Fire Watch by Connie Willis Page A

found another teacher for the upper form boys, until Davidson got safely back from the north. He did not think it was because he was afraid, although of course he was afraid. They would know he was a reporter by now, they would know he had been working undercover investigating the cults. There would be no question of cutting off a foot for attempting to escape this time. They would murder him, and they would find a scripture to say over him as they did it. ‘If thy right hand offend, cut it off.’ He had thought he never wanted to hear scripture again. Perhaps that was why he stayed. To hear Megan prattling her sweet and senseless scriptures was like a balm. And what was St. John’s to Mrs. Andover? A balm? A refuge? Or an enemy to be conquered and then sacked?
    Megan came in, knelt down beside the cupboard below the sink, and began banging about.
    “What are you looking for?” Finney said.
    “Your cup, of course. Mrs. Andover found some others, but not yours.”
    “Megan,” he said seriously kneeling beside her, “what do you know about Mrs. Andover?”
    “She’s a spy,” Megan said from inside the cupboard.
    “Why do you think that?”
    “Daddy said so. He gave her all the treasures. The marble angel and the choir screen and all the candlesticks. ‘Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars.’ It isn’t there,” she said, pulling her head out of the cupboard. “Only pots.” She handed Finney a rusted iron skillet and two banged-about aluminum pots. Finney put them carefully back into the empty cupboard, trying to think how best to ask Megan why she thought Mrs. Andover had stayed on. Her answer might be nonsense, of course, or it might be inspired. It might be scripture.
    “She thinks we didn’t give her all the treasures,” Megan volunteered suddenly, on her knees beside him. “She asks me all the time where Daddy hid them.”
    “And what do you tell her?”
    “‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths corrupt and thieves break in and steal.’”
    “Good girl,” Finney said, and lifted her up. “What’s an old cup? We’ll find it later.” He took her hand and led her into tea.
    Mrs. Andover was already being mother, pouring out hot milk and tea into a styrofoam cup with a half circle bitten out of it. She handed it to Finney “Did you and Megan find your cup?” she asked.
    “No,” Finney said. “But then we aren’t experts like you, are we.”
    Mrs. Andover did not answer him. She poured Megan’s tea. “When is your father coming back, Megan?” she said.
    “Not soon enough,” Finney snapped. “Are you that eager to arrest him? Or is it hanging you’re after, for treasonable offenses?” He thought of Davidson, crouched by a gate somewhere, waiting for the child to be bundled out to him. “If the cults don’t murder him, the government will, is that the game then? How can he possibly win a game like that?”
    “The game’s not finished yet,” Megan said.
    “What?” Finney slopped tea all over his trousers.
    “Go and finish your game,” Mrs. Andover said. “Take the children with you. You needn’t come in till it’s ended.” Now that Finney was looking for it, he saw her nod to a tall girl with a large bosom. The girl nodded back and went out after the children. What else had he missed because he wasn’t looking for it?
    “It’s a game of Megan’s,” Mrs. Andover said to Finney “One child’s the shepherd, and he must get all the sheep into the fold by putting them inside a ring drawn on the ground. When he’s got them all inside the ring, then it’s bang! the end, and all adjourn for tea and cake.”
    “Bang! the end,” said Finney. “Tea and cakes for everyone. I wish it were as simple as that.”
    “Perhaps you should join one of the cults,” Mrs. Andover said.
    Finney looked up sharply from his tea.
    “They are always preaching the end, aren’t they? When it is coming and to whom. Lists of who’s to be saved and who’s to be left