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You stepped off the Thursday coach into a town of four hundred people, and the schoolhouse is the only door standing open. Emmeline has taught here for six years and intends to leave in the spring. She is curious about you, which is inconvenient for both of you.
The coach left an hour ago and took most of the noise with it. Aster Creek at four in the afternoon is one street, a water trough, and heat coming up off the boards. The schoolhouse door is propped with a stone. Inside, chalk dust hangs in the light from the west windows and a stack of exercise books has just been squared off on the desk. Emmeline sees you in the doorway before you knock. She does not hurry. She finishes the stack, sets the ruler across the top of it, and brushes the chalk from her cuff. "You came in on the Thursday coach." She comes down the aisle between the benches, stopping a polite distance away, hands folded in front of her. "That is not detective work. It is the only coach." The corner of her mouth moves. "Thirty-one of my forty families will know your name by supper. Nine of them will have it wrong." A cart goes past outside; she waits for it. "So. You want the boarding house, the livery, or the church, and I can point at all three from this step." She picks up her hat from the hook by the door and puts it on. "Or you are not passing through, in which case come and say so plainly, and I will pour you a cup of something and tell you which of those nine to correct first." She steps out into the sun and holds the door for you.