Page 2 of In an Absent Dream

Of such commonplace contradictions are weapons made. Katherine Lundy walked in the world. That was quite enough to set everything else into motion.

2

WHEN IS A DOOR NOT A DOOR?

THE SCHOOL BELL RANGloud and lofty across the campus, and the doors of the classrooms slammed open in euphonious unison as children boiled forth, clutching their schoolbags and their report cards in their hands, racing for the exits like they feared summer would be canceled if they dawdled too long. The teachers, who would normally have been demanding that they slow down, no running in the halls, indulgently watched them go. Some of it may have been the memory of their own school days, their own golden afternoons when the summer stretched ahead of them in an eternity of opportunity; some of it may simply have been exhaustion. It had been a long school year. They looked forward to the break as much as the children did.

In some classrooms, however, the teachers were looking at the students whohadn’tbolted for the door. The ones who couldn’t, due to braces on their legs or canes in their hands, who took more time to make the same journeys; the ones who were packing up their desks with exquisite slowness, giving their personal demons time to make their way off campus and into the hazy light of summer. And, in Miss Hansard’s second-grade classroom, the one who was still tucked in at her desk, peacefully reading.

“Katherine,” said Miss Hansard.

Katherine ignored her. Not maliciously: Katherine frequently didn’t hear her name the first time it was called, preferring to keep her nose in her book and continue whatever adventure she had decided was more interesting than the actual world around her.

Miss Hansard cleared her throat. “Katherine,” she said again, more firmly. She didn’t want to yell at the girl, Heaven knew; no one ever wanted to yell at the girl. If anything, she was grateful that Katherine was a pleasant, tractable bookworm, and not a hellion like her older brother. Teachers who found Daniel Lundy assigned to their classrooms frequently found themselves considering how nice it would be to retire early.

Katherine raised her head, blinking owlishly. “Yes, Miss Hansard?” she asked.

“The bell rang. You’re free to go.” When Katherine still didn’t spring from her seat and race for the door, Miss Hansard clarified, “It’s summer vacation. School is over for the year.”

“Yes, Miss Hansard,” said Katherine obediently. She bent her head back over her book.

Miss Hansard counted to ten before she said, somewhat annoyed, “I would like to lock my classroom and go home, Katherine. That means you have to leave.” In all her years of teaching, she had encountered every manner of slothful student—the lazy, the confused, the fearful—but she had never before encountered a student who simply refused to go when the final bell rang.

“My father can lock up when he comes to collect me,” said Katherine.

Miss Hansard paused. It was tempting to take the girl at her word—and since no one had ever caught Katherine in an actuallie,it would have been understandable for her to do so. Katherine didn’t lie; her father was the principal; her father was coming to collect her. It was an easy chain. Unfortunately, there was a piece missing.

“Is your father expecting to come and collect you from my classroom?” asked Miss Hansard. “It would have been polite of him to inform me, if so.”

“No, Miss Hansard,” said Katherine regretfully. She hunched her shoulders, reading faster.

Miss Hansard sighed. “So you simply assumed he would see the light on and find you here, at which time he would lock up, and I would get a disciplinary note for leaving one of my students unattended.”

Katherine said nothing.

“Up, please, Katherine. It’s time for you to go.”

Knowing when she was beaten, Katherine slouched to her feet, tucking her book into her bag, and started for the door. Miss Hansard sighed as she watched her go. Katherine really was an excellent student. A little reserved, and a little overly fond of looking for loopholes, but still, an excellent student.

“Katherine,” she called.

“Yes, Miss Hansard?”

“You were a joy to teach. Whoever has that opportunity next year will be very lucky.”

Katherine seemed to mull her words over for a while, considering them from every angle. Then she smiled. “Thank you, Miss Hansard,” she said, and slipped out, leaving the classroom suddenly, echoingly empty.

Miss Hansard, who had been teaching for nearly twenty years, slumped against her desk and wondered when retirement had gone from a distant impossibility to something to be devoutly yearned for. They got younger every year. She was certain of that much, at least. They got younger, and harder to understand, every single year.

***

THE OTHER STUDENTSwere gone, whirling off into the dawning summer like dandelion seeds in the wind. Katherine looked mournfully back at the classroom once before she started walking away. It would have been nice to spend a little longer at her desk, reading where no one knew how to find her. As soon as she got home, her mother would probably try to pass Diana off to her for “just a few minutes, be a good girl now and help your mother,” and that would mean playing babysitter for the rest of the afternoon. She didn’t particularly want to go outside and run around playing the sort of games that weren’t safe for toddlers, but she didn’t want to be stuck keeping Diana from eating thumbtacks, either.

Daniel never had to babysit. Daniel could have spent all day, every day reading in his room if he’d wanted to, and their parents would have been right there to applaud and tell him how amazing he was for being so serious about his studies. They didn’t discourage her, exactly, didn’t tell her she wasn’t supposed to read because she was a girl or that she needed to be better at her chores, but there was always a vague impression that they expected something different from her, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She didn’twantto know what to do with that. She suspected it would involve changing everything about who she was, and she liked who she was. It was familiar.

Dwelling on what would happen when she got home made her uncomfortable. She took her book back out of her bag and began to read, following Trixie Belden and her friends into another mystery. Mysteries in books were the best kind. The real world was absolutely full of boring mysteries, questions that never got answered and lost things that never got found. That wasn’t allowed, in books. In books, mysteries were always interesting and exciting, packed with daring and danger, and in the end, the good guys found the clues and the bad guys got their comeuppance. Best of all, nothing was ever lost forever. If something mattered enough for the author to write it down, it would come back before the last page was turned. It would always come back.

Katherine had made the walk home from school hundreds of times, tagging at her brother’s heels when she was in kindergarten, forging her own trail in first grade, and now following it with the faithful devotion of one who knows the way. She didn’t look up as she walked, allowing her feet to remember where they needed to fall if she was going to be home before dark.

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