Leanne remembered feeling the eyes on her every time the heavy cane passed their door. She kept her head down to their book, desperate to avoid notice. When Patience passed, the rooms fell deathly still. No one fidgeted. No one whispered or turned their pages or even breathed. She would linger in the doorway, those milky eyes seeing everything, before the thud of her cane announced her progress towards the next room. Then the children would have a few minutes of peace before the cane returned.

One afternoon, after the incident at breakfast, Henry had leaned towards Leanne and whispered, “I hope she dies soon.” She’d giggled, pressing a hand across her lips to stifle the noise because the cane was still not out of earshot.

Leanne sighed, leaning against the doorjamb, staring at the desks she and Henry had occupied. She remembered the rooms being bigger. A child’s eyes had the power to magnify things. Even the windows had felt far wider and more alluring when she was a girl. Back then, they had tried to call Leanne away from her desk, to lure her into risking Patience’s notice for a glimpse outside. Now, as an adult, they seemed narrow and sad.

Leanne approached one and stared through it. The sun had gone down. Soon, the moon would illuminate the world below. She could barely make out the trees and bushes that had grown behind Bellamy.

Their mornings were spent in the classrooms. Their afternoons were for chores: cooking, washing clothes, making beds, and sweeping floors. Then they had dinner. And after that, they had a brief few hours to themselves, which they always spent outside. It was the best part of the day, racing through the long grass and chasing rabbits around the forest’s edge. The bell would ring at eight o’clock sharp, and they would all file back inside under Patience’s glazed eyes.

“Jayne!” Leanne cupped her hands around her mouth. “Jayne, come back! It’s too late!”

Jayne laughed as she frolicked through the grass and leapt over a rotting log. “It’ll only be a minute, silly!”

Leanne sighed and threw her hands out to her side. Henry appeared next to her, holding a stick he had been using to hunt for frogs. He looked at her curiously.

“She says she’s going down to the river to wade,” Leanne said. “But it’s too late. The bell’s going to ring any moment, and she’ll be in trouble if she can’t get back fast enough.”

A vivid sunset streaked across the sky. The days had been growing longer, the sun lingering, and the bell seemed to come earlier every evening.