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which had
    apparently enthralled them.
    I showed Tommy how to hold the pen, dip it in the ink, and draw on the paper. I
    wasn’t going to bother with the bit about perspective, certain he couldn’t grasp the concept.
    “Draw whatever you like.” I returned to my seat and focused on my own blank
    sheet, filling it with sentences about a highwayman and some buried treasure. If Clive and Whit ever read it, no doubt it would spur a bout of the twins digging into the garden beds.
    When I finally glanced up, I froze with my pen nib dripping ink. Tommy’s sloped
    head was bent over his work and a nearly architectural rendering of the Allinson estate flowed from his hand to the paper. The sketch was stunning, technically correct but also hauntingly beautiful as he’d depicted a storm of black clouds billowing over the house and grounds. His nose nearly touched the paper, and his pen flew. I watched in entranced disbelief.
    At last, I realized the boys had both stopped drawing, so I turned my attention to their work. Whit’s drawing was what I’d expected to see, an elemental drawing of a house-lined road receding to a set point.
    Ignoring the lesson on perspective, Clive had drawn something quite different. A
    nightmare vision exploded across his paper. A dark, swirling, not quite human figure dominated half the page, while a small, vaguely feminine shape appeared about to be engulfed by the looming darkness. Behind her sheltering body, just outside the dark thing’s grasping arms, two little figures stood hand in hand. It wasn’t hard to guess they were meant to be the twins. The sense of sheer menace in the boy’s drawing was undeniable.
    What the hell had happened in this house to rob Clive of his voice and give him waking nightmares? And why didn’t it seem to have affected Whit as much? Was their father meant to be the sinister monster in the drawing? I hadn’t felt anything menacing, merely miserable, in Sir Richard’s demeanor. But then, I’d only just met the man. I wasn’t a small child living under his rule, and every family had secrets. A monster of a man had lived in my house for a time.
    Tommy lifted his head, seeming to return from a trance. I complimented him on
    his meticulous depiction of Allinson Hall and the storm clouds that threatened it. The lad bolted from his seat, grabbed the stacked trays, and hurried from the room.
    I addressed Whit and Clive. “Very good drawings, boys. Shall I pin them up on
    the wall?” I searched for thumbtacks in a desk drawer while continuing to talk lightly as if the nightmarish vision Clive had depicted was completely normal.
    There were hours to go before teatime, and I’d already run out of ideas. I came up with the best way to pass time I could think of, reading aloud from a book of Arthurian legends. It could be considered a history lesson if one squinted and looked at it a certain way.
    As the light pelting of rain on the windowpanes turned to a steady stream, I built up the fire on the hearth and settled with the boys on the carpet, pillows at our backs.
    They’d stopped running away from me—a good sign—and seemed content to listen to
    the tale of Sir Kay and his stepbrother and squire, Arthur, who, of course, pulled a certain sword from a stone to become king.
    I read until I grew hoarse, asked Whit to take over. His reading was slow and
    halting, but no more than any other nine-year-old’s might be. He stumbled over some of the more difficult words, and I asked Clive to look up the words in the dictionary. I wouldn’t force him to speak, but he needed to do his share as a student.
    After we’d worked our way through a couple of tales, I gave the boys leave to
    play for a while, suggesting they build a city from blocks. Again they seemed quite amenable. I felt a little smug. It seemed these boys had been waiting for a kind teacher such as myself to guide them. I really was rather good at this.
    I settled to work on my writing and quite lost track of