Page 23 of From the Darkness

She’d handed Bree an opportunity to snoop around. During the ten minutes she was alone in the room, she tried to make a more thorough inspection of the walls, the fixtures, the floor, looking for spy devices. But she found nothing she could identify.

Dinah returned and went back to work.

The next time she and the girl both looked up, Bree smiled and said, “Shall we have recess? Would you like to go for a walk?”

Dinah looked surprised, but she nodded in agreement, then said, “But I’m not supposed to go near the cliffs. Daddy says the edges can be unstable.”

“Unstable. That’s a big word. Do you know what it means?”

“It means pieces could fall off, and you could fall with them. See, the waves can come up high sometimes and eat away at the dirt. But you don’t know it because you can’t see the ocean side.”

“Well, you do know a lot about it!”

The child glowed with the compliment.

“Thank you for warning me. Can you show me a way out of the house besides the front door?

Dinah picked up her stuffed animal, then led Bree down a back stairway to a door that opened into the garden. Bree recognized a few of the plants–hollies and rhododendrons with a few blooms.

Some beds were weedy. Others had obviously been tended recently. Paving stones wound through the flower beds, then gave way to a gravel path that paralleled the cliff. In the background was a stand of large pine trees—some with broken branches leaning on the ground.

They passed a section of well-tended rose bushes, and she paused beside a pinwheel-shaped pink blossom. “Do you know what these are?”

“Some of the Heritage roses. They come from old houses around here. Daddy got them at the botanical garden.”

“Oh.”

“Daddy likes to garden,” Dinah volunteered.

“What other plants does he have besides the roses?”

“We have a very fine collection of heathers and heaths,” Dinah answered, obviously repeating what she’d heard a grown-up say.

“You know a lot about the garden,” Bree marveled. “More than I ever did.”

“Daddy taught me. We have irises, but they’re not blooming now. And coneflowers and tall phlox. And all kinds of ferns.”

The child seemed more animated than at any other time. She must love this garden—perhaps because it represented a connection to her father.

To keep the focus on Troy, Bree asked, “Did your daddy read youAlice in Wonderland?”

The child’s eyes widened. “How do you know?”

“Well, Alice has a cat named Dinah. I was wondering if that was why you named your kitty Alice?”

“Yes. Daddy thought it was a nice twist,” the girl said, and Bree could hear Troy’s turn of phrase in the comment.

“I was really disappointed that your daddy wasn’t here to meet me. When was the last time you saw him?” Bree asked softly.

The girl scuffed a foot against the gravel of the path. “I can’t remember.”

The answer sounded like an evasion.

“Did he seem worried about something? Upset?”

Dinah shook her head, and Bree was pretty sure the child was hiding something. She wanted to press for information, but at the same time, she understood children well, and she sensed the little girl’s fragility. She was under a lot of strain living here, and Bree didn’t want to make it seem like the new teacher had come here to ask a lot of personal questions.

In the next moment, Dinah changed the subject abruptly. “Nola told you I was bad,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t want you to think I’m bad.”

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