implications of that were dreadful, however, because it suggested that LeBrun had thrown the kitten into the pool. And Scott had probably gone into the pool to rescue Lucky and had drowned. But how had Scott gotten into the pool unless LeBrun had let him in? Perhaps Scott had snuck in after him. But whatever the case, Scott’s death and the kitten seemed inextricably entwined.

She felt awful about Scott—everybody did—and there was no way that she would get into that pool ever again. His death was still in the water. At dinner the night before, some kids had been crying and the rest had been somber. Although Jessica hadn’t cried, she felt she should cry. Some kids had suggested that Scott had drowned himself on purpose, even that there was some connection between Scott and old Evings. And one girl, not a very bright one, had suggested that Bobby Newland had drowned Scott, getting even for Evings’s death, and that Newland meant to kill them all one by one. That had been creepy even if it had been stupid. Jessica had liked Scott. He had been especially nice to her, even though he was younger, and he always offered her cigarettes when he had them. So she felt very much that she should cry and that perhaps there was something wrong with her—perhaps she really was a bad person after all—because she couldn’t.

LeBrun was in the kitchen cutting up potatoes for lunch. He wore a white jacket, blue jeans, and a white cap. A student was helping him, a fat boy by the name of Phelps. One of the older women who worked in the kitchen was at the large metal sink, finishing up the pots from breakfast. The kitchen was bright with sunlight and the metal surfaces gleamed. There was the smell of garlic and tomato sauce. When the door swung shut behind Jessica, LeBrun stopped what he was doing and turned. He wrinkled his nose at her, then he came over, the knife still in his hand. Even his walk seemed crooked, as if he couldn’t walk in a straight line. Jessica took off her cap, stuck it in the pocket of her parka, then shook out her hair.

“Hey, Misty, you want to help make lunch? We got a ton of work.”

When LeBrun was about three feet away, Jessica said, “Did you throw Lucky in the pool?” She tried to keep her voice down, but the combination of anger and fear made it waver.