More nervous than last night, I headed downstairs, where my Mum had already made breakfast. Radio music and a sweet scent came toward me and displaced the unpleasant feeling from just now.
When I saw what was waiting for me on the kitchen counter, my mouth watered. Pancakes with blueberries.
Mum always made me some when she wanted to apologize for something. It could only be about yesterday.
And there they were again, the feeling of guilt. Whatever line I had crossed, I felt bad. But I wasn’t going to let on, so I sat down and put three pancakes on my plate.
“Good morning, darling.” Mum smiled at me.
I didn’t know where she got her cheerfulness, but I didn’t want to ask either. She was in a good mood, and I didn’t want to ruin that. Not again.
“Good morning, Blairville! This is Joe Bexley with the morning news.” I glanced at the kitchen radio on the refrigerator. “Twenty-five-year-old Vanderwood student Anabelle Clayton is missing. Three days ago, she had been out in the inner city with her friends, who now report her missing. It is known that the student liked to go jogging in the woods behind Vanderwood, near Fogs Forest. The police department is not commenting further. However, a search party is being sent into the woods.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I looked at Mum, who was turning the last pancake in the pan with a grim expression.
“City authorities are warning people not to enter Fogs Forest. The DeLoughreys, who own the forest, also don’t want to comment.”
Those strange rich people again...
“Similar cases occurred already forty years ago. What do you think, Harriet? Could these missing persons cases have anything to do with those in the eighties?”
A woman’s voice rang out, and Mum simply changed the news channel.
“Mum...” it escaped me in shock. “What happened in the eighties?”
She had been just a kid back then. Still, she had to know what Joe Bexley was talking about, or she wouldn’t have turned off the radio.
“I don’t like that radio station,” she began, arranging the pancakes attractively. “The Bexleys spread too much gossip and poke around in private family matters that are none of their business.”
Undecided whether to probe further or look it up on the internet later rather than further burden my mother, I broke the pancake into small pieces in front of me.
“But something else...” Mum continued. “Three guesses what I found in the mailbox today.”
“What?” I asked in confusion.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a letter from Larissa ending our friendship because she probably thought I wasn’t answering her on purpose. This cursed network in this quarter of the town...
Instead of answering me, Mum hurriedly ran to the kitchen counter and grabbed a big white envelope, which she then excitedly waved in front of my face.
“Mum, I can’t read what’s written on it if you’re going to shake it like that...”
“You’ve been accepted for the winter term! You’re now a true Vanderwood student!”
Excitedly, she tore open the envelope, pulled out a sheet of paper, and placed it next to my plate of pancakes, just beside a blueberry blob.
I recognized the white crest with the two wolves, dagger, and wildflowers on the front of a dark green promotional brochure.
My nightmare had just come true.
It wasn’t as if the hyperactive newscaster had just announced that students were disappearing into the woods behind this university.
“I was wondering why we didn’t get any mail, but this one was in the mailbox all along.” Mum wiggled the envelope in her hand enthusiastically. “In Blairville...interesting. I was afraid it would end up in Sacramento.”
I would have preferred it there.
Mum didn’t even notice that my enthusiasm was in moderation as she fished around among the brochures as if she, not I, had been approved to go there.
It had never been my goal to study at Vanderwood. I had planned, if I really got accepted, to study only half the year, but my mum expected me to stay at the university for the full three years. Which I wouldn’t. My plan to go back to Sacramento with Mum as soon as she was well again and to San Francisco with Larissa was still firm.
The pungent smell of burning was in my nose.
Mum seemed to smell it, too, because she turned and rushed to the stove.
“No, no, no!” Frantically, my Mum pulled the pan off the stove, where a few flames were blazing. Apparently, a pancake had caught fire.
I jumped up and went to grab the dish towel, but by the time I turned to Mum, the fire was gone. A few puffs of smoke drifted through the main floor.
“How did you...?” I started, but the smoke alarm interrupted me.
The beeping was so loud that I had to cover my ears.
My mother, who seemed to be enduring it all, pulled one of the wooden chairs out of the dining area and stood on it to get to the smoke detector. In the next instant, the ear-splitting noise died down, and I was able to take my hands away from my ears again.
“My little sensitive baby. Do you want me to get you some earplugs? This one just goes off again and again, even if there is no fire.” How could she pretend it hadn’t just burned? “So don’t get scared if it goes on in the night.”
Laughing, Mum put the chair back.
I still had the beeping in my ear.
