Enter, Night

course. We all came back to town together. Well, they ‘came back.’ I’ve never lived here. Did you know my mom when she lived here? Her last name used to be Monroe. Christina Monroe. Before she married my father and became Christina Parr.”

Mr. Murphy flushed deep scarlet. “Yes, of course, your mother is also from here,” he said. “I remember her well. Your grandmother told me that she was coming back. I’m sorry about her loss, as well.” Morgan waited silently for Mr. Murphy to get to the point, which he promptly did. “Morgan, your grandmother wanted me to make sure that you understand that whatever… uh… choices your parents made sixteen years ago about how to… uh… comport themselves…”

“Sir,” Morgan said, politely. “If you mean that my parents were in love and ran off to Toronto to have me, they both told me the story. I grew up knowing it.”

“Well, you’re a very self-possessed and liberal-minded young lady, Morgan, aren’t you?” He chuckled again. “You sounded just like your father there, for a minute. That’s the sort of thing he would have said, and he would have said it just like that, too.”

“Thank you.”

“Anyway, to get to the point, Morgan, you grandmother wanted me to make sure that you felt welcome here at Matthew Browning, and that you knew that we were behind you one hundred percent. If you have any problems with any of the kids, you just come and let me know.”

“What sort of problems, sir?”

“Well,” he said. “Some of them are… well, not as liberal-minded or as modern as you and your mother. And your father, obviously. They might… say things. Things that aren’t necessarily very nice.”

This time Morgan’s puzzlement was genuine. “Things like what?”

“There are some… unfortunate names for children whose parents haven’t gone the conventional route to… uh, matrimony. Names that aren’t used by polite people, and while we’re very proud of our student body, occasionally, in the heat of the moment, people say things they… ah, regret later. Parr’s Landing can be conservative in some ways. You do know what ‘conservative’ means, don’t you?”

The flush had returned to Mr. Murphy’s face, and now Morgan felt sorry for him. She had a vague idea that he was trying to allude to illegitimacy, but since he wouldn’t come out and say it, there was no way for her to address it directly. The notion caused her no particular distress. There had been children of hippies at Jarvis, and some of their parents weren’t formally married. As non-churchgoers and de facto nonconformists in their own right, Jack and Christina Parr had been very careful when it came to inculcating their daughter with the sort of prejudices that would be taken for granted in a town like Parr’s Landing. Also, growing up with Uncle Jeremy, those prejudices would have been hard for her parents to reinforce, even if they’d wanted to.

“Mr. Murphy,” she said, gently, “my parents were married before they had me. My mother was pregnant when she was married, but she was married when I was born. They’ve talked about this with me since I was a little girl. I don’t know what my grandmother told you, but we were a pretty normal family. My mom and dad loved each other very much. And names aren’t going to bother me, anyway. I’ve been called names before. But thanks for worrying about it. It’s nice of you.”

Mr. Murphy sighed with obvious relief. “Well, that’s good,” he said. “But, as I said, your grandmother asked me to speak with you, and to make sure you understood that she… that is to say Matthew Browning Memorial won’t tolerate any shenanigans from other students when it comes to you. Mrs. Parr is a very valuable member of our school board, and her… your family has very deep, very valuable roots in our community. We want you to feel welcome here. And,” he added, almost hesitantly, “I’d very much appreciate it if you’d share with your grandmother that we had this little chat, and that you understand that my door will always be open if you have any problems at all. Anything. Just let her know I said that.”

My God, Morgan marvelled. He’s afraid of me. He’s afraid of my grandmother, so he’s afraid of me, too. He wants me to make sure she knows he did what she wanted him to do. He wants her to know he did her bidding.

What sort of family is this that I’m a part of? What, am I royalty all of a sudden?

“Yes, sir,” she said aloud. “I’ll make sure to tell Grandmother we talked, and how nice and helpful you were about all of this. I’m sure everything’s going to be just fine.”

“Well,” he said, puffing up his chest. “Good, good. Very fine indeed. All right, Morgan, Miss Quinn will give you your class schedule and show you where to go. And you have a good day, Morgan!”

“Thank you, Mr. Murphy.” She stood up and shook his hand. This time, he did not rise in his chair, and Morgan was relieved to have the balance of power restored to a more traditional paradigm, with the principal acting like a principal again instead of acting like her grandmother’s lackey. In the same way Morgan was fascinated by her apparent newfound-and entirely alien-importance by virtue of her last name, it also disoriented her and made her uncomfortable.

She thought briefly of taking it up with her mother later tonight when she got home, but instinctively understood that it would only cause more tension. Her grandmother, she already knew, would be the wrong person to speak to about this for reasons she couldn’t articulate, but understood clearly nonetheless. Maybe Uncle Jeremy would be able to shed some light on it, Morgan thought. Uncle Jeremy always seemed to know what was going on, even when no one else did. She realized suddenly that Uncle Jeremy was, like Morgan herself, a Parr by blood. It was something that had never occurred to her at home in Toronto, but out here in this wilderness, it seemed to count for something. What, exactly, it counted for, she wasn’t sure. But she was sure she would find out sooner or later.

She left the principal’s office. Miss Quinn handed her a sheaf of papers, including her class list.

“Follow me, dear,” she said. “I’ll show you where your homeroom is.” When they got to the classroom door, Miss Quinn offered to introduce her to her homeroom teacher, Mr. Churchill, but Morgan politely declined. She already felt like she was dancing on the surface of Saturn and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Miss Quinn patted her hand, understanding that Morgan had already had enough of standing out. The first bell of the day rang. She took a deep breath and walked into the classroom, smelling chalk, wet wool, disinfectant, and old wood.

At lunchtime, playing truant from the grounds of Parr’s Landing Public School with his dog- eared copy of Tomb of Dracula issue #3 placed carefully in his durable orange canvas book bag, Finn caught sight of the girl with the long dark hair sitting by herself under the elm tree in front of the high school down the street. He promptly fell in love the way that only a twelve-year-old boy can.

Not since Finn laid his eyes on Tomb of Dracula issue #1 had he seen anything as beautiful as Morgan Parr-whose name was still a mystery, and would remain so for a time yet.

She ate alone, which puzzled him. How could admirers not surround anyone that beautiful? Parr’s Landing’s population was 1,528 (give or take) so new faces were easy to spot, and he’d never seen this girl before. His eyes reverenced the way the sunlight brought out the bands of honey and cinnamon-red in her dark hair. She ate her sandwich with a lack of self-consciousness that he’d never seen before in a girl of her age.

His short life to date had been spent entirely within the precincts of his hometown. While he’d dreamed of what life must be like outside of its boundaries, certainly he’d never seen any evidence of it other than what he’d gleaned from television, magazines, movies, or, of course, his beloved comic books. The girl across the street was clearly not a local, so she became the screen upon which he projected his vision.

She looked up suddenly, as though she realized he was watching her. Her eyes scanned the street across from the school where he was standing. Instinctively, he ducked behind another elm tree and prayed she hadn’t spotted him and found him creepy.

He didn’t care a whit about being caught off the school grounds- he never had been caught before. Finn had learned to close his eyes and pretend to transform into mist, like Dracula did when Rachel Van Helsing, the glamourous blonde vampire huntress from The Tomb of Dracula, shot an arrow at the Lord of the Undead with her crossbow. Finn wasn’t crazy; he knew he didn’t turn into mist. But he also knew that whenever he pretended he turned into mist, he was somehow never caught doing anything he didn’t want to be caught doing. And right now, what he wanted was for the girl not to catch him staring at her. He closed his eyes and… transformed into mist.

Her eyes passed over where he stood behind the tree without registering him at all, as far as he could tell.

He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back out from behind the tree. He took one more longing look at her eating her sandwich. He imprinted the image on his memory like a photograph, promising himself he’d see her