Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin Page B

a bloodthirsty zombie's head clean off. I was sure I could do it. I tingled at the very thought!
    For all of Gateshead's luxuries, I would not trade Lowood, where the riches of opportunity and friendship more than made up for the deprivation of physical comforts such as food and warmth. I fell asleep thinking of it.
    But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened with the coming of spring. Sometimes, on a sunny day, it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds. Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves. On Thursday afternoons
    77
    (half holidays) we now took walks and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.
    One day, in my wandering, I got carried away following a butterfly through fields and flowers and ended up mindlessly stepping over stones in the little graveyard. I came across one marked for Martha Blake Abbot, and my thoughts turned back to the evil at the heart of Lowood, my new happy place. Would it not be easier to forget such ugliness? What business had I, a mere girl, to investigate matters and attempt to right grievous wrongs? Was it not enough that I had progressed in my studies, made friends, and established myself as a serious student and a good sort of girl?
    Miss Martha Abbot, indeed. So she had been part of Lowood, more proof against Mr. Bokorhurst. The grave, no doubt, was empty. Mrs. Reed deserved a zombie maid, after all, did she not? Who better to serve a vampyre mistress? I'd been able to avoid the "Odd Eight" as I'd begun to call the special students, and it made no difference that they were at Lowood with me--as long as they didn't eat. Still, I enjoyed my sword training. I worked with Miss Temple at any opportunity, and lately more often on my own, practicing the moves she taught and improvising some of my own. Once, I asked if she'd ever killed anyone, and she seemed genuinely shocked by the question. But she never actually answered. Curious, that.
    April advanced to May. A bright, serene May it was, days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern breezes filling up its duration. Vegetation matured with vigour. Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery. All this I enjoyed often and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone. I felt I was still catching up for time lost under Mrs. Reed's rigid rule, stuck inside to sleep during the glorious day and forced to hide in darkness during waking hours. I would have full rejoiced in it if not for the dark reason behind my delightful solitude.
    Have I not described springtime Lowood as a pleasant site for a dwelling? Assuredly, pleasant enough; but whether healthy is another question. The forest dell where Lowood lay was the cradle of
    78
    fog and fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the orphan asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into a hospital.
    Semistarvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to infection. Forty-five of the eighty girls lay ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few, like me, who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license because the medical attendant insisted on frequent exercise to keep us in health. Had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain us anyway.
    The patients absorbed Miss Temple's attention. There was no time for swordplay, though she allowed me to take one of the weapons from the parlour and use it to practise. She lived in the sickroom, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only to die. Some died at the school and were quietly