Excerpt from Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Most of your hours will be spent in the school. They've designed a curriculum and your job will be to learn it and teach the six-­ to nine-­year-­olds. There is only one of them right now, I think, but more will come soon. And Terry and Julia will be there to help."

"Would you like some tea?" I blurted. I had meant to ask him when he got there but had been too nervous. Now that I knew I was chosen, I wanted him to stay and tell me everything. Maybe that way I could hold it inside me—­a real, live thing—­in the days between that one and the one of my arrival.

"Sure," he said. I filled the kettle and set some boxes in front of him. He chose peppermint, and as I poured the steaming water over the leaves I breathed in the scent and it was like starting over already.

"I want to make sure you understand what this is," Nick said. "Quite a few people have turned it down. And some people haven't known what they were getting into and it hasn't worked out. You need to want it. It's a farm. It's in the middle of nowhere—­to one side is the ocean and in every other direction is nothing but rocky hills and open land. It's almost always foggy and cold and there's no cell service and no town to shop in or meet people—­Mendocino is forty-­five minutes away. Farmers'-­market days are the only times you'll interact with the outside world, and you'll be weighing squashes and wrapping flowers most of the time."

"That's fine," I said. "I don't mind."

He warned me that the cabins where the interns live were tiny, only one room with wood-­burning stoves for heat. He said that there was a landline but no cell service, and that everyone ate meals together three times a day and took turns with prep and cleanup.

"The main house is comfortable and you're always welcome in it. They have tons of books and a bunch of instruments. There's even a grand piano in the living room."

"I've always wanted to play the piano," I said. I don't know why I didn't tell him about all my years of lessons and the songs I knew by heart. "Someone to Watch Over Me" began to play in my brain, and the kitchen filled with music. My grandmother was sitting next to me, her fingers showing me where my fingers should go. Nick kept talking, and I listened over the sound of piano notes, full and rising. I had been so young. I didn't tell him about the terrible thing I'd done. He didn't ask those kinds of questions. Funny, when interviewing for a job to work with children, that a person would ask about college and remoteness and not say, Tell me the worst thing you ever did. Tell me about your wounds. Can I trust you?

Had they known the truth about me they might not have given me the job, I thought, even though I was determined to be good. Even though I held on fiercely to my own goodness.

By the time he finished his tea, we had it all planned out. He asked if I wanted to wait until after the graduation ceremony and I said no, that I didn't care about wearing a hat and robe and walking with the other students. Okay, he said, then he would pick me up on Sunday and we would drive up together. He gave me a thin volume called Teaching School: A Handbook to Education on The Farm and asked me to read it. He said, "Mila, I have a good feeling about this. I think you'll be a perfect fit with all of us." And I told him I had a good feeling about it, too. And I told him that I felt lucky, and he said, "You are lucky. We all are."

And then he left.

***

Had we been telling the truth, he would have said, The place where I'm sending you—­it looks beautiful, but it's haunted.

Okay, I would have said.

It will bring everything back. All that you tried to bury.

I understand.

It's going make you want to do bad things.

I have experience with that.

Excerpted from Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour. Copyright © 2020 by Nina LaCour. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher