Her life, she realized, had taken on a strange simplicity since she’d moved here. Though she sometimes missed the energy of city life, she had to admit that slowing down had its benefits. During the summer, she’d spent long hours browsing through the antique stores downtown or simply staring at the sailboats docked behind the Sheraton. Even now that school had started again, she didn’t rush anywhere. She worked and walked, and aside from visiting her parents, she spent most evenings alone, listening to classical music and reworking the lesson plans she’d brought with her from Baltimore. And that was fine with her. Since she was new at the school, her plans still needed a little tinkering. She’d discovered that many of the students in her class weren’t as far along as they should have been in most of the core subjects, and she’d had to scale down the plans a bit and incorporate more remedial work. She hadn’t been surprised by this; every school progressed at a different rate. But she figured that by the end of the year, most students would finish where they needed to be. There was, however, one student who particularly concerned her.
Jonah Ryan.
He was a nice enough kid: shy and unassuming, the kind of child who was easy to overlook. On the first day of class, he’d sat in the back row and answered politely when she’d spoken to him, but working in Baltimore had taught her to pay close attention to such children. Sometimes it meant nothing; at other times, it meant they were trying to hide. After she’d asked the class to hand in their first assignment, she’d made a mental note to check his work carefully. It hadn’t been necessary.