The Revenant Read Online Free Page A

through the clutter to the desk. Fortunately, her letter was on top of the pile of papers, so I folded it and poked around for an envelope. She’d not addressed one, of course, and I would have to beg coins for postage from Mrs. Wilson.
    The letter from the school lay underneath, and I copied the address onto Angeline’s envelope. Angeline hadn’t for a moment intended to teach at this simple charity school, and I felt a flash of sympathy for the principal who would receive her letter declining the position.
    I was about to leave when something caught my eye in the letter from the seminary. It was a number—a number that leapt off the page and slapped me in the face.
    $450.
    I grabbed the letter and looked closer. “Room and board are provided, and the salary is $450 per annum.”
    Four hundred and fifty dollars? With none of it going toward food? And a room of one’s own—surely a teacher would have her own room. Her own bed, at least. Four hundred and fifty dollars to teach a group of simple Indian girls?
    My heart began to pound.
    I rifled through the papers on Angeline’s desk. At the very bottom was her teaching certificate, newly signed that summer. After staring at it for a moment, I added the certificate to the letter and envelope. Then I gathered the remaining papers into a neat pile on the desk. But of course she would notice that and wonder. So I set my small bundle of papers down and looked about me. I would have to tidy the entire room. I could leave a note telling her it was my wedding gift to her, for I knew how busy she was. Hands hot and trembling, I collected the clothes from the floor and bed and folded them neatly. It was so easy I could not see why she couldn’t manage it herself.
    When I beheld the cape, with its high ruffled neck and satin ribbon, my heart expanded. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And Angeline had many things like it—elegant clothes for which she cared so little that she would toss them upon the floor. Would she miss this beauty? In her fleeting gratitude for my tidying labors, would she miss this one cape?
    I decided not and carefully stuffed it into my drawers.
    I need you at home. I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t so desperate. Mr. Toomey will come for you on Saturday .
    The next day—my first full day at the seminary—would be Saturday. I smiled to think of Toomey arriving at the Athenaeum only to learn I’d vanished. His jowls would sag with confusion, his eyes narrow and piglike as he stared at Mrs. Wilson. She’d grow uncomfortable under that gaze of animal stupidity. Finally, he would shake his head and turn away, leaving her sighing with relief to have him gone from her parlor.
    I folded the letter and returned it to the volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies, where it marked act 3, scene 4 of Hamlet .
    “Mother,” I whispered, “you have my father much offended.”
    Part of me had wished to put a match to that letter. After some consideration, however, it seemed better to keep it. I would read the letter when doubt weakened my resolve. I would turn to it when worried that my lies and deceits were corrupting me.
    Mr. Toomey—Mr. Gabriel Toomey—was my stepfather. A red-faced man with a lumpish body and little learning. Our neighbor when my father was alive, he was free with his advice on farming and raising livestock. Apparently, he was free with my mother as well. Why else would they marry so soon after my father’s death? She gave birth to twin boys a mere eight months later. And now another was on the way.
    I would not— could not—return to that.

Chapter 3
    C LASSES WERE TO BEGIN ON W EDNESDAY , and each day brought a new wave of girls to the school. Many arrived on the stagecoach as Lucy and I had; others were brought by wagon or simply walked from the far reaches of town. There were fair-skinned, smartly dressed girls like Fannie and her friends, but many of the girls were plainly attired and darkly handsome. The rural primaries were