The Revenant Read Online Free Page B

easy to spot, for they looked more than a little ragged as they huddled together in the vestibule. Miss Crenshaw saw to them herself, quickly ushering the girls upstairs to join those who were more like them.
    I kept to my room as much as possible, reviewing the texts Miss Crenshaw had provided for me. I’d thought to be teaching basic skills to rough Indian girls, but as I pored over McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader and Swinton’s Studies in English Literature , I knew a battle lay in wait. This was no charity school for girls needing instruction in proper speech and manners. This was an institution of higher learning, and the students thought too much of themselves to be grateful for anything I had to offer. The part I played had become more challenging, but there was no turning back.
    The night before classes were to begin, I sat on my bed and stared at the wall. I’d read through the textbooks until the words blurred on the page and I’d despaired almost to the point of tears. Perhaps it was childish, but sitting still and tracing the wallpaper pattern with my eyes seemed to smooth out the jumble of my nerves.
    A knock came at the door, making my heart leap.
    “Come in?”
    The door opened and Olivia Adair peered around the edge. Relieved, I waved her in. After a moment’s hesitation, she sat next to me on the bed. It would have been very cozy had I not felt so ill at the thought of teaching the next day.
    “Miss Crenshaw asked me to pay you a visit.” She took my hand very solemnly, concern widening her eyes. “Are you nervous?”
    “I am absolutely terrified!”
    She sighed. “You are a kindred spirit. I knew it the moment I saw you.”
    “Is that supposed to reassure me?”
    “It didn’t sound reassuring, did it?” Her eyes sparkled. “I meant that you are feeling exactly the way I felt the night before my first day as a teacher. And I did not die of terror, so neither shall you.” She squeezed my hand. “I’d be worried if you weren’t nervous, because that would mean you were setting yourself up for disaster tomorrow.”
    “All this talk of death and disaster is souring my stomach, Miss Adair.”
    “I have a little suggestion that might help you tomorrow. It’s a trick, really.”
    I leaned forward. “Please share it.”
    “No matter how carefully you prepare, when you face your first class, you will feel like a schoolgirl with no authority. It happens to every new teacher.”
    But I am a schoolgirl .
    I shook my head, banishing the thought. “Do go on.”
    “You must prepare yourself by remembering the sternest teacher you ever knew. Can you think of one?”
    I considered my recent teachers at the Athenaeum. “Well, Miss Kirtley was rather fearsome.”
    “Good. Identify the qualities that made her so.”
    “That’s easy enough. She was thin as a rail with the pointiest elbows you’ve ever seen—so pointy you’d cut yourself if you brushed against her. And she was terribly vain and prissy. But her most fearsome quality was her mean tongue. She never said anything unseemly, but when she was disappointed in you, her words sliced you open like a knife.”
    Olivia grinned. “Excellent! Now, tomorrow when you face the class, you must imagine yourself as Miss Kirtley. Not that you must flay the girls with your words—just pull Miss Kirtley’s authority around your shoulders like a cloak. I promise it will help.”
    “Truly?”
    “I wore the cloak of Miss Morton for weeks—we called her Monstrous Morton during my school days—and it served me well. You’ll be fine, Miss McClure. And I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
    She returned to her own room shortly after that, leaving me slightly less terrified than I was before. It wasn’t until I was settled into bed that I remembered—she’d still not explained the mystery behind my spacious turret room. Why was I given a student room meant for four when more senior teachers made do with less? If I survived the first day of