A week had gone by since I’d discovered the sketchbook in the well house and had my conversation with Dad and Honeybun. There’d been no further sign of Austin. What was keeping him away? From my seat in art class, I had a perfect view to Steinfelder’s rear garden, a snow-frosted graveyard of dead stalks and flower bushes. The cold seeped in through the windows, as it did in most places in the old chateau, and Marie-Rose pulled her wide scarf tighter around her arms, feeling the chill more acutely, as skinny girls do. I’d never been a ballet dancer, and I’d certainly never been skinny. But lately, I’d noticed that my clothes hung a little looser, thanks to Steinfelder’s bland food. Enough mystery meat and you lose your appetite. It was even harder to choke it down now that I knew about Frau Blumen’s forbidden cookies. I was sure I could smell them baking some afternoons, even from all the way up in our dorm room. I wondered how no other students had found out about them.
