Well, that explains that, Mrs. Keenan had thought. But she needed to tell Mrs. Sandowski, the principal, because with children so young, the parents had to notify the school if they were going on an extended vacation and leaving someone else in charge. And clearly the Kellers hadn’t.

So Mrs. Sandowski had merely planned to call the Kellers to tell them it was school policy to let her know the next time they went out of town. And she waited a week for them to get back. But within that week, Mrs. Keenan was keeping her ears pricked, had been spending more time in the halls. And what she’d heard was sickening, astounding coming from what she assumed to be such upright, established, if a bit entitled, parents.

She approached Mrs. Sandowski with what she’d heard. Neglect. Horrific fighting. Nanny abuse. She had never dealt with something like this in their sleepy little school. But Mrs. Sandowski had worked in New York, in Boston, with parents and families who were far more conniving and dysfunctional than the less sophisticated upper-middle-class types that inhabited this small town. She would know how to handle it. And besides, Mrs. Sandowski was supposed to call them anyway.

Annie would hear the details from Mrs. Keller herself. How she had stayed silent on the phone as these accusations were flung at her, her parenting was questioned, the very foundation of her marriage ripped to pieces by this woman she’d only met once. “Suzy doesn’t seem to be suffering from any physical harm. In fact, except for this baby doll incident, she seems relatively well-adjusted. So of course I have no reason to call CPS. But please, for the sake of Windsong, take your child and your personal dramas elsewhere.”

Yes, Mrs. Keller had stayed silent, her rage simmering until, once Mrs. Sandowski had taken a breath, she croaked out, “I’m dying of cancer, you fucking bitch.” And she cleared her name from there.

Christine taps on Annie’s door not a half hour later, a sharp knock that wakes Annie out of her reverie instantly. “She wants to talk to you. Alone.” Annie rubs her eyes, straightens her shirt, smooths back her hair and walks over, her spine straight.

As always, Mrs. Keller looks like a shrunken corncob doll, her tiny body dwarfed by the hospital bed, one bruised arm attached to an IV drip.

“Come, sit,” she rasps, and Annie imagines Mrs. Keller’s skin melting off, pooling on the sheets like egg yolk, drip-drip-dripping onto the hardwood floor. Christine has forgotten her knitting on her chair, and Annie places it next to the water cup.

“I have a task for you. But we’ll get to that,” is all Mrs. Keller says, her upper body barely lifted, her sunken eyes having trouble focusing on Annie.

Annie sucks her lip. Perhaps nothing happened on the call at all.