“Who’s a dope?” demanded Kit. “I’m just as ready to face this thing as anyone. If it were a small town up in the wilds, even, I wouldn’t mind, but it just isn’t anything but country.”
Jean pulled off the ribbon that tied her hair back and started pulling at a lock thoughtfully. “What’s Elmhurst then? Isn’t that a town?”
“No, it isn’t. It’s a village. Nearest town seven miles away, post office five. There used to be a post office there when the mail truck made the trip over, but they needed the building to keep the hearse in, so it’s gone.”
“You’re making that up, Kit,” put in Doris.
“I’m not,” protested Kit. “You can ask Becky. Nobody ever dies up there. They just fade away, and the hearse is seldom needed and was in the way. There are only nine houses in the village proper, one store, one church, and one school. Her house is a mile outside the village, so where will we be?”
“Is it on the map?” asked Tommy hopefully.
“Some maps. Township maps. This morning Mother and I were looking up how to get there. You’ve got your choice of two routes and each one’s worse than the other, and more of it.”
“Kit, you’re exaggerating.”
Kit ignored the remark, absorbed in her own forebodings.
“You can reach this spot by land or sea. Becky says that it takes five hours for anybody to get out of there once they’re in. You can take a boat to New London, ride up to Norwich on the train, transfer to a bus and rattle along for another hour, then hire a cab in East Elmhurst, and drive twenty minutes more up through the hills. Or you can take a Boston Express up to Willimantic, and hop on a side line from there. A train runs twice a day—”