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Are they in the archives in the school library?”
    “No, they’re far too precious … and fragile. I keep them locked in the Reading Room upstairs, here in Beech Hall.”
    “Those notebooks would be invaluable to my work.”
    Ivy St. Clare fixes me with her bright brown eyes and I have to try hard not to squirm. It’s like being stared at by a hawk. I feel sure she’s not only going to turn down my request, but that she’s going to fire me on the spot. And then what will I do? After selling our Great Neck houseand almost everything in it to pay back the debts that Jude had accrued, I have nothing but an eleven-year-old car and an unfinished doctorate. I’m thirty-eight years old and haven’t held a job since waitressing during college. This job is the only chance I’ve got for supporting Sally and myself. I take a deep breath, preparing to plead if I have to.
    But Ivy St. Clare doesn’t fire me. She smiles and says, “Of course you’ll have access to Vera’s notebooks. It’s half the reason I hired you. It’s about time she received her proper academic recognition. In fact, we can go upstairs to the Reading Room right now. I have to have a word with Chloe and Isabel anyway.”
    “Thank you.” I wonder why I don’t feel more relieved. For a moment I had pictured Sally and myself driving away from here and for the second time today it had seemed like a good idea. But that’s probably just anxiety over a new job—my first
real
job.
    Ivy St. Clare gets to her feet and I’m startled again by how tiny she is. “While we’re getting the notebooks, I’ll tell Dymphna to wrap up some cake and sandwiches for you to take back to your daughter. If she’s like most teenagers, I know she’s probably ravenous.”
    She says
ravenous
with a glint in her eyes, as if the appetite of the young fed something in herself.
    “Thank you, that’s very kind.” When she’s on the intercom with Dymphna, I wander back to the window and look out at the lawn. The day has turned overcast again and the sleeping girl is gone. Before I turn away, my eye falls on Ivy St. Clare’s sketchpad still lying on the window seat. Her last touches to the drawing had subtly changed the figures beneath the ground. It’s clear now that they are heading toward the sleeping girl. The one closest to the girl has reached a hand up out of the grass and is about to pull her down to join the rest of them.

I follow Ivy St. Clare back through the rose parlor, from which the sleeping artist and her charcoal sketches have vanished, and then up a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor.
    “This was the Beecher family’s winter parlor,” she announces as she opens the double oak doors. “Vera loved to read here on snowy days.” The scene inside the parlor might be a pageant entitled “Snowy Day.” Girls in white dresses lounge on settees and chintz upholstered chairs. Swaths of transparent tulle lie on the floor or are draped over tables and bookshelves. In the center of all this white froth Isabel Cheney stands still as a statue in a long white Empire-waistdress while a woman with silvery hair—Ms. Drake, I assume—kneels at her feet. Isabel looks every bit a goddess, but the woman at her feet is not worshipping her—she’s letting down the hem.
    “I don’t understand,” Isabel is saying as we enter. “The length was perfectly fine yesterday.”
    “Maybe you grew another inch.” The comment comes from the dark-haired fox-faced girl I saw earlier—Chloe. She’s draped across a love seat, her white dress spread out around her so no one else can sit next to her. She’s surrounded by a circle of girls sitting on the floor and balancing on the arms of the love seat who giggle at her next remark. “Around the waist, that is.”
    “Is that why you two failed to clean Fleur-de-Lis in time for Ms. Rosenthal’s arrival?” The dean’s crisp voice cuts across the laughter. “Because you were wasting time arguing?”
    Isabel Cheney