Dead Reckoning

always more or less the same, aren’t they? There’s always the smell: a mixture of chalk, school lunches, floor wax, books. The echo of children’s voices, the louder voices of teachers. The “art” on the walls and the decorations on each room’s door. The little Red Ditch kindergarten was no different.
    I held Hunter’s hand while Remy trailed behind us. Every time I saw Hunter, he seemed to look a bit more like my cousin Hadley, his dead mother. He had her dark eyes and hair, and his face was losing its baby roundness and growing more oval, like hers.
    Poor Hadley. She’d had a tough life, mostly of her own making. In the end she’d found true love, become a vampire, and been killed for jealousy’s sake. Hadley’s life had been eventful, but short. That was why I was standing in for her, and for a moment I wondered how she’d have felt about that. This should be her job, taking her son to his first school, the kindergarten he’d be attending in the fall. The purpose of the visit was to help the incoming kindergartners become a little familiar with the idea of school, with the look of the rooms and the desks and the teachers.
    Some of the little people going through the building were looking around with curiosity, not fear. Some of them were silent and wide-eyed. That was the way my “nephew” Hunter would look to other people—but in my head Hunter was chattering away. Hunter was telepathic, as I was. This was the most closely guarded secret I held. I wanted Hunter to grow up as normally as possible. The more supes who knew about Hunter, the higher the likelihood someone would snatch him away because telepaths were useful. There was sure to be someone ruthless enough to take such a terrible action. I don’t think Remy, his father, had even considered that yet. Remy was worried about Hunter’s acceptance among the humans around him. And that was a big deal, too. Kids could be incredibly cruel when they sensed you were different. I knew that all too well.
    It’s kind of obvious when people are having a mind-to-mind conversation, if you know the cues. Their faces change expression when they look at other, much as they would if the conversation were out loud. So I was looking away from the child frequently and keeping my smile steady. Hunter was too little to learn how to conceal our communication, so I’d have to do it.
    Will all these kids fit in one room? he asked.
    “Out loud,” I reminded him quietly. “No, you’ll be divided into groups, and then you’ll hang out with one group all day, Hunter.” I didn’t know if the Red Ditch kindergarten had the same schedule as the higher grades, but I was sure it would last past lunch, anyway. “Your dad will bring you in the morning, and someone will come get you in the afternoon.” Who? I wondered, and then remembered Hunter was listening to me. “Your dad will fix that,” I said. “Look. This room is the Seal Room. See the big picture of the seal? And that room is the Pony Room.”
    “Is there a pony?” Hunter was an optimist.
    “I don’t think so, but I bet there are lots of pictures of ponies in the room.” All the doors were open, and the teachers were inside, smiling at the children and their parents, doing their best to seem welcoming and warm. Some of them, of course, had more of a struggle doing this than others.
    The Pony Room teacher, Mrs. Gristede, was a nice enough woman, or at least that was what my quick look told me. Hunter nodded.
    We ventured into the Puppy Room and met with Miss O’Fallon. We were back in the hall after three minutes.
    “Not the Puppy Room,” I told Remy, speaking very quietly. “You can designate, right?”
    “Yeah, we can. Once. I can say one room I definitely don’t want my kid to be in,” he said. “Most people use that option in case the teacher is too close to the family, like a relative, or if the families have had some quarrel.”
    “Not the Puppy Room,” Hunter said, looking scared.
    Miss O’Fallon looked pretty on the outside, but she was rotten on the inside.
    “What’s wrong?” Remy asked, his voice also on a confidential level.
    “Tell you later,” I murmured. “Let’s go see something else.”
    Trailed by Remy, we made visits to the other three rooms. All the other teachers seemed okay, though Mrs. Boyle seemed a little burned-out. Her thoughts were brisk and had an edge of impatience, and her smile was just a bit brittle. I didn’t say anything to Remy. If he could