Alice Hoffman - The River King

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The River King

Alice Hoffman

ALSO BY ALICE HOFFMAN

Property Of The Drowning Season Angel Landing Fortune's Daughter

Illumination Night At Risk Seventh Heaven Turtle Moon Second Nature

Practical Magic Here on Earth Local Girls / / / /

ALICE HOFFMAN

'\\ \

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK

/ This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and inci- J

dents either are the product of the author's imagination or age / used

fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual / persons living or dead,

business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Publishers Since 1838 a member of Penguin Putnam

reproduced in any form without permission. Published simultaneously in

Canada Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoffman,

Alice.

The river king Alice Hoffman. p, em.

ISBN 0-399-14599-0

I. Title.

PS3558.O3447 R58 2000 00-023870

813'.54~c21 Printed in the United States of America This book is

printed on acid-flee paper.

\ \

TO PHYLLIS

GRANN

THE

RIVER

KING

THE IRON BOX.

THE HAD DAN SCHOOL WAS BUILT

in 1858 on the sloping banks of the Haddan River, a muddy and

precarious location that had proven disastrous from the start. That

very first year, when the whole town smelled of cedar shavings, there

was a storm of enormous proportions, with winds so strong that dozens

of fish were drawn up from the reedy shallows, then lifted above the

village in a shining cloud of scales. Torrents of water fell from the

sky, and by morning the river had overflowed, leaving the school's

freshly painted white clapboard buildings adrift in a murky sea of

duckweed and algae. " For weeks, students were ferried to classes in

rowboats, catfish swam through flooded perennial gardens, observing the

disaster with cool, glassy eyes. Every evening, at twilight, the

school cook balanced on a second-story window ledge, then cast out his

rod to catch dozens of silver trout, a species found only in the

currents of the Haddan River, a sweet, fleshy variety that was

especially delectable when fried with shallots and oil. After the

flood subsided, two inches of thick, black silt covered the carpets in

the dormitories, at the headmaster's house, mosquitoes began to hatch

in sinks and commodes. The delightful watery vistas of the site, a

landscape abundant with willows and water lotus, had seduced the

foolish trustees into building much too close to the river, an

architectural mistake that has never been rectified. To this day,

frogs can be found in the plumbing, linens and clothes stored in

closets have a distinctly weedy odor, as if each article had been

washed in river water and never thoroughly dried.

After the flood, houses in town had to be refloored and reroofed,

public buildings were torn down, then refashioned from cellar to

ceiling. Whole chimneys floated down Main Street, with some of them

still issuing forth smoke. Main Street itself had become a river, with

waters more than six feet deep. Iron fences were loosened and ripped

from the earth, leaving metal posts in the shape of arrows adrift.

Horses drowned, mules floated for miles and when rescued, refused to

eat anything but wild celery and duckweed. Poison sumac was uprooted

and deposited in vegetable bins, only to be mistakenly cooked along

with the carrots and cabbages, a recipe that led to several untimely

deaths.

Bobcats showed up on back porches, mewing and desperate for milk,

several were found beside babies in their cradles, sucking from bottles

and purring as though they were house cats let in through front

doors.

At that time, the rich fields circling the town of Haddan were owned by

prosperous farmers who cultivated asparagus and onions and a peculiar

type of yellow cabbage known for its large size and delicate fragrance.

These farmers put aside their plows and watched as boys arrived from

every corner of the Commonwealth and beyond to take up residence at the

school, but even the wealthiest among them were unable to afford

tuition for their own sons. Local boys had to make do with the dusty

stacks at the library on Main Street and whatever fundamentals they

might learn in their very own parlors and fields. To this day, people

in Haddan retain a rustic knowledge of which they are proud. Even the

children can foretell the weather, they can point to and name every

constellation in the sky.

A dozen years after the Haddan School was built, a public high school

was erected in the neighboring town of Hamilton, which meant a

five-mile trek to classes on days when the snow was knee-deep and the

weather so cold even the badgers kept to their dens. Each time a

Haddan boy walked through a storm to the public school his animosity

toward the Haddan School grew, a small bump on the skin of ill will

ready to rupture at the slightest contact. In this way a hard

bitterness was forged, and the spiteful sentiment increased every year,

until there might as well have been a fence dividing those who came

from the school and the residents of the village.

Before long, anyone who dared to cross that line was judged to be

either a martyr or a fool.

There was a time when it seemed possible for the separate worlds to be

united, when Dr. George Howe, the esteemed headmaster, considered to

be the finest in the Haddan School history, decided to marry Annie

Jordan, the most beautiful girl in the village.

Annie's father was a well-respected man who owned a parcel of farmland

out where Route 17 now runs into the interstate, and he approved of the

marriage, but soon after the wedding it became apparent that Haddan

would remain divided. Dr. Howe was jealous and vindictive, he turned

local people away from his door.

Even Annie's family was quickly dispatched. Her father and brothers,

good, simple men with mud on their boots, were struck mute the few

times they came to call, as if the bone china and leather-bound books

had robbed them of their tongues. Before long people in town came to

resent Annie, as if she'd somehow betrayed them. If she thought she

was so high and mighty, in that fine house by the river, then the girls

she grew up with felt they had reason to retaliate, and on the streets

they passed her by without a word.

Even her own dog, a lazy hound named Sugar, ran away yelping on those

rare occasions when Annie came to visit her father's farm.

It quickly became clear that the marriage had been a horrid mistake,

anyone more worldly than Annie would have known this from the start. At

his very own wedding, Dr. Howe had forgotten his hat, always the sign

of a man who's bound to stray. He was the sort of person who wished to

own his wife, without belonging to her in return. There were days when

he spoke barely a sentence in his own home, and nights when he didn't

come in until dawn. It was loneliness that led Annie to begin her work

in the gardens at Haddan, which until her arrival were neglected,

ruined patches filled with ivy and nightshade, dark vines that choked

out any wildflowers that might have grown in the thin soil. As it

turned out, Annie's loneliness was the school's good fortune, for it

was she who designed the brick walkways that form an hourglass and who,

with the help of six strong boys, saw to the planting of the weeping

beeches beneath whose branches many girls still receive their first

kiss. Annie brought the original pair of swans to reside at the bend

in the river behind the headmaster's house, ill-tempered, wretched

specimens rescued from a farmer in Hamilton whose wife plucked their

bloody feathers for soft, plump quilts. Each evening, before supper,

when the light above the river washed the air with a green haze, Annie

went out with an apronful of old bread. She held the firm belief that

scattering bread crumbs brought happiness, a condition she herself had

not known since her wedding day.

There are those who vow that swans are unlucky, and fishermen in

particular despise them, but Annie loved her pets, she could call them

to her with a single cry. At the sound of her sweet voice the birds

lined up as politely as gentlemen, they ate from her hands without ever

once drawing blood, favoring crusts of rye bread and whole-wheat

crackers. As a special treat, Annie often brought whole pies,

leftovers from the dining room. In a wicker basket, she piled up apple

cobbler and wild raspberry tart, which the swans gobbled down nearly

whole, so that their beaks were stained crimson and their bellies took

on the shapes of medicine balls.

Even those who were certain Dr. Howe had made a serious error in

judgment in choosing his bride had to admire Annie's gardens. In no

time the perennial borders were thick with rosy pink foxglove and

cream-colored lilies, each of which hung like a pendant, collecting dew

on its satiny petals. But it was with her roses that Annie had the

best luck of all, and among the more jealous members of the Haddan

garden club, founded that very year in an attempt to beautify the town,

there was speculation that such good fortune was unnatural. Some

people went so far as to suggest that Annie Howe sprinkled the

pulverized bones of cats around the roots of her ramblers, or perhaps

it was her own blood she cast about the shrubs. How else could her

garden bloom in February, when all other yards were nothing more than

stonewort and bare dirt? Massachusetts was known for a short growing

season and its early killing frosts. Nowhere could a gardener find

more unpredictable weather, be it droughts or floods or infestations of

beetles, which had been known to devour entire neighborhoods full of

greenery,. None of these plagues ever affected Annie Howe. Under her

care, even the most delicate hybrids lasted past the first frost so

that in November there were still roses blooming at Haddan, although by

then, the edge of each petal was often encased in a layer of ice.

Much of Annie Howe's handiwork was destroyed the year she died, yet a

few samples of the hardiest varieties remain. A visitor to campus can

find sweet, aromatic Prosperity, as well as Climbing Ophelia and those

delicious Egyptian Roses, which give off the scent of cloves on rainy

days, ensuring that a gardener's hands will smell sweet for hours after

pruning the canes. Among all of these roses, Mrs. Howe's prized white

Polars were surely her finest. Cascades of white flowers lay dormant

for a decade, to bloom and envelop the metal trellis beside the girls'

dormitory only once every ten years, as if all that time was needed to

restore the roses their strength. Each September, when the new

students arrived, Annie Howe's roses had an odd effect on certain

girls, the sensitive ones who had never been away from home before and

were easily influenced. When such girls walked past the brittle canes

in the gardens behind St. Anne's, they felt something cold at the base

of their spines, a bad case of pins and needles, as though someone were

issuing a warning, Be careful who you choose to love and who loves you

in return.

Most newcomers are apprised of Annie's fate as soon as they come to

Haddan. Before suitcases are unpacked and classes are chosen, they

know that although the huge wedding cake of a house that serves as the

girls' dormitory is officially called Hastings House--in honor of some

fellow, long forgotten, whose dull-witted daughter's admission opened

the door for female students on the strength of a huge donation--the

dormitory is never referred to by that name. Among students, the house

is called St. Anne's, in honor of Annie Howe, who hanged herself from

the rafters one mild evening in March, only hours before wild iris

began to appear in the woods.

There will always be girls who refuse to go up to the attic at St.

Anne's after hearing this story, and others, whether in search of

spiritual renewal or quick thrills, who are bound to ask if they can

take up residence in the room where Annie ended her life. On days when

rose water preserves are served at breakfast, with Annie's recipe

carefully followed by the kitchen staff, even the most fearless girls

can become lightheaded, after spooning this concoction onto their toast

they need to sit with their heads between their knees and breathe

deeply until their metabolisms grow steady again.

At the start of the term, when members of the faculty return to school,

they are reminded not to grade on a curve and not to repeat Annie's

story. It is exactly such nonsense that gives rise to inflated grade

averages and nervous breakdowns, neither of which are approved of by

the Haddan School. Nevertheless, the story always slips out, and

there's nothing the administration can do to stop it. The particulars

of Annie's life are simply common knowledge among the students, as much

an established part of Haddan life as the route of the warblers who

always begin their migration at this time of year, lighting on

shrubbery and treetops, calling to one another across the open sky.

Often, the weather is unseasonably warm at the start of the term, one

last triumph of summer come to call. Roses bloom more abundantly,

crickets chirp wildly, flies doze on windowsills, drowsy with sunlight

and heat. Even the most serious-minded educators are known to fall

asleep when Dr. Jones gives his welcoming speech. This year, many in

attendance drifted off in the overheated library during this oration

and several teachers secretly wished that the students would never

arrive. Outside, the September air was enticingly fragrant, yellow

with pollen and rich, lemony sunlight. Along the river, near the canoe

shed, weeping willows rustled and dropped catkins on the muddy ground.

The clear sound of slow-moving water could be heard even here in the

library, perhaps because the building itself had been fashioned out of

river rock, gray slabs flecked with mica that had been hauled from the

banks by local boys hired for a dollar a day, laborers whose hands bled

from their efforts and who cursed the Haddan School forever after, even

in their sleep.

As usual, people were far more curious about those who'd been recently

hired than those old, reliable colleagues they already knew. In every

small community, the unknown is always most intriguing, and Haddan was

no exception to this rule. Most people had been to dinner with Bob

Thomas, the massive dean of students, and his pretty wife, Meg, more

times than they could count, they had sat at the bar at the Haddan Inn

with Duck Johnson, who coached crew and soccer and always became

tearful after his third beer. The on-again, off-again romance between

Lynn Vining, who taught painting, and Jack Short, the married chemistry

teacher, had already been discussed and dissected. Their relationship

was completely predictable, as were many of the love affairs begun at

Haddan--fumbling in the teachers' lounge, furtive embraces in idling

cars, kisses exchanged in the library, breakups at the end of the term.

Feuds were far more interesting, as in the case of Eric Herman--ancient

history--and Helen Davis--American history and chair of the department,

a woman who'd been teaching at Haddan for more than fifty years and was

said to grow meaner with each passing day, as if she were a pitcher of

milk set out to curdle in the noonday sun.

Despite the heat and Dr. Jones's dull lecture, the same speech he

trotted out every year, despite the droning of bees beyond the open

windows, where a hedge of twiggy China roses still grew, people took

notice of the new photography instructor, Betsy Chase.

It was possible to tell at a glance that Betsy would be the subject of

even more gossip than any ongoing feud. It wasn't only Betsy's fevered

expression that drew stares, or her high cheekbones and dark,

unpredictable hair. People couldn't quite believe how inappropriate

her attire was. There she was, a good-looking woman who apparently had

no common sense, wearing old black slacks and a faded black T-shirt,

the sort of grungy outfit barely tolerated on Haddan students, let

alone on members of the faculty. On her feet were plastic flip-flops

of the dime-store variety, cheap little items that announced every step

with a slap. She actually had a wad of gum in her mouth, and soon

enough blew a bubble when she thought no one was looking, even those in

the last row of the library could hear the sugary pop. Dennis Hardy,

geometry, who sat directly behind her, told people afterward that Betsy

gave off the scent of vanilla, a tincture she used to dispel the odor

of darkroom chemicals from her skin, a concoction so reminiscent of

baked goods that people

T H E R I V E R K

i N G who met her often had an urge for oatmeal cookies or angel food

cake.

It had been only eight months since Betsy had been hired to take the

yearbook photos. She had disliked the school at first sight, and had

written it off as too prissy, too picture perfect.

When Eric Herman asked her out she'd been surprised by the offer, and

wary as well. She'd already had more than her share of botched

relationships, yet she'd agreed to have dinner with Eric, ever hopeful

despite the statistics that promised her an abject and lonely old age.

Eric was so much sturdier than the men she was used to, all those

brooders and artists who couldn't be depended upon to show up at the

door on time let alone have the foresight to plan a retirement fund.

Before Betsy knew what had happened she was accepting an offer of

marriage and applying for a job in the art department. The Willow Room

at the Haddan Inn was already reserved for their reception in June, and

Bob Thomas, the dean of students, had guaranteed them one of the

coveted faculty cottages as soon as they were wed. Until that time,

Betsy would be a house parent at St.

Anne's and Eric would continue on as senior proctor at Chalk House, a

boys' dormitory set so close to the river that the dreadful Haddan

swans often nested on the back porch, nipping at passersby's pant legs

until chased away with a broom.

For the past month, Betsy had been simultaneously planning both her

classes at Haddan and her wedding. Perfectly rational activities, and

yet she often felt certain she had blundered into an alternate

universe, one to which she clearly did not belong.

Today, for instance, the other women present in the auditorium were all

in dresses, the men in summer suits and ties, and there was Betsy in

her T-shirt and slacks, making what was sure to be the first of an

endless series of social miscalculations. She had bad judgment, there

was no way around it, from childhood on, she had jumped into things

headfirst, without looking to see if there was a net to break her fall.

Of course, no one had bothered to inform her that Dr. Jones's

addresses were such formal events, everyone said he was ancient and

ailing and that Bob Thomas was the real man in charge. Hoping to erase

her fashion blunder, Betsy now searched through her backpack for some

lipstick and a pair of earrings, for all the good they would do.

Taking up residence in a small town had indeed left Betsy disoriented.

She was used to city living, to potholes and purse snatchers, parking

tickets and double locks. Whether it be morning, noon, or night, she

simply couldn't get her bearings here in Haddan. She'd set out for the

pharmacy on Main Street or to Selena's Sandwich Shoppe on the corner of

Pine and arrive at the town cemetery in the field behind town hall.

She'd start for the + market, in search of a loaf of bread or some

muffins, only to find that she'd strayed onto the twisting back roads

leading to Sixth Commandment Pond, a deep pool at a bend in the river

where horsetails and wild celery grew. Once she'd wandered off, it

would often be hours before she managed to find her way back to St.

Anne's. People in town had already become accustomed to a pretty, dark

woman wandering about, asking for directions from schoolchildren and

crossing guards, and yet still managing to take one wrong turn after

another.

Although Betsy Chase was confused, the town of Haddan hadn't changed

much in the last fifty years. The village itself was three blocks

long, and, for some residents, contained the whole world.

Along with Selena's Sandwich Shoppe, which served breakfast all day,

there was a pharmacy at whose soda fountain the best raspberry lime

rickeys in the Commonwealth could be had, as well as a hardware store

that offered everything from nails to velveteen. One could also find a

shoe store, the 5&10 Cent Bank, and the Lucky Day Florist, known for

its scented garlands and wreaths. There was St. Agatha's, with its

granite facade, and the public library, with its stained-glass windows,

the first to be built in the county. Town hall, which had burned down

twice, had finally been rebuilt with mortar and stone, and was said to

be indestructible, although the statue of the eagle out front was

tipped from its pedestal by local boys year after year.

All along Main Street, there were large white houses, set back from the

road, whose wide lawns were ringed with black iron fences punctuated by

little spikes on top, pretty, architectural warnings that made it quite

clear the grass and rhododendrons within were private property On the

approach to town, the white houses grew larger, as though a set of

stacking toys had been fashioned from clapboards and brick. On the far

side of town was the train station, and opposite stood a gas station

and mini-mart, along with the dry cleaner's and a new supermarket. In

fact, the town was sliced in two, separated by Main into an east and a

west side.

Those who lived on the east side resided in the white houses, those who

worked at the counter at Selena's or ran the ticket booth at the train

station lived in the western part of town.

Beyond Main Street the village became sparser, fanning out into new

housing developments and then into farmland. On Evergreen Avenue was

the elementary school, and if a person followed Evergreen due east, in

the direction of Route 17, he'd come to the police station. Farther

north, at the town line that separated Haddan from Hamilton, deposited

in a no-man's-land neither village cared to claim, was a bar called the

Millstone, which offered live bands on Friday nights along with five

brands of beer on tap and heated arguments in the parking lot on humid

summer nights. There had probably been half a dozen divorces that had

reached a fevered pitch in that very parking lot and so many

alcohol-induced fights had taken place in those confines that if anyone

bothered to search through the laurel bordering the asphalt he'd surely

find handfuls of teeth that were said to give the laurel its odd milky

color, ivory with a pale pink edge, with each blossom forming the shape

of a bitter man's mouth.

Beyond town, there were still acres of fields and a crisscross of dirt

roads where Betsy had gotten lost one afternoon before the start of the

term, late in the day, when the sky was cobalt and the air was sweet

with the scent of hay. She'd been searching for a vegetable stand Lynn

Vining in the art department had told her sold the best cabbages and

potatoes, when she happened upon a huge meadow, all blue with

everlasting and tansy. Betsy had gotten out of the car with tears in

her eyes. She was only three miles from Route 17, but she might as

well have been on the moon. She was lost and she knew it, with no

sense whatsoever of how she had managed to wind up in Haddan, engaged

to a man she barely knew.

She might have been lost to this day if she hadn't thought to follow a

newspaper delivery truck into the neighboring town of Hamilton, a true

metropolis compared to Haddan, with a hospital and a high school and

even a multiplex cinema. From Hamilton, Betsy drove south to the

highway, then circled back to the village via Route 17. Still, for

some time afterward, she'd been unable to forget how lost she'd become.

Even when she was beside Eric in bed all she had to do was close her

eyes and she'd continue to see those wildflowers in the meadow, each

and every one the exact color of the sky.

When all was said and done, what was so wrong with Haddan? It was a

lovely town, featured in several guidebooks, cited for both its

excellent trout fishing and the exceptional show of fall colors that

graced the landscape every October. If Betsy continually lost her way

on the streets of such a neat, orderly village, perhaps it was the pale

green light rising from the river each evening that led her astray.

Betsy had taken to carrying a map and a flashlight in her pocket,

hopefully ready for any emergency. She made certain to keep to the

well-worn paths, where the old roses grew, but even the rosebushes were

disturbing when they were encountered in the dark. The twisted black

vines were concealed in the black night, thorns hidden deep within the

dried canes until a passerby had already come close enough to cut

herself unwittingly.

In spite of the police log in the Tribune, which reported crimes no

more heinous than jaywalking across Main Street or trash bags of leaves

set out on the curb on Tuesdays when yard waste would not be collected

until the second Friday of the month, Betsy did not feel safe in

Haddan. It seemed entirely possible that in a town such as this, a

person might walk along the riverbank one bright afternoon and simply

disappear, swallowed up in a tangle of chokeberry and woodbine. Beyond

the river there were acres thick with maple and pine, and the woods

loomed darkly at night, flecked with the last of the season's

fireflies.

Even as a girl, Betsy had hated the countryside. She'd been a

difficult child, she had whined and stomped her feet, refusing to

accompany her parents on a picnic, and because of her ill tempered

ways, she'd been spared. That day, there were seven separate

fatalities due to lightning. Ball lightning had ignited fence posts

and oak trees, before chasing people across meadows and fields. There

had been several sightings of rocket lightning, which burst from cloud

to ground in seconds flat with a display not unlike fireworks exploding

in a deadly white flash. Instead of taking her place in the meadow

with her parents, lying beside them in the burning grass, Betsy had

been sprawled upon the couch, leafing through a magazine and sipping a

tall glass of pink lemonade. She'd often imagined how the course of

events might have altered if only she'd accompanied her hapless

parents. They might have run for their lives instead of being caught

unawares, too puzzled and stupefied to move. They might have followed

Betsy's lead and been wise enough to crouch behind a flinty stone wall,

which would have turned so burning hot when it took the strike intended

for them that for months afterward it would have been possible to fry

eggs on the hottest of the stones. Ever since, Betsy had possessed a

survivor's guilt and was often in search of punishment. She raced red

lights and drove with the gas gauge on empty. She walked city streets

after midnight and gravitated outside on stormy days without the

benefit of a raincoat or an umbrella, long ago deciding to ignore any

Samaritans who warned that such foolhardy behavior would only ensure

that sooner or later she'd wind up electrified, ignited from her

fingers to her toes.

Before meeting Eric, Betsy had been careening through her life with

nothing much to show other than sheaves of photographs, a

black-and-white diary of landscapes and portraits stuffed into files

and folios. A good photographer was meant to be an observer, a silent

party there to record, but somewhere along the line Betsy had become a

bystander to her own existence.

Just ignore me, she would say to her subjects. Pretend I'm not here

and go about your normal routine. All the while she'd been doing this,

her own life had somehow escaped her, she herself had no routine,

normal or otherwise. When she'd come to Haddan, she'd been at a low

point. Too many men had disappointed her, friends weren't there for

her, apartments had been broken into while she was asleep. She

certainly hadn't expected any changes in her life on the day she came

to take the yearbook photos at Haddan, and perhaps there wouldn't have

been any if she hadn't overheard one student ask another, Why did the

chicken leave the Haddan School? Curious, she'd eavesdropped, and when

she'd heard the answer--Because he had an aversion to bullshit--Betsy

laughed so loudly that the swans on the river startled and took flight,

skimming over the water and raising clouds of mayflies.

Eric Herman had turned to see her just at the moment when her grin was

its widest. He watched her arrange the soccer team in size order and

then, in what he assured her afterward was the first impulsive action

of his life, he had walked right up to her and asked her to dinner, not

the next night or the one after that, but right then, so that neither

one had time to reconsider.

Eric was the sort of attractive, confident man who drew people to him

without trying, and Betsy wondered if perhaps she had simply happened

to be in sight at the very moment he decided it was high time for him

to marry. She still couldn't fathom what he could possibly want with

someone such as herself, a woman who would spill the entire contents of

her backpack on the floor of a quiet auditorium just as she was

attempting to stealthily extract a comb.

There wasn't a member of the Haddan faculty who didn't hear the coins

and ballpoint pens rolling down the aisle and who then felt completely

validated in his or her initial opinion of Betsy. Long after Dr. Jones

had completed his lecture, people were still collecting Betsy's

personal belongings from beneath their chairs, holding items up to the

filtered light as though studying foreign and mysterious artifacts,

when in fact all they'd gotten hold of was a notepad or a vial of

sleeping pills or a tube of hand cream.

"Don't worry," Eric whispered to her.

"Act naturally," he advised, although acting naturally was exactly what

always got her into trouble in the first place. If Betsy had trusted

her instincts, as Eric suggested, she would surely have turned tail and

run the first time she walked through the door of the girls' dormitory

where she was to be the junior house parent A chill had passed across

her back as she stepped over the threshold, the cold hand of anxiety

that often accompanies a bad decision. Betsy's cramped set of rooms at

the foot of the stairs was nothing less than awful. There was only one

closet and the bathroom was so small it was impossible to exit the

shower without jamming one's knees into the sink. Paint was peeling

from ceilings and the panes of old, bumpy glass in the windows allowed

in drafts but not sunlight, turning even the palest rays a foggy green.

In this setting, Betsy's furniture looked mournful and out of place,

the couch was too wide to fit through the narrow doorway, the easy

chair appeared threadbare, the bureau would not stand on the sloping

pine floors, and instead lurched like a drunkard each time a door was

banged shut.

In her first week at Haddan, Betsy spent most of her nights at Eric's

apartment in Chalk House. It made sense to take the opportunity to do

so now, for when the students arrived, they'd have to monitor their own

behavior as well as that of their charges.

And there was another reason Betsy had avoided sleeping at St.

Anne's. Each time she spent the night in her own quarters, she was

wrenched from her slumber in a panic, with the sheets twisted around

her and her thoughts so muddled it was as if she'd woken in the wrong

bed and was now fated to lead someone else's life. On the night before

school was to begin, for instance, Betsy had slept at St. Anne's only

to dream she'd been lost in the fields outside Haddan. No matter how

she might circle, she went no farther than the same parcels of

uncultivated land. When she wrested herself from this dream, Betsy

staggered out of bed, disoriented and smelling of hay. For an instant,

she felt as though she were a girl again, left in someone's strange,

overheated apartment to fend for herself, which was exactly what had

happened when friends of the family took her in after her parents'

accident.

Quickly, Betsy switched on the lights to discover that it was only a

little after ten. There was a thumping coming from the direction of

the stairs and the radiators were banging away, gushing out a steady

stream of heat, even though the evening was unusually warm. No wonder

Betsy couldn't sleep, it was ninety degrees in her bedroom and the

temperature was still rising. The orchid she had bought that afternoon

at the Lucky Day Florist, a bloom accustomed to tropical climates, had

already lost most of its petals, the slim, green stem had been warped

by the heat and was now unable to hold up even the most delicate

flower.

Betsy washed her face, found a stick of gum to ease her dry mouth, then

pulled on her bathrobe and went to call on the senior house parent She

assumed people at Haddan exaggerated when they called Helen Davis a

selfish old witch, the fitting owner of an ugly black tomcat who was

said to eat songbirds and roses. Clearly judgments were harsh at this

school, for weren't many people already calling Betsy a kook after the

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TheRiverKingbyAliceHoffmanALSOBYALICEHOFFMANPropertyOfTheDrowningSeasonAngelLandingFortune'sDaughterIlluminationNightAtRiskSeventhHeavenTurtleMoonSecondNaturePracticalMagicHereonEarthLocalGirls////ALICEHOFFMAN'\\G.P.PUTNAM'SSONSNEWYORK/Thisisaworkoffiction.Names,characters,places,andinci-Jdentseithe...

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Alice Hoffman - The River King

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